You have to look forward to something in February. Such a bleak month. There really isn’t much to anticipate in February, unless you have a birthday or maybe a wedding anniversary. And whoever actually gets married in February? I have been doing this a long time and I have only done one February wedding. No, to get through February, you have to look forward.

And I always looked forward to baseball. Spring Training is going on for the pros and high schools and colleges are letting players throw in the gym. But even Little League coaches are looking at their rosters, trying to imagine who will play where. I know that to many of you, baseball is a slow moving game, but I love it. I have played it, coached it (“Somebody tell me why William is picking daises out in right field!” “Uh, Coach, it’s better than last week when he was picking his nose.”) and umpired it. And I have watched it. Where I come from, baseball is big. Most churches had softball teams and they all played in leagues. Each denomination had league. If you were an independent church, you played in the league that most closely fit your own beliefs.

Eleven years. I played church softball for eleven years. It was huge fun. My son and I got to play together, which meant a lot more to me than it did him. If you swore you would be kicked out of the game. If you swore in the next game, or anytime the rest of the season, you were kicked out for the remainder of the year. (Except for the Catholic leagues. Swearing was just a part of it.) However, if you ran over the catcher to score, you would be congratulated. You played all out. And our league had a rule that each team was expected to enforce; Each player had to attend at least one service a week to play.

 First year at an elderly church. One of our men had played minor league ball until WWII had changed things. He had coached since 1947. Always limped from a German bullet that had torn through his leg, but Lou was awesome. He was a baseball encyclopedia. He and I went to a lot of games over many years. Didn’t matter if it was Little League or the majors, you didn’t talk to Lou about anything except what was happening on the field. Between innings you could talk about anything, so long as it was baseball related. He was an intense old guy. But that first year at the new church, he was no longer going to coach. Finally hanging it up. And in February, he was pretty bummed.

“Hey, Lou, how about we have a church softball team this year? You can coach it and make it just as you want it!” I had been called to the church the previous August and I had learned that I could joke around a little bit with Lou. But Lou didn’t find this amusing. “Pastor, we have no Youth. You are the youngest man in the church, then David (three years older than me) and then everyone else is at least over 60. How can we ever have a team?” “I don’t know, Lou. Let’s just announce it and see what happens.”

 Turned out that the older folks who were past their playing years had sons and sons-in-law and grand kids and we had a blast that first year. We went 2-20. We won one game 25-23 and we lost one game 64-2. We weren’t very big on playing defense and we really weren’t very good hitters. Lou tried his best coaching techniques, but we were one sad team. Sometimes he would just stand and stare and sometimes he would have to sit down because he was laughing so hard. At the end of the season we gave him a plaque inscribed, We Can’t Win and You can’t Make Us! He had a room in his house for trophies and all sorts of memorabilia from his coaching days, but that plaque went into the living room. He told me it was the most fun he ever had coaching.

It took us a while, but we improved every year. Eventually, I got to present to him the league championship trophy. By this time he really was an old man. He broke down and wept.

            Our last game together. We didn’t know he would pass the coming winter. We sat in the empty dugout watching the team warm up. “You know, Pastor, we done good.” “No, Lou. You done good. I am just along for the ride.” “I don’t just mean the team. Look out there. All those people come to church all the time. Not just so they can play ball, either. The team might have started it, but this church has grown. No, Pastor, we done good.”

            You have special people in your life. I had Lou and I had Dennis. Dennis loved to sing in the choir, but Dennis was blind, so I worked with him on the music every week. When he could still see I would write the music out for him by hand in very large print. We became close. And Dennis was really good. People would come just so they could hear him sing. It was his service to the Lord. Dennis died on Tuesday and Lou died the next day. It was January. Dennis had sung for Christmas and Lou was starting to get ready for coming season. Appropriately, the weather was awful. It matched my mood. I walked up to the casket at the visitation for Dennis and looked at my friend. Rolled up in his hand was one of the songs I had enlarged by hand for him. My mood began to change. He had touched so many hearts with his song, and now he touched mine. When I went to Lou’s visitation that evening, his wife walked with me to the casket. This wonderful man who had molded so many young lives over so many decades, had a plaque on his chest. We Can’t Win and You can’t Make Us! “And, he wanted you to have this.” At the end of each season we all would sign a ball and give it to Lou. The ball his wife handed me was the ball from the first season. 2-20. “I think he didn’t want to have to explain that one in heaven.” And then the dear lady hugged me.

            You have special people in your life. The day after the funerals, one of our ladies, Mari, came into my office. She sat down and pulled out her knitting. “Mari, is there something I can do for you?” “Nope. Just don’t want you to be alone.” And she quietly began to knit.

            A white man, a black man and an Asian lady. Each one serving the Lord in their own way. I have been richly blessed by having His servants around me. How have you blessed the people around you?