Miracle

I don't know how people who are physically handicapped figure in God's kingdom. The Word talks about 'innocent blood,' and 'widows and orphans,' and 'the poor.' But these people don't seem to meet those characteristics: they may be innocent in the sense that nothing they did caused them to be born the way they were, but as they grow and develop they can become spiritual people, humanistic people, people limited by their physical traits, or people challenged and even set free by those same traits.

I mention this at all, because our community just put on a very special event yesterday: our third "Miracle League Practice and Play." Coach Mark Magdeleno put on a baseball clinic with the help of the Ventura College baseball team players. The players give this time in a big way: they come in uniform and set up stations for the special athletes to learn to bat (some off of a batting tee), catch, throw, and all the other skills. But these clinics become very personal and geared to the fact that many of the players are in wheelchairs, some are physically limited in other ways, and some are mentally limited.

It is an awesome way for a group of athletes - the college ball players - to give back to the community, and to bless another groups of athlete - the special-needs people who come to play ball, many for the first time in their lives.

But the people who I observed getting the biggest blessing were not the players. Not the special needs athletes who, admittedly, may not have smiled this much at any other time in their lives. For me, it was the parents of these special-needs young people who seemed to get the biggest blessing from our efforts. You could watch them as they come for the first time: they were skeptical, cautious, even wary of this event and the people who would put on something like it. Why? Because up to this time, they had been the only ones in the life of their kids who loved on them the way they do. And here, possibly for the first time, was a whole day where they could relax and let others love their son or daughter the way they do - taking into full account limits as well as abilities.

You could tell the parents who had been to more than one of these events: they came in with smiles, thanksgiving, and they released their young one to the waiting arms of people who where there to give that young person the best day they possibly could.

I guess the Bible does say a thing or two about loving others as yourself, and about giving to those who have no way to give back. But I sure enjoyed being 'paid' in the smiling faces of the players and their parents yesterday, so I don't know if that's it. I guess I'll just have to be sure and be part of the two other events planned for this summer, and see if I can figure this thing out.

Be there?