A lesson with 12

Tuesday was a big day for Stellan. For those of you who don't know Stellan, you can read about him here . Stellan's mom asked everyone to pray for Stellan and to wear orange to support him.

So we wore orange that day and after talking it over with the dude... he thought it would be neat if the team wore orange wrist bands to show support for his new little friend. He even wanted to dedicate the game to Stellan and had the team sign a ball for him. I couldn't have been more proud of him!

Luckily I used to date the son of the lady who owns the local sporting goods store, and luckily the home team's colors do NOT contain orange... so she had plenty of orange wrist bands and quickly screen printed an S on each one for us!

But I wanted to share a few pics with you. I was humbled and awed by the response I got from our team. These boys are mostly 7.. some 8.. some 6 and yet as I was explaing Stellan's story to them, they ALL immediately took the bands without me ever getting to the part where I would "ask" them if they would support Stellan and pray for him.. they all WANTED to do this for him.. and they have never met him!

They all have brothers or sisters and pretty much ALL of them asked me at some point about Stellan's siblngs.. if they were ok, did they miss him? and talked about how they would feel if this were their little brother or sister.

I was blown away!




They dedicated the game to him, we prayed before the game that God would see to it that someday.. Stellan would play ball like they do. They played hard, and won.. with several of the boys hitting home runs and telling me "that was for Stellan"...

did I mention I was blown away?




You see, I would be the first one to tell you that my kids are getting to grow up in a GREAT city. One full of GOOD kids, parents who really take an interest in their kids and what they do and how they act and treat people (you know.. like we were all raised). But I will also be the first one to tell you that our society lends itself to more pop culture ideals and that a lot of times... religion, and who we should be giving respect to every day, gets put on the backburner for things like Nintendo DS gaming, Jonas Brothers concerts on our Ipod, or IM-ing friends that we just saw less then an hour ago.

NOT to say those things are bad.. they aren't, I will be the first one to admit that MY son will be going to the Jonas Brothers concert (and I am just as excited about it as he is as I LOVE them.. hehe), I own an Itouch and use it all the time, and the dude has a DS (and I wish I had one).. but it has been said time and time again that we live in a society of instant gratification and finding a balance is hard to do....

So it was refreshing to see these boys.. rally around someone whom they have never met, and to give praise and ask God to keep him safe.

The gameball that night went to Stellan, the boys all had to agree that by giving it to Stellan, that meant no one that night would get one as each game there is only one to give. There was not a single mumor of disagreement. It was signed and will be sent to Stellan. I think the boys rose beautifully to the occassion and I for one thanked God at that very moment, for letting these 12 boys remind us all of what is really important.

And if this is how our future will behave and react to things outside their control.. then I think our future looks pretty awesome!