I was truly honored this weekend to coach The Believer’s Select Fast-pitch softball team. I played baseball and softball for twenty-five years and have now coached for over twenty years, and I have never once been more honored to be associated with a team than I was to be associated with you ladies. And you didn’t just earn my respect; you earned the respect of everyone we encountered.
The uniforms were awesome and the quality of play from each and every one of you was exemplary. We had our first and only fielding practice on Thursday and our only hitting practice on Friday and we played in 105 degree temperature on Saturday and still only had one inning in the entire tournament where our opponent jumped on us. The rest of the games were played to the final pitch. And we went down swinging.
I know everyone in our family was blessed to have been a part of this anointed weekend. Our Bible study on Sunday morning was wonderful when we understood how it had applied to our final game on Sunday morning. The Bible verse we read was in
II Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race and I have kept the faith.
And that is what we did Sunday morning. There were originally to have been eight teams in the tournament and only six were there. We got down to eleven o’clock Saturday night before we asked our granddaughter Kylee to play with us Sunday. Kylee is ten now and has played one year of girl pitch in a recreational league. She did make the All-Stars last year in coach pitch but facing a fifty-five mile an hour fastball is another story. Even the other team’s coach told me after the game that he had overheard she was my oldest granddaughter and he admired the courage she had to stand in and bat off of his fastest pitcher. She did make our final out of the tournament, but she went down swinging at a hard fastball and I will never ask anymore than that from any of you. You play with everything you have while your playing, but when the game is over, and you have given everything you have to give, then you never have to hold your head down. Be proud of what you all accomplished this weekend. I am so proud of each and every one of you.
So how does that apply to our Sunday morning Bible lesson. We fought the good fight. We battled through scraped knees, bee stings, heat exhaustion, hit batters, fatigue and a two day tournament instead of a one day tournament as originally planned. And we went down swinging to lose 3-1 on Sunday morning.
And we did as our scripture lesson had said. We fought the good fight. We finished the race. Not only did we finish the race, we finished the race well. And I am proud of each and every one of you. I spoke with my mother-in-law and was telling her about how honored I was to coach wonderful young ladies that love to pray and how great you all played. Thank you all for being a part of Jamie’s vision to shine our light into the softball community. When you make the decision to take to next step up the ladder to be all that God has called you to be, then God can really bless you.
Thank you all for this past weekend.
Coach Craig