Witnessing a Miracle

So tonight, I got to do my first "real" activity as the youth intern at Bethel UMC. Tonight, our youth group was going to help out with the Carolina Miracle league, which is a baseball league for people with disabilities. It is an absolute awesome thing that happens. The volunteers are assigned a "buddy" and you get to help a child who normally wouldn't be able to play baseball enjoy America's past time. It was such a fun experience. I got to be in charge because my youth minister Chad accidentally double booked himself, so he put me in charge for tonight. We only took a small group, but we teamed up with SunTrust Bank to give these kids an experience of a lifetime. Tonight was the last night of the season, so it really was a time of a lot of fun. Each child always scores a run every inning after they get a hit, and each child received a trophy tonight as they crossed home plate. It was so great to see the joy of these kids and the huge smile on their face as they crossed home plate and got that trophy in their hands. It was absolute pure joy, which is something that I really needed to see tonight.

All too often we aren't thankful enough to God for giving us great blessings that he provides for us every single day. However, these people got so excited over something as simple as a small trophy. Wouldn't it be great to live like that? To be able to be overjoyed with everything, and just be so excited about life? It was so good to see that tonight. It was also awesome, because many of the players tonight have been my campers the past two summers at Camp Hope, which was great to see them since I won't get to see them at Camp this summer. But I really had a great time tonight, and I it was a great experience for anyone.

Tonight, I was really reminded of the pure joy of children and how God views children, so I was reminded of this bible verse:

Matthew 18:3-5: Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. 

God calls us all to be like children, which is awesome. It was so cool to see all of these children tonight living with pure joy, and living as God has called us to. So remember, be like a child more often. They are so much fun and have so much joy in their lives, and it was quite a witness to me tonight!