The Chicago Cubs won the World Series! OH THE JOY of Hope Fulfilled!
I grew up a baseball fan, but with years away from the sport when I lived overseas I have become a “fair weather” fan. I watched until the Red Sox and Big Papi lost early in the playoffs. Since my brother lives in Chicago and is a Cubs fan I tuned in a bit for the World Series this year.
It was going to be a great win for either ball club. Both had long droughts without a World Series Pennant, but I think we can all agree that 108 years for the Cubs was the longest!
What a joy to wake to the new reports of the Cubs victory in extra innings of game seven! What fun it was to watch fans in Chicago holding the trophy, not just the players! What a party for the entire city and Cubs fans everywhere. Even my brother went downtown the next morning to join in the celebration.
Here in New England the news reported this week on Hazel Milton, a woman in New Hampshire who is a spry 108 years old and a life long Cubs fan! She is lively and had a T-shirt on saying how she wanted the Cubs to win before she dies! Imagine the relief and joy of hope fulfilled.
This woman’s hope and expectations reminds me of Anna in the Gospels…She was also an old woman, only 84 as opposed to 108, who prayed all her life for the Messiah to come. Then one day Joseph & Mary brought new-born Jesus to the temple and Anna begins to give thanks to God and tell everyone about him and the redemption of Jerusalem.
She was excited, and she had eternal reasons to be! So do we.
We are on the winning team, everyday. With Jesus as Lord and savior we have eternal life and the power to live victoriously every moment through the Holy Spirit who lives in us. I have to tell the truth, I cried with gratefulness when I heard the Cubs won the World Series. Silly? Maybe.
But it got me thinking…how do I respond to the daily victory I have in Christ? Honestly, I forget sometimes, or do I take it for granted? Either way, I pray I will go forward living with a heightened awareness of the joy available to me because I am a winner in Christ every day.
