DAY ELEVEN
Stone could not stop crying. He sighed and sighed again and inhaled deeply, but the dry lump in his throat would not go away. A chill shivered down the back of his neck and shook his shoulders . . . He smiled and rubbed his face and shook . . . and went back, sobbing, to the passage he had just read.
The Lord is my shepherd;
I have everything I need.
He lets me rest in fields of green grass
and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water.
He gives me new strength.
He guides me in the right paths,
as He has promised.
Even if I go through the deepest darkness,
I will not be afraid, Lord,
for you are with me.
Your shepherd’s rod and staff protect me.
You prepare a banquet for me,
where all my enemies can see me;
you welcome me as an honored guest
and fill my cup to the brim.
I know that your goodness and
love will be with me all my life;
and your house will be my
home as long as I live.40
Stone’s lips quivered and the tears kept coming and he knew that he looked like a big baby. And he laughed out loud. The 6-foot-6-inch, blubbering, big baby, 225-pound professional pitcher no longer cared how crazy he might look. Joy was billowing up in him and bursting out of him in tears of mad, cackling laughter. And in his spirit , he was back on that pitcher’s mound in Hickory, North Carolina and hugging – with all his mighty strength – that 22-year-old closer whose mind and soul were splitting in two. And Stone yelled into his ear, “You made it, man! . . . You made it! . . . I love you! . . . God (!) loves you!”
And Stone grabbed that young pitcher by the shoulders – with every eye in the stadium on him – and he shook him and smiled and roared with joy. “You have been through the deepest darkness! – just outside the gates of Hell! . . . And you made it, man! You made it out!”
“Do not be afraid,” Stone wildly boomed to his minor league closer friend, “The Lord is with you – now! Even now – when you are far from him . . . He is coming after you. The Lord is fighting for you! And He will always be with you . . . Always! . . . You have everything you need . . . Everything! . . . The Lord knows what you need – even before you ask . . . . And He will give it to you. He will do it. He will do it!”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Ezra blasted as he approached the mound, with the crowd looking on. “And the Lord will not just give you everything you need . . . The Lord IS everything you need!”
And the 26-year-old Stone grinned, while the 22-year-old minor-leaguer stared in amazement.
And Ezra boomed for joy, “You have need of only one thing, Hallelujah Livingtone!” . . . “And you have chosen that one right thing. You! Hallelujah, have chosen the better part. And it . . . will . . . NOT . . . be taken from you!”41
And the 22-year-old Stone and the 26-year-old Hallelujah cried out loud – together . . . tears of joy.
As Ezra opened the door to enter Stone’s room, a broad nurse filled the threshold and Ezra stepped aside.
“You don’t have to hold the door because I’m a woman,” the nurse sternly admonished.
And Ezra didn’t miss a beat.
“I’m not holding the door because you’re a woman,” he fiendishly sparkled.
“Hmmph,” the nurse snorted.
“I’m holding it because of your age.”
SABERBUCS 