It’s summer – hot sticky days, little children in brilliantly colored soccer jerseys that go down to their knees, the smell of cooked meat in the air, neighbours out of hibernation - gardening, washing their cars or just hanging around. With VBC now completed Amberlea is in full summer mode. This year it means our doors are open Sunday thru Thursday with Breakfast Club, weekly youth events, and Musical Theatre Camps. Praise God for Air Conditioning!!!

As many of you know, one of my favourite summer past times is baseball. I love baseball – not so much the playing (it’s hard to play in heels) - I love going to baseball games, and for me there is no other team than our own Toronto Blue Jays.

There is something about being in the stadium in amongst the crowd, cheering our team on and offering the umpire our own opinions – so fun – and I am usually right ;). There is nothing like the sound of a ball that connects with a bat - that sends the ball soaring right out of the park, and there is nothing like the sound of a ninety-five mile per hour fastball firmly caught into the catcher’s mitt. “Thunk”. What a sound. But can you imagine what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of one of those fastballs without a glove? One can’t even imagine catching a ball at that speed barehanded.

Catch after catch, pitch after pitch, the catchers hand would be unspeakably sore if it were not protected by a specially designed, thick leather glove – and it dawned on me as I was watching a game recently that God is a lot like a catcher’s mitt.

David knew this when he wrote Psalm 32. He said of God: “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with sounds of deliverance.”

David may not have known about baseball gloves but he did know that life was not easy – and he knew God was all the protection he needed from all that life threw his way.

David knew in full confidence that this amazing God, the Maker of heaven and earth, would protect him. He knew that God would keep him from all harm, watch over him daily and throughout his life forever (check out Psalm 121).

Friends, I am convinced that if we don’t have God in our lives it would be like catching a ninety-four mile per hour pitch with our bare hands – ouch!

Do you know with the same certainty, that David did, that your help comes from God?