Ball Cap Story

by

We were in a Thrift Store in Northern Ohio. I walked over to see if I could find a good ball cap to replace my old, bleached one. A fellow with a grey scraggely beard reached for a nice cap just ahead of me. “Is this the Arizona something-or-others?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not from this country either.” As he sharply swung his head around to look closer at me I realized that my words came out wrong.
I backtracked. “I mean, I have been living overseas for a number of years. I am a Canadian. I am visiting here. I don’t know these teams.”
“What do you do?”
“We are missionaries, in the Amazon.”
“Oh…pause…I know about God. My parents used to take us kids to church. They must have known how to pray. Not one of us 15 kids ever went to the hospital a day in our lives until after we left home.”
“What happened? How did you fall away from God?”
“I joined the military and quit going to church. Once I returned to the US I could not get into the habit again. I tried going to the church up the road here but that didn’t work out. I wish I had brought my kids up in church. I raised them by myself while they were ages 12-14. If I had only brought them to church I think they would have had a community of good friends.”
“This is exactly what we are trying to do in the Amazon! We are trying to create places where families can get back together, a safer place to young people to find friends, and a place where people can get peace with God.”
Grey Scraggly Beard sounded so wistful and full of regret. I could only imagine where his kids were at. Then another old fellow came pulled my new friend away and the conversation was over. May the Lord bring other people across his path who will nudge him toward Jesus and help him remember “the good old days” when he was part of God’s family, as a child.
The Ohio Buckeyes ball cap I found lower down on that same rack is now my favorite hat.