Hold Grandpa DOWN!!!!

Have you ever lost your SANCTIFICATION? “Lose my sanctification – I don’t even know what that is?” – comes back the answer.

Well in terms of Christianity it means all the nice stuff that we learn to do after we say we are Christians. It is the change in our lives that helps us look at the things that we face each day in a different way…more “Christ like”… you know love one another… care for each other with acts of kindness… yadda, yadda, yadda (a Yiddish slang term meaning more of the same).

I listened to my friend tell me about her “grand-mother-in-law” in the early part of the last century. She was almost an icon of Holiness in the community. Nothing improper would come out of her life or her mouth especially. She was kind and loving to everyone. She was a true modern day saint. Everyone knew that.

The story goes like this. One day she received some bad food stuff from a local store. It was putrid and should not have been sold. On her next jaunt to the store she took the food item back. The store owner was not moving an inch on taking it back or giving her the money back. He would not listen to her at all.

As she related what happened in that store that day she said, “I took off my “sanctification” and placed it on the shelf and then I told the store owner what I thought of him in no uncertain terms”

She walked out of the store with her money back. She had also picked up her “sanctification” from the shelf and took it home to put it back on.

Well let me tell you about my “Sanctification” and how I almost lost it!!!

Yesterday was the final game of Kinsmen Saturday Morning Football. My grandson Clifford was playing on one field and my granddaughter Emma was on the other field.

I watched Clifford’s game until half time…then walked over to Emma’s game. As I approached her field there was young boy sitting in our lawn chair with his foot up on the cooler… he was hurt. My wife was trying to make him comfortable – the nurse coming out in her.

Over to the side was a fairly big kid that was crying. His dad was trying to help him get his courage up to at least put the football helmet back on. And there was another kid limping.

One of the moms standing by us told me that a large boy on the other team was purposely hurting the kids. Her son had finger prints on his face below the helmet. Instead of a “face mask” penalty he tried to gouge out the kids eyes!

The other team’s coach will try anything to win. It is not fun… it is WIN and all about WINNING! He purposely keeps this BIG KID on the field all through the game – for either Offence or Defence. He plays it all… but doesn’t need to. There are substitutes – but the coach never uses them – it is all about using the “best players” all the time. And if they can use an ABUSER to win – they will.

Shame on him! Shame on the Boy that hurts others – a real bully – with a uniform on!!! Disgraceful to say the least – but they win.

I stood and listened to the litany of wrong doing this Bad Boy accumulated yesterday. It made me upset – but what could I do?

The Bad Boy is also a kicker – at the kick off at the start of any series of plays after a touch down.

Here is the scene.

Emma, my granddaughter and only girl on the team, plays in a receiving position when the kick off takes place – front line – way off to the side. The coaches put her there because she is not as fast and not as aggressive as the boys are…so she is safe.

Well the Big Bad Boy, that is likely either 10 or 11 and stands at least one foot or maybe even two feet higher than the average player on the other team, kicked the ball right at Emma. Emma quickly fell on the ball as she was taught to do. That indicates that the play is dead – no tackle is needed. It is over.

Not for the BIG BAD BOY – he was running fast to get the ball back that he had kicked. He saw Emma try to get it… she was down on her stomach… and the ball then popped out of her hands… and the very worst thing that could happen took place next!

The BIG BAD BOY jumped squarely on back and mashed her face down into the ground. She didn’t move for a bit… then I saw her shoulders heaving and shaking… she was sobbing her eyes out. He had really hurt her!

That stupid little jerk – the BIG BAD BOY – has hurt my granddaughter – not by accident but ON PURPOSE.

To make matters worse the STUPID REFEREE didn’t even give the other team a penalty…no whistle… nothing!

I ran to the field with the coach and bent down beside Emma… tears were running down her face under the thick white helmet… “Grandpa my next hurts…my neck really hurts…” It was a kind of skin/muscle injury where the helmet crunches in sharply to the edge of the neck and above the shoulder pads.

I made a split second decision at the place… should I…
1. Help Emma to get up or
2. SHOULD I PLACE MY SANCTIFICATION ON THE SHELF and take the BIG BAD BOY – BULLY over my knee and beat the living badness out of him? You hurt my granddaughter you stupid boy… and I will now proceed to lay a hurting on to you – you really stupid and “little” bad boy!

I slowly helped her get up as she tried her neck and cried. I kept my SANCTIFICATION and walked off the field with her. The players of the other team and her team clapped to congratulate her for surviving the BIG BAD BOY’S punishment… and he was clapping too…

The thought was still lingering in me to walk up close to the field and then when the time was right smack the BIG BAD BOY that had hurt her. But then the kid can run quite well… even though he is BIG. The image that came to mind was not nice… a white haired old guy chasing the young buck around the field as he stayed just ahead of his pursuer … taunting the old man… and then seeing the loud mouthed mother of the BIG BAD BOY chasing the old white haired guy that was attempting to abuse her son… I might make it 20 yards now... puff puff!

Nope – not worth it! Keep your sanctification in your pocket and bite your tongue… until you cry.

Emma will get bigger and better and more beautiful… then she will hurt some BIG BAD BOYS from the inside out. In fact she will likely KILL THEM with heart ache and loneliness. BUT if that dude shows up at their door… I will be waiting with the Biggest Bible I can whump him with. “You better not mess with MY GRANDDAUGHTER you stupid little, poor example of the male species, that has never learned to play fair… you better go home to your mommy… OR ELSE Grandpa will get you – and you don’t want to mess with Grandpa – no matter how old he is!!!! Got that sonny? Go ahead now… make my day!!! Go ahead…go ahead!”

Oops – I think I just set my sanctification down…now where the heck did I put it…. Darn.

~ Grandpa Murray Lincoln ~