Things That Don't Happen to Me

Photo Credit: (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images)

Josh Hamilton Is on the Upswing

Chewing the the marrow off a great pile of wings and watching John Hamilton break the record for most first-round home runs at last night's All-Star Home Run Derby, something made me wipe my hands, grab my blackberry and google "John Hamilton Christian".

There was that something in his bearing, in manner in which he stopped to sign autographs for small children and smiled at them during his record-breaking at-bat that hinted there was something more to him. I just didn't realize how much more.

John Hamilton is, indeed, a Christian. But there is more to his story. He is a Christian who faced a tragedy that sent his life and career into a tailspin and left him a crack cocaine-addicted tatoo parlor monger. To be sure, his arms bear the marks of that former life in a way that made me recall the words of St. Paul, "From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." (Gal. 6:17).

Beyond this, I'll let him tell you his story.