"The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted."
The quote is from The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, one of my favorite novels. I highly recommend it to anyone who has children or who loves baseball, or anyone who loves Stand by Me or Shawshank Redemption (by the same author), or who loves an excellently written suspense tale.
Or who loves God.
Early in the novel, 9-year-old Trisha becomes lost. A wrong turn takes her into the wilderness along the Appalachian Trail near the Maine-New Hampshire border. Disoriented, she wanders farther and farther away from civilization—and into danger. Despite her best efforts, she is just not capable of making it on her own.
And that's where Tom Gordon enters the tale. A “closer” for the Boston Red Sox, Gordon was often brought to the pitcher’s mound near the end of a tight ballgame to ensure victory. Trisha loves Tom Gordon and the Red Sox. Faced with mosquitos, wasps, hunger, loneliness, fear, illness, hallucinations—and even grislier threats—Trisha depends on her love of Gordon to lift her spirits. Imagining what he would do is all that keeps her going.
Trisha is lost. But even though there seems no possibility of rescue, she is not abandoned. Someone is looking for her.
Similarly, the people in this week's Isaiah and Matthew selections live in deepening darkness, the very shadow of death. Everything is bad. There seems no possibility of rescue.
But then, they see a great light.
Sometimes, we also get lost. We find ourselves in deep darkness. It could be darkness from the culture that surrounds us, or it could be a darkness we carry with us. But we don’t have to stay lost in that darkness. Instead, like the people in this week’s scriptures, we need to be looking for a light to lead us.
We can rise from our deep darkness. We just need to follow that dawning light, the DaySpring—Jesus.
We are not abandoned.
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PHOTO: Trisha getting lost (from the pop-up book version of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon)
Goodreads page for The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon:
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We will have a little rain Friday morning, but mid-50s temp! Join us at 8:00 for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet on Zoom* and in person at Our Breakfast Place for some great food, scriptures, illumination, and the joy of each other’s company.
Blessings,
Steve
*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414
SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK
Find them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=17134&z=e&d=15
Print them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Ax_ThirdSundayafterEpiphany.pdf
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 4-9
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23
Third Sunday after the Epiphany (January 25, 2026)
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