“Brutal Bravery” Blog #240
Does it hurt too much to hit head-on the truth I need to hear?
Why can’t I just listen to the inner voice of healing now?
When WILL I finally be free from fear and all my worries?
On August 16, 1948 a magazine received an autobiography article written by one of the
most famous legends in sports history. In a twist of ironic fate, this famous person also
died of cancer that same day! In the article this man wrote to his adoring fans about his
troubled youth, his love for sports, his obsession with the material world, his love and
enormous appetite for all things of the flesh, and knowing he was a hopeless spendthrift,
drinker and abuser of all material things - decided at this time in his life - it was time to be
brutally brave. He ended the article by detailing his experience in 1946 with facing a
difficult surgery and facing his own mortality. “In December of 1946, I was in a French
Hospital in New York, facing a serious operation. One of my oldest friends was by my
bedside, he said, “Don’t you think you ought to put your own house in order now?” My
friend stared at me with a challenging look. “I nodded,” said Babe, and “for the first time I
realized that death might strike me out. My friend called in a chaplain and I made a full
confession. As I lay in bed that night, I thought to myself, what a comforting feeling to be
free from fear and all worries, I simply turned them over to God.” While Babe was in the
hospital, one of the millions of adoring fans was a little kid from Jersey City. He wrote, “Dear
Babe, everybody in the seventh grade is pulling and praying for you. I am enclosing a
medal, which if you wear it, will make you better. Your pal-Mike Quinlan. P.S. I know this will
be your 61st homer and you’ll hit it!” Babe Ruth asked the nurse to pin the Miraculous
Medal to his pajama top. He said, “I’ve worn the medal constantly ever since my operation
and I will wear it to my grave”. On August 16, 1948, a Dominican Priest was with Babe Ruth
as he took his final breath at age 53. Babe Ruth was given his Last Rites and the famous
“Bambino” as he was called, was placed in a casket in the Rotunda at Yankee Stadium,
it he house that Ruth built”. Then 78,000 patriots came to pay tribute to the mighty man of
baseball. The man whose strong hands once gripped a baseball bat in one success after
another. Now these mighty hands rested quietly holding a simple beaded rosary.
Can I be brutally brave and seek the truth with Jesus in my heart today?
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