I spent last weekend with a group of guys that I played baseball with at Texas Tech University in the early 1980’s. We gathered for the second year in a row at a ranch owned by one of our teammates.

I don’t think I would call it a men’s retreat, but it certainly had a spiritual theme. Every morning and evening one of us would get up in front of the group, share some scripture and how God is working in our life.

It was authentic, from the heart, and it was powerful.

It had been almost forty years since I had seen a few of them, and it was a wonderful time of reconnecting with our past, and our present.

Decades before, we were running around a field wearing red and black chasing a baseball with very few cares, worries, or responsibilities. We had seventy-five percent of our life ahead of us, and we were just getting started. No mortgages, no kids, no real stress, just the chance to play a game for the fun of it.

Between then and now, none of us had really changed at heart, but without question, life happened to us all. There had been heartaches, sorrow, disappointments, sickness, deaths, and failures.

Not sure anyone can get through life without dealing with some of that.

But also, there had been victories, triumphs, healings, breakthroughs, and miracles.

In college, we played baseball for each other. We did whatever it took to make our teammates successful so the team could win. That is what good teams do, they sacrifice for one another.

Today, we are no longer chasing a ball, instead we are seeking purpose in the twenty – five percent of life we have left. We are on the homestretch in life, and we know it. Although what we are chasing has changed, us being teammates has not.

They had my back then, and they have my back now. They have become my family and there is nothing I would not do for them, and there is nothing they would not do for me.

I will never need a shirt, because every single one of those guys will give me the one off their back.

That is what good teammates do, they stay in your corner through the wins and losses in life. They remain; long after the last game is played.

That is something to be grateful for, we all need a helping hand at some point in our life.

I am no biblical scholar, but one verse kept popping up over the weekend in conversations.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

There was a lot of iron sharpening iron over those few days. None of us had all the answers, but we each had learned enough through our own failures and successes to encourage one another, thus sharpening our resolve and faith.

We walked away Sunday morning agreeing that God was not done with us yet, and that we were still men in need of a Savior.

We also agreed to get our prostrate checked if we hadn’t done so in a few years. We are at that age!

I am a better man today than I was this time last week. Not because I figured anything out, but because I just hung out with some incredible men who lifted my spirit and made me feel ten feet tall.

Friends divide your sorrow and multiply your joy because they share in both with equal interest.

Thank you men, I can’t wait until next year.

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].