"When I was about eight I had a dream about the war in heaven—the war where Michael and his angels cast out Satan. It was obviously a byproduct of some Sunday school lesson, except, in my dream, it wasn’t so much a war as it was a baseball game. No swords or guns or broken beer bottles—not even a Fantasia-like exchange of colored lightning bolts. It was an outdoor baseball game and I was the catcher. I had the mask, the pads and the funny-looking catcher’s mitt. Satan, who other than being abnormally tall seemed like a perfectly normal guy, was up to bat. What I remember from my dream begins with Satan tapping the dirt out of his spikes, and me starting to shake. I remember I was terrified.

The thing was, I wasn’t scared because Satan was three feet away from me holding a baseball bat. I was frightened because on the mound God was pitching. I knew I was supposed to catch the ball when he pitched, and I just knew that he was going to knock my head off. Even as an eight year old I was sure that I did not want to get in the way of God’s fast ball.

I started to cry, positive I was going to die. A timeout was called and God motioned me to the pitcher’s mound. In the infield Jesus, as shortstop, gave me a thumbs up. When I got to the mound, God crouched down, put his arm around me and told me not to worry about the pitch. All I was supposed to do, he said, was keep my left hand open and he would land that ball in my mitt, real sweet and gentle..." Anna Lewis