That's Allstate's Stand

A few months ago I was enjoying a quiet afternoon without much to do, so I was checking out a few listings on Imdb.com. I happened to be cleaning out my room around that time and had a bunch of random stuff sitting around, including a baseball given to me the first year I played on a team, the year I was 8. My two coaches were Coach Kerry and Coach Dennis. I had heard a few times that my Coach Dennis was supposedly a semi-famous movie star at the time. I say "supposedly" because my parents nor I knew him as a movie-star. We just knew him as my coach. I had never actually verified that he was a movie-star, but that didn't really matter when I was 8 years old, just learning how to swing and throw and field.

Coach Dennis was an especially patient person, which was needed on my team, since I was the only girl there! I remember quite fondly him teaching us the rules about pop flies, about foul tips, and him working specifically with me on my swing, which I got to be pretty proud of. I wish I had kept better track of a really neat photo I had with my two coaches, Kerry and Dennis on the last day of the season. They both could have been movie stars for all I knew, but all I cared about was that they had patiently and lovingly taught me the great American game, one they knew so well and passed on to all of us on the team.

So back to my aimless wanderings on Imdb.com. Seeing that baseball reminded me that if Coach Dennis was indeed a movie-star, he must have a listing on this site to prove it. So, I entered his name, and oh boy, yes, is he a movie-star. He has starred in numerous baseball movies, and many popular tv shows including The Unit, 24, and some old shows like Quincy, M.E. (which happens to be my favorite show of all time), and Laverne and Shirley. Besides that, he is the face of the Allstate Insurance company. He's the guy who always says "Are you in good hands? That's Allstate's stand." Click here to see a video of him in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBAwXN8lS88&feature=related

So my coach was indeed a movie star! That was a neat thought, thinking that back when I was little, so oblivious to who he was and what he was "known" for, he had been my personal friend, coaching me in the fine points of baseball, cheering me on, and just being an all-around great person. It kind-of makes my memory of him even more special knowing that I didn't even know he was so well-known, and he didn't make that fact a big part of his ego. My Mom said that she once asked him what he did for a living and he quite simply answered "I'm an actor, what do you do?" He wasn't the type of person that walked around with a commanding presence, that you thought "Oh, he must be a well-known person of some kind!" He was just your average joe-blow who happened to be a very well-known actor.

In his commercials, Dennis always asks his viewers if they are in good hands, and I started thinking about that the last time I saw one of his commercials. How do I know I am really in good hands? Now, I know that he is referring to good insurance, but how do you know your actual soul is in good hands? If life insurance is important, how much more important is your life?

I was going to look for some obscure reference to life in the book of Habakkuk if I could find it, but then I realized that one of the most well-known (if not the most) scriptures of all time has the promise of life in it.

John 3:16 says "For God loved the world so much that He sent His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." That means that when we become believers, we have the promise of God that we have eternal life. That means that our spirit (not our physical bodies) will never end, will never die, will never be gone. How much safer could you get than that? Knowing that even if your physical body dies (which it will someday), the essence of who you are, the part of you that makes you who you are, your soul, will still be alive, and with God is such an amazingly comforting thought. As a Christian, I know for a fact, that I am indeed in good hands. Are you?