How BASEBALL Helps Me TRUST GOD

My Braves loving son and me half- Braves half- Yankees woman  last year ( 2009 )  at the series

I wanted to write about the insights God has shown me , about why this may have happened to our Sarah and why He did or did not do anything to prevent it. To a new reader, this is about my 21 year old daughter Sarah, who was killed in a car accident almost 7 weeks ago now. In the middle of the afternoon , when her car rolled over , and our lives were wounded forever.

Sarah and me on one of our many excursions to Charleston, SC.

 After her funeral, when we were cleaning out her apartment, trying to get the wrecked car taken care of...lots of terrible tasks you have to do after an unexpected death...and while we were in the midst of all of it , I recall God showing me something concerning the possible ' Why ?' of it all. Her friend Todd, who we adore, who helped us for days afterward, was wondering about the Why . Why Sarah ? Why someone with such potential ? Why someone who loved so strongly and freely ? So very sweet inside.

I remember looking down at my kitchen counter, holding onto the sides and telling him I know why her. I told him God allows someone so special, who makes an impact on people around them, the more pleasant ones, the fun ones ...to die because the impact is SO hard, so PROFOUND , when it is someone who will be greatly missed. Who was dearly loved. I told him , the bad , the irritating, the whiny , lazy, obnoxious people He seems to leave on this earth longer to teach us how to love...as someone like Sarah was easy to love.

That insight I knew from my Mother's death at 65, but even more from Sarah's at age 21. That insight, by the way, in NO way comforts me or anyone else . But it is a sort of explanation of why the ' good die young ' or the ' good die before the evil '.

My beautiful girl in Charleston , posing for me

  Second insight...and hang on. ..the analogy with baseball is last, and the most important. 

The second is when I asked God, " Why did you not save her ?' , ' Why did you not warn her or tell her to buckle up, stop texting, whatever to SAVE her !!??" The possibility to me here, or insight was, He very well may have tried to do that. He could have told her to buckle up, stop texting, pay attention to the road,  but she, like ME or YOU, ignored his warnings, ignored or pushed God to the back burner and continued on. I know personally I have done that in areas that honestly could also have been live or death, areas that I could have been hurt or killed. But for some reason God allowed me to live in those times.

Again, it is a insight that does not comfort me, but does help me consider He may have tried to prevent this. That little nagging voice we hear, right before or during certain actions...that voice is often God.
We all need to stop, and listen.

Now for the last lesson, and we are back to baseball. I will preface this by letting everyone out there know, I don't know much about baseball. I enjoy watching it very much, it is the easiest sport to follow to me. It is one of the very few times I watch TV , as somehow the game soothes me. Plus all the players look cute in their uniforms. But I struggle to follow it when all the rules and regulations get thrown in...I look at my husband to explain what just happened...and he goes off on a LLLOOOONNNGGG explanation of why it is against some rule or not allowed or some other silly reason for an arbitrary ( to me ), call was made. He is always patient , he thinks it is funny I can't grasp the rules and the whys of baseball. But I can tell you what I have learned from it. But let me give you a example , of ' sticking with your team ' first.

Listening to the head coach.

My husband and I were watching the Yankees and the Texas Rangers a few weeks ago. My husband's favorite team, the Yankees were down 6-1 in the 6th inning ( by the way, I got this stat info from him, the man I married who doesn't remember anything important to me, but EVERY stat from the last 45+ years of Major League Baseball ). Play by plays, he has them all stored up.
Anyway, he gets disgusted with HIS team, the Yankees, and turns the station...I fuss at him, ' Turn that back , it is early still, they may come back and win ! "
He shakes his head, goes , " They are playing horrible, NO. "
But then I urge him on some more, I tell him that he can't be a fair-weather fan. And he turns back and starts to watch HIS team, with a scowl on his face.
It starts getting late, and I leave Mr. Scowly to watch his Yankees alone. He comes to bed late, and goes, " Guess what ?! they came back and won!" He then starts telling me they won 7-6 in a big rally and he was so happy. I recall I smugly said, " See, told ya so. "
That story , made me realize that when the worst possible event occurred , our daughter's death...I started questioning my ' Head coach ' --God. I started to turn in disgust at my team, my religion, mad at the unfairness of the ' rules' of trusting God, of believing He knows best no matter what. Those baseball players I see out on the field, TRUST--have confidence, that their HEAD coach , sees the BIG picture of the game. They are usually in positions of only seeing their role , their life...and cannot see how what they do affects the entire game.
But the coach is in the position of seeing and knowing , BUT he also knows these are flesh and blood people out there. They can get hurt, they can make the wrong decisions. He will try to direct and guide from the sidelines , but He will not MAKE His players do it, they have a choice.
They are not puppets to him.
We are not puppets to God.
So I can see that God is my head coach, I am not his puppet, I have free will...my Sarah was not a puppet , you are not a puppet.

He allows us to live our lives, come to Him for guidance, learn to trust Him. If He did not, if He RESCUED us ..all of us, from danger, even  from death , ALL the time...then we would worship Him and love Him for what he did for us, instead of because of who He is. We would be followers of Jesus to stay alive, be healthy, be prosperous , be happy. Not because we love Him, but for what He could do for us.
We wouldn't be sticking with our team, our God , our Christian religion because of who He is ...we would turn our backs on our team when they ' mess up ' or ' make a ridiculous life or death call ' , or appear to ' be in left field '...and look elsewhere.
When His calls don't make sense.
When life doesn't make sense.
When death doesn't make sense.
If we could understand the ways of God completely, then He would not be worthy of our worship anyway, as He is so above us intellectually, spiritually...in ALL ways magnificent and glorious. We cannot humanly, possibly comprehend all His ways.
I believe He only gives us small insights, and in unusual ways , simple ways.
Ways custom delivered to to us , custom made for us individually.

So for some reason, and honestly it makes NO sense to me, God showed me how to trust Him through baseball. A woman who has a low tolerance for trust anyway , a woman who is about as stubborn as they come, a woman who tries to ' figure out ' the whys of everything, a woman who is heartbroken over the loss of her child. He revealed a little of the whys , not through my passions, art or gardens...but baseball.
I cannot say I am completely free of fear about the future, fear of the safety of my other children and family, or even free of the anger over Sarah's death. I also do not have all my questions about her death answered, and I won't in this lifetime.
But I am stepping forward and I am going to hold on tight to God , even when I do not understand.
Through curve balls and strikes and injuries and rain delays and canceled games.

I'm sticking with my head coach. Thick or thin, hell or high water, for better for worse.
Holding on tight, with love.
He is My God.


Bless you, thanks for reading this long post, if you lasted the whole way ,
Gina

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" John 20:28