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

Holding GOD at Arm's Length

Here I am with Maxine, holding her off kissing me , even though I just sprayed myself down with mosquito spray..it deters her a bit. I decided to take my professional photographer , my resident 9 year old son, out to take some pictures of my garden and me working in it.  I like to look at other gardeners working in their gardens on their blogs too. This blog is truthfully a nice distraction from my pain , and so is my garden.

But only a quick fix. A short reprieve. 
I look at it alot. Stare at it out my window, come stand out here and just ' be ' and try to still my mind.

I put on one of my gardening pants, my 4.00 LOVE camisole shirt I bought at Target , and my attractive rubber clogs , plus long white socks of my husbands. And gobs of mosquito spray. I told my son, just start taking pictures of me working. Instead I got about 10 of me working, 5 of the sky, 55 of Maxine and his tree fort , and 7 of nothing.

So much work out here. I have no idea why my garden seems oblivious to what is missing in my life. Why it is still very pretty ? How days go on as if they are normal. How life keeps going on as if nothing happened ? My daughter meant so much, she was so valuable to this world , so important a person...how can life go on as if nothing happened ? 
I do forget that newer readers may not know my 21 year old daughter was killed  in a one-car accident a little over 6 weeks ago now. http://antique-art-garden.blogspot.com/search/label/tragedy

 My little boy asks me "Why did you buy that shirt that says LOVE ? ". I told him, it was cheap and would keep me cool in the hot weather, I am sure half the college girls and half of pre-teens may have this as it was in one of those bins in the front of Target where they put these super-cheapy deals. But, I was just going to wear it to garden , nowhere else, and I made my garden with love. So that's why I bought it.

He looks at the LOVE on my shirt, then looks up at me to see if I really mean it...then he appears satisfied I did and walks away to take more pictures.

I have been asking God lots of questions, angry questions, accusing questions, pointed questions. Repetitive questions. Did He not know how valuable, how special she was ? How much she could give to this world ?

No answers. I did get 2 insights , two I will write about in another post. But no definitive answers.

I am suffering in my relationship with Him, as I know I do not trust Him like I was learning to do. I know I am not alone in this world, losing someone dear to me , someone tragically young, someone with a heart of gold. I am just confused who He is exactly , or learning who He exactly is...and it was not my version of my God. I always believed He would protect those who love Him, guide them daily in their lives, and especially protect the ones who may not be perfect but are really trying to be a better person, a stronger Christian. Like my Sarah.
Good gracious He protected me as a nutty, impetuous, erratic driver when I was young. So why not me, why instead her ?

I have read all the ' because there is sin in this world, that is why she died.", analogies. I have read, ' the rain falls on the just and unjust' lessons. I have heard it must have been ' her time ' to go advice.

But let me try to explain, that once you see your beautiful, full of life child, laid in  a casket, never to breathe again...if you believe you will automatically be OK with the situation spiritually, that your Christian faith will sustain you, that you will completely trust God's will in this tragedy..then you will be mistaken, as the wind will be sucked out of your spiritual sails , almost daily.

My heart and soul feels as overflowing with doubt and confusion as my garden is overflowing with weeds. I talk to God, I know that I should keep drawing nearer to Him, as the Bible tells me to...but I hold Him at arm's length while I fuss. My soul is despairing over the emptiness of my life without my Sarah, and now the emptiness of my soul without my complete trust in God. About how UNFAIR this was to her. That fact really, really kills me.
Relationships, human and otherwise...will not flourish without trust. I want to trust Him, I want to say that He is good and just..always. But I cannot, and that is painful to me.
So , arm's length...not with my back to him...just not allowing Him to get close to me yet.
I do know that I love Him, He is my God , Jesus is my savior. But my spirit and soul and heart are crushed with the weight of this loss.

Deep in my garden here.

I was getting attacked my mosquitoes, left and right. Trying to swat them away , miserable to work or try to like this. Can you see all the weeds , crazy.

I am going to stop this post , and will write about an exclusive club I was invited to that same afternoon as the mosquito invasion. Look at all the weeds  mixed with my flowers. See my heart behind me ...my garden really does soothe me. I am trying to get out here more, my husband sprayed for mosquitoes yesterday and it did help. I am trying to keep up with it , I have not had it inside me to work out here.


I appreciate you followers very much...don't give up on me getting my spiritual walk back on track, I know that God will not ever give up on me. I just need to learn how to not give up on Him.


Bless you,


Gina

ALWAYS & Forever Wear Your SEATBELT Please

Sarah & her little brother at Edisto beach

 I feel as if I have been remiss in not telling everyone out there, to please, PLEASE -never, ever drive anywhere without wearing your seat belt. Our daughter died in a rollover accident, in the middle of the afternoon, took a curve onto a busy road about 30-35 miles an hour.
When we spoke to the police officer, and the coroner, they told us she was not wearing a seat belt, which when the car was in the accident , most likely over-corrected, resulted in her flipping( roll-over ) 2 to 3 times and being ejected from the car.
The only reason I am sharing this with you, and I have with all of her friends that I have been in touch with, is the haunting , terrible words the coroner told me.

" If she had been wearing her seat belt, she would have survived this, and would probably have walked away from the accident. "

His words made me heart-sick , still make me feel as if I have been punched in the stomach...over the irreversible consequences of the accident.
Even repeating that, over and over in my head, I am dumb-founded as she ALWAYS wore her seat belt. Even her friends remarked how good she was about that. I trained all our children to ALWAYS wear it, my husband has been the one in our family who is very bad about remembering his seat belt . He got a new truck a few years ago that has an annoying , ding-ding, until he puts it on. He is much better now.
I also knew my daughter texted too much in general, and when she drove.
I often told her NO texting when you drive, but her calls and texts were coming through until the end of her life.

She ran all the time, the picture above is of her and me coming back from a walk -run ( she ran ) at Edisto Beach, South Carolina, which we did twice a day there when we vacationed. Plus she was my No. 1 beach-walker companion.


My beautiful girl happily running, so full of life always. I remember her running  in front of me on my walks on vacation. She would hold her arms up in the air and twirl and sing when she ran. She was so funny.


I do not know why God allowed her to die that afternoon, some people believe we all have a set time to die. In the Bible there are many passages where God demonstrates that He gives us free will, to make our own choices. So I am struggling with the concept that it was ' just her time to go', as many Christians and even non-believers believe. Or the concept that she choose poorly, driving for some reason without buckling up, or she had un-done her seat belt to get something from her floorboard. Also she, like thousands of other young adults and teens are texting while they drive. Or jabbering away on cell phones. Young and old alike.
Maybe you, maybe your spouse, or children. 


So when I ask God, or wonder, why did He not send an angel to whisper in her ear, " Buckle-Up ". Why did he not send an angel, just one, though He can call legions of angels...why not just one, to scoop her up in the last seconds and save her ?
The only reply I get from Him , is :" I did. "


Which to me means He took her up to Heaven , but not rescued in this earthly realm to live her life out with us. To live a complete life here with marriage and children and family. When other well-meaning Christians tell me her life is so superior now in heaven, than down here on earth...it is not comforting to me.
I am simply the mother waiting at the front window for her daughter to come home safely.

I would have greatly , positively , strongly and unequivocally , preferred He chose the latter.




Please buckle-up, no excuses, no rushing.

I printed this in the hopes of possibly averting intense pain and sorrow for other families , as I can do nothing to save my baby girl now.

I will have a post soon about her garden's progress.



Blessings,
Gina

 "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? " Matthew 26:53

and

 There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—
 A time to give birth and a time to die;  A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal;  A time to tear down and a time to build up.
 A time to weep and a time to laugh;  A time to mourn and a time to dance.
 A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;  A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
 A time to search and a time to give up as lost;  A time to keep and a time to throw away.  A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;  A time to be silent and a time to speak.  A time to love and a time to hate;  A time for war and a time for peace.
What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?  Ecclesiastes 3:1-10

Our SARAH

It has been an extremely difficult time in our family, the most painful that we have ever had. I appreciate all of your comments from my last post about my baby girl, pictured above with me when she helped cook a birthday dinner for me last month. I wanted to write to explain to you about my daughter, she was my youngest daughter , named Sarah, and as you can see...very beautiful as is my oldest daughter, that one is married and lives in our city while her husband is in Afghanistan. It is almost impossible to explain what my Sarah was like and I am worn out , so I have decided to include what I wrote for my pastor to say at her funeral which was held last Friday. My daughter had over 400+ people at her funeral, a 21 year old , we were floored by how many people have been impacted by her tragic early death from the car accident.

I can tell you also that we have discovered who are friends really are through this, and who truly cares about us and about her.

I can also tell you that my faith is being sorely tested.

Thank you all for your kindness to me , and your concern.




              Our Sarah ,
             written by her Mother


Trying to write about our beautiful Sarah is a very hard thing to do , as she was so full of life, so effervescent , so bubbling over with energy and love...that it makes me  unbearably sad to consider that she will not be in our lives anymore.  That in turn makes it painful to write about her, but also a must to express our Sarah to you. That the joy of her very being , her very presence... has been  taken from us all so suddenly and tragically is a burden we will all carry in our hearts and souls for the rest of our lives . To try to explain a person such as Sarah , is a daunting task...as I know that I cannot do justice to her . She was a one of a kind original masterpiece.

Sarah was young and very  beautiful, inside and out. She loved to exercise and run all over the University of Carolina, she loved hanging out with her friends and laughing, going out and dancing. She loved music, loved to sing and she was a very good singer as well. She worked hard at her job at California Dreaming, she was very friendly and had a bright beautiful smile to welcome people at her tables. No one could forget Sarah once they met her, she had many regular customers who requested her for their tables.
If I had one word to describe her, instead of beautiful , it would be loving. When she was very young, little Sarah would knock on the window when I was going out for my walks and wave and wave at me , and scream I love you , through the glass...over and over. I loved it, and she did it all the time. Of course she would see me within and hour when I came home, but she would do that as if I was going off for a week long trip every time. She loved dressing up in crazy costumes of her own design , dancing around the house and pretending she was a famous singer as well. 
 Later on she was a cheerleader at Dreher High school, she was active in the drama department and in many plays, nominated for the beauty pageants there, all of this while making good grades and working part-time. Sarah was also a Christian , and told me many times about praying and asking God for help and guidance . Whenever Sarah was confused about her life, about why God does do this or doesn't do that, I tell her we could not in this lifetime answer many of those questions. I told her God loves her, and all of us , way more than even I loved her and that she will have a very good life. She did have a very good life, but from our human standpoint, much too short of one.

She attended USC for  short time, and then ended up working full time at California Dreaming and living away from home, working hard and paying most of her own bills . She was learning to be responsible, and we were proud of her. She was very popular at work and she was helpful, and showed such care for her co-workers and supervisors. It was like a second family to her there.

Sarah's very favorite place to go was Edisto Beach, South Carolina. We had many family vacations there for about 13 years , and she loved the beach, playing in the ocean, the sunsets, running in front of me on her jogs , and being with her family. She really enjoyed time with her family, and always told us so, which I know is sometimes unusual for that age group. When I was in Edisto this past week , I saw a beautiful floating butterfly, ahead of me on one of my walks...and as I saw it flit and flutter  , to and fro , still staying just ahead of me through a small road in the woods area there...it made me think of Sarah. Always flitting and flying around, light and beautiful...floating from activity to activity...as if on air. A happy butterfly reminded me of my baby girl on that day.

In 2006 , Sarah's maternal grandmother died unexpectedly of a heart attack, and that and some other factors with our family made her do a complete turn around in her focus in life. She had been focusing on so many of her friends and having fun , that family time was dwindling , like it does for many young people at that stage in life.  But after my mother's death, Sarah took it very , very hard...and she changed almost overnight. She learned a lesson that most people of all ages from 5 to 85 don't ever learn. That lesson was to show the people that you love, that you truly love them, with the time that you are given.  After that happened , Sarah typically texted or called me about 4-8 times every day, and always told me she loved me..as I did her.
She also was known for telling most of her friends that she loved them, I would tell her to stop telling everyone that she loved them...to make it mean something , to say it to a select few.
But no, not Sarah. She told me, " But I do love them. " And that is how she was...over flowing with love.

That focus became what it was when she was a very young child and continued, and that was  expressing love.

Her life was going well, she had just made the honor roll at Midlands Tech, and was eager to continue her career as a physical therapist. She had such promise , such potential in life. She loved her father dearly, her big sister was very special to her and she adored her as well, her big brother and she had gotten closer over the years and she loved him very much, and she absolutely adored her little brother and wanted to hug and kiss him all the time, which he half the time refused on account of being a 9 year old little boy still.

 Unfortunately , all we were allowed was 21 years of her in this life . We were all blessed beyond any words that I can try to use to express to describe her or describe her impact on each of our lives.

You all have your own memories of my sweet baby girl, what I hope you can do...is remember how she showed love and caring , and continue that with the people you have in your lives now. Do not ever wait to tell someone you love, that you love them, do not wait to tell your child or your friend or parent that you are proud of them, that they are beautiful, that they make you happy. Express that to them whenever you truly feel it , as in this life, that time may never come again. Make the most of the time you have, to love. Bless in small ways , as the small blessings make up an abundant life of love.

Thank you all , for loving and caring about our precious, beautiful Sarah.

Tragedy

I was out of town on a short family vacation when I got a call my youngest daughter had been killed in a car wreck yesterday. She was only 21 , it happened in the middle of the day, and our world and our hearts are crushed. I do not know when I will write again ,I have much to take care of. My  beautiful baby is gone.

Please take great care with the ones you love, Gina