It Depends on the Author

I’ve been watching the baseball playoffs a lot lately, as you may imagine since my Cardinals are amazingly still standing (hoping I can say that after tonight, too!).  It has been an intense ride.  After each game I realize how progressively mangled my fingernails have become over the weeks.  Sometimes it’s hard to watch as the team implodes and lets a win slip away.  Other times I’ve been able to rejoice over a well fought victory.  But whatever the outcome I’m usually on the edge of my seat.  It’s exhausting.

Maybe the most frustrating thing about being a sports fan is not being in control of how your team does or the outcome of the game…conspiracy theories aside.  It may also be what makes following sports so exhilarating.  You never know what will happen.  Or what the next amazing thing will be that you couldn’t have guessed.  There is a lot of heartache, to be sure (especially depending on your team!), but there is also the thrill of the miraculous.  It is the unknown possibilities that bring both fear and hope. 

But that isn’t just sports.  It is life.  And I have realized many times over lately how little I can control my life.  Most of the time the illusion of control flows without much challenge.  But we all come face to face with uncontrollable reality at various points. 

Yesterday my browser kept crashing, I couldn’t get the insurance company to call me back, and I still couldn’t get the mower to start.  I could feel the stress mounting in my body…we hate not being able to control our world, our life.

And those were the little things. 

It has been expontentially more difficult to lack control over having children.  That might be the hardest thing about infertility issues…feeling so helpless to bring about what you desire so deeply.  I’ve never felt such a lack of control over my life as I have the last several months.  The illusion has been shattered in a new way.  I cannot create life.  I cannot make it happen.

“All we can really do is create the best environment for a baby to be born.  The rest is up to divine intervention.”

That statement from a doctor we consulted while looking into fertility options says it all.  We are not in control.  God is.  He is the one writing this story. 

Sometimes I forget that.  I forget who is in control.  I forget I am in a larger story.  

I’m reminded of the Will Farrell film Stranger Than Fiction, where his character finds out his life is being dictated by an author (Emma Thompson) writing a novel.  When he discovers she has a beautifully tragic end planned for him, he naturally gets upset and tries to pursuade her to change the plot.  In case you haven’t seen it I won’t reveal what happens, but what strikes me is the plot, the story, the ending…it all depends on the author.

Last year Jenny and I watched the movie, Up, which we really enjoyed.  But the opening few scenes were terribly sad and heart-wrenching.  If you’ve seen it, you’ll know why it was so hard for Jenny and why she cried her way through the first 15 minutes.

She said later that she almost asked if we could leave because it was so hard for her to watch.  The only thing that kept her there was the thought, “No, this is a movie.  And if I know anything about movies it is that they end well.  There must be a redemptive ending.”

We all know that intuitively.  A good story by a good author has a good ending.  There will be redemption.

But for that to happen there must also be pain, tension, and frustration.  A good author knows that redemption means something being redeemed.  And a really good author brings it about in unexpected ways.

I know life is not a movie.  But it is a story.  With an Author.  And I need to remember that this Author is good.

I don’t know what God has in store for us.  And I am tempted by the same thought as Janner in The Wingfeather Saga (which I have really loved), who in the midst of a dark situation thinks about the stories he’s read.  He knows they always turn out alright, but he also knows real life doesn’t always turn out like those books. 

But, we know he’s in a story (brilliantly done!).  So we know it ends well.

The ending of a story all depends on the  author.  And this Author is good.  So we trust and we wait.

Bottom of the Ninth

It has been a tough year for us.  As you may know, we’ve been struggling with infertility for quite awhile, meeting with fertility specialists over the last several months.  We are facing the realization that we may not be able to have biological children.  That in itself is difficult.  What has made it even harder is going through this while in a spiritual desert, not feeling the intimate presence of God as we have in the past.  We know the greater gift is not children,  but God Himself.  Right now it feels like we have neither. 

We know that God often uses pain, suffering, and “shattered dreams” as Larry Crabb puts it, to allow us to experience more of Him.  It just doesn’t happen on our timeline all the time.  So we continue to seek Jesus and ask for His peace, joy, and comfort.  We seek more of our Savior.  We are holding onto hope, but we know there is an enemy who desperately wants us to give up.  He wants us to feel defeated, to think God isn’t there or doesn’t care.  He wants us to despair and see hope as pointless.  So, we must fight.  We fight to remain hopeful, not just for children, but that God will turn our mourning into dancing and we would experience more of His depths.

And amazingly God brings us reminders not to lose hope in many places in our world.  If we are not paying attention we can miss these opportunities in everyday life to connect with God’s heart.  That’s really the purpose behind everything we experience.  To see more of God.  The sports world provides plenty of those windows and last week was an incredible picture to me of hope when hope seemed gone.

I’m a baseball fan.  I enjoy all sports, but baseball is the one for me.  My first love, if you will.  One of the most beautiful things about baseball to me is that until the final out there is always hope…no matter the deficit, if you keep getting hits anything can happen.  So, you can imagine that last Wednesday night was one of the most enjoyable to this point in my life (not just as a Cardinals fan…sorry Braves…but as a fan of baseball in general, too).  

In case you don’t follow baseball, on the final day of the season there were two teams tied in each league for the final playoff spot (Braves & Cards in NL, Red Sox & Rays in AL).  At the beginning of the month the Braves and Red Sox led by 8 1/2 and 9 games, respectively.  No teams in the history of baseball had ever come back to make the playoffs after being behind that many games with that little time.  In so many words, it was an almost impossible task for the Rays and Cardinals.  Almost. 

Then over the course of the last three weeks they caught fire while the Sox and Braves slumped (this of course is not a story of hope from their points of view).  Finally it came down to the last day to see who would be in or out.  What drama!

The Cardinals took care of their part easily but had to wait for the Braves-Phillies game to end to learn their fate.  Atlanta led 3-1 late and had the best bullpen in the majors ready to close things down.  Not the best odds for STL.  But the Braves struggled once again and with the score 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth, their dominant closer gave up the tying run.  Four innings later the Phillies scored again and the Cardinals were in the playoffs.  They had been dead just one month earlier.  Now they had pulled off a comeback from the most games in baseball history.  That record did not stand long…

The Tampa Bay Rays, with a .1% chance of making the playoffs in early Sept, had fought back from 9 games down to tie going into the last day, but after falling behind the powerful Yankees 7-0 early things did not look promising, especially seeing on the scoreboard that Boston was up 3-2 toward the end of the other game.  By the time the last half of the eighth inning began with the Rays still down 7-0 many fans had left the ballpark.  By the end of that inning the lead had been cut to 1, 7-6.  Hope rekindled.

After a couple quick outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Rays brought in a seldom used hitter with little success this year.  Literally there were pitchers with better batting numbers this season.  Not a great recipe for hope.  But with two strikes he drilled a homerun down the line to tie up the game. Unbelievable!  So the game went to extra innings.

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, the Orioles were down to their final out, still losing 3-2 with the Red Sox intimidating closer overpowering the first two hitters.  Then, a double.  And another…with two strikes. Game tied.  Finally, a line drive just out of reach of the left fielder and the Orioles won.  The Red Sox were in disbelief, but turned their attention to Tampa to see if they would have another chance the next day.

Three minutes later they found out as the Rays hit another homerun with two strikes in the twelveth inning.  They came back from 7 runs back, down to their final strike, and did it!  From 9 games back in less than a month and little hope of making up the ground…on the season or in the game. 

The bottom of the ninth in three games decided the outcome of two teams coming back from incredible odds…previously insurmoutable odds in the 140+ years of baseball.  Things did not look good for them on September 1st.  Or with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.  But there was still a final out.  There was still hope.  They did not give up hope.  They fought.  They held on.

I love that.  It doesn’t mean that always happens.  That is certainly not the case.  But it reminds me to hope.  And to fight the lies of the enemy that tell me to give up.  Because we fight a much more important battle.  And we have a God of hope, as Paul says in Romans 15.  He is a good God, who longs to give good gifts to His children.  We don’t always know what is good or best for us, or what He has planned, but we can trust that our Father loves us and desires us to experience Him.  God has promised that when we seek Him we will find Him.  It just may not look how we expect.

Lately it has felt like the bottom of the ninth.  We’re down a few runs and it hasn’t looked good.  But the last out has not been recorded.  So we hope and we fight.  We will not give up.  We trust God will show up.  He is the God of hope.

Last week just reminded me of that in a small way.  I think that is one reason we love sports.  At least it is one reason I do.