Wednesday, March 21, 2007

We have direction!

After much prayer, encouragement from friends and family, and advice from a trusted mentor, Brian has decided to play another year of baseball! He verbally committed to play for an independent team in Somerset, NJ. You can check it out at www.somersetpatriots.com. Our plans are not finalized. Brian still has to sign the contract, but we're pretty sure this is the direction the Lord is leading us. We have no idea yet what our living arrangements will be either. We've heard of a good host family that may be willing to have us. They live in Lakewood, NJ which is about 40 minutes away from the baseball field. The other option is to live in a hotel for the summer! I'm kind of hoping that the host family situation will work out. One of our good friends (former teammate of Brian) lived with this family a few years ago, and he said they are wonderful.

Brian will leave for a short spring training (10 days) in Florida around April 22. Then the season starts on May 4th!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Good Birthday

My birthday was almost a week ago (March 9th), and I'm finally getting around to "blogging" about it. It was a good one! Brian made me feel special by dragging out the birthday celebrations over the course of 2 days. We went and ate at a really great sushi place in Charlotte called Nikko. It's definitely my new favorite! (Does anyone else find it funny that I dislike shrimp, but love sushi?) Anyway, my day was also flooded with calls/messages from friends and family. I love it when my family calls and sings happy birthday on my voicemail. It's just hilarious - inevitably someone is giggling as they sing, or singing much louder than everyone else, or in my little nephew's case - making up thier own version of song. I kept the "happy birthday" voicemails on my phone for a few days after March 9th, just so I could listen and laugh again!

Birthdays were always extremely exciting for me until this year. All of the sudden when this 27th birthday arrived I became distinctly more aware of my biological clock. For the first time in my life, I wasn't happy about being a year older. I guess that's how it will be from here on out! I truly thought I wouldn't hit that wall until I was 30 or 40, but I guess I hit it a little early! Not to say I don't enjoy life, or am afraid of getting older - that's not the case. I'm just not excited about the wrinkles forming under my eyes!

Saturday, March 03, 2007

The Desert is Hot

The past couple of weeks have been somewhat of a rough ride for Brian and I. As most of you know, he went down to Florida to tryout for the Phillies. He pitched very well, but was not offered a contract. (I'll spare you the details for now, but suffice it to say it was definitely NOT God's will for Brian to be with the Phillies). He stayed down there a few extra days and also threw for the Dodgers. They seemed far more impressed than the Phillies did, and expressed a lot of interest in Brian. But after evaluating their teams, they discovered they had no room to add another player to the roster. Then the Mainers said they wanted to see him pitch too, but have never called to follow up. So we're back at square one . . . frustrated that we're still stuck in Charlotte when spring training has already started, and we have no job for the upcoming season. We go back and forth: should Brian keep playing, should he not, is God telling us it's time to do something else, is he not? We have no idea.

Because Brian pitched so well during both of his tryouts (and the Dodgers were so encouraging and complimentary), it makes it hard for him to say, "well, I'm just not good enough, maybe I should try a different career." And so we're at a point where we believe he is good enough, but the opportunities are not there. So is God calling us to wait in faith for an opportunity, or take the hint and move on to a different career? I lean towards the waiting in faith, but I'm still not sure it's the right decision. And it's hard. Waiting is hard. Having faith is hard too sometimes. Over the past two weeks I've experienced humility, frustration, confusion, and disappointment like never before. And while I have no idea what God is doing with our lives, I'm certain that He is using the journey to sanctify us. I am confident that at some point I will truly be thankful, and appreciate God taking us through this hard time. It is forcing/teaching me to trust Him, depend on Him, and have faith in Him. But for now, the desert is hot, and I'm hoping there's an oasis in sight soon - just feeling like I need a little break for water if you know what I mean.