Painful Preparation

This is a title from July 7 in the meditational book GOD CALLING; When I read it on July7,2008, I was barely walking, talking or breathing. The grief that I felt from the loss of Billy was something that I never could have understood or described before. I felt like my heart had been cut in half. We shared every day, all of our thoughts, fears, prayers, joys. How did God expect me to survive without him? Then I read this meditation."Help and peace and joy are here. Your courage will be rewarded. Painful as this time is you will both one day see the reason of it, and see too that it was not cruel testing, but tender preparation for the wonderful life-work you are both to do. Try to realize that your own prayers are being most wonderfully answered. Answered in a way that seems painful to you, but that just now is the only way. Success in the temporal world would not satisfy you. Great success, in both temporal and spiritual worlds awaits you. I know you will see this had to be." This didn't take me through the grief but it gave me encouragement that there was something that I was supposed to do and somehow Billy would be apart of it.

When Billy wrote this book in 2006, he tried to get it published. He didn't have much success so he decided to put it away and work on it later. His later was interrupted by the distractions and relationships that we all face. So in the fall of 2008, Brad and I began to pray about someone to help publish this book. We signed a contract with CSN Books in January,2009. They said the process would take 3-4 months. I really wanted the book out for baseball season. I just knew young and old baseball fans would really want to read it. Baseball season came.....and went. "OK, GOD! Please give me the book for the anniversary of Billy's going home to you" That date came...and went. Five weeks later on July 7,2009, a large truck drove in my driveway and delivered 2000 copies of Dad's Lessons from the Sandlot by Billy Crain. I know this is only the beginning of what God was telling me that " one day I will see this had to be."
God continues to tell us to remember HIS faithfulness in our stories and then we will be able to face the pain or confusion of today.