By Dane Terrell

I wept today. 350 pounds of slobbering, blubbering, despair. It was the end of a season. Not just the end of a softball season, we had seen many of those before. This was the end of a life season. My oldest daughter had thrown her last pitch, in her last game.

We had caught the softball bug at least a decade earlier. If you have ever been there, you know. It means early mornings, and late nights. It means practices, and then practices after the practices. It sounds cliché, but when a softball parent tells you there has been blood, sweat, and tears, know that they are leaving out the really hard stuff. This was our life for a decade. This was our afternoons, our weekends, and our summer vacations.

Along with all of the hard days, there were also some of our greatest. There were the game moments: that first “game ball”, that first tournament win, that first home-run, that first no-hitter. Then there were non-game moments. That trip up the mountain where we had to turn around because I was afraid of heights, our youngest was crying because she thought we would die, and the grandparents couldn’t breathe because they were laughing so hard. That post game dinner at the beach where the crazy great-grandmother had us all in tears and every eye in the restaurant was on us. The hour long photo session with our softball bestie, and the extended family that we picked up along the way. The Edge family, the Titan Family, and the Lady Chief family.

I was thinking about all of this as I laid in the bed, completely inconsolable. Then, as he does for his people when they need him, Jesus reached out to me. He reminded me of Ecclesiastes 3, the chapter about seasons. Most have heard this verse before, even if they don’t spend much time with the Old Testament. All you have to do is play Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds. Outside of the title, the 1965 number one hit follows verses 1-8, almost word for word.

A peace came over me through those words. What did I have to be sad about? I was blessed to be able to watch my daughter do something that she truly loved. It was never REALLY about that little yellow ball. It was about the time we all got to spend together. It was about all of those experiences that we couldn’t have gotten anywhere else, doing anything else, with anyone else. We don’t mourn for the acorn that becomes the mighty oak. Why should I be sad that the little girl that picked up that ball so long ago was gone and in her place stood a strong, confident, hard-working, young woman. This wasn’t a time to mourn, it was time to dance. A time to laugh, not a time to weep. A time for peace, and a time to Turn, Turn, Turn the page to the next life chapter. I can’t wait to see what happens next…