Watching Eric's game from afar...

I have blogged about Eric s baseball team playing against David Douglas before. No coaches were ejected tonight...pretty dull on that front. We won 22-1. The battle tonight was finding an accessible place to watch.

Jodie and I have more accessibility challenges than last time we were there.

Jodie is in a power chair now...not quite full time, but close. I am using my scooter more. Needless to say, we did not crawl through the fence to get to the field this time. We were sitting outside the fence, kind of in someone's side yard. We would have moved if we were asked, or submitted to police if arrested. We were about 50 ft or more from the game.

Jodie was yelling her fool head off for all the kids on our team, as she always does. She was also testing the new leg lifting and reclining features that were added to her chair today.

We had to go over some uneven, soft ground to get to our viewing perch.

I headed for the van when the game was over. Jodie was stuck; she waited for Eric to help her.

Cars were parked in all different angles on this narrow road...getting to the van was a trick! I got to the van and there was a truck parked too close to the back; not enough room to let down the lift. A mom from the other team went to find out whose truck it was.

Turned out it was Byron's, Tucker's dad. Tucker is a classmate of Eric's. Byron came and backed the truck up, then he ran the lift and helped me get my scooter in the van.

Eric was having trouble pushing Jodie over the soft ground. Byron started to help push. It was a Rockwell moment: Byron got Jodie's chair going, Jodie's legs were bouncing up in the air. She went faster and faster, with Byron hanging on to the back of her chair, with his legs flying as they tried to keep up!

Jodie and I try not to make other people deal with our disability. It's our cross and we try to bear it with grace.

But more times than not, God laughs at our stubborn independence and makes us see that we are part of His cast of characters, an d not the other way around.

God does not make hard stuff go away. My cross is your cross, your cross is my cross.

We are God's cast of characters.