Faith in God defining Life not Death

By Angela Busch

Few quick words of introduction: Pastor Dana is in New Orleans this week for the ELCA National Youth Gathering, so she asked me, her current roommate and a future seminary student this fall at Luther, to do this week's blog. I'll do my best to fill her shoes!

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I currently work as a sports reporter for the Naples Daily News, and one of my most frequent assignments has been NFL running back Edgerrin James. He's a native of nearby Immokalee, Fla., and this year James became the first Collier County product to play in a Super Bowl. It was a Big Deal, and I spent the whole Super Bowl week and game following James around and learning all about him. He's had quite a football career -- 4-time All-Pro selection, 11th on the alltime NFL rushing list -- but in his past he was known as quite a thug. James played his college football for the rough-'n'-tumble University of Miami back in the late '90s, and few people got to see the family side of him that's well-known throughout Southwest Florida, especially in his beloved Immokalee.

Probably because I'm his hometown reporter, so to speak, and James still spends a lot of time back in Immokalee and Florida in general, I've been lucky enough to start to see that side of him. But yesterday I got a much closer glimpse -- and one that made me think about faith and what it can mean for our lives.

James and his four children suffered a tragic loss last April -- his longtime girlfriend and children's mother, Andia Wilson, died of leukemia. He said he took the loss hard, after having spent every free moment of the 2008 football season at the hospital at Andia's bedside.

Yesterday, James made what was his first really public appearance after Andia's death, and after his requested release was granted from the Arizona Cardinals, making him an NFL free agent for really the first time in his 10-year NFL career.

This wasn't a typical public appearance, though. Instead, with the local Parks and Recreation department, James hosted a free football camp for kids ages 6 and up, from 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. at the Immokalee Sports Complex. Of course, it turned into sort of a media frenzy, especially because James brought a few University of Miami and fellow NFL players with him. Most of the reporters at the camp wanted to talk about James' future and where he might play. I needed to get this information for our paper, too, but what really made me listen was when James started talking about dealing with Andia's death.

Finally, shaking his head, he said: "But when you believe in God, well, you know she's in a better place."

I'm not sure what role faith has played in James' life. I've never talked about it with him. But clearly, his faith was giving him a positive, healthy way to deal with the death of a person he'd loved very much. We see this often throughout our lives. When someone dies, people turn to their faith. God, and faith, are at least partial answers to the mystery of death. Faith defines the way we look at death, many times. And using faith to understand death is important.

To me the more important thing, though, is making God and our faith define our lives -- not only the deaths in our lives. When someone dies, people often recognize God's immense power. They give Him the role He belongs in -- they give Him the power to change things for the better and execute a plan that we may never understand.

What if we gave God that power not only in death but in life? What if, instead of simply saying: Because I believe in God, I know that (he or she) has not died in vain, we would say: Because I believe in God, I know I am not LIVING in vain!

This week, I am going to try -- hopefully not in vain -- to put that into practice, to use my belief in God as a definer for my life, in the same way that we allow God's power to define death. What changes could this make in our lives? I am excited to see.