Milwaukee: A God Forsaken City?

When Marc and I discovered on Monday that the Cleveland Indians would be playing their home opening series in Milwaukee's dome due to Ohio's snow storms, we got an idea.

Tickets were only $10. Neither of us have watched a game at Milwaukee's new(er) ballpark. We love baseball (even if it is the Angels and the Indians). And we'd get to brag to Cleveland fan Doug V that we saw his team in 2007 before he did.

How cool would it be to just spontaneously drive to Wisconsin to watch baseball? Like Marc said, it would be one of those things that we could say of later, "Remember the time we watched a Cleveland home game in Wisconsin?" How many people can say they saw two teams play a series ina totally unrelated city? That's pretty cool.

We discussed the plan Monday night at a very fun friend group dinner at P.F. Chang's to celebrate the birthdays of Marc, Sara and Charissa. The games were scheduled for Tuesday night, Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon. We decided Wednesday was best all around for our schedules.

This is where God intervened.

We were all set to go on Wednesday (I even had poster board for our funny signs: "Can I Run the Sausage Race?" and "Angels? Indians? We're here for cheap baseball.")

But we had to keep a careful eye on Milwaukee weather. They were under a winter storm warning. We still thought we'd go. They had 5.6 inches by 4 and more was just hitting. We were on the fence. The state roads commission was recommending people stay in their homes. We started thinking this might not work out so hot. All the roads we needed to take were apparently "snow covered and slippery."

And then, Marc and I surrendered the dream. We wouldn't get our "Remember When" moment.

I joked to Marc that God just didn't want us to go. But in seriousness, I've come to believe that God communicates his will through open or closed doors. If we look for his guidance, he shows us his path with easy roads or one of constant obstacles. If something feels like forcing a square peg in a round hole, God's trying to tell you something. If it just somehow clicks, he's showing you a way that he's blessing.

With how we kept finding bad news about Milwaukee weather, it'd didn't seem like the door was very open.

But then Marc had a new idea: The Thursday day game. Now we could say, "Remember the time we took vacation days just to drive to Wisconsin to see cheap baseball played by teams we don't care about?"

We took vacation days. We made our plans. And I arrived at Marc's house at 9 a.m. today. I walked in as he said, "God doesn't want us to go to Milwaukee." I feared it was more weather issues. Instead, he told me that the daycare had called. His son had a 102 temp. Someone had to go pick up and bring home the sick little guy.

That's when the dream died. Marc was a good dad. And I got to save a vacation day and attend a work lunch that I would have been ditching to go to the game.

Oh well. It just proves that God was keeping us from Milwaukee for some reason. With such a succession of clearly closed doors, I think it means that he really hates Wisconsin. Or the Cleveland Indians.