Only God can turn a bogey into a hole in one!

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Mary Wagner (author), her daughter Haley, and Haley’s high school golf coach, Scott Martin

By: Mary Wagner (Johnson City office manager)

My daughter Haley is a very blessed golfer.  She is a 3.9 GPA student and has worked very hard on her athletics.  She is now in her senior year and this summer she started receiving offers from college coaches to play golf. Full scholarship offers are very few and far between and reserved for the very elite.  Denny and I have very (and I mean very) little saved for college.  I began feeling quite stressed knowing that this time was upon us and, due to my lack of financial responsibility, sending to Haley to college seemed impossible.

We are huge Virginia Tech fans.  Denny went to college at VT on a baseball scholarship.  Haley has dreamed of following in her father’s footsteps since she was a wee little girl.  Virginia Tech announced they would start a women’s golf program with the first recruits coming from the class of 2014!  The head coach was named and she sent Haley an email!  She asked Haley to come to VT and be part of history as one of the first women’s golfers in Tech history.  The offer came with no scholarship.  Haley was thrilled and told the coach she would work hard to earn a scholarship and VT was her first choice.  Pressure increased realizing that we could be staring at $25k/yr or more for tuition/room&board/books/meal plan, etc.  I knew that I had to turn this situation over to God and ask that His will be done in Haley’s life.  I trusted in Him that if Haley was meant to go to VT, He would make the way financially.  Doors started opening in that financial aspect.

Haley continued working hard on her game and started shooting 2-3 over or under par each time she teed off.  Things were looking good and we were optimistic that VT would offer something with her numbers getting better.  Haley scheduled a visit to meet the coach, view the facilities, and tour the campus.  Five days before we were set to visit, the coach sent Haley an email telling her she thought it was best for Haley to consider her other options as she had finalized all the players she was taking from the class of 2014.  Oh, the array of emotions we all felt with the jab of that email…disappointment, hurt, resentment, anger, etc.  OUR COLLEGE just rejected MY DAUGHTER!  I was very upset at first.  As soon as I quit thinking of myself and found my solace in GOD and got on my knees, I felt the peace fill my heart.  I knew then that Virginia Tech wasn’t the place for Haley.

The same evening we got the email from the VT coach, another coach called Haley.  Rachel Ingram, a Jonesborough, TN girl, had just been named to head coach job at Samford University, a Christian College, in Birmingham, AL.  She wanted Haley…BAD!  Rachel built Haley up and told her all the things that helped her heal quickly from the disappointment she had just suffered.  We visited Samford and the scholarship offer made was affordable for Denny and me.  Denny received that promotion that opened when I placed trust and faith in God!  Haley recently committed to Samford and will be a member of The Lady Bulldog Golf Team!  I know that God made the way for all these things to come together.  GOD is GOOD all the time and when I turned this situation over to Him and trusted His will for Haley’s future, I saw things start happening that through me was never possible!

Haley’s favorite verse is very fitting:

Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.’ Mark 10:27

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