Unfolding Short Stories: "Mom was number one in the world in tennis." Cindy Brinker Simmons

The Unfolding

Northwestern Media

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cindy Brinker Simmons opens up about her journey through grief, and not staying stuck in it. Losing her mother, tennis legend Maureen Connolly, to cancer at a young age, Cindy thought God hated her, but eventually found that God loved her deeply. She shares how this profound spiritual transformation gave her strength to face further hardships, including her husband’s cancer battle. Cindy emphasizes the importance of choosing joy amidst adversity, building supportive relationships, and turning grief into purpose. As the founder of Wipe Out Kids Cancer, Cindy reflects on how her trials sharpened her focus on helping others, reminding us that even in life’s darkest moments, we can find restoration and hope. In her book, Restored: Reconnecting Life's Broken Pieces, she explores how God uses trials to refine us for a greater purpose.

Transcript

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0:00.0	God's story, your life.
0:06.1	Unfolding short stories.
0:11.3	I'm Cindy Brinker Simmons, and when I was 12 years old, I was seated on a very uncomfortable
0:17.5	pew seat in church next to my 10-year-old sister Brenda, to my left and my
0:24.0	wonderful dad to my right. And we had just buried my mom. Oh, it was such a hard time for the
0:30.8	Brinker family. We had lost the joy that was the energy of our family. And not only were we grieving, but the entire world was grieving with us
0:41.3	because even though Mom was just known to Brendan Mears' mom,
0:45.1	she was known to her adoring public in the 1950s
0:48.6	as the tennis champion, Maureen Conley, also known as Little Moe.
0:54.5	Mom was number one in the world in tennis in 1952, 53, and 54.
0:59.3	She won Willowden three times in a row.
1:02.1	And she was the first woman and still the only American woman today to win the
1:05.6	calendar grand slam, which is winning the Australian, French,
1:08.5	Wimbledon, and US championships in one calendar year. She accomplished
1:12.1	that in 1953, and she was only 18 years old at the time. Just to even put in perspective,
1:19.7	only five players in tennis have ever won the Calder Grand Slam. In her last year of competitive
1:25.7	play, Mom didn't even lose a tennis match. But unfortunately,
1:30.2	there was one opponent she couldn't beat, and it was cancer. And there we were, having just buried
1:36.4	this beautiful, talented mom and wife. And I really thought that God hated me. I thought, for some
1:44.1	reason, I had done something so bad,
1:46.0	so terrible, so unforgiving that I was incurring the wrath
1:50.7	of an angry God.
	...

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