Picking Up My Shattered Pieces

By every indication, Gina Pastore was enjoying the fruits of a long marriage after raising two children who were married with their own families. She and her husband, Frank, were childhood sweethearts whose lives unfolded like a Hollywood movie: he found fame as a star pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds; she tended to the home fires with a son and daughter. It was during Frank's big league career that they both realized something was missing in their lives. After teammate Johnny Bench sternly reminded Frank not to get too cocky "because you're always one pitch from humility," they turned their priorities from materialism to the things in life that really matter: God, family, and integrity. When Frank was out of baseball, he decided to go into ministry, earning two master's degrees in philosophy and theology, but even such a noble pursuit had its difficulties as Frank and Gina would come to realize that deception and dysfunction exist even in Christian circles. In 2003, though, Frank got a break and became the host of the Frank Pastore Show on KKLA, the major Christian radio station in Los Angeles. He proved to be an excellent talk show host as well as a skilled interviewer and an astute commentator of current events. His Monday-through-Friday radio program quickly became popular in Southern California, leading to numerous speaking requests from churches to speak on Sunday mornings, accompanied by Gina. And then on a November afternoonwhile commuting home on his Honda VTX 1800 motorcycle following his showtheir lives changed forever in an instant. What follows is Gina's account of the "rest of the story"and a reminder that in times of trouble and tribulation, God calls us to persevere and trust in His plan for our future.