Netball star shares her personal cross in podcast interview

Mrs Winders spoke about her faith, family and netball journeys with host Joanna Kearney in the latest episode of the Catholic Kiwi Podcast.

Mrs Winders, whose connection with netball continues through her role with Netball New Zealand, married her husband Joe, a Southland shearer, when she was 24.

“Both of us had beautiful role models in our parents, beautiful married couples who have gone through the trials of life, but every day still choose each other, 30 years plus later, as well as grandparents and aunties and uncles who’ve done the same. So we knew marriage was important,” she said.

From an early age, Mrs Winders felt a “really amazing call to motherhood”. She said she is “blessed with a husband who felt the same early on”.

When they were married, “. . . I thought, here we go, God. But as we know, life doesn’t always turn out the way that you have envisioned, and that’s where leaning on Jesus is so helpful.”

Mrs Winders said “for us it’s been almost seven years of marriage now, sitting in that space can be really, really trying, but in no way would I ever want this to define my life. It’s just a season that we’re going through”.

“I don’t ever want to talk about it in a way that people feel sorry for us, which I think a lot of people do,” she added. “And my heart goes out to people who are suffering this cross, and who desperately want children, and who know they would be great parents and haven’t been gifted them. So my heart totally goes out to them, because I understand.”

She has prayed to the Lord about it, and after prayer the sense she has is “don’t worry, don’t be afraid, trust in me”.

“. . . Christianity in general is calling us to surrender our lives to God and trust that he will take care of us.”

Mrs Winders and her husband have been “pointed in the direction of in vitro fertilisation more than once”.

“For us, what we believe is life starts at conception,” she said.

“And so, if we value human life at all ages and stages of life, then an embryo is a human person and they deserve the rights and the respect that any other human being would get. And so, for us to get on board with a practice that discards embryos or grades and disposes of them based on family size numbers or what worked and what didn’t, that would be really challenging for us to put two and two together.”

Children are a gift, she said. They’re not a right.

“ . . . [T]he sufferings that I’ve had, whether that was, is our season of infertility, whether it’s the highs and lows of netball, getting dropped from teams, getting benched, injuries, you know, all those sufferings have drawn me closer to God.”

Living in Rotorua where she was raised, Mrs Winders helps out and leads the youth group at St Mary’s parish. She spoke about that ministry in the interview.

Among other subjects covered in the conversations were Mrs Winders’ experiences transitioning from school and home to university, saying grace before meals, and learning and reading about the faith.

FULL STORY

Catholic Kiwi Podcast: Season 2, Episode 12 – Sam Winders (YouTube)