Life and Love... My View...

Hi y'all...
I'm feeling a bit more chipper after my last whining session... Terri, who had to endure a THIRD surgery while she was in hospital, was finally able to come home from the hospital and is one hurting girl. But hopefully, this will be the last of it and maybe she can heal and try to live... wow... LIVE... what a concept! Me, I'm doing okay. I've run across some people who've helped me realize just how fortunate I am and how fragile life can be. I seen a couple of severely handicapped kids and it almost moved me to tears. I am usually one of the most cold and cynical people on the planet... But this really affected me. I would always say a quick prayer for folks like this, but I was really bothered because in my head I was thinking "Lord, why? What did they do to deserve this?" But the answer hit me almost immediately: "they didn't do anything to deserve this." No one ever said life was fair. And seeing these precious kids made me realize that I can pine about how unfair it is. Or I can be grateful for every day of life that I'm given. Either way, it's not going to change their predicament per se'... But maybe, just maybe... I'm the one learning the lesson here. They seemed to be happy and were well taken care of by some good-hearted (read: Angelic) people. And what popped into my head and my heart was the fact that I learned more about what genuine love is from five minutes in front of these kids than I ever could teach or show someone else.
Speaking of showing love, I got to spend three hours with my beloved gal pal in the middle of a mall food court in Cincinnati on Valentine's day weekend. We just sat there and talked and talked. I learn more and more about love from her than I could ever show her. She thinks I'm the greatest guy but truth be told, she is the greatest and God put that dear woman in my life to keep me from completely sinking when I was feeling low. She is such a loving, warm and caring creature. I gave her a few goodies for Valentine's day, including a card that was almost as big as she is... lol...

Just Passing Through

Where to begin... in the last 2 weeks, 2 people from work passed away unexpectedly. Both were very nice people and though they worked in different departments, I dealt with both. Then Terri shoots me a text saying that an aunt of ours and a cousin of ours that we knew growing up also passed away. I hadn't seen them in quite some time. But I remember them fondly. It was like a part of my childhood drifted away. I guess that's part of life. When people you remember from your youth start dying, it not only reminds you of how fragile life can be, but it gets you thinking about people you used to know, people you loved, people you couldn't stand (lol), most of these folks I haven't seen in years. And yet when I hear of someone passing, it takes me back to a completely different time. I was reading in the paper the other day that one of my favorite music artists passed away as they found him in his motel room. He'd had a heart attack. His music was pretty much the sound track of my youth. (His name was Gary Moore and he'd played in the band Thin Lizzy) I guess the reason I'm writing about all these folks passing is because they all happened in the same time frame. And I guess it got me thinking about my own mortality. Strange how that works... Tomorrow would've been my mom's birthday. I guess it all falls together like that for a reason. On the still alive front, Terri is going back into the hospital for more surgery. They found some infected tissue in her chest and they need to take it out pronto. So hopefully this one won't be as traumatic as the last one. I'll keep in touch and let you know how it goes...

A Word About God... and synthesized pop music!

It's been a while now that you've read what I've written for over the last six years. Most of it about my goofy self or my family's struggles. The day after my first entry, my father went to Heaven. What a start... And then we can't forget the bizarre and weird time that was an ex-girlfriend and the nonsense there. But then came the slow development of my faith. Still not completely understanding it all, but knowing that there was something better and I wanted to find it. Then when I thought I was meant to be alone, God put an absolute angel in my path that simply rocked my world. When I thought that my heart was nothing but shredded raw hamburger, she completely turned my world upside down and my heart was not only healed, but restored and came roaring back to life. But God has a sense of humor as it had to happen under the wackiest of circumstances. Then the focus shifted back to my family, in particular, their health. It seemed like every time we would take one step forward, one of us would get knocked two steps back. Reoccurring tumors with Terri. Lou literally getting knocked senseless and suffering from some memory loss to this day. The sucker-punch of Angie finding out that she had breast cancer and her subsequent double mastectomy. Not to be outdone, Terri finds out that she had to have a double mastectomy herself and last Monday, she went under the knife. Now afterwards, they were worried about finding more tumors and that they may have spread. As of this writing, no new tumors have been found. No spreading of the others either. So right now, she's in a bit of a holding pattern. During this whole enchilada, (an a.d.d. moment- what is it with me and food?) I found myself wondering why God allowed this to happen to our family like this. I've never doubted His having a purpose for all of this, but in my mind I kept thinking "when is enough, enough?" I'm sure there's always going to be more peaks and valleys that we all will go through. I kept telling myself to just believe. Love God, I'd tell myself, and He would see us through it. So I did... I tried to do all the right things including prayer. I did them with my heart and yet there were times that I felt something was missing. I couldn't put my finger on it. Then, when Terri sent me that text saying the pathology report came back negative, she was so grateful. "God is so awesome" she said. I told my gal pal the good news and she was thrilled. Later, I said goodnight to her and expected to go to sleep because I had to go to work in the morning. But I couldn't sleep. Something was gnawing at me on the inside. So while I was looking at some classic rock videos on You Tube, I was watching a video of a Christian rock band (Petra) and it was at this point that it hit me... It's in the middle of the night and it finally became clear to me. The reason that I felt out of sorts over all of this was that I felt like a doorknob. I wanted to be really mad at Him for allowing this stuff to happen to my family but couldn't bring myself to do that. I was frustrated with everything but I knew it wasn't His fault. But I still wanted to be po'd and figured that He was the only one who could understand. I didn't lash out but it was hard for me to acknowledge my Savior and say "I love you God" when I was feeling so distressed. But finally, through all of this, with a simple text from my sister, and while listening to an over-produced cheesy keyboard laden pop tune, I felt the desire to look up and give thanks and tell God that I loved Him. Not because I had to... because I wanted to. I remembered that He understands our frustration and it's okay to be disappointed and a little ticked. He's been in my shoes and has gone through far more than I will ever know. More than I can ever thank Him for... He wants me to love Him... I love you God... cheesey, awful pop music optional! And then I slept like a baby... And woke up to a lovely beautiful SNOWSTORM!!! Like I said, God has a sense of humor.