Eclipsed By The Son

I walk with a Father that loves me. I stumble He picks me up. He lets me learn by my mistakes. I ask for treasures concerning the soul, He has me earn them, and is willing to give freely. He opens my eyes to the beauty of the day even when storm clouds surround me. He keeps a thorn in my side to remind me of my life away from Him. He never promised me an easy walk, but He has promised me nothing more then I can handle while I am with Him. He has given me a choice to live for Him or to be pulled into a world that does not understand His love and what love truly is. I am eclipsed by the Son, knowing fully that I do not deserve to be, that is love that we cannot fathom.

I throw temper tantrums at my Fathers feet because He does not treat me right or give me the things I think I deserve. All the time patiently waiting for me to stop and take a deep breath to understand that He has given me what I need and more then I deserve. He has treated me more then fair. I am His favorite, He looks down on me and says how precious I am to Him. Then He turns to others and tells them that they are His favorite and how precious they are to Him. He makes me understand that I am here just as are all His children. He lets me know that sharing His love is better then burying it and hording it for myself. Where is the joy in hiding this wonderful love?

Dark days come while on this earth, but I am eclipsed by the Son and a promise of a better life because of His light.

D.

Grandbaby and Walking Away From A Shadow

It is awesome to be a grandad. I know that I am really a step-grandad but I think that I am the closest thing to being a true grampie then she will ever know. To see pictures you will have to go over to NaNa’s site.

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I have been under attack lately, not as often as before but still experiencing the effects of my addiction. It is hellish when it hits, it is like being in a dessert with no oasis to be seen. Not even a mirage. Dying of thirst for something that you can no longer tolerate. Any liquid that you might think of to quench your thirst is poison. The last overdose I experienced was this year, out of thirst that I could no longer accept I almost took myself out of this life and out of the life of those that love me. It was a chance I was willing to take.

I heard on the local news that meth is a ‘cool addiction’. Are you kidding me? I did not see the report because it stirred something in me that I did not want to investigate. But that was the tag line that they used for the story. They showed one young adult that said he had used two times and was addicted. I had a hard time believing his story. If he did get addicted after the second time I am curious about his personality. He would have to have a very addictive personality. I would assume that he has more problems with alcohol, and other drugs.

Cocaine is not a first time addictive drug. The first time you use it actually is not that great, the second time is better, the third is better then that, until you need to do more to get that high and continue to bump until you can sustain that high. Meth is nice the first time you use it and it last longer, the second time is good also, but it is the same structure you experience with coke until you need more to sustain that high, and you do not want to crash, (come down). It is like smoking a joint, you might enjoy the first high, so you want to do it again. But marijuana is a mental addiction, meth can become a true addiction the longer and more constant the use. Heroin is a quick addiction. I have had Opium before but only two or three times, I enjoyed it but did not get addicted. Prescription pain pills, codone is a synthetic form of codeine, and I have been addicted to those because of my back. But it took months for them to become addictive and I needed higher doses to get high. Before long I overdosed on those also. I could go on about what is a quick addiction and what is not, but the thing is there are more drugs that have to be used on a constant basis to be addictive.

Before you think that I made it sound easy to experiment with drugs, even if someone does try it once they will try it again, and again until addiction does set in. But if you get paranoid about the second use and think that you are addicted then it is time to quit before true addiction sets in. Look at smoking a cigarette. Someone will begin smoking because of their peers or others that they might look up to, but the first time someone smokes it is horrible. You get dizzy and feel sick. The second time is not that much better, but the more the person hangs around and lights up every time someone else does, they get over it and are at the starting process of a smoking addiction. But even then it is easy for them to quit at an earlier time then it is if they decide to continue doing so.

I have a problem with anyone thinking that meth is a cool addiction. No addiction is cool, alcoholism is not a cool thing, any addiction is not cool. The adage goes, be careful what you wish for. I do not know what makes anyone think that addiction is anything more then what it truly is, and that is a hell that you cannot escape. Addiction=death. It separates you from your family, your friends, it causes you to die from within where nothing else matters, just a hunger for that one last hit.

I told you about the book by Brian Welch, ex-guitarist for Korn, and how he battled his addiction. How strong he was to turn his life to God, and do away with his stash. There was one part where he went back through his closet and found some more meth. He had an internal struggle that I understood. No one would know if he did it one more time and then go back to not using. Just one more time and he could continue on his journey with God. The thing is he said that he would know, not only that but God would know. So he took a picture of himself flushing it. An important moment in his step to recovery, plus his acceptance and strength in God.

I related this story to Dusty one time and to my surprise I told him how I truly felt about Brian doing that. My thought was, ‘You idiot! No one would have known and it would have been just one last time!’ After I relayed my thoughts I could not believe what was coming out of my mouth and how bad it sounded. The thing is these were my true thoughts while I read his story. I did not praise God for His glorious work, no thought of how hard that was for him to do that. No thought of celebration with this man that had stepped up and did what he knew was right. My thoughts went to how could you? I realized that speed was still my god. I had no problem with God seeing me use again if the chance came up, I made excuses to why He would accept it.

I would ignore God just to be able to turn to my new god. Not now though, my journey grows everyday, and there is something new to learn about me and my inner struggle. Which is no longer as much of a struggle as it once was, praise God. The problem I have with posers of addiction, is not that I do not believe them, I do think that they actually believe it themselves. But I also think that they are eager to be noticed as having a problem. I think that there is a danger in this, a problem deeper then a quick addiction. Looking from the outside in and seeing something ‘cool’ in others that have a problem. I am not discounting the fear of someone using pain pills, or speed once or twice. There does seem to be a paranoia of getting addicted, but if they are fearful of this then they will quit because the paranoia outweighs the enjoyment of using. The posers are different they usually open up pretty quick without apology. Bringing on more to want the lifestyle. The only thing is they are unable to talk about the hell it brings. They talk of how good it is, the short experiences that they have had. An addict is nothing to look up to, an addict lives a life where they care for nothing else but a high. Even hygiene gets in the way when one begins binging day upon day. Addicts disguise themselves from hard workers, to ‘functioning’ members of society, to despots that could care less as long as they can get it. This is where almost all addicts end up, and this is the reason they can no longer hide who they are.

Addiction is hell. Speed brings depression because of sleep deprivation for one, other factors combine also to bring different mental disabilities. I am not saying ignore these people that say they have a problem because of a couple of uses, help them. They will want to go to rehab, I have a strong feeling about rehabs. It is one of the easiest places to score. There is a good chance they will come out the worse for wear. Statistically more people return to rehab then learn from it. Get them a good counselor that will work with them. The counselor is trained to look for internal problems that cause the addiction in the first place.

When I see someone that is drinking heavy or using, I always wonder what they are escaping from. We all have our problems no doubt. But there is a deeper psychological problem with a user, drinker, over eater, etc. that calls for an escape. This is the reason I have always been careful not to glorify substance abuse. This is the reason that I go back and show you how my life was when I used and how fast it got out of control without me knowing it. I hope that you see at least two things when I talk of my past, and that is; God is always in control, and how sickly depraved that lifestyle is. What it causes. Don’t fool yourself as I did what you do today effects what you are tomorrow.

 

D.

When Two Worlds Collide

Addiction is a degrading disease. I am addicted to different things, worldly things that can keep me away from the walk that God so desires for me. But I want to talk about the obvious addiction that I have and that is the one to drugs. Do you believe that we are cursed from our ancestors? This is not a rhetorical question, there is a lot to back this up. Our genes for one, we carry genetics from our family which can date back to the beginning. Some say that this is the reason for deja-vu. When we are in a place that we strongly feel like we have been before. Or the nostalgia of a certain time and place that we are separated from by time. A time that occurred way before we or our parents were even thought of.

The sins of our fathers. Habits or sins that have been carried through generations and put forth to us as tradition are hard to break. Not to blame, but a part of our growth that we think of as ‘normal life’. I have mentioned my Gramps on my mom’s side as not being a nice man. My mom was very open about how he was and so I am. He never wanted a way out of the lifestyle that he grew to know as normal. He and his children all suffered growing with a lifestyle that was very dysfunctional. All of his children grew up and lived in their own private hell. Each with their own addiction, a way to escape what seemed to them as an abnormal life outside in the world.

My Gramps and his sons, my uncles, were alcoholics and fighters. Sometimes when my uncles would make the trip to visit us, they would show up with busted teeth and bruises from different fights that they got into on the way. My mom was never abusive and she tried to balance what she grew up with against being the best mom that she could, so we would not have to experience the things that she went through. Mom had her own private demons which I will not divulge here but she fought with them constantly. At that certain time no one could see where they came from and she was blamed for not doing what was the norm. She was loved by many, but she hid and pushed down the sins of her father.

She grew up in a time that this was not understood. Things like that should be handled with a ‘just get over it’ mentality. Some of my uncles would carry at least one gun with them wherever they went. They were cowboys, true cowboys. Cowboys are viewed as real men, gentlemen. Not all are, most aren’t. Just like any social clique there are different personalities that make up that clique and they fell into the rough and tumble stand on your own, eat or be eaten attitude. I always thought that was cool. Especially with what I was going through as a child. I liked that, get them before they get you, the thing is at the time I did not see that this is what they were doing. Taking their childhood and learning tough lessons from what they went through.

My Gramps had more then a couple of illegal operations going on, but I do not know anything about his dad or his granddad, so this might have been the only lifestyle that he had ever known. Some people say that addiction is hereditary, I could drink like a fish it is by God’s grace that I never died from alcohol poisoning, the amount I would drink is unfathomable. But in my head I disliked who my Gramps was, and I was determined to never be like him. So I would never allow myself to become an alcoholic. I would dry out for a little while, and then have drinking binges. But what I did not see at the time was my addiction growing with drugs, in fact it was not that long ago since I figured it out.

I was raised in a Christian family, even though some of it was dysfunctional you do not realize this as a child, you just assume that every family is like yours. Or at least I did. As I got older I fought against a part of my heritage that I have just recently learned to embrace. A heritage that goes back to biblical days. So that means that I have the genealogy of God, as we all do. That part that gnaws inside to do the right thing, the feeling of loneliness when we refuse to see the heritage we have in the King of Kings. When we fight against that heritage, to not be like our original, true, one and only FATHER, we become lost. Relying on how the world is accepting us now, as the sign of the times tell us how to act and not to act. Allowing the world to say when it is okay to suck it up and when the world sees the abnormalities saying okay this is a condition that needs to be looked at.

I believe that if my Gramps, his family and his families family would have accepted his true heritage he would have opened his eyes to see that the cycle needs to be broken. Allowing God to guide him into new knowledge of life. Which breaks the barrier of time between what is known and not known. For this Father guides us, the true Patriarch who knows the true world, the society that we live in. Rather that society is American, Hispanic, Philippines, Iraq, wherever it might be He understands His children. He provides us genetics that lead us to Him if we listen. We have two choices, we can be guided by our earthly heritage, or we can lean on our heavenly heritage. We can merge the two, maybe that is why we go through some things that we do. Maybe that is why we are sit down in the middle of an ancestral heritage that is littered with thief’s, prostitutes, givers, drunks, Christians, ground breakers and a King. Remind you of someone else’s heritage? Even our Church family can be dysfunctional, the only family that isn’t is the one that we are called Home to.

We learn from our earthly heritage, and it is visible which means we make the mistake of leaning on that which is seen. Our Heavenly heritage is the ever lasting heritage that is given to us through Jesus Christ our Saviour. When we learn from our ancestors and we grow into that which we know, this is not our true inheritance. When we come together with our true family face to face with our one and only Father, this is the time that we collect our inheritance. Something that we are not worthy of, and we do not deserve it, but we need to receive it, and embrace it fully. We do not pick our earthly family, but there is a reason we are put with them. We are born with a Father who longs for us to accept our relationship with Him. For Him to guide us to a truly functional family.

D.

 

Tag I am IT!

I cannot tell you how proud I am that my good friend, minister, protege, mentor Dusty has tagged me. Me, The Doug, to play along. Of course I wonder why I was number 4 instead of number 1, but I made the list none the less.

Here’s how this works…
1. The rules are posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and ask them to read your blog.

1. What I was doing 10 years ago:
drugs, and working at a video transfer company called: Video Duplicating Inc.

2. Five things on my to do list today:
1) Drive to go see my brand new spanking Granddaughter
2) Meet my brand new spanking Granddaughter.
3) Hold my brand new spanking Granddaughter
4) Drink some cappuccino.
5) Praise God for my brand new spanking Granddaughter and life.

3. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1) Build a community with a rehabilitation unit, a mental health unit for ex-addicts, homeless, and people who may not be able to afford health insurance.
2) Buy the Broncos
3) Pay everything forward for all the help that we have received.

4. Three of my bad habits:
1) Smoking.
2) Being too darn cute.
3) Popping my knuckles, neck and back.

5. Five places I have lived:
1) San Diego, CA
2) Pasadena, TX
3) In my own little world.
4) Sherwood, AR
5) Cabot, AR

6. Five jobs I have had:
1) Pool boy-sexy
2) Screen Printer for T-Shirts
3) Video transfer/Producer
4) ICS at Wal-Mart (stock boy)
5) Deliverer of ye old furniture.

Whoo that was fun. Now for me to pick my five.
1. John Dobbs
2. Donna
3. Jan-my siste
4. Bekah-my niece
5. Nee-Nee-my wife

Okay there is my list. Sure I played the nepotism card but Dusty took the others.

D.

Making Way For My God

I have seen people ready to go Home, and then when it is time they seem to want to resist a little and feel like there is so much more work to do. When in reality if God is taking them Home then their work on earth is done.

Some want to stand in the way of God and not allow the work to be done. Like God is knocking on the door and they will answer in their time because right now they are too busy listening to the world speak to them. I really expected more comments on my last post. It might be that some of you agree with me but are not sure if you should voice it or not. Some of you might have thought that my thoughts are so far off base that you did not want to comment and hurt my feelings. My skin has become thicker and my faith has become stronger. I am willing to open my ears to others and let my faith grow, but I am also willing to stand in my faith and know what God has shown and has said to me. That He has directed me to where I am now.

I know that one paragraph probably threw you, the one that I believe in ghost. There are so many questions to this. Are we in purgatory when we die, or do we go straight to Heaven? I believe that we will all rise at the end of time. Which opens the doors to other possibilities. Jesus was thought of as a ghost twice, once on the water and once when He rose from the dead. So there was knowledge or the ideas of ghost at that time. I am not asking you to believe me, it is not a saving grace if you do or do not. It is just my belief.

This leads me to making way for God. It seems that we are afraid to walk the line of what is to be believed and straying off the line away from God. If we keep in constant contact with God and open our hearts to the fact that He is GOD, then we will be shown that line. I believe in darkness and those that give themselves to that. Purposely staying away from God because in doing so there will not be fear in falling. I watch for God constantly now. He is here, He is there He is everywhere. Possible for Him, hard for us to wrap our minds around sometimes. If we do not make way for Him then we have shut the door in His face, missing out on EVERYTHING that He has to offer.

Some worry about being too judgmental about rather it was God’s work or not. Do not worry about it. If it turns out good works then God’s hand must be in it. Again I ask you, do you agree? If we worry about crossing that line then we are putting restraints on our growth. Not just our growth but God’s offering to us. If it doesn’t feel right then pray on it, God has big shoulders and an understanding of your heart and mind. If you feel like you question rather it is God or not, do not try and figure it our on your own. Pray, meditate, use your disciplines, and feel comfort in God’s presence. He will not lead you astray. Listen to your thoughts, if you are a Christian then the only way the enemy is allowed to enter is through your thoughts. Trying to fool you in believing that they are your own. Satan cannot touch you remember this. You were freed from that because of Christ love for you. Filter out the good from the bad, it will be pretty obvious most of the time. Pray about your thoughts. It is said that we are bombarded with several thousand thoughts at a time, not all are going to be good.

Some biblical scholars believe in possession. I think this is getting so far away from God and His plan for us that we allow sin to corrupt us, again from our thoughts. A fight between the world that we live in and God’s plan for us. Sometimes it is hard to give ourselves to God because it might be a difficult road for us to tow. But if God is with us, we can make it through the laughter and disbelief of others. We can make it through a loved ones death, any tragedy or struggle that we find ourselves in. I want to dress in the armour of God and allow His light to shine. I am an addict, I have non-traditional beliefs, God knows this, so if He is that important to me, His grace and views of me are all that matter. To be honest, and if I am wrong please correct me, but I am at a state that I don’t care what you think of my belief, or my habits. If I stray from what God truly wants and I find myself relying on my own thoughts, then by all means correct me.  If I offend you with my words correct me. I am not above that, and this is not what I am talking about, correction and guidance is good and needed sometimes.

I have hidden so much of my belief for fear of laughter, or ridicule that God has wiped away the sleep from my eyes. I will not cover God’s power in me any longer. If I speak of my travels and I am laughed at, or looked down upon as being an addict and my brain must be fried because of my belief, so be it. God knows my heart, though my words are inadequate to describe my heart, God is more then able. Jesus Christ is now allowed in my heart. Like I had the power to allow Him in the first place. I am happy with my growth, I am looking forward to so much more. I am looking forward to being corrected and allowing Him to tell me that I am facing the wrong direction for me to turn around and see new works that lie ahead.

I am no longer afraid to share with you my whole life. Not just the addict that I am, but my whole life. My belief system, my out look on God and His powerful hand. Rather we believe the same or not, that is not important. My walk is different than yours, it is no better then yours, nor is yours better then mine. It is where we are at during this time. As long as we are leaning on Jesus and listening, truly listening, and willing to learn to walk all over again from the starting line, waiting for a new phase to start. Hanging on to the wisdom that was given to us the last time we began. We know this time to put one foot in front of the other, we know this time we will struggle with the race, we will fall over the stones that litter the road, and we know this time we will follow the bigger path that God has started in making a way for us.

D.

God Works in Mysterious Ways

I went to the alternative medicine person yesterday. First let me say that she is an acupuncturist, who uses the energy and electrons in our bodies. Now I ask you to read this with an open mind. God is a Spirit, so to me I believe that He can work in different ways. Just as He has given the knowledge of ‘conventional’ medicine and knowledge of how the physical body works, He can also allow some people the knowledge of how the Spiritual side works.

As I explain the process you might think that I am talking about magic, which we are to stay away from. Or you might think that I am talking about a psychic, which I am not. This is more of a cleansing process I believe. We are shown in God’s word that negativity in different forms is destructive. He speaks of our heart, and we know that He is not talking about the muscle, but the spiritual side of our self. ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.’-Deut. 6:5  When we receive negativity in our lives because of looking toward the world and it’s understanding then I believe that we are missing a part of God that He longs for us to see.

We need to cleanse our self from the darkness. I have been living within the darkness, I found during my session that I repress others feelings of pain. In doing this I repress my own sorrow and take on the burdens of others also. I am like a sponge and it is about to burst. She told me things about my past that I have not told anyone. I have told Noreen almost everything, but there are things that I forgot about and the acupuncturist reminded me of these things that I had pushed so far down inside myself that I had become to think were normal and not what I would dwell on. She told me things of my past hitting on the correct years, not an estimate but the correct years that certain things occurred. You might say that she has read my blog because I am pretty open about my past. Some of the years that she hit upon have not been discussed in my blog because there are some things that I do not talk about for the public, believe it or not.

We as Christians complain about Science trying to prove or disprove God’s existence, yet we cannot open our mind to God’s wonderful power and His gifts that He gives to each of us. The gifts are all different, my gift is different then yours, her gift is different then mine, some of us still haven’t found our gifts, but may be using them without that knowledge. Why must we turn our backs on things that God does to help us in our walk? If it moves us toward Him then He must get the credit, if it moves us away from Him then it is not His work. Do you agree? They used oils to anoint and heal in biblical history, yet now we have the knowledge of other medicines so why do we turn away from the oils that were once used? Can they not co-exist? I do not remember God stating anywhere that the oils used in that time were not to be used anymore.

Something else you will laugh at is I believe in ghost. Didn’t Jesus tell the apostles that He is not a ghost? For if He was then they would be able to see through Him. I have witnessed things that I cannot explain nor do I have the knowledge to. So I believe.

My treatments are both scientific and spiritual, to work together to heal me. My surgeon has even suggested alternative medicine, he is a religious person and he believes that God can work in ways that even he does not understand. And this is coming from a doctor of scientific medicine. Some doctors think that if you believe the medicine is going to work then it will. So isn’t that faith? The grandmother that prayed for her grandson to come out of his brain dead coma and coming out of it after being pronounced dead, do you believe that the prayer was answered or must you look at it from a scientific view? We talk about faith all of the time, yet we find it hard to believe in things that we cannot explain. Are we not told that there are things that we are not meant to understand?

I will finish this with a plea that you look not with your eyes but with your heart. That all things are possible through faith in a Father who is more then able to do anything beyond our wildest imagination. Let us not put Him in our box, but allow Him to be universal. God is not an American, and works in His way not our customs.

D.

Under Construction

Well, I hope that you can tell that I am feeling better. Wednesday was a rough day, my stomach was hurting, my back was hurting, my legs were hurting, and my depression was coming out. I thought that the medicine I am on was backfiring. One day I would feel good then that night or the next day I would be either hurting or sliding back into depression. I believe that Wed. was a turning point for me because I woke up Thursday in pain, but I was noticing that I was playing on the blog again, I went to the church to get the video ready for this Sunday.  I put it together in record time for me, one hour. Partly because I sit up a template, but mostly I was feeling more energetic, less painful.

I am taking Cymbalta which not only helps with the depression but also the pain. It is used sometimes for people with Fibromyalgia, which the person that has it is in constant pain. I thought that this will be great for my back and my depression, two birds with one stone. Plus it is not a narcotic so I can take it safely. I know that it takes time to get into your system. I wake up with a backache, but it goes away as the day goes on. For the first time in a long time I am feeling well again. I am in the state of mind that when my withdraws hit, I know that they will go away. I know that this won’t take away the highs and lows fully, but it will make it manageable.

I am going to see an alternative medicine person today, thanks to a good friend of mine. I am interested in what she will do. I don’t know what to expect, but I am opened to the idea. I am thankful for my friends, family, Church family, and blog world family. I had a fun day yesterday playing with everyone, and doing a half-hearted funny post. I am interested in what today might bring. I am interested in what tomorrow might bring. Be it sorrow or gladness, it will be a path of growth. I pray that God continues to use me. I pray that He opens my eyes to new things, and guides me down a road. I don’t want a smooth road anymore, but I do want to travel down one that is under construction.

God has guided us here. He put obstacles in our path so that we might grow, experience His love, His family, and others that are ready to be adopted as we were. Loved as His own, because we are. Unworthy is a word that used to scare me, I always wondered what to do to be worthy. There is a simple answer to that..nothing. Nothing I do will make me worthy of God’s love. Anyone that has never struggled with that does not know what a relief that is once you realize that truth. I feel blessed to have a Father that looks after me, and one that loves me with a love that cannot be understood. We call our earthly dads father sometimes, but I think that is dangerous because if we compare the two we will see that our parents and our Heavenly Father are not the same. The family that we are born to, and the family that we are adopted into are definitely two different entities. No comparison.

This means we have to change and God knows that. From birth we can be molded, but we are molded into the world. We are hard wired into the worlds way of thinking and living. We look sometimes toward the world to accept our actions, to make sure that what we do is normal. Blessed is the road that we all take. God has a purpose for everyone, His actions are true.

D.

Things I think are funny..you might not..but I do.

Okay, I am tired of Noreen people picking on me. So I thought of another list I could do. The ten top sayings and phrases that I think are funny. Warning, some of these may be viewed as off color. Read at your own risk.

10. Any sentence containing number two.
9. Poodle
8. ‘It is all of our duty..’
7. Support your local athletes, be an athletic supporter.
6. Bladder
5. Male/Female connectors
4. Ballcock-the fill valve in the back of the commode.
3. Gas leak
2. Cheese-I could probably do ten on cheese alone.
and the number one thing that I think is funny..(drum roll)
1. Missing Persons Unit

I am sorry if I offended anyone, but I did warn you.

D.
 

Lists

I was reading a couple of blogs one from Amanda who did a list of 18 things to turn a man off, and then I read Dusty’s list of things that he dislikes. So I thought that I would do a list of things I do that gets on peoples nerves.

1….
2….
3….
4….
5….

Well, maybe I will do a list later of something I can relate to.

The Doug

Peace Sells But Who’s Buying?

I have found a peace in my heart.  A comfort that I know only comes from God and His powerful hand. I have shared my struggles with God but looking back through all of the ‘bad times’ He was always there. I never worried much about where God was taking me and my family, sometimes I did not care if He wanted to go ahead and take me, lately I have felt ready. Not to escape the struggles but just ready to go home. But I also enjoy life, I look back on stumbling and struggles and I see God’s hand constantly.

I enjoy my kids who are the greatest, my wife who understands me and the things that she does not understand she has studied and delved deep into the subjects so that she might understand. I am thankful for my friends that show me laughter and so many things that are right in the world. I am not suicidal, I am just comfortable with any direction God directs me. We are not rich by any stretch of the imagination, not by what the world considers rich anyway. We barely make it paycheck to paycheck, a lot of times we have to sell things just to make it through. We want to reach out to others but we cannot do it with money, so we try and do it with service to others, which is very fulfilling. This makes us rich.

I do not worry about what tomorrow holds, our situation is tough because I am unable to work at this time because of health issues, and legal issues. As a man I feel like I am not pulling my weight, this bothers me sometimes, but I know that God is always near. I have turned on God before, with words that sadden me. But since I have been with Nee-Nee, my kids, and my church family God has given me treasures beyond description. He is a loving Father who has not hidden His face from me, even though I have felt like He has, He hasn’t.

Sometimes I feel like Superman, a broken Superman, but Superman none the less. I do not worry about myself, and what might happen to me. I watch out for my family and I am a little protective, but I trust in God. I did not worry about the shooting that occurred here, or what my wife and I viewed outside of our window. I was saddened that it effected Nee-Nee and so many of the tenants that live here, but honestly I did not worry about our safety. I have confronted people that would intimidate others without a second thought. I am not testing God, I feel like I have a comfort with God and I feel that it is His will and His strength.

Some of you might ask then why do you suffer from depression, anxiety, compulsive, and attention deficits? The only thing that I can think of is because of my constant drug use, and a craving that I do not fully understand. But I can tell you that it is not from worrying. I am not anxious about tomorrow. God has never failed me, though when I was younger I thought He had, the truth is He hasn’t. That is another reason I like to look back into my past, because as I look at it and the times I thought that I was away from God, I see Him in the dark corners of my life at that time. I look back and see Him when I missed Him the first time. Seeing this I see that God has worked inside me and changed my faith. He has strengthened it and continues to. I know that God has a mission for me to do, I have not seen it yet, but I might even be in the middle of that mission and not realize it until later. He has kept me alive, even during the times that I was ready to leave, and take myself out of this world. My attempts were futile, because God loves me and has a purpose for me and all that He loves.

I believe that tragedies occur sometimes to be a lesson to others, and to help others grow even when we are so deep in our own sorrow, or loss. Death is not an ending but a beginning to a beautiful life, I think that sometimes instead of sadness with all the death that I have experienced, was jealousy that they do not have to deal with this world anymore. My Gramps on my mothers side was a horrible man, who obviously thought of carnal pleasures over his own children and grand-children. But when most people would say a man like that must be headed to hell after he died. And the odds are against him, but God works in different ways. There is still a chance that God brought him home. I don’t know, no one does. I just realize that I have a peace that surpasses understanding.

This upsets people sometimes because they don’t believe me. With all the tragedy, and the ‘hardship’ that we are experiencing at this time, people tell me that it is okay to ‘admit’ that I am worried. It is not impossible for us not to worry, or God would tell us it is normal and go ahead and do it. I do have to work on my patience but not with where my life is going, I have short patience with those that worry about things that they cannot change. We talk about how good God is, we talk about His love for us, and how comforting He is to us. So if we believe, TRULY believe this, why worry? If God took away all of our material things I could go on. I would miss the convenience that they offer, but I know I will live without them. If God took away someone close to me again then I know life will go on, and I will see them again, but in God’s time. I will cry because I miss them, but I will not cry that they went to a better place.

If someone was offering to sell you peace of mind, would you allow yourself to let down your guard and your control, which you don’t have in the first place, and buy it and allow it to work? God offers it for free, accept it, let your guard down and I guarantee you there will be a peace that you cannot describe or understand.

D.