The side effects of cancer…

When I started this blog, I thought about a name that would convey my day to day life. Marriage, kids, and just my day to day speed of 90 mph to nothing and stopping at nothing to slow down. I wanted a way to acknowledge through words that I was happy, I am married, and that despite those two, life can be overwhelming. That despite happiness, a great spouse, kids, a house, a good job, that life can still be a LOT for us to deal with. When I wrote it, I never thought that one day, my overwhelmed would be cancer. I never thought about the definition of that word and the importance that one day it would mean to this blog. Through the time here, it has seen lots of fun posts, but it has seen lots of serious ones, too. Parenting, marriage, jobs, sad events, good events, diets (YUCK), medical issues, and more. I’ve got more drafts in my folders than I know what to do with and sometimes, my inner filter kicks in and says, “Nope, don’t post that one.”

Then, I have those days where Jesus pokes at me and says, “Yep, post that one today.” THOSE are the days I really dislike posting and I LOVE to argue with Him. Today, I guess, is one of those days.

What do we tell our kids?

Raising kids is hard. There are days that I’ve wondered why we decided to have kids. When I look at the world around me and all the tragedy and hatred and pure evil, I wonder why we waited so long, why I was born when I was, why we raised our kids in the US and not in some remote fishing village off the Arctic Sea, or why we aren’t living in some country where the worst we have to worry about is the bears or the lions. Some days, I’d rather face the threat of the pack of a lions than to face the demons that walk this earth…

What reality do we live in?

My heart hurts so much. I’ve never felt this much grief over someone I didn’t know. I can’t place the grief, I can’t understand it. I can’t figure out how to get it to go away. I can’t figure out how to stop the tears and I don’t even know why I’m crying. My soul is broken. My soul is broken for the family he left behind, but my heart rejoices at his new home. Charlie understood (just as the disciples did) that there’s a risk…

When you wonder what God is up to…

I don’t even know where to turn my attention. It seems everywhere I look, something is broken. Wars in countries, floods, cancer. Israel is shooting missiles everywhere – everyone is shooting missiles at it. America is arrogant in her power. We are being washed away with floods. People are making ridiculous decisions and then the Lord is using others to bring HIS MESSAGE to the world.

How Prayer and Listening Shape Our Decisions

It’s about a guy who is stuck on his roof in a floor and prays to God for help. A couple of different ways come by to help him – he declines them all, saying basically, “No, I’m good. God is going to help.” End of the story, he dies. He gets to Heaven and asks God, “Why didn’t you save me?”

Yearbooks: Capturing the Memories

I had to take Silas to lessons and offered to fill up the gas cans while I was out. I don’t know why I did. Moment of no brain, I guess. I can’t ever open those stupid gas cans. Went to fill them up, got so freaking MAD at how cold it was and I couldn’t feel my fingers that I put the gas cans back up, drove to Taco Bell and warmed up, got back out in the parking lot, unscrewed 3 of the 4 cans out of sheer anger and determination to not fail and then got even more blistered that I knew that meant I had to fill them up again.

Talk to Jesus: Spiritual Resolutions for the New Year

Mine is more simple: Just talk to Jesus more – and be more willing to put the words on paper He wants me to share. Whatever that means – and however hard they are. Not everything needs to be shock and awe. It doesn’t need a cliffhanger or a climax. I’m not writing a murder mystery or telling a Sherlock story with some insane plot twist. I’m just talking to Jesus – and I’ll share that along the way.

Cancer: It’s like getting a new car…

No matter if you’ve got the “good kind” or the “really invasive kind.” Cancer is deadly. There’s no preparing you to lose a family member from cancer whether you’ve had time to prepare or not. Having a child diagnosed with a tumor or cancer sucks major kinds of stupid and there’s zero preparation you go through as a parent to be ready to bury your child or watch them die a slow death, painful or not. Cancer destroys you.

Kelp Forests and God’s plans

My heart has been in being “busy.” How having little time to “think” has kept me from focusing on the fact that my cancer is very real and that there are some really deep-rooted fears there. So in an effort to mask all my feelings of worthlessness, I have made myself so busy that I give myself no time to think about these things and don’t have to deal with the thoughts.

Rejected by Jesus: Fact or Fiction?

What is evident more than ever right now is that I am supposed to be telling a story. I have been wrestling with God over the last year of my life with this massive feeling of rejection. And not far behind that feeling has been the enemy, nipping at my heels. I have questioned my entire life. I have questioned my salvation.