continue on stumbling...

Hi everyone,

I know that not too many people read this, and that this is purely a blog for my own enjoyment, so I don't update it all that much.

So, I am still reading this book for school called Stumbling on Happiness. There was a part that really struck me. He used the initials of famous people that have been in great tragedies in their lives, and have come out of them seeming to be more enlightened people. He used the examples of Lance Armstrong, Christopher Reeves, and a couple others. They are quoted after all the bad stuff that happened to them, as saying that they would not have changed a thing. As if these tragedies are a learning experience...which they are.

I have some people around me, that I care deeply for. They go to my church, and I would do anything in my abilities for them. Recently, they are going through a really grave time. It is something that I pray for them every day about. It is nothing that I can do anything about really, it is something that they have to work through. The amazing part of watching them go through it, is seeing them grow and blossom. I mean, the music created, the love that I see among them, and the hope in their eyes just inspire me.

I have not really been through many traumatic things in my life. I have never gone paralyzed, had cancer, or anything like that, but I do know that there is a loving God in heaven that watched over me.

I thought that losing my Father was the hardest thing that I would have to go through in my life. I mean, I guess you could pin that as my traumatic thing, but it did not stop me. It was like a speed bump. A short thing that you must cross over with your car.

I remember when I was probably 15 or 16, hanging out with some friends. My friend Danny would drive a lot, because none of us had out licenses. I felt bad, and would give him gas money when I could. Our one friend...Darren...lived in a neighborhood with what we called "mile-high speed bumps." They were so bad, that we would have him sometimes meet us at the front of his development.

Anyway, those speed bumps would always scrape the bottom of the car, but the car kept running. It was a Beretta that he drove. They are small cars! Anyway, it kinda felt like that, like I was the car, and I was driving myself. I saw it up ahead the whole time, my Father's death. I just could do nothing to stop it. Prolonging it was keeping him on the medication, and keeping him alive. All he wanted to do at a certain point was go home to be with his Daddy(God). So, during that time, me as my little car self went over the "mile-high speedbump" of him passing away. It was hard, and it is still hard some days, but I get through it.

My friends will too, and they will be better, more enlightened, people for it.