The Journey

I have been a lot of things in my life and never really thought of myself a very religious person until this past year. I wasn't raised in the church, but did attend off and on and was actually baptized when I was 12. I never had a role model to show me what that meant, so I pretty much chalked it up to something I did to impress a girl I was seeing at the time, then continued down my own path. It wasn't until last year that I was baptized again and really started seeing how my life wasn't measuring up to what a Christian should be. My eyes were opened! God revealed himself to me and I received the gifts of the Holy Spirit! Since then I've really tried to make that commitment to deny myself, to die as it were to me, and to be born again in the spirit of Christ - to separate myself to God.


It seemed really hard at first - this meant separating myself from everything worldly and attempting to live a sin-free life. On the other hand, I was already separated from family, friends, and any means to acquire worldly possessions, so it really wasn't such a stretch. I did okay for awhile, then when it was hard for me to find work and provide for my family, Satan started creeping back into my life. He began to seduce me into a way of thinking that really didn't seem that bad.

Then I remembered that the spiritual battle begins in the mind and this is exactly where the enemy tries to trap you. It's true. My battle was within me! Sluie Luie had me convinced that what I was doing was perfectly normal and that I didn't need to fight it. "Just go with the flow. You know you want to". I knew all I had to do was call out to God and He would rescue me from myself... but I didn't.

It started with little things like drinking a beer here and there. No big deal right? Plenty of people drink beer every day. Shoot, I come from a family of drinkers... then I started with the nicotine again. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself back in the same selfish habits I had so desperately tried to escape from. This is when I realized if I didn't sincerely start seeking the Lord again, if I didn't take hold of His hand, I would be separating myself from His grace and mercy. I didn't want that.

I began praying more - no, I mean really praying, asking for forgiveness, memorizing scripture again, spending more time in church and in the Word. I began rebuilding my relationship with God that I had let slip into disrepair and it has made a big difference in my way of thinking.

Expect the Unexpected

Had a good session of counseling tonight at Emerge Ministries here in Akron. Sad part is that our counselor has finished the hours she needs to complete her course credit for interning and now she's moving on. Going to miss her. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say goodbye - I know right, I miss Carol Burnett too!

Anyway - I believe God places obstacles in our paths for a reason, just so happens that our youngest son started complaining of his throat hurting before we got to the session and interrupted us no more than three times to tell us that his ear was also hurting. This isn't like him and we knew that something was really wrong. He was crying and fidgeting something terrible, so we decided to take him to the E.R. at Akron Children's Hospital 

It was a good decision - he was still crying when we got there, but seemed to be getting better by the time the N.P. saw him. (He still didn't care for the throat swab though) A promise of a pop-sickle seemed to soothe his fear of the swab and make everything okay. I have to hand it to Children's, they got us in and out within a two hour period. I have no complaints whatsoever. By the time we left, the youngin was back to his normal self and we all made it home without running out of gas.

God is good and has a plan for all of us. Not real sure what this obstacle meant, but we made it through okay. Maybe it was a chance for me and the oldest son to have a little bonding time while mom was getting the youngest checked out. (While walking around the outside of the hospital, the eldest did tell me that he has a VERY happy childhood and that he had prayed that when he dies and goes to heaven that he wants to be there as he is right now) This made me a very proud papa to say the least - maybe I am doing something right after all! All I know is that my spirit was calmed amidst the storm and I knew God was working miracles all around me. It made me feel VERY blessed.