Why Blog?

When I was a kid, I always wanted to play sports when I grew up. After all, I thought, how hard can it be to play baseball for a living? That dream came to a screeching halt in 1999 when I spent my freshman year of high school baseball riding the bench. I may have had a hunch before then but that made it official. The summer after my freshman year I went to a Christ-In-Youth conference and decided to dedicate my life to full-time ministry. At the time I was extremely excited about this, yet again that dream faded. After high school I began to drift, I had spent so much time dreaming about an ideal future that I never took the time to get realistic about it. I was learning that not everything works out the way I want it to, that God certainly has a plan for all of us and it is much bigger than anything we can dream of on our own.

That brings me to today. After spending a few years of my life just drifting I am finally starting to achieve the things in life that are most important. I fell in love and got married; I found a good job; and I am finishing my degree. Yet God is still reminding my wife and I that he has a plan for us and we need to trust him.  

Proverbs 16:9 "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps."

I can relate to the first part of this verse, as I said above; I've always had one plan or another in my heart about my life. And while some things have changed since I was little, the idea of having a family was always very important to me. That's why I am so ecstatic to be in such a wonderful marriage. It is something I have always looked forward to and couldn't have asked God for a better wife. God certainly directed my steps when it came to finding the woman I would spend the rest of my life with, it may not have happened exactly the way I planned, but I can see now by trusting God it has worked for the best.

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all of your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."

This is where it gets difficult for me. It's easy to trust God when he takes you on the exact path you wanted to go down. Right now that is not the case. Allow me to explain...

My wife and I were married on May 28, 2011 (almost a year ago now, wow!). My wife being a little older than me, we both were on board with trying to have kids fairly early on in our marriage. We waited three short months and began trying to pregnant, here we are 9 months later and still no success. Due to some factors, we were allowed to begin undergoing testing after 6 months; we immediately started getting some not-good news.

First, the problem was on my end; unlike George Costanza my boys could not swim. After several not-so-fun appointments I was told to lose some weight and start some medication. I was actually fairly relieved by this while still feeling guilty. Veronica was so concerned that she would be the problem and everything was checking out fine for her. As long as I was the one with the infertility I knew I could do whatever I needed to fix it for her. After a few more appointments, more bad news came. Veronica has a condition called PCOS.  More on that in future posts.  Basically, we both have some bodily issues that are creating fertility roadblocks for us.

At first our reaction was sadness, bitterness, and embarrassment. We didn't want to talk about it, I was embarrassed and felt guilty. It was easy to question God, why wasn't he taking us down the exact path we wanted to go down???? (Doesn't he always do that?)

I think it is normal to go through those emotions, we have worked through them and I have already seen our faith strengthened through this. We are very blessed with a super support system made up of family and friends. 

We have been trying to find God's purpose in all of this, both of us firmly believe that God has a plan for everything he does and something good will come from this.

Recently, Veronica's friend Michelle Merimee lost her 34 year old husband Craig to pancreatic cancer. It was such a sad story made even sadder by the fact that he had three daughters all under the age of 6. I didn't know this couple myself, but their faith blew me out of the water. They spent 18 months from his diagnosis to his death openly and honestly blogging about their entire journey. Through it they asked questions but remained faithful throughout. Here is a part of the last post Craig ever wrote before dying:

"Each night I go bed, I come to the reality that today was not better than yesterday.  My energy level is becoming more and more decreased.  I got my daily shower today at about 5 this evening.  It's good that I got a shower but I really struggled with getting motivated to do that.  I'm often catching myself each day watching how I walk.  My legs are giving me a fight sometimes now where they don't have the strength to carry me through the house.  I'll have to stop and grab a stool to sit on for a second or I'll find a ledge to hang myself on temporarily while I plan my next course of step.  I don't always feel like this but it's happening a few times each day.  It's become depressing to watch myself and I know it's becoming depressing for Michelle to watch.  She's noticed and we talk it about it.   I don't try and do too much around the girls just so I'm not put in a bad situation that will make me look bad.  They are now fully accustomed to having me rest in my room in the back of the house with the door closed.  They don't see me too often.  Just looking at myself in the mirror, I can tell my downward spiral has begun.  I'm at my all time low of about 118 pounds.  I have an awkward time shaving my face because it is pure bone and I feel like I'm having to shave to every bony conture my face has.  My yellow eyes constantly remind my jaundice is settling back in.  This pretty much means things are going to eventually start shutting down.


The truth is my desired outcome from this situation is so very awesome.  The encouragement I have that my eternal life will be in Heaven and that I will be cancer free soon puts a smile on my face.  This has always been there, I've just fought the perceived need that I need to see my family as much as possible and do as much as I can for them.  My family does not need to see me anymore in the shape I'm in.  They need to see me at peace.  I have a million things to say here now but am overwhelmed with what I want to say so I think I'm going to have to come back with you in bits maybe from here.  I am very motivated about that the future has to offer me that there is a lot of reason to be excited.


Thanks for all your support and I very much hope to share my thoughts going forward.  God is good!!!!!"


That's a level of faith I dream of having. I cannot imagine being on the cusp of losing my wife of 8 years and my three daughters yet still gushing about how great God is. At the funeral Michelle discussed the blog, about the stories they've heard of people who have come back to Jesus or come to him for the first time; people who have grown closer to their spouse; improved their prayer life; or given up on bad habits because they were inspired by the blog. Michelle went on to say that if Craig's illness is what God needed to change those lives for the better, than she is OK with that. It was all a part of God's plan. I want us to handle this MUCH easier situation with the same attitude.


With that in mind, Veronica and I decided this blog would be a good idea. It would be therapeutic for us to write out our thoughts and walk through this journey with other people. Our hope is also that it will encourage others who are or have gone through this. We hope others will read it and simply pray for us. We don't know how this journey will go, we could be pregnant next month or we could be in the same place 2 years from now. We just need to trust that God has a better plan than we do.


Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."