This is my personal blog site.  I use it to share things I’ve learned over the years through many trials and tribulations the Lord has brought me through.  My hope is that through my sharing, others will gain hope, understanding and some wisdom to overcome their life’s experiences.

The basics:

• My dad was in the US Air Force.  As a result I was born in Japan.
• An only child
• I “relax” by watching Star Trek reruns.
• I think Star Wars is cool too.
• I have been blessed for over 28 years married to my wife.  She’s worth her weight in gold.
• I’ve been blessed to have two sons and five grandkids.
• I am partial to Akita-mix dogs.  Kita was cool while she was here.  Now Jazzy is “front and center”.
• My “personal” relationship with the Lord started on June 19, 1987.  I’ve never been the same since.

Why I Write

One of the passions of my heart, which has developed over time, is to help other people, particularly Christians, who are going through some difficult times.  God has allowed my family and me to go through some very difficult times; times where our faith has been tested.  At times we were so severely tested that we couldn’t pray and felt every kind of emotion towards God other than a “loving spirit of gratitude”.  Thoughts of walking away from the faith flooded my mind at times.  But in the end I made a choice to trust Him.  As I read my Bible, I started to see how God worked in the lives of others who were going through difficult times.  The one consistency I discovered was His faithfulness to His Word.

So I decided to share what I learned.  What have we gone through?  Well, here’s an abbreviated list:

1. My wife and I have been laid off from our jobs a combined five times in the past 20 years.  None of these lay offs were performance related or due to any indiscretion on our parts…just the normal downsizing, restructuring, down turn in the economy type lay offs.
2. As a result, our incomes were significantly affected as you can imagine.
3. My income was cut in half one month after purchasing a new home.  There was a downturn in business for the small company with whom I was working.
4. The Lord has brought my wife through breast cancer, and the associated radiation and chemotherapy treatments.  (Oh, my cut in income was during my wife’s chemo treatments).
5. I’ve been diagnosed and treated for lymphoma twice and prostate cancer within a five year period.
6. My mother passed away from cancer during a time when I was unemployed for eight months.  (If you ever worked in the oil and gas industry, you are accustom to cyclic nature of the business.  It becomes difficult to find a job when 70,000 O&G workers get laid off within three months of your lay off…and your old enough for  AARP membership…if you know what I mean).
7. While I was undergoing radiation treatments for prostate cancer, I had to stop treatments, drive 800 miles to bring my dad back home to live with me.  He had been in a VA hospital for several months.  He was diagnosed with dementia due to Alzheimer’s.  If I did not get him, the State of Missouri would become his guardian and put him in a nursing home.
8. My dad lived with us for ten months.  Anyone who has been the caretaker of a parent with Alzheimer can understand the associated challenges.  He recently passed from a heart condition two days before Christmas.
9. Then there were the normal challenges of life, e.g., kids, grandkids, job, Houston traffic, etc.

Through it all, I’ve seen God’s faithfulness, power and mercy.  So I wanted to share some of my experiences and encourage others to make a choice to remain faithful to Him.

I think 2 Corinthians 1:3 – 11 sums things up nicely.  The God of All Comfort comforts us so we can comfort others going through the same or similar trials.  In the end we learn to rely not on ourselves but God, and He gets the glory, i.e., the credit, recognition and praise for doing amazing things.

That’s why I write.