My parents and my siblings, very early 60’s I think.
In the picture, my parents were much younger than I am now, in 2024. It’s strange to think I never knew them that way–relatively young. My sisters and my brother are still around and doing well. I’m doing well myself, now. It’s just that for a time, life was good and hard.
My latter teen years were a crap show of tragedy, for the most part. When I look back on them now. And yet here I am today. Living in the Sonoran desert rather than America’s Finest City.
Let me give you a brief sketch of he tragic part of my history thus far.
My dad passed when I was 16. Complications following a heart attack.
A close friend died by suicide when I was 17, within a stone’s throw of my bedroom window. He threw no stones.
My mom passed from cancer shortly after I turned 18. I was one of the pallbearers. The casket wasn’t very heavy.
Mom and Dad are both buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego.
My friend was cremated.
I spent a good portion of my life–many years–digging a great and deep hole down the center of me and trying t0 fill it with various things, none of which could accomplish it.
Binge drinking.
Binge porn-ing.
Binge eating.
Binge sadness.
I had a conversation with a coworker when I was working at a blind factory in my 20’s. This guy had broken his hand on one of the machines and we were talking on break one day shortly after it happened. I mentioned it didn’t seem like he had been very lucky.
He told me it wasn’t so much that his luck was bad. it was that bad stuff happened sometimes to everybody, and it could have been a lot worse. Could have been his skull.
I told him I didn’t feel like God (if there was one) hadn’t helped me a whole lot.
He told me that even though I may not acknowledge or admit it, God had done plenty for me, even though I might not know it right now.
Turns out Mike was right. It would take years before I got a clue.
I had a personal encounter with Jesus in March of 2000, and it wasn’t until that happened that things started to change. It had taken my whole life to that point to be wounded such as I had, so it stands to reason it would take a long time to heal as well. Rebuilding is just as much a process as wounding.
Thankfully, God is more than up to the task.
Years into my journey, I would come across the book of Joel, a section of the second chapter that would capture me pretty well:
23 Be glad, people of Zion,
rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you the autumn rains
because he is faithful.
He sends you abundant showers,
both autumn and spring rains, as before.
24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm[b]—
my great army that I sent among you.
26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
27 Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the Lord your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.
Joel 2: 23-26
There had been so much loss in my life.
So much death. So much pain.
Yet after that, maybe in spite of that, or because of it, so many things started happening. Once I surrendered the various pains and the course of my life to Jesus, that is.
Two separate but equally important church families happened, abetting my healing process.
I surrendered plans and expectations regarding any possible future romantic endeavors.
Social plans. Career plans.
I met Jenny, thanks to her boldness, and my own submission. My capitulation to God’s plan for my life.
We have a home full of love. We have kids and a family, dogs.
Jenny and I have each other. It may not have happened until I was 40, but it happened.
God knew when I was ready. Yes, the locusts ate a great many years.
But in the fullness of time, God repaid.
A Work in Progress 