Mental Musings

I wrote this about eight years ago and it describes how I felt when we first learned that our son was autistic. It was going to be the beginning of a book about our journey with special needs children and the ministry, but I guess I forgot about it. I found it tonight while searching for another file so thought I would share it on my blog. I am suffocating. Trapped by circumstances, plunged beneath the swirling waves of life by burdens, desperately struggling for that life giving breath…but it will not come. My chest is weighted down by the crushing blows of reality. “This can’t be happening to me,” I try to say, but my mind is unable to will my mouth in motion. All that I can do is…exist. For just this moment in time I must exist. There is no thought of the next moment or the next. All that I had was gone; all that I had hoped for is now at the bottom of this great swirling tide of my circumstances and burdens. My body is numb. I am actually sitting, I think. I can feel…no, not feel…s...

It actually started yesterday as we were getting our boys ready for the annual Deacon/Minister fellowship. Zachary was taking a shower in our bathroom--since it is the only one that works without screeching like a screaming banshee the whole time you are running the water. We have a removable shower head and he was putting it back on the holder when the pipe broke off and everything fell down on him. So I knew I was going to be working on fixing our shower when I went to bed last night, but I still stayed up until 1:30 am so I could finish my book I had been reading for the last few days. The first thing I planned to attempt was to get the broken metal piece out of the metal elbow. About 1/2" of pipe was still threaded in solidly and would not budge. I admit that I thought about calling a plumber at that point, but we just do not have enough money to pay for one. So I consulted the internet and found many sites that suggested that you cut the broken pipe with a hacksaw being caref...

"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." (1 Timothy 4:8, NIV). Football season is upon us. That time of year when millions of armchair coaches sit back in their La-Z-Boys and scream at professional players telling them how they are doing everything wrong. The typical image that comes to mind is a middle aged man with an extended belly surrounded by a variety of chips, dips, hot wings, pizza rolls, and, of course, beer. The running joke is that the most exercise seen in football is when the fans run to the fridge for another beer or run to the restroom during commercial breaks. It is also the season for soccer. When thousands of children run back and forth on a field kicking and heading a black and white ball. The sport has become so popular in America during the last couple of decades that the term Soccer Mom was invented in politics to describe the women who were too busy...

Many in America would like for us to believe that all of our problems could be solved if the rich would just share their wealth with everyone else. The following article from the popular "Ask Marilyn" column in the Parade magazine shows why this will never work. Sunday's Column - August 23, 2009 If all the money in the world were redistributed so that everyone had the same amount, what would it be? —K. Bowman, Clarendon Hills, Ill. The global money supply is about $60 trillion. (Economists call this figure the M3 value; it includes much more than currency.) Say that we take it all—which means that you and Bill Gates would have nothing in the bank—and then distribute it equally among every individual in the world, about 6.8 billion people. Each man, woman, and child would receive about $9000. So, if your household now has less than $9000 per person, you would gain. If you have more, you would lose. "Ask Marilyn" August 23, 2009 | Parade.co...

We are furious with how much of our money you have been spending. You continue to claim that only the wealthy will pay for it with higher taxes. Just where do you think they will get their increased money for taxes? We will pay for it. Every billion you spend causes our expenses to increase whenever we pay our bills, buy our food, eat out, buy fuel or watch a movie. The wealthy will create less jobs and the jobs they do create will have lower salaries. We believe that you should cut your own salaries and benefits before you start cutting into ours. We do not want our children and future grandchildren to pay for the ridiculous spending that you have approved in the last nine months. We do not support the President's Health Care Reform. We cannot entrust the government which cannot even manage a simple $2 billion program to manage 1/6 of our economy. You cannot even financially support your own Cash For Clunkers program without asking your recently acquired auto companies to bail yo...

At the end of my senior in High School, my drama and debate teacher, Mrs. Donice Smith, asked to speak with me. She knew me not only from school, but also from church. She shared this: "Not all of your college professors are going to appreciate your honesty and independent thinking. They are there to teach you what they know and most will not want to be argued with when you discover that they are wrong." Mrs. Smith knew that I had strong opinions and often shared those with others around me. She also knew that I had a strong sense of right and wrong and felt it was my job to inform others when they were wrong. I am sure that she spoke with other teachers and knew that I had corrected my English teacher in middle school and my math teacher in high school. But they were wrong and somebody needed to tell them otherwise we would all be conjugating our verbs wrong or factoring for Y incorrectly. Mrs. Smith also knew that I had taken many strong stands for God over science. Af...