Some Personal Stuff

After almost 3 years of not adding to my blog, I have decided to begin again. During these last years a lot has happened in my life and it has taken me a while to process it. In early 2012 I felt it necessary to leave the pastoral ministry and go on disability for health reasons. I had several major surgeries that year which were supposed to help with my problems. They helped some and hurt some. That is the way it is with surgeries. God created us to be whole and complete and when we are cut into there is often some collateral damage that occurs. When doctors try to solve one problem they sometimes unwittingly create another. We also had to move and sell the home that we were living in because my salary was cut in half by this change in life. We moved into a small country home in North Carolina that I inherited from my father's family. Thankfully, my wife was able to continue working as a home health nurse. Now we are three years down the road and much more educated as to what happened to me and what the future holds. My big problem has always been my spine from my head down to my tail. Having six surgeries and many different kinds of treatment have helped in many ways and hurt in other ways. Because of this I live with daily, constant pain. But I am mindful of the many blessings that I do have in life and am thankful each day for having the opportunity to wake up and be a part of life. I have also learned that drugs that reduce pain don't really help after a while. Narcotics and other drugs are usually not meant to be taken permanently. I think I have tried all of them that are available today. They do help with breakthrough pain and extremely bad days that come but that is not where help comes for the long-term. God has made our bodies magnificent in so many ways and the more we understand our bodies, the more we can deal with the things that happened to us. Pain is governed by the brain and we can learn to deal with pain by doing things with our mind. That's one thing I am learning and I'm thankful for some understanding in that area. Even though I am not a full-time pastor I do have some involvement in ministry. I have opportunity to speak in churches from time to time and get involved in other helping organizations as much as I can. I am thankful that there are a couple of areas where God leads me to be involved and am happy to do it. Jesus Christ is still alive and well and continues to impact my life daily!