Checked and balanced

 Life, the never ending wheel.

How does a person deal with misfortune?

Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin', don't know where I'll be tomorrow

       Ooh, the wheel in the sky keeps turnin', wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'

                                                                                            Journey

During my reserve duty, I wound up doing another kind of service. I served time in jail for an attempted robbery. Not my wisest choice. I was discharged from the reserves under less than honorable conditions, obviously. But like all things in life this was a learning experience for me. I learned that there was another type of service, one that brought me into contact with a higher power. Prior to going to jail I got too heavily involved with drinking and smoking marijuana which lead to my poor decisions and jail. 

While in jail someone gave me a King James Bible. I have touched on this in a previous entry, but here I will expand on that mention. I had never been one to take any type of religion seriously. I had attended Baptist, Mormon, Methodist and even a few Catholic churches, but never really understood what it was all about. My grandparents on my fathers side were protestants, not that I fully understood what that was all about. My mothers side of the family were all Seventh-day Adventists, in full disclosure my mother had fallen away from the religion some years prior. So I had an idea what religion was about, but not enough at that time to seek it our for myself.

That Bible sat on a shelf, by itself, for a few weeks with me telling myself that I should read it, and silently promising myself that I would. But when? And for What? Did I really want to learn about God? These were the questions that I asked myself and had to answer before I could commit myself to opening the Word of God. When eventually became now. What for was answered by to learn about what had been missing from my life. Did I really want to learn about God was a definitive YES! And so I began to read, the more I read the more I wanted to learn. The more I learned the more aware I became of a higher service I could offer to my fellow man. I read a book I had been avoiding to that point, all of my life never knowing what I had been missing out on.

Once I was released from jail the old habits kicked back in and what I had been so excited about fell by the wayside. Every once in a while I would get the feeling that I was not being real with myself in how I was living. I found an unsatisfying job, was still in an unhappy marriage, but I was attending college with the goal of getting an associates degree in psychology so I could help others. The idea of being able to help myself was not in the forefront of my mind. Not that if it had been I would have had any idea how to do so. All of this while playing weekend warrior at a different level.

When my marriage finally fell apart I went back to Missouri, found refuge in my parents house, got a job that made me happy and kept me busy enough to stay sober. But I still felt there was something missing. Moms stroke and dads heart attack in such close time proximity, not to mention a failed attempt at resurrecting a marriage that never should have happened brought the family to one inevitable decision, we needed God in our lives. Mom found and started attending an Adventist church, and decided to take Bible studies. She asked dad and I both to join her, and so it began.

Some 20 weeks later mom and I were baptized, dad for some reason held off on this particular commitment, but began attending church with us. In 1991 I began seriously reading the Bible again, this time with the intention of learning more about the will of God for my life. By this time my sole surviving grandparents health had taken a serious slide down hill. The decision was made to move to Florida and help out with his care as best we could. 

My Bible reading continued, another Bible seminar was being taught and dad, mom and I attended faithfully. By the end of this seminar dad had made his decision that he wanted to be baptized, but he was going to wait until we were back home. My fathers youngest brother passed away and mom and dad when to attend the funeral. While they were home dad got baptized into the Independence Seventh-day Adventist church. I missed it because I had to stay in Florida to not only keep a job that was helping me stay afloat financially but also to care for gramps. 

When my family finally met the woman I was dating, my grandfather in his wisdom made the comment "there is Charles' next wife". I wasn't divorced from my then wife and neither was Sue, but he was entitled to his opinion. A few weeks later I got divorce papers in the mail from my soon to be ex, so I signed and returned them as soon as was humanly possible. I guess she found someone who could supply her with what she felt she needed. Best wishes! Seriously.

What had attracted Sue to me was the way I acted, to begin with I was so mild mannered and calm that she thought I was gay. She knew that I was an Adventist but for some reason couldn't make the connection between religion and my actions. We started going out for coffee after work, and it progressed rapidly from there. In reality my backslide from my religion started right there. I was still attending church, but it was somehow different and I knew it.

Gramps died, and Sue got robbed while at work, and my life became a jumbled mess. In May of 1992 we packed up the belonging of her and her girls as well as mine and moved to Missouri. I found work and Sue went into rehab for the injury she suffered as a result of the robbery. Along the way she was diagnosed with PTSD and bipolar disorder and was put on medications as treatment. 

When mom and dad returned from Florida after settling the estate Sue, the girls and I all began taking Bible studies. This meant that I would once again need to quit smoking cigarettes, as would she. Sue and the girls got baptized and as a complete family we began attending church. Dad and mom found an apartment in Blue Springs so we took over the house. Things went sideways and they moved back in and the living arrangements changed somewhat. No big problem there. Our family moved into the basement, Mom and dad had the upstairs.

The topic of divorce arose as it applied to Sue and her future ex-husband, she had been wanting a divorce but we could never get the money together to pay for it. Parents to the rescue. They paid for the divorce on the condition that when the settlement from the personal injury case came in from the robbery we would pay them back for it. Done deal. Sue got the settlement, my parents got the money we owed them, and 90 days later we got married. Summer vacation from school came and we took some of the money and went to Disney World for two weeks. 

When we got home we moved out of the house into a place of our own and the girls went back to school. Sue went to work for Wendy's in Lee's Summit and I went to work for the one in Raytown, she as an assistant manager and me as a crew member eventually working my way into the position of shift manager, all of the headaches, none of the benefits.

Dad broke his hip and was taken to the hospital. None of us expected the outcome of this injury. Dad died the next day from a blood clot that they missed and as a result it broke off and caused his heart to fail. There were other mitigating medical problems but the clot was the primary cause of death. I am not ashamed to admit that my father was and still is my hero. 

His service to this country through three wars, led him to serve God through the rest of his life. His death in 1994 really hit me hard, as did the death of my mother in 2001, I believe my mom's death was caused by loneliness, dad was the love of her life. My faith in God helped me get through both losses. This is not to say that I don't miss my parents, I do, and I think about them every day. The only real regrets I have in life is that I was not there when either one of them passed. I guess it was for the best, I have as my last memories of both the way they were happy and alive.

I find peace in knowing that all of my relatives who have passed on are neither in hell nor in Heaven. All are resting in peace in their graves awaiting the return of Jesus. Some will find that they have been called to everlasting life, sadly, others will not be  so fortunate. I understand that some day I may be called to defend my faith in the courts of men, and that through my faith in Christ as my savoir and redeemer I will be assured of my place in His kingdom. I pray for strength daily to face the coming of the tyranny that those of us who believe will be forced to stand in defiance of. 

Even so Lord Jesus come. May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

Food for thought, that is if you are hungry. Peace