Out With The Old, In With The New.

Well, it looks like I'll be permanently closing my original blog and keep this as my main blog page. Managing two has been a pain,...well not too much. Because I have chosen to do nothing on either page due to my Facebook addiction.

Plus there have been certain family members who have gone off the deep end that I really wish to keep away from my blogs. That way I can voice opinions of their wrong-doings to their face and not have them discover my feelings on a blog.

It's kind of sad that I have to stick with this Blog name. Who knows, I might just scrap this blog too and move onto something else. I would really like blogging to remain a friendly casual environment to share stuff. Not turn into a grim, depressing gripe fest that it's turned into.

So hopefully starting in January 2010, you'll see a whole new H.W.S.R.N. blog around these parts. Oh, and I'll keep the Shag artwork going.

A Tug-O-War With God.

Well now that I've been working almost every weekend this summer, I've had some time to let the Kool-Aid from church wear off a bit. I feel the loss of connection with Jesus only because of certain things I've been noticing around my life.

You see, now I'm not so sure about following Christ. To me Christ is the big disappointment. He's been clobbering most of my friends and family over the past few years and I don't see the "test of faith" point to all this. I don't get the "prove it to me" aspect of what God requires from us.

It started with the loss of my two grandparents last year (one suffered Alzheimer's Disease for 10 years prior to her death), my friend from church lost his 3 year old daughter to epilepsy one night, my hands became crippled with arthritis and advised to walk away from guitar play forever, and my friend from work was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic bone cancer.

Which brings me to another person, a person who I've shared the stage with at my own church. He's been a very strong faith person (as the friend who lost his daughter), and yet keeps getting dealt a bad hand constantly. He lost his brother to a senseless brain tumor, his wife was having to be rushed to the ER from any perfume or scented anything anyone was wearing (throat started closing up whenever passed by an old lady wearing perfume) and now he himself is dealing with hearing loss from a work incident.

Why is God f'cking with believers? How is that supposed to strengthen your relationship with God? It really doesn't seem fair. I'm starting to think that maybe if I ease off on my relationship with Christ, maybe I'll avoid the radar.

Yet I find myself lately turning to Christian music stations without even realizing it. I listen to the Jesus Christ Show on KFI 640 AM on Sundays. So it's like my subconscious is trying to keep me connected while my conscious side is wanting to walk away.

I'm already convinced I'm not going to heaven anyway. I mean why would I when I can't stand half the people in the world already? I react to the slightest stupid act that I witness. How can I get along in heaven when I can't even stand the people here on earth? So may main friends who are hardcore believers....I don't see how you guys do it. I want what you have, I've prayed for what you have, I've prayed for strength each day to be a better person, avoid swearing like a sailor, and yet Christ seems so distant to me. I felt Him in 2004-2007, but something happened.

My hands are slightly improving, I realize I can no longer play in bands (which I loved slightly less than my wife and kids), considering returning to my church ministry of playing in worship service....but now, I'm not sure I'm worthy to fake the lie in my soul. But in the same sense, there's something in me searching for something. I loved that feeling of being connected to Christ in those early reborn years. I'm finding now that I'm not paying attention if He is speaking to me or not. I don't see God's benefit with the use of pain and tragedy. I guess it started with my hand diagnosis. Why would God take away my talent when I was using it for Him in ministry? To me that's just bullsh't.

Some of our treasured pastors have moved away, all because "God had a different direction" for them. At this point my view is that God takes away and takes away and is constantly demanding proof of your devotion. I feel like a sucker.

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Small Improvements, Large Setbacks.

Well, he was admitted into the hospital last week due to complications with cancer meds and pain meds. He's lost about 25-30 lbs since everything he eats gets blocked.

What gets to me the most is that he's not willing to accept Christ. He has a strong religious upbringing and can remember everything he was taught regarding what the Bible says. Still with all that information, he's not willing to believe. It might be the fact that he's had cancer before and has survived. Maybe his decision is related to the fact that God has allowed this to happen.

This has been really hard on me since it's my work area that he's been working in the most; least amount of running around exhaustion. Yet he's already exhausted when he comes in at the beginning of the day.

I'm going to church this weekend. Hopefully I'll find some answers. I'd like to bring him to church but, I'm just not so sure he'd be up to it, health or mental.

It's Not Looking Good.

My co-worker was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic bone cancer earlier this year. He's been on oral cancer medication since then, made it through the first medication treatment. Then he was scanned and the doctors were pleased with the results, no growth of his tumors.

Then 2 weeks ago, he had a follow up scan and the news was not good. Along with some blood work, his white blood cells were very low, and the scan showed new activity. He now faces radiation therapy next week. Against the advice of others at work including supervisors, he has requested to continue to work while he undergoes treatment.

My co-worker has been working with me more frequently lately due to his diagnosis, less strenuous work, not a lot of running around. We've been getting pretty close lately, talking about everything, sharing interests in movies, books, music, etc. This new news is hitting me harder more than when I first heard of his diagnosis. I'm beginning to fear the worse outcome because it's rare that most will survive this stage of cancer. Yet he maintains a positive outlook and very optimistic that everything will work out in his favor.

Tired looking and hair graying almost weekly (oral cancer meds) I'm hoping for the best but bracing myself for the worst. I just think this is going to be increasingly difficult, especially if the inevitable happens.

Acceptance Provides Healing, Yet Left With Conflict.

Ever since my hands started hurting playing guitar, I've had to drop out of Church Worship Band. It's been well over a year now. I had to tell all three bands that I had to stop playing until I found some answers.

Specialists were no help, all recommending that I stop playing guitar completely. Problem was that the pain started when I was at work also. It crept into my daily life, not just guitar playing.

This left me with some major God issues. If I was given this talent to glorify his name, then why this pain? Is my heart not in this enough that He has provided a way for me to step back and re-evaluate my current faith situation, or at least provide the opportunity to realize where I stand with God.

Months have gone by and I'm still left wondering why this is all happening. Trying hard to figure out what God wants from me out of all this. I would improve a little, then get worse again throughout the year.

Then one day, I finally accepted that I won't be returning to the stage in a church setting ever again due to the lack of progress with my hands. That's when I started noticing a change in my condition. My hands started improving. The less I thought about church, the more I'm improving. Whenever I start practicing worship songs in an effort to get ready to return to my worship team, the pain returns. Yet when my thoughts are selfish (to me anyway) and I think about using my talents for outside of church, I can play guitar for hours without much pain.

So what's that all about? This goes against all the "use your gifts to glorify God" ministry theory. What's going on here? Was the church just not the venue for God to use me effectively? Am I supposed to remain a Godly person but use this in public outside of church? Is that what He has planned for me? I just can't figure out why God would want away from church ministries when it comes to using my musical talent. Is my music talent too obvious in a church setting? What good can my music abilities do away from the church?

So many questions, yet few are answered. I think once I find out at least half of these questions, that hopefully I'll have some meaning revealed to me.

What's Going To Happen To My Blog?

Man, I can think of a bunch of X-ray stuff to talk about but it's not really the focus of my blog. I feel bad for some of you who have been following my blog here. I've become a chronic Facebook'er. So everything that has to be said, is said there...to a certain extent.

Lots of personal stuff going on; problems with my own health, mother's personal situation, my declining music involvement (did I say health?) and overall disgust with my own job situation.

I'm not sure if I should continue to keep this blog well rounded or to set aside as my own darker side of life journal. ???

If you follow, or used to follow because my content has fallen off sharply, please comment and let me know what you'd like to see. I am limited on what and who I can discuss here, since I have an undesirable checking my other blog and thus might lead to legal consequences for myself or the other individual.

So whatcha, whatcha, whatcha wont?

Yeah, No Change, False Alarm!

Turns out my invite was just a blanket advertisement to check out another church, not a personal one as I had thought. I do feel like God is throwing everything at me in order to get my attention somewhere in my life. I'm obviously not getting it. More adversity keeps coming and with every effort to duck out of the way, I still get hit in the face. Like that Wii Fit game with the soccer ball head bump game; you try to hit the incoming soccer ball with your head, and every once in awhile a soccer cleat is hurled at your head. You're supposed to duck away from the shoes and hit the ball with your head. God has a higher cleat to ball ratio at the moment.

So whether it's environmental, physical, or mental, I'm getting used to pain as a part of my everyday life. Is God trying to break me in order to rebuild me? If anything it's starting to make me pull away. I tend to do that anyway with people who allow me to hurt. I've got to get to that place where I still praise Him no matter what happens to me. He knows I'm struggling with this for sure.