... how experiences shape life

When I was growing up, I knew a family of four: parents, one son, one daughter. I was best friends with the son. The son was the third generation, taking the name of his father, as his father did his father. So, he had the "III" attached to his name.

He was meant to be the only child. His parent threw all of their attention on him. He got the best of everything he wanted. Some years later, a daughter was born, an "accident". The son continued to prosper and grow in good looks and ego. After high school, he talked his way into a well-paying job and was on a fast track to a successful career.

The daughter didn't fare so well. She was mostly ignored by her parents and wasn't as successful.

In time, the son married a nice girl. They had one boy. The son had created companies, and was very wealthy. When the son turned 18, the wife simply walked away. No words, no explanation, just walked out the door, not coming back.

He had spent so much time building material success, that he forgot about his personal success, and his spiritual success. How sad.

The daughter still lives in the area where she grew up. She is successful in other ways, friends and her ministry, serving Jehovah. But, she has little to no contact with her family. Who could blame her?

Experiences we have in live shape who we are. Good or bad, they shape up. They develop our thinking, our feelings, our emotions, the way we handle stress. Sometimes they contain scars that remain for a lifetime, until someone truly loving and discerning can see and truly help the person to feel "normal".

The experiences I have had have done the same. I use my experiences to demonstrate why I believe what I believe, why I think the way I do, and why I feel the way I feel. I can state them matter-of-factly, acknowleging that they happened, and determine the lessons from them and explain it to others, so that those who have had similar experiences may know: they're not alone, and, there's happiness to be found, somehow.

Somtimes, my experiences leave me angry and bitter, as a "why should this have happened to a nice guy like me?" and I rant. That's what happened the other day.

I began a blog post about value. The values we place on one another, how we automatically place a value based on what we see of a person, but not on how we know that person. The value can increase if we learn more and grow in appreciation and love, or it can decrese based on experiences with that person, if we experience disappointment from something that they had done.

I thought about my experiences and realized some have looked at me and thought, "Well, this guy's deaf, half blind, and looks pretty sorrowful, with little to no potential to be anything more", and stuck an "As-is" price tag on me. Whatever efforts I made to increase my value seemed to go unnoticed. It left me feeling bitter, and I expressed in in my blog draft. I could recall one time that someone really discerned what I needed and helped me.

I was transferred from a hard-of-hearing school to one that was full hearing. I was the only kid with a hearing aid, and this got some ridicule from the other kids. In my fourth grade class, I was flunking the spelling tests because with all the nose, I couldn't hear the teacher say the words we had to spell. She, discerning that I was a very smart kid, could do well in her class, needed help, took time out of her break, to go with me during recess, and we would go out on the field, and sit cross-legged facing each other. She would then give me the spelling test, so I ended up doing well in her class, getting excellent grades.

Now, I wished more people were like her, willing to sacrifice a little to give me a boost, but we're all imperfect and we forget to do the simple things that mean so much to others. So, what do I do now in my old age?

When I read Revelation 21: 4, it says:

And he [Jehovah God] will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.

Outcry and pain will be gone, forgotten! Like when you ride a bike and fall, and your knee is skinned, the wound goes away. Imagine that!

We ;have a lot of baggage in our life. We carry it around, as trophies and burdens. But, God promises to get rid of our baggage and make it disappear. It won't even come to mind for us to remember, "Yeah, that's how I used to feel." That hope is worth holding onto, for a lot of reasons. It is that hope that keeps us enduring, and endure we must, as we continue to have experiences in this world, and suffer pain, and bitterness and disappointments and resentment.

So, I deleted that blog post. I leave it with Jehovah, who will judge righteoudly and try to stay positive and express upbuilding, positive thoughts for the people that read my posts.

Stay safe!

... the text for June 13, 2020

Grief and sighing will flee away. - Isa. 35:10

As of June 12, 2020, in the United States, we have had over 2 million cases of COVID-19, with almost 114,000 deaths. In the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, sadly, over 700 brothers and sisters have died as a result of this pandemic.

There is grief all around. We hear news of people we know who have gotten sick and who have died. Death is not easy to take. Jehovah did not create us to experience death. Had Adam and Eve remained faithful and obedient, they would be alive today! There would have been no need for God's Kingdom at all!

But, here we are. But, we can meditate on God's promise recorded by Isaiah. It applied first to those released from captivity in Babylon and returned to their home land. There would be no grief or fear of attacks by animals and humans. There would be plenty of food. There would be no need for grief.

The comments on today's test say this:

Isaiah also said that the whole earth - not just the nation of Israel - would "be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea."

There will be a time in the near future when that promise will be fulfilled. Imagine that. Not just over 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses that live on the earth today, but 8 billion or more humans worshiping Jehovah! We have those who have recently died to come back in a resurrection.

If they served Jehovah in their life, they will be overjoyed at waking up again. Those who did not know Jehovah will have the opportunity to be taught about Jehovah and experience being resurrected.

How about those who died during the infamous inquisitions and crusades of times past? They will wake up and learn exactly who Jehovah is.

Grief will definitely flee from our memories and from our bodies. That's something worth grasping and keeping a hold on it.

If something bad makes you sad, keep your eyes fixed on a future so bright, you might have to wear shades.

Stay safe.

... a walk in the park

Today, we decided to go to our local park, to walk the dog and also feed the squirrels, my wife's favorite activity. She's an animal lover and even made a bird feeder, which she hangs at the rear of our apartment building, the the birdies. One day, a peacock showed up and helped himself. There were some squirrels in the area, living in the huge tree that sits in the middle of an empty field behind our place. So, they were raiding the bird feeder.

So, my wife took an old plastic water bottle, cut a big hole and put peanuts into it for the squirrels, so we have a bird feeer and a squirrel feeder.

anyway, so we went to this park, where there are many squirrels. She had a bag of peanuts in the car, slightly aged. So, as we walked through the park, the dog sniffing and digging in the layer of pine needels that covered the ground. She would grab some peanuts and drop them at the base of one or two trees.

The squirrels scurried down and took some. The dog barked. There was a gentle breeze. My hearing aid is broken at the moment, so the volume is very low, but I could hear the sound of sirens as police cars and fire trucks rushed by on the way to somewhere, Code-3, lights and siren blaring.

As we walked around, my wife grew agitated. She told me, there were strange people in the park (all this in sign language), I respondend, "What made them strange?" She did the sign for sick and tapped the side of her head.

Yes, acrooss the street there was a halfway house for those who were mentally ill. At that time of the day, a group of them were in the park. They weren't bothering us, we were quite a distance away.

She signed that one woman, her pants were off. I asked her if she had underwear on, and she shook her head. So, there was a woman running around naked from the waist down. I didn't look, and I couldn't see that well anyway. She wanted to go. Her facial expression was distraught, she shielded her eyes as from a bright light, and looked away. "Let's go now," She said, so we cut our park sojourn short.

There are two types of mentally ill people I've found: those who are obviously ill; the other have managed to keep it covered up, making it through life appearing a little eccentric., they don't readily admit that they have problems, they sometimes deny it. But, they get by.

There is a future, Isaish 33:24 says, where no one will be sick. That is such an amazing hope, that even those who end up homeless because of their mental state, or they're dealing with schizophrenia, multiple personalities, manic depression, mania, psychosis will be cured. it will be a thing of the past. None of that will exist under God's wonderful Kingdom. If you or someone you know and love is dealing with mental illness, there is hope. And it isn't a plethora of drugs, it's true healing by Jesus Christ, our Lord amd King.