Please walk with me….

“We learn something from everyone who passes through our lives. Some lessons are painful, some are painless…but all are priceless.” – Anon E. Moss

There is the familiar story about not knowing contentment in life that has birthed the age old idiom, ‘the grass on the other side always looks greener’ and sometimes we actually and with real intent blur the lines differentiating reality and our fantasies. However life with inevitability brings us around, sometimes dragging us on our butts to acknowledge that there is more to life than positive talk, reciting mantras or forwarding stuff that has a silly condition at the end. Yes, we are saddled with responsibilities every day that we arise but when we align the fact that our being alive today is simply a reaffirmation of the truth that God is not yet through with us then we can truly be grateful for the many blessings we receive (and oft take for granted) or else why are we still here? To live is Christ, to die is gain is a very weighty statement but that is simply truth in its plainest form.

A couple of days ago, I actually felt that I had touched the gold paved cobblestones of heaven because unfortunately the past few days have not just been torrid but have been progressively chronicling a decline in my health. Six months ago, I had a bad fall and sustained significant injuries to my right shoulder (rotator cuff) and just having to deal with myoclonus each day is a full-time career on its own, adding a torn rotator cuff was just adding more to an already overflowing bowl. With the same doggedness that is characteristic with faith, I continue; choosing every day to be thankful for something at the very least. Against what I term my fundamental values, a friend set up a GoFundme campaign because in his words, sometimes we just have to let go and let ‘friends’ and others help. After the dismal campaign ran for a month or two, he had to shut it down as requested by me because we do not decide the paths or channels from where our relief will come from. It is and will always be about His timing – He does make all things beautiful in HIS TIME!

Being the proud father of an amazing daughter, whose life all on its own is simply a testament to God’s sovereignty, I am more than just a soccer dad. Despite the frailties of this body, I tend to want to push the envelope just a tad more. Well, the fall was a result of attempting to push the envelope and even though she bosses and fusses over me, I still know that there are a couple of things I can still do because our children are the best gifts that Heaven has in its store and so I am never going to let a white flag hang from my doorway with regards to issues pertaining to Heaven’s precious gifts. Again, I am a firm advocate of taking care of your body but sometimes it is easier said or written and most times it just goes awry however it is either of two options – Let go entirely and Let God or delude yourself into believing that you have when you truly haven’t.

Well I am still a work-in-progress and tenacity still means loads to me, but ironically where that tenacity is applied also matters. Against plain common sense, a couple of days ago, I dropped my cane in a bid to help her during her training and that was like a culmination of everything bad – the lack of sleep, the rigors of just being fairly active for consecutive days et al. During the night, I was seized with the most severe episode of dystonia – tremors so intense that the king-sized bed was literally absorbing and trying unsuccessfully to contain all that energy, pain so intense that curling into a fetal position did nothing to help, tears of utter helplessness cascading down my cheeks as I prayed believing it was my last along with that scary feeling that I tend to describe as my brain over-heating because as always it was doing the processing and still firing away on all cylinders. I remember telling myself that this was what the end feels like….

….definitely one of the worst storms but from force of habit, I clung to every promise that applies to me – knuckles whitened from clutching hard, I was able to ride out the storm not by my own strength (that really does not mean so much to me anymore) but because my story is yet to be concluded. In retrospect and as I continue the long and difficult task of recuperating, I bear no angst. No hard feelings for those who in their ivory castles feel comfortable and secure. No hard feelings for those who believe that it is a fair trade to copy and paste a prayer as against doing something more tangible. No hard feelings for those whose ignorance make them all the more ludicrous, no feelings of resentment directed to the world because I know that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. And even though the furnace be stoked more than usual, I choose to be hurled without a fight into the fires confident that God’s got me; acknowledging that His ways differ from mine and so I know that salvation will come.

Salvation not by my own understanding or standard, but rather salvation as dictated by Him with the end result being that I will emerge at the other end so much better than before the journey through the fires. And whilst the waves billow high and angry, and this vessel gets more battered, I choose to make each moment count. Regardless of the darkness that creeps like a smothering garment blocking out the stars of the night, I know that there is still going to be light once this night is over. And so I hold on, not because of the medication that miraculously never completely runs out (even when the funds do) or the fact that there will always be help raised up on my behalf, but rather because I know that there is that one life that will draw a second wind to continue pressing on just by reading my story. There is that one life that was just about to succumb to the darkness and let the little light be snuffed out, that is why I hold on. For every point I get to on my journey, I learn some more and apply that faith that recognizes not only that He exists but that He is also with me through it all. He is more than the worst of storms and withersoever He leads, I submit.

For as long as this breath courses through my lungs, I choose to be a pineapple, standing tall, wearing a crown and being sweet on the inside. Remember that you cannot start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.

פרידה עד שנפגשנו שוב בתזמון שלו, וייתכן שאהבתו של אלוהים להיות אמיתית לך!

Adios!