May Day, May day.

I just remembered that Jesus will return and I will live in Eternity with him. Silly me to forget.

*sigh*

No worries.

--jq

Peace.

God must want us to have PEACE.
Here is how many times it's mentioned in the Bible.

• NIV = 231 seperate places*
• NASB = 337 seperate places*
• The Amplified Bible = 394 seperate places*
• The Message = 206 seperate places*
• KJV = 400 seperate places*
• American Standard Vers. = 412 seperate places*

* Source: http://www.biblegateway.com

Comforting Words.

28 If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest.

29 Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest.

30 This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30
Contemporary English Version

Sin? It's covered.

A couple questions came to mind this weekend while I was sitting in church listening to the sermon. These are questions most of us who are Christians may know, but if you don't know "church speak" you may not know the answers.

What's the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian? One thing. The Christian believes that Christ is God(Savior) and that without Christ he/she is destined for eternity apart from God. The non-Christian does not believe Christ is the Savior and God.

Christians believe they are "saved" by Christ. Does this mean we, I say we because I am a Christian by definition above, have somehow lost our humanity and are now perfect? Yes...OK...No and No :-), and far from it. My heart is inherently sinful by nature of being human. Sin is something I was born into because of the first sin by Adam (Eve's fault). I am born under that same curse from long ago. Because of that I also do certain things that are sinful, or sin. So, there is sin the noun (a curse), and sin the verb (a real time action like I punched that guy in the face because he looked at me funny). Both are real sin, and I have never punched a guy in the face because he looked at me funny.

So, God (Jesus) came to Earth, lived a sinless life, and was killed on the cross as a perfect and blameless sacrifice for the sins of ALL mankind. I now have been covered and my sins are forgiven. I now have Heaven to look forward to.

I believe Heaven will look like this, but way better. My job in Heaven will be to play Golf.

Alcoholic in Christ.

A voice beats me, it's impossible to think.
A fall's on its way, I've become bigger, starting to sink.
Only darkness is offering its help, its ringing.
I look into nothing waiting for something. Nothing.

Passionate about what comes, I long for goodness and favor.
My sin arrives again and again like the sun rises to the day.
Darkness befriends in disquise, guilt takes me further, none the wise.
The battle not prepared for grows, tempting forever, Satan knows.

The tree is there but fatigue hinders my desire.
I ache for Christ like a child for love, it consumes like fire.
A touch that warms my within, like soothing water on my skin.
I turn towards it, He's there again. He's always been.

I can't lose sight or free the night while seized by my own will.
Failure to stand so strong, Holy Spirit be with me on and on.
Shadowed light below the Cross, it falls upon without loss.
I remember now, in God's embrace, He beat death and my sin erased.

I am free.

>>Written by me (JQ) in dedication to the alcoholics in my family, and in His family, who are covered in Christ.

† Screwtape's Easter.

† Screwtape is the name of a Senior Demon from the fictional book The Screwtape Letters written by C.S. Lewis. "What if we found a long lost letter from old Screwtape instructing his nephew (Wormwood) on the horrors of the Ressurection?" was the question Bob Silver asked when he wrote this letter in the same fashion as C.S. Lewis wrote his book. It's well worth the read.

You can take our wives...

What’s your favorite movie speech or monologue of all time? Which one gives you chills everytime you hear it or see it. For me it’s this:

Braveheart Freedom Speech by William Wallace.

"I am William Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny! You have come to fight as free men. And free man you are! What will you do without freedom? Will you fight?"

"Two thousand against ten?" - the veteran shouted. "No! We will run - and live!"

"Yes!" Wallace shouted back. "Fight and you may die. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!"



The running joke with my buddies is taking the last line of this famous speech and changing it to “…they may take our wives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”

In all seriousness, this speech reminds me of one that Jesus would give us. He sees his army getting scared, doubting, and then he busts out his loving freedom speech to remind us that if we fight this battle we will be free because we are free in Him, always. And we will fight.

I have heard a form of the question so many times that starts “And dying in your bed many years from now...”, and when I hear that I know what my answer is, no matter how that question ends; I don’t even have to think about it.

I know what I want my legacy to be. Do you?

Almost 2 years ago.

I heard for so long that I didn't look healthy, I looked tired, I was gaining weight, I was forgetting things, but I just thought I was out of shape. Well I was out of shape, but not in the traditional sense of the phrase. I was just plain sick. Here is what happened nearly two years ago.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease or Hypothyroidism. Basically, my body was attacking my Thyroid Gland thinking it was some foreign object in my body. My body was slowly shutting down due to lack of thyroid and I was slowly dying, or at least it seemed that way. My metabolism was gone. Here is a list of symptoms associated with this disease, I had ALL of them.

1. Increased sensitivity to cold


2. Constipation (TMI...sorry)


3. Pale, dry skin


4. A puffy face


5. Hoarse voice


6. An elevated blood cholesterol level


7. Unexplained weight gain — occurring infrequently and rarely more than 10 to 20 pounds, most of which is fluid


8. Muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, especially in your shoulders and hips


9. Pain and stiffness in your joints and swelling in your knees or the small joints in your hands and feet


10. Muscle weakness, especially in your lower extremities


11. Depression

Here is a picture of me just before diagnosis. (JT is sooo cute)

I honestly don't know how long ago that my thyroid started to die but looking back at old pictures I see big changes around the time Fisher was born. I sometimes wonder if the trauma around that event, the greatest stress I have ever known, had an adverse effect on my body. God will let me know some day. :-)

Anyways, my doctor told me that my low levels of Thyroid hormone were so low they were off the chart. I was the worst case he had seen. Thanks Doc, I already feel better. :-) But what he told me was that because it was treatable, with a simple synthetic thyroid pill for the rest of my life, that I was going to start feeling better in short order. I was going to get my life back. I started to cry in the room on the spot.

In between the time I first had blood drawn and my diagnosis of low thyroid, I was sent to get a sleep study done. I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea . I spent the night in a hospital room hooked to a dozen wires and was basically told that I was stopping breathing an average of 60-80 times per hour. So, my body would begin to relax, fall asleep, and my airway would close and my body would twitch, to wake me up (although I didn't fully become conscious), to open the airway to get a breath. Found this cool drawing below for visual aid.

I was never conscious of the fact that my body was doing this. That's the scary part. I thought I was sleeping. Kelly had woke me many times to tell me to breath because I had stopped. I just figured I was snoring. Because my body never really went into deep sleep, REM sleep, I was getting about 10 minutes of sleep per hour, and that was cumulative throughout the hour, not even 10 minutes in a row. The doctor's made me take a sleeping machine home right away and required me to wear it moving forward, they feared if I didn't start sleeping with it right away that I could die in my sleep. It was that bad.

It took some time to catch up on sleep after not sleeping for years. My life has changed in the last two years since going to the docs and getting help. I had become nearly comatose. Sleepy during the day and not interacting with my family. I could do nothing. All my energy was used trying to maintain my job and by the time I got home I was not able to function. Not much help to a wife and three kids. So needless to say my wife, kids, and I are happy campers now.

I have to maintain my thyroid levels with medication and go to the doctor to have them checked whenever I feel more tired than usual. I haven't been able to shed all the weight since my diagnosis two years ago but I'll hang on to the weight for the "new" life I now have.

I guess I have a couple words of advice, so here goes: Never wait to go see a doctor when you think something may be wrong with you, mentally or physically. And if others are telling you they think something is wrong, you are already behind the eight ball. GO GET HELP.

Here I am with my family now.

Thank you God for developing medical treatments for folks like me. You have given me my life back.

Ugly Cry.

I cry every time I see this; in fact I nearly bawl; in further fact I get that quivering lip and almost get that thing Oprah calls (dang, I'm using another Oprah reference...time to sell the Miata) the "ugly" cry. You know, when you just lose it but try to hold it back and it comes out like, well, ugly. This video really affects me. Especially the second and third times I watched it.

God's love is so powerful yet so tender and graceful. He loves us and never leaves us. He's right there.

Reach out to him.