Losing My Grip...

No one could be happier than me that 2016 is finally coming to a close.  I hated a vast majority of 2016.  The point of this blog has always been to get out whats been going through my mind, heart and life,  a way to push out personal feelings, frustrations, joys and sorrows, an invitation into the mess that is Aaron.

Through the years people have read that mess and been encouraging, or judgmental, even spiteful and rude at times.  For the most part I have never really edited out the few comments that I get, preferring to allow people to respond how they feel like they need to or want to respond.  I look  at this venue as an opportunity to grow, mainly because be it encouragement or criticism, the interaction forces me to look at the underlying issues that relate to any given post and look at them on a different level.  Once I get past the self-justification that is involved in my actions, I am able to see things from another perspective and adjust or ignore depending on the circumstance.

Equally important in this space has been the evolution of my faith journey.  There is struggle in these pages and posts.  In them I find old "truths" replaced with legitimate ones.  There is a faith that wants action as opposed to reaction.  A faith that is willing to question why, as much as it is willing to state emphatically that it is right.

In these pages there are joys, sorrows, successes, failures, moments of pride and moments of shame.  There is a healthy dose of fear in here, as well as bitterness, and downright anger.

Today I am adding one more post to the pile, which brings me back to the beginning.  I am so glad 2016 is going away.  I am hoping that 2017 is better, need 2017 to be better.

Feelings are dangerous things because, admit it or not, they rule most of our actions.  If I had to put a label on 2016 it would read...FAILURE...

Failure to pray hard enough.

Failure to minister to enough people.

Failure to see lasting change in the neighborhood of Locust Point that can be attributed to LPCUCC.

Failure to minister to the people in the church effectively.

Failure to be all the Joyce needs.

Failure to be all that the girls need.

Failure to communicate enough.

Failure to hold it all together.

Failure to buy the right house.

Lots of F's on the report card this year.  It's how I feel, and while not necessarily accurate as I said before, what I feel in this matter is really all that matters.  At least where I'm sitting now.

With all of this I'm losing my grip.  Joyce said she doesn't like to see my shoulders slump, and yet I'm not sure what else can be at this point.  I feel like every time a little bit of the wight gets lifted there are 12 other things tossed in the pack, most of which weigh more than the one thing that was lifted.

I'm so tired, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and the worst part about it is there really is no time to be tired.  I know all the things that make sense. I know that going into a new year and a new ministry season, should be done with lots of energy and excitement, and so I'll do what I have been doing for the last 7 months,  I'll pretend...pretend to be excited, pretend to have the energy, pretend to be okay, and in that pretending, I'll even fool myself for a few hours, days, weeks, but I also know whats back there, whats hiding in the shadows.  I know that there will be one more thing said, or one more things done and it will be the tipping point...

Which is where this promise comes into play...

“But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.”
(2 Corinthians 12:9 HCSB)

This one thing I know,  that I am going to feel all of the things I have written on these pages, for the foreseeable future.  Things are not going to be getting easy any time soon, and that can be okay, as long as I can remember that each of these failures that I have written about here, that I have felt, true or not, are opportunities for God to become more in my life, and lets face it any opportunity for God to become more in our lives is a good thing.  I just have to realize that God becoming more, doesn't mean that I'm suddenly going to feel any differently, I have to be okay with that.

Again...

Six years ago...well okay five years and a couple of weeks, Joyce and I spent a month at University Hospital in Morgantown WV.  I spent the days in the ICU waiting room, and the Nights in a chair by her bed.  If you want to know more you can look it up on the blog, quite extensively documented, sometimes more than once a day.

Today I sit in a surgical waiting room, tweeting, texting and hoot suiting updates on the cancer surgery that we knew was coming, just like a train that starts down a track, moving from point a to point b, it will get there and you really can't stop it,  even when you wish you could, even when you say, as J did last night, I don't want to do this.  We don't want to do this, and didn't want to do it.  Doesn't matter though, this is where we are.

J is in the last of three procedures, the first two went well,  if knocking someone out with drugs and cutting and removing things can be seen as going "well," still if this lets us continue to do life together then this is what we do.

23 years ago I will or was it I do?  We talked about better and worse, richer and poorer,  sick and healthy.  It's safe to say that we've been through all of those things.  J has stuck  beside me through worse and worse, we have weathered some serious storms, had times of intense joy and excitement, done amazing ministry.  We have felt success, failure, fear, loss.  Pretty much everything people feel when they do life together.

I never thought that J would be the one that was in hospitals,  I always thought that would be me, and I always thought it would be at least 2o years away.  That's not how it worked out though.  We are here, walking through cancer, just like we walked through everything else and will keep walking through things.

You learn so much when you go through these things, you learn about yourself, you learn about the people around you.   You learn and grow and change and sometimes it's a good thing, and sometimes it's a sad thing, and sometimes it's just hard.  The important thing isn't which of those adjectives it is, the important part is the learning, the internalization of the things you find out about life and how you are doing or have been doing it and what you do from then on.

The final doctor came out.  He said everything went well, we will get to go to recovery soon, get to see her and be with her.   Thank you for praying, for standing in that space that it's been hard for me to stand in lately.  The space between faith and doubt, belief and denial, trust and anger.  Please keep doing so.  I know it's selfish, but we need it now more than you know.  The journey is not over, there is still much to do, more steps to take, more things to deal with, more conversations, more, more, more.  You all being strong when we are not really does help.