1 Year Later...

Well its time to jumpstart this blog again after a few months of neglect. I am kind of kicking myself in the ass because of it because when I was faithfully keeping a regular schedule with it I did notice an improvement in my writing. Practice makes perfect.

Back in Fresno during the late 80s my sister Lily and I used to be fans of a radio program called Unshackled. This was a classic radio drama which focused on stories of conversion. I remember that each week the individual whose story was being dramatized would reach a cross roads where they would need to “to face themselves and think.”

I remember during my last few months in Toronto I spent little time in front of the mirror. I slept a lot and lived off of breadsticks from Domino’s Pizza. I wasn’t a very happy person and I felt I had gotten stuck in a rut with no way of getting out. I’m a person who early on realized that there is a difference between simply existing and really living. I was just existing.

I would like to say that being out here has completely turned my life around in such a dramatic way much like the people on that old radio program but instead, I must confess that I am still very much in process. There have been many changes. I now know that I want to do something completely different with the rest of my life. I have rediscovered my love of music and reconnected with my saxophone. I now understand my parents more and much of the “why” for a lot of the unexplained events in my life. I can appreciate how hard work can be and that you really do need to work hard for what you have. However, no matter how hard we work, we will always be dependent on God. And finally, I have rediscovered love and it has rediscovered me.

As my fiancé (!) and I enjoyed a lazy Sabbath afternoon this past weekend in Banff, there was a moment when I lay opposite her on a couch and I was able to watch her intently focus on something she had surfed to on Youtube. She was so into it and her face was unguarded betraying her emotional connection to what she saw. Her eyes caught the light coming from the screen and seemed to glow. While I wasn’t even a part of this moment I felt so close to her and felt like I had experienced intimacy with the one I love.

Lord knows there are struggles ahead. I pray intently for strength. But I also praise Him for the blessings that He has given me over the past year. I pray He finishes what He has started so that we may both one day look back on the journey and simply breathe a sigh of contentment and satisfaction over the road traveled to reach here…