Friday, April 15, 2011

Five year downer

Remember when they used to interview you and they would ask, "Where do you think you'll be in five years?" I was wrong about mine. David wrote: No doubt about it! God is good -- good to good people, good to the good-hearted. But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness. I was looking the other way, looking up to the people at the top..."

Five years ago this month, my wife and I moved to the northshore above New Orleans, across the Lake Ponchartrain. We did so because the newspaper I was writing for, The Times-Picayune, made me. We had to find a house quickly. Hurricane Katrina, that devil, was the reason our lives changed. I had been an associate pastor of a church we built that was a beautiful new facility near our house. Life had been perfect, or something close to it. But the hurricane changed everything.

We found a house, and thought things were going to be okay. But the next five years have been littered with tragedy and pain.

My mother died that December. I was hit by a drunk driver that February and my back has never been the same. My son-in-law was killed the next May. We've lost three long-time pets in the interim.

I think of all this as we're about to sell our house that we fought so hard to find. I don't know that we will ever own another. I don't know that we will have a place to live when this ministry ends. Heck, the ministry nearly ended last week with my illness. I know I take too many pills just to get to normal nowadays and one day the pills will run out, the money will run out and there is no real backup plan.

It's all my fault. All of it, well, that and a hurricane. But I go on. I must.

But this I know: Years ago I nearly missed God because I was certain I could handle everything placed in front of me. Five years later, I'm not sure I can handle anything. Anything. I know tomorrow will be better, but today, well, today is a challenge.

"When my skin sags and my bones get brittle, God is rock-firm and faithful." David wrote those words. I wonder how his five-year period was.

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