As you may have noticed on Manda's blog (if you check her blog as regularly as I do :)) today would have been my dad's 50th birthday. One of the lessons you can't miss in life is how drastically things can change in a little more than 6 months; all it takes is a few bigger changes (or some minor for that matter) and they'll not only affect the present, but your entire life. They cause relationships to shift or crumble, they test who you are, how you respond and where you rest your trust. I suppose there's nothing like a trail to either bring out the best or worst in people, the question is which will it bring out the most, and how will it manifest itself. Another lesson I'm reminded of, would be the one we heard of in our sermon on the Lord's day. How we should treat every day like its our last, because it could be. How often we take a day for granted, people for granted, they're there, but we're too busy to really appreciate them as much as we should, or would if we knew that it would be our last chance (in this life).

I don't know if a day has gone by in which I haven't thought of my dad at some point or the other. I often dream about him, which I find to be comforting, although they tend to also be rather confusing as even in my dreams reality clashes. So I'm scrabbling to do the math, to figure out whether he did die, or if that was the dream, and the dream reality. In my dreams I ask myself things like "why on earth did I think he was sick or died? He looks so well" or "he might get better yet". I still retain a sort of joy for him in being gone, there are so many things I'm glad he doesn't have to go through. It still makes me sad to think of how all of my nephews and nieces won't get a change to know, play, or learn from him, but at that point I should just be really thankful I had that opportunity, although even there I sadly neglected to learn from him so many things he was willing to teach, sigh. I know that God shows his mercy in many ways, and I can see how this was a mercy to my dad, and a faith strengthening trial for myself, so who am I to complain, when I know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.(Romans 8:28)

Well the walls are waiting for paint and the floor for a mop so I had best scat, and so life goes on. :)

Jode

Psalms 55:22 Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.