Home on the Range

Hey teens. This will be a short lived post. I am at my brother in laws house. He has internet. I don't. Not much to report. Still here in vermilion, going to vancouver in a few days. Feeling ok, watching lots of tv, and tv on dvd. It's a good life. Wish i had something more to report. I'm about to hold a baby. Gotta Go. Baby's not mine...or Cara's for that matter.

Good Bye CrowChild Road

Hey Guys
This is my last blog as a residant of Calgary. It seems like i have been experiancing a lot of lasts lately. Today was my last shift as an employee of Christian Publications, I saw Tim for the last time (for a while anyway), I ate at McDonalds for the last time, (there is no McDonalds in Vermilion), You get the picture. It's been hard. More so for Cara, but now it's gotten hard for me. You see, My dad has taken a turn for the worse with his health. I'm finding it hard to be optimistic about the outcome. Not because i am morbid, or negative, or cynical or anything, but i just don't have the peace i had last time this seemed to be an issue. You see when we came through my dad's brain surgery last July, i thought that was it. I thought it was over, at least for a while, and the next chunk of time in my dad's life was going to be spent in recovering from his surgery. For me that meant continued progression of increased health and recovery. Not the case. He has shown signs of improvement, which were always cause for celebration and praise as answer to prayer, but these times of improved health never seemed to last. And here I am 1000km away, not being able to do anything. There's not much i could do if i was there, but it just feels worse, i feel even less of a semblance of control when i am so far away watching my family suffer. I need them to know i suffer too, and it's so hard for me being so far away. I just want to take all of thier pain and load it on to my back, and relieve them. Not because i have the messiah complex, but because i love them, and i hate to see them hurting, and i feel like it's becoming my job to take care of things now. I feel so in the dark. Like no one seems to know what the actual problem is with my dad, and if they do, they aren't saying, because they know that can't fix it, or something i don't know. I wish medicine was cut and dry, black and white. One thing or the other. Yes or No. And I cry out to God. Please Heal my Dad. You can do it, i know you can. And I try to follow my own sermon's train of thought from the summer. I am not in control, God is. God knows what's best, and he wants whats best. He can see the big picture, we can't. Not feeling very comforting to me right now. If i am going through this because i am going to be ministering to someone in a similar situation down the line, tell me now. I need God to be a God of logic right now. I need there to be cause and effect. Was it some sin in my life that has caused this anguish to befall me? It could be, i'm a fairly sinful guy. I just want some answers. Like what is truly wrong with my dad? Can it be medically fixed? WHy is this happening to my family? What's next for my family? It seems to me, when things are going our way, we sometimes praise God (or ourselvers), but when life is shitty, we wonder where God is, and sometimes we blame him. We feel like he hasn't answered us. But he has. It might not be what we want, and rarely do we get to know why, but this is part of faith, and this is more then likely where lots of people drop it, and say, thats too much. I can't feel all this pain and hurt and believe in a God who would put this on me for no reason, or at least no reason he is willing to share. Other people find God in these situations. I'm going to live through this. I am trying with everything i have to trust God, and allow him to take control of my life, but i fear for my family, not my sister and mother. But for the extended family. This would be such a huge loss, a second one, since we lost my uncle just over a year ago. Already I am feeling my own internal pressure to be the strong one, the glue, the one who ministers to them. Rightfully so i guess, i am a pastor now. I don't want my family to lose faith in God, and his love and care, or even more specifically i don't want one member to walk further away in pain. But at the same time I don't know how to react and how to be strong in this situation. I said to Cara earlier tonight "...I'm scared, how about you? Ok, so you want to go back to packing and try to busy ourselves enough to think about it?". I want answers, but i feel like i won't get them. And so i don't expect them. I want to live expectantly in God, but when he doesn't fit into my paradigms of expectations i just want to write him off, or, lower my expectations of the most powerful, intelligant, loving entity that exists.I'm hitting a brick wall it seems. I don't know what to do anymore. You know, i am a person, who always seems to have an answer, and a confidant answer, even if it's I don't know, or if its an answer someone doesn't want to hear, i feel like if you answer confidantly, there are more inclined to believe you, even if you don't know what the hell you are talking about (see about 25% of the phone calls i took at Christian Pub), but this time i really don't have the answers, and i don't have the confidence to bullshit you, which i am usually so good at doing. What a Day. I guess, with experiancing all those last whatevers, i am going to be experiancing some firsts soon, maybe some good ones i hope.

Free at Last (almost)

What a day. and it's not over yet. I sit before a computer screen at AUC-NUC for what very possibly could be the last time. Or at least the last time for a very long time, as in 40 minutes i will begin writing my final final exam, and will be finished my schooling here. It is a very exciting feeling. From whence i will go to work tomorrow, and every night this week will pack another piece/part of my house up in anticipation of my move to Vermilion this Saturday. One good thing about being finished here at AUC-NUC-CBC-CTS, or whatever, i realized as i rode the elevator up to the sixth floor was that i no longer had to live in constant paranoid fear that i was actually going to die riding that elevator some day. Although i am starting to think my paranoid fear is actually pertaining to all elevators (except grain elevators, and trees that look like grain elevators in the distance). I have an impending feeling of doom almost everytime i ride an elevator. I think it dates back to the shoddy elevator at the school rez, and also the one at Pentland apartment buildings, and then the one here at the school building started acting weird this year, and by weird i mean, the doors close and you expect to begin your upward ascent, but you don't, and you just sit there. Or it will be a rocky ride sometimes, and you (I) feel like you (I) am going to die. So, thus ends another a chapter of my life. No Props to the 19th chapter of my life, which ended quicker then it began, remember that Kyle? I'm sure Troy does, and probably Tim too, since Tim wrote the preface for Chapter 19. Anyone feel like writing a preface for the next chapter I am about to begin. The one where i move to Vermilion and start my job as the youth pastor (associate pastor in charge of youth). I said some goodbyes today, Matt Russell, Bernie Van De Walle, Bill McAlpine, it was a touch emotional. And then I was standing on the sidewalk talking to Matt Russell, and some person drove onto the sidewalk to try and go down an alley, only to find the ally full of Cars going the opposite direction. I called this person a meat-head. Then another car pulled up (almost hit us) and looked like they were trying to cut off the other car in an attempt to go down the same alley. (which spelling is the right one?) Anyway, i proceeded to call this person a meat-head and said, "holy crap this meat-head is going to hit us". And then a man behind me (who happens apperantly to be a new prof this year at AUC) said, no she isn't thats my wife. Then she got out of the car, and he got in, and I walked away feeling very very very awkward. Time to tame the tongue I guess. Speaking of taming the tongue, this keyboard i'm typing on sucks. The space bar isn't working very well, and so often i have been forced to go back and fix errors caused by this infernal machine. I had a great weekend, eating, watching movies, hanging out with, partying with, having sleep-overs with any numbers of good friends this weekend. Tim and I had the sleepover. It was sweet. Kind of a last hurrah, another end of an era, not an end of a friendship, just the end of a close proximity friendship. I have been losing those all over the place, it sucks, but i guess that's growing up right? Speaking of growing up, i made what i thought would be an awesome mix cd today to celebrate my impending release from this blasted institution, but it hasn't turned out as well as i had hoped. I tried to get all really long songs, like 10 minutes long each at least, but it hasn't worked out, cause two were live, and have a huge gap of talking or silence before an encore that i totally forgot about, so i will have adjust this mix tonight when i go home, otherwise, it will be a lost cause, and i don't like lost causes. Though some might call the Canucks a lost cause, and if thats true, then the only lost cause i like is the canucks. Speaking of the Canucks, i'm keeping a long standing tradition alive here today. Every final exam since grade nine i have been wearing a NHL hockey jersey, and today was no differant. Though, i was in such a rush this morning i forgot my lunch/supper. Anyway, if you think about it, that's almost a decade of final exams. Crazy huh? Anyway, this blog is pointless, but i just wanted to reassure you i am still alive, and still kicking, and still whatever. But i'm moving soon, and so you might not hear from me for a while. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

An Explanation

So, last time i blogged, i tried to post a video. A hilarious and beautiful video from the website, U-Tube. Anyway, it didn't work, and it posted these two non-blogs that you see directly underneath this post. Truth be told, this made me very mad. In addition, because the blogs are all corrupted my blog site won't let me delete them. This all made me very mad as i stated above, and so everytime i saw or thought about my own blog I got violently mad, so thats why i haven't blogged, but today i am sucking it up, just enough to get the explanation out of the way. So that's it for now, but soon i will post again, especially since i am moving away from Calgary forever in 19 days. The countdown begins....

Song of the Day: "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John.
Film of the Day: "Elizabethtown" (cause i watched it last night)

Jumpin on the U-Tube bandwagone (SUYT)