Summer of Suck + Happy Anniversary Cheyenne Marie! + Another Book update
Cheyenne and I have been calling this the
And I just want to say, ‘Thank you, Lord that it is almost over.’ Just to be clear, we usually love the summer. Chey doesn’t have to get up early to get the kids to school, a lot of laying around in the pool, taking the kids on an ice cream run after a hot day. It is usually pretty great. Also, I learned a few years ago that they can learn as much with us in a couple hours a day for a week or two as they do in a whole year at school. So summers are usually pretty great for us. But this one has been heavy on the misery.
Cheyenne felt terrible most of June with gallstones up until we finally got her gallbladder out last week so she is recovering fine but it has been a huge headache for her especially but for all of us. Huge shout out to the ladies of New Holland Baptist Church and to my mom who have been a big help through all of this.
It was all made worse because it was announced to us in May that my employer was changing. Basically, I am doing the same job in the same place for the same manager but my check is coming from a different company and there are just enough things changed to make it all a pain in the neck. I did have to apply for my own job again which was sorta stressful. But having all of the insurance change when Chey was setting up a surgery had us plotting and scheming trying to figure out how it was gonna go and how to make it do right and nobody could give us straight answers. Is it just me or was it much easier to get information from people when you could go to their office and talk to them face to face? We have known for sometime how much medical services in this country have declined but they just really seem utterly incapable of doing anything lately.
Josiah decided that while all of this was going on that he would get four teeth all at once, and figure out how to stand up, and get into everything in the house that was unreachable to him just a month ago.
Chey and I got married in the summer of ‘08 and will be celebrating 15 years tomorrow, nobody and I mean nobody thought we would make it 15 years. Smart money was on murder/suicide or taking lumps out of each other before divorce followed by me spending the rest of my life in a dark basement and her being a freerange psychopath. She moved down here from Chattanooga when we got married and she was probably as sad and lonely and anxious as any human being has ever been. She couldn’t find a job because the Great Financial Crisis(or as I call it The Canary) had just hit, she didn’t have any friends, or really anything except me and I was gone all of the time trying to make enough money just to provide the basics for us. We missed church a lot because of her anxiety and they were rather a judgy, elitist bunch at the best of times so those friendships soured rather fast. It has a hard miserable year. We loved each other passionately but everything was so hard that we fought almost daily. And into this life came our Skye terrier, Darby David Dog.
If I ever know another dog as good as Darby then I will be able to say that I have been blessed beyond all measure. He was the most patient, loyal, loving, friendly sandwich thief that I have ever known. When he stole your food you felt blessed to have been part of such a charmingly boyish prank. It was as if Tom Sawyer had just tricked you into painting a fence and you just wanted his autograph. So much of the time, he was so motionless that you thought he was dead and but when he escaped he was faster than a bullet and more evasive than the rabbits and squirrels that he occasionally brought me as tokens of his affection. He could only be recaptured by opening a car door whereupon he lost all interest in freedom and just wanted to hang his head out the window. Unfortunately I can’t find a picture of him in ‘fluffy dog’ mode, how I loved him best. It was always an argument between us, she wanted him to have that nicely groomed puppy look and I loved the hairy, wild-man look.
So much of that went away when the children arrived and I always felt bad at the way that he went from an adored ‘son dog’ to someone that I just couldn’t make time for. We had been married not quite 9 years when Lily was born and Darby and Barbie were our children for 8 of them. They went everywhere and did everything with us. It is popular to make fun of ‘dog parents’ but let me say that for a young couple infertility is absolute hell. You feel like failures pretty much all of the time and pretending to be mom and dad to a dog is some relief. Why do you think that there are so many stories about childless people begging God for a baby, and why do these answered prayers play such a prominent role in the history of the covenant people? Because this suffering is an existential misery.(which btw our society is deliberately inflicting with its war on the family. satanic? you be the judge.) As they got older, Barbie got more aggressive probably because she was going blind and she has been gone two years. And then Darby has been having seizures and, I think, strokes all year and finally we couldn’t stand for him to suffer anymore. Everywhere I go and everything I do reminds me of him. And out of all of the things that have made this the Summer of Suck losing him has been the worst.
Susannah tells us all the time that we will see Darby and, our cat, Victoria again when Jesus comes back. And while I am not sure of the details of that I think that in some way that it is true. He is not a man that He should repent and I can’t believe that He creates anything on a temporary basis. I don’t even want to be part of the ‘going to Heaven to see grandma’ crowd much less the ‘going to Heaven to see my dead cat’ crowd but the resurrection is a resurrection of families not merely individuals. We are all a part of one another if we take John 17 seriously at all and that will increase as things approach their fulfillment.
Which brings us nicely around to the last point in this overlong family news update. Another Book - The Gospel in the Apocalypse(previous working subtitle was Jesus in John’s Apocalypse I am still going back and forth) has finished the first round of editing and retains my verve and forceful prose while losing about 9 million commas, and unnecessary capitalizations. Despite what you may have heard there was not a whole chapter that was a single run on sentence. It was two. I, and probably no one else, am getting very excited if you can’t tell. We are still on track, I think, for a fall release and ch. 2 is available to free subscribers.(This is the unedited but still awesome version.)
And here is the About the Book:
With our world getting closer to final collapse every day, we all want to know, ‘When?’, ‘How will it all end?’, ‘What are the signs?’ With no earthly qualifications whatsoever, Jon guides us through the Apocalypse with zero timelines, no detailed charts, absolutely no numerological or chronological information, and one vague reference to current events. Another Book answers the burning questions that no one is asking about the end of the world and the Lord’s return, ‘Who is coming back and where is He coming?’, ‘What does this have to do with the cross?’, and most of all, ‘How is any of this good news?’
Don’t get bogged down on minor issues like one world totalitarian governments deceiving with satanic power, space mountains smashing into the earth, and monsters coming out of giant pits to cause mayhem. Instead, let Jon’s wit and learning take you on a journey through prophecy with a focus on comforting troubled consciences and confronting the real enemy, our self-righteousness! Let’s see together how end times prophecy depicts the Lord’s grace and faithfulness so that we can look forward to His return not with anxiety but can say sincerely, 'Come quickly, Lord Jesus!’
Come for the Gospel, stay for the snark! Or come for the snark, stay for the Gospel. Whatever floats your boat. Anyway, I’d love to hear any thoughts or ideas that you all have. Happy anniversary to my beautiful Cheyenne Marie!