Thursday 's Memories...heads up: long read (again)

Thursday, August 28, 2008

I have been experiencing more and more “attacks” or episodes of heavy-duty sweating all over my body. Typically, the sweat is from my head, my face, shoulders, neck and chest/rib area. Often, this will become quite exaggerated (soaking) and following it sometimes are smaller to medium scale attacks, but sometimes there is no attack that follows. The best that I can determine to be the cause is a shift in potassium. Nothing I can do about it, especially when it happens at night while I sleep. Most frustrating.

Yesterday's accomplishments included straightening and further organizing the desk/table in my office, going through 3 boxes of my old vinyl records that Sean brought back over to our house, and spending a found 15 or 20 minutes with Jaden working on a guitar lesson with him.
Back to the sweating topic; I had four of those episodes yesterday and I just got through my 4th one today.

I forgot to add in an accomplishment from Tuesday, which was that I repaired one of our kitchen drawers that would only open part way for us. I was unaware of the actual problem with the drawer; I was just thinking that it was either overfilled or something had fallen down on the side and was blocking it, but then once I took it out I realized that the back and side of the drawer had come apart and therefore was unable to extend all the way out. Once I got it pulled out, I was able to glue it and re-nail it and use the pole vices that my dad got me which did a great job and the drawer is completely repaired and back in use. Happy wife. And I felt very good about actually getting something done completely on my own. My life use to be filled with “fix its” and solutions simply due to my trade, but now I take joy in being able to fix a drawer by myself. Heads up all, none of us know what the future holds for us and I can testify that life’s blessings should not be taken for granted. If you don’t know what your blessings are, you’d better start figuring it out before you lose out on them. (Soap box removed…)

Ok, “And now for something completely different…”
At this point, I figure that it is worth asking if anybody reading this might have Microsoft Windows XP install disks that I might be able to borrow/use for a week or so? I am trying to get missy’s computer up and running being that school has now started, but unfortunately, the computer has committed complete mutiny and will not allow me to perform anything including using the Web or any installations or un-installations. I have backed up everything that I can on it, but I need to reinstall Windows XP on it, so if anybody has access to that and would be okay with my borrowing them for a week or so, please e-mail me at V12pilot@surewest.net and I will be greatly, greatly appreciative.

I got to thinking about the time when I was living down in Huntington Beach in Orange County, Southern California at a time when CC and I were not married. Cary stuff happened in front of me and to me while I lived down there, and at some point, I will probably share my recollections from then, but for now I was thinking of a particular event. So, after being down there for a period of time and in doing a series of different jobs in different neighboring cities, one of the things that was growing in my heart was that I was to ask CC to marry me with the rather specific intent of spending the rest of my life with her. So, I struggled with that, being that I was living in Southern California and she was then living still up in the Bay Area, in a San Jose. So, during this time I was trying to figure out how I was supposed to ask her and kept getting very nervous about asking her to marry me and would she move to Southern California during the time that we would be engaged? At the time, I was working for a music store called Moody Music, which was in Garden Grove, and I was living in a shared apartment down in Huntington Beach. There were three rooms in the apartment; one master and two regular rooms and I was renting one of the regular rooms from the from the guy (Rob) who was actually renting the entire apartment itself and sub-renting to me and another guy. It was pretty cool to live there and just have a room to myself and not have to take care of much more than that. I decorated it with Christmas lights and stuff so I didn't use the actual main light in the room; I just always had the Christmas lights on which kept a nice mellow mood for me. I did not, however, stay in the room for long periods of time. It was just the place for me to sleep and a place for me to get away from everything; come back to the house and lock myself in my room for the time as needed. So there came a point where I was really struggling with how I was supposed to talk to CC, what should I say and how should I say it and trying to really analyze this and figure it all out; go figure…I was trying to analyze something... anyway, one night, about two o'clock in the morning, I was still awake and lying in bed, not able to sleep, and thinking about CC and proposing, when my door opened and my roommate/landlord (so to speak) walked into my room, eyes half closed, wearing pajamas, clearly just got out of bed, walked into my room and without looking at me just looking straightforward, said “Would you please just ask CC to marry you so that I can get some sleep?” He then turned around, closed the door and walked back into his bedroom. Up until this point, I had never mentioned her name to him. I had never said her name. I had never even brought her up in conversation. So there was no convenient way for Rob to have known what was going on with me at all. And it was the closest that I have ever come to having God give me an actual neon sign to get a message across to me as I've ever had in my life. After he walked away, I was actually able to go to sleep (after I had gotten over being freaked out that God was now talking to my roommates to tell them, to tell me, to get on with it). That was rather amazing in my book.

I'm not sure if anybody reading this has ever had a situation where you are convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God is having other people “read your mail”, so to speak. What I mean by that is when somebody close to you, or somebody who you never met, may come up to you and tell you something about something that's going on in your life that only you and God know and then this person comes up and shares with you information that pertains directly to you? I mean, you know that has to be a God thing; it can't be anything else because nobody else knew about it. So, I don't know if you guys have had things like that happen, but that has happened a lot to me, which now, in hindsight, does appear to me like I'm a slow learner and not always a good listener, especially if God's got to go to people around me to tell me what time of day it is.

Thinking of that reminded my of another similar situation, only this time it was after CC and I were engaged. We ended up going to a church service that we had been invited to the night before, and the church was Fountain Valley Vineyard. The service was being held in a Seventh-day Adventist gymnasium, so we were sitting in folding chairs; a first for me for a church. The room was filled with people and the worship band was just amazing; turns out that the bulk of their players were all studio musicians from the LA basin, so the Christian studio musicians all seemed to go to this particular church. So the worship music was stellar, and very difficult to get over once we were no longer at the church; we had become very spoiled. Anyway, we got into the service and I realized about 5 or 10 minutes into the worship time that I was becoming very emotional. My eyes started to water and I was crying in no time and, again, freaking out because I'm in this new surrounding with a bunch of people around me that I don’t know and I’ve got this incredible woman beside me who is aware that I'm just crying away, losing it. Looking back, I think that God was straight up working in my heart and working to take away the things that didn't need to be there anymore and replacing those empty places with Him. I had to let go of the control. So, once the worship had finished and the teaching had started, we were both very in tune with the pastor and what he was saying; we felt very good about him, about being a part of this church and listening to this pastor. At the end of the service, he was calling for anybody that wanted prayer to stand up and come down to the front, and before I could think about whether or not I wanted to do that, I had stood up. Just after standing, I was having this quibble discussion with myself about sitting back down; “You don't need to be standing right now, you don't know any of these people…” but seconds after I had stood up, there was one of the pastors on the back corner of the stage, and we made eye contact, (which was the last thing I wanted to make with anybody in the room) and he waved me over to come to him. So I walked my way around to him and he stuck his hand out and said his name is Karl Harkey and would it be alright for him to pray with me. I said “Yes, I you could pray with me if you want to, but I don't know what to ask for prayer about. If you want to pray, that's perfectly fine.” and with that, he closed his eyes and he raised one hand and put one hand on my shoulder, and began to pray. He prayed for the "usual things” that are generally pray for with strangers or with a first-time encounter, but then he specifically said “…and help Wade to be at peace with his upcoming wedding to Carolann and help him take joy in the engagement that is unfolding in front of him. Give them direction and peace.” I don't really remember all the rest of the things that he said because, once again, I was completely tripping out that God had shared this intimate and privileged information with this person standing in front of me; a person who I'd never met and had never spoken to, yet he knew CC’s and my names and what I was struggling with, deep down inside. I was absolutely blown away.
That was the time that God, once and for all, got my attention and He has never lost my attention from that point on. Definitely there have been issues and trials that I've gone through but I have never questioned whether God was there or whether or not God was in control. I may not always understand what God is doing or how he's doing it but it is probably more so not understanding why my questions are not answered in my timeframe. Epiphany: Who the heck am I to judge God's timing? God’s motives? Or even God’s actions? I’m far less than a speck of dust. Back to reality…So, anyway, to close this part out, (finally!!) Karl Harkey introduced himself to me and shared with me that he and his wife would be honored to be our marriage counselors, if CC and I didn't have anybody by that point, which we didn't. So, we began a lifelong relationship with Karl and Denise and, to this day, we are still good, good friends, though we don't talk very often. It's not because we don't care or love, it’s just having to do with day-to-day life and lack of convenient connection, being that they still live down in Southern California and we live up here now.

It's also worthy of note that in the summer of 1991, CC and I were living down in Garden Grove. I had been in a band down there since 1988, Forthright, and we had done several concerts from the LA area and Sunset Strip Band clubs to coming up and having performed in Santa Cruz and at Trinity Presbyterian in San Carlos as well. This was a band that we felt was actually going somewhere and we felt really good about. However, we knew that there were some problems happening with some of marriages within folks in the band or affiliated with the band and, at one point in time, I think it was just before summer started, Karl and Denise shared with us that they were aware that there was a spirit of divorce that was plaguing and blanketing over Orange County and LA County. During this discussion with us, they told us that if we were to stay in Southern California, that we would become a statistic of that spiritual plague that was having an effect on the whole LA area. This was no small scenario to consider; it directly affected our jobs, our home, our band ministry and our friends. We prayed about it and then we decided to move up to the Bay Area. I’ve been asked “Why did you guys move up from SoCal?” That was the reason that we moved. We were given a heads up that this was going on and we were told, very directly, what would happen to us if we stayed, so being that God had given us (me) very straightforward messages before this, I didn't feel the need to test that one. So we packed up and moved; we left the band which was a very hard for one for me and the folks in the band as well, and it turned out that one of the band’s key members ended up getting divorced shortly thereafter. Very painful. I also think that it had a direct effect on the band’s ministry as well.

So that’s a silly amount of sharing, but it’s been good to get it written out so I don’t have to keep it in my head anymore.

Quick note that lunch today with Jason was a real blessing for me and a treat. What a wonderful young man and friend.

It’s now nearing 10:30 pm and I’m going to try and get to bed before 11:00 pm.

History 101 dismissed. See you tomorrow?