Abandon

This post is part of the Great Blogging Experience hosted by the ever gracious and hard working Alicia. Everyone is welcome to participate!
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I am not at all sure that I like the word abandon, not that it has ever done anything unkind to me. I just do not care for the ideas that it brings to my mind. Abandon friends, abandon ideas, abandon projects, abandon faith, abandon hope. Or being abandoned.

Perhaps it is because as a boy I was quick to quit if I thought I was going to fail. And I did not like the feelings quitting produced in me. I was about 25 before I truly embraced the idea that I should always do the best I could and never give up. Up till that time the only place I was dogged was on the baseball diamond, but probably that is because I never expected to be beaten there.

I can easily attribute my growth in perseverance to the relationship I have with my bride. We married young and she had to put up with a lot of immaturity and selfishness on my part in the early years. I am glad she took her vows, “for better or worse” seriously. I am committed to see that she gets the “better” the rest of the way.

Our youngest daughter was abandoned by her birth mother at 18 months. She has made some bad decisions and had some bad breaks in the past ten years and we are raising her boys, 8 & 7. We will never abandon her, or them. I can think of no greater cause than providing them a place of security and safe haven.

My God did not abandon me to my sinful self, and I will never abandon Him and His will for my life. He has to pick me up quite often, but He knows I will keep trying to reflect His love and light to those around. I don’t want anyone to be abandoned in the darkness.

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Bittersweet Day at the Ball Park!

Every trip to the ball park makes the day a good one. A couple of weeks ago my family attended the Thursday night game at Minute Maid Park in Houston, despite the fact that Hurricane Ike would be slamming into our area.

Last night we went again to see the Astros, our first time since the storm. It was a fun game, with the Astros winning over the Atlanta Braves on a home run in the bottom of the ninth by Darin Erstad. I even caught a ball off the bat of Chipper Jones during batting practice.

But once every season there is a bittersweet day at the ball park. It is on the day that you know it will be next April before you will get to go to a ball game again. That was how it was last night. By the time I got to the car, the Brewers had finished their game with a win, thus eliminating Houston from the post season(I knew that the Cubs, who had already clinched the division title, would lose a game against since the loss would make it unnecessary to come to Houston on Monday for a make-up game).

I will watch the playoffs and the World Series, but I won't get to see a game in person again till spring! Heavy sigh!

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Teaching Them They Belong!

For the past week we have been digging out from the debris left by Hurricane Ike. After we got the limbs and leaves cut up and piled at the curb in our yard, we helped the neighbors on our block. We includes our 7 and 8 year old grandsons that live with us. We wanted them to understand what it means to belong to a community.

After we finished our block, the guys and I went to remove limbs and leaves from the lawns of our widows and elderly in the congregation. The boys could work for a couple of hours without distraction, then they would need a bit of a break. I set a pattern of half an hour working and half an hour to play/relax. They were able to contribute to the efforts throughout the days on that schedule.

The first day of the work, they were just using their hands to bag up leaves. That evening I took them to the Home Depot and bought each of them his own rake and pair of gloves. They were so proud of the new tools. I hope they remember this time when they are old men and tell their grandsons the stories.

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First Post Hurricane Post!

The first presidential race I recall was between Eisenhower and Stevenson. For a long time I had a button that said, "I like Ike!" But after the ordeal of the last week and the clean up that is still ahead because of the recent hurricane through here, I can unequivocally say, "I don't like Ike."

My home is about seven miles from Galveston Bay, but in an area that was not requested told to evacuate, in fact we were advised to shelter in place. So we rode out the storm in our home. The first half of the night was not terrible, winds were sustained near 100, but did not do much damage. When we were in the eye, around 3 am, my wife woke up and we went out on our front porch to assess things. There was only one limb down in the front yard, which faces north. The winds had been blowing from the northeast. We were only in the eye for around 20 minutes, then the winds started from the southwest. My wife had gone back to bed (my grandsons slept from about 11:30 till nearly 9 the next morning, we were without power from 12:40 Friday night till about 7:15 tonight).

Between 4:30 and 5:30, things got a lot stronger, sustained winds about 115, but the difference was significant. The wind whistled down the chimney and every few minutes I could hear another branch snapping in our front yard. When daylight came, the winds were down considerably, but it was not safe to go out till about noon. We had 16 limbs down from the big tree near our front door, but not one on the house. We lost our fence in the back, but we had water through the whole ordeal.

Our community is coming back to life, many of the residents are returning now. School may be able to resume Tuesday. Most of our neighbors had similar damage to ours, but in the congregation, two families had considerable water in their homes and have lost every thing, material. The ones of us that were in town have been cleaning up debris for the members who could not do for themselves, widows and elderly. It has been tough in some ways, but great blessings of brotherhood and belonging have been experienced by all of us.

If the storm had not made a little jog to the east within the last 30 miles before landfall, the storm surge would have inundated some very populated areas and much of the crucial refinery and chemical output that is so much a part of our local and national economy. Some say we were lucky. I attribute that to Something much greater!

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Ad Space Direct

My daughter has put together a small consortium of blog sites that will allow advertisers to deal directly with the bloggers to place ads at reasonable prices and cut out the middle men expenses of dealing with a broker.

The blogs are carefully targeted and present the advertiser the opportunity to select the blog or blogs that match their advertising interests. Each of the blogs is maintained with a high level of writing and creative content.

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