Friday, January 30, 2009

Accident Claims the Lives of 2 Sisters

My cousin Becky (Siemens) and Bruce Bartel's two daughters, Tannis 21 and Heidi 18, died in a car accident today. They were on the way to wedding in Vanderhoof, BC. Their parents, sister, and brother will miss them terribly. They live in Carrot River, Sask. The funeral is Friday at 2pm.

Pray for the family. They have a VERY large extended family. Becky and Alvina (Don) Heinrichs are sisters.

the other 1/2 of the accident is at www.judywiebe.blogspot.com

Friday, January 23, 2009

Teach us to number our days?

Click on the title to get a detailed explanation. 30 - 40 people read this blog every day. More than 50,000 people have visited this blog in the last 11.5 months when Renee helped me put the counter on this blog.

I am no preacher. I am not the fountain of wisdom.

So many people have tried to tell me not to blame myself for Renee's untimely death. It was her time to go. Her "ordained" day. I have a great deal of difficulty with that. Are you saying God made that drunk drive down the wrong way of a one-way street so that the 28-year-old lady would be killed? That our friend's son would go hang himself on a tree in the wilderness on the "ordained" day where it would take 6 years to find his body? Leona jumped off the bridge on the day that was "ordained" for her?

Not likely.

I was distracted and I will regret that for the rest of my life. I was not there for Renee when she needed me the most. It was not her time to go. She was too young and excited about life and what God would do through her.

I was at the AG show in Brandon yesterday. A number of people came up to me to express their sympathies. Thank you. I might get teary eyed when you do that, but I really appreciate when you let me know that you care. That you feel a little bit of my pain.

Renee's 11th month heavenday is coming up next week Monday. I fully believe the Bible to be God's Word to us, and that tells me that Renee is "in Paradise" with Jesus and the thief on the cross. When Paul said "to die is gain" he meant that he too would be in Paradise without delay.

In the meantime I'm "wasting" my days trying to keep busy building another business. Hoping that my brain will function well enough some day to invent some more stuff. Trying to find more people to join our teams. I should get some people to be on my "board of directors" / advisors. Whom should I ask? Would anyone want to help a reject like me?

Thanks for listening. I feel better?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

We do not recover

We do not recover from the death of a loved one.

In fact, we never recover from that death in the same way we recover from an illness or broken limb. It will always be a part of us—always—and to suggest otherwise is unrealistically and harshly to imply that we somehow "get over" the feelings about the event or stop experiencing painful reminiscences of the loved one or the death.

A much more accurate metaphor is represented in the old Carole King song "Tapestry."

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.

In fact our lives are "tapestries," and the death of a loved one is a ripping, gaping, bleeding hole in the very midst of that tapestry of our life. How, then, is the tapestry rewoven? It does not, with the mere passage of time, magically pull itself back together. Rather, it is rewoven only with the initiative, energy, and strength of the survivor reaching in and grasping the torn ends of threads, painfully pulling them back and tying them together. And it is rewoven only with those persons around the survivor cutting threads from their own tapestries and bringing them to the survivor, with love and support and caring and tears and strength, helping to further tie the threads and fill in the gaping hole.

So, eventually, the tapestry is rewoven. But that "glitch" is always there, the roughness of that reweaving is, and always will be, apparent. In fact it may be twenty years from now, as the survivor reviews the tapestry of his or her life, or is in a particular setting, or hears a song on the radio, or remembers a special day of the month, that the rewoven seam is seen and felt again, and the survivor remembers and cries, or feels sad, or is touched by the love and caring expressed by those whose threads are apparent there—and that is perfectly normal. We do not recover from a death, but when we allow others to help, we can reweave our tapestry.
— Charles Meyer, in Surviving Death

COOOLD

the announcer took great pleasure this morning telling us that our temperature in Winnipeg is at minus forty-nine Celsius (-49ºC) or -49 celsius is equal to -56.20 fahrenheit

who thinks that's cold enough?

I sent Justin and Alayna text messages about the temperature, suggesting I would be their taxi today. Justin took me up on that. I drove an hour extra to give him a 5 minute ride to work. He will walk home later.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

One year ago Renée wrote

Today's service at Redeemer Presbyterian - I will summarize:

The story of Job shows us that God is in control, and he does not initiate evil, permits it but also limits it.

There are two common responses to suffering:

Stoic cynicism:
- ask why me?
- there must be no God or if there is he doesn't give a crap so I can live however I want

Fanatic moralism:
- ask why me?
- I must have done something wrong so try and be a better person

Most people are one of the two, some go back and forth between them

When we ask why?
- we need to learn to live without an answer and to embrace living without
- that shows whether we love God just for what He does for us or for who He is

Can I do that?

It's a hard faith
a cruel mountain pass
we cross hoping
but with no promise of
greener patures the other
side

It's a hard word
this disjointed syllable
we invoke hoping
that somewhere it will
be heard and
answered

It's a hard God
a wild animal who
asks for love and
admiration with the
promise of nothing in
return

I am selfish. So, so selfish. And I am afraid I will continue to be for some time yet. My dependence has never been on you. You have never defined me. I have depended on my friends, my work, my hobbies, even my beliefs and ideologies to define me but never you.

It made me feel good to hear your voice, to pray in tongues, to get guidance, words, pictures, etc. I know your spirit was in me and I don't think I was acting out of pride but maybe it was just a way to feel good about myself. And wasn't I often jealous of others' gifts?

It's true that my reaction at first was - have I not done enough? (moralism) But then it shifted to - because this is happening God must not care. I still firmly believe that when I was first diagnosed I was not doing anything wrong - there was nothing more I could have done to please God. I was exactly where he told me to be, doing His will as best I knew how. So the whole moralism thing didn't last very long.

And now I've been so cynical, believing that you're a malicious tyrant who inflicts suffering for the hell of it, or just not caring.

Anesthesia
I like the feeling
of going under
thick white liquid
capable hands push the syringec
ount backwards
10... 9...
veins warm, muscles dissolve
And quick
merciful sleep
too quickly over

haiku - possible submission to heal magazine??
- if I remember