Courage

I hesitated posting this because so many people have told us that we’re crazy for doing this RV adventure and I really didn’t want to hear a lot of people say “I told you so”. I decided not to let nay-sayers steal my joy. I’ll use this time to journal through what I’m feeling, to process, and to think about what lessons can I learn from this experience.

During our 2+ years traveling in our motorhome, we have met a lot of wonderful new friends, visited beautiful places, and spent quality time together. Our marriage has grown stronger and we have received a ton of support, encouragement, and have heard a lot of people say, “Oh man, we’d love to do that someday”. Since none of us know how many “somedays” are left, we wanted to follow our dreams while the timing was right for us.

As we’ve shared our story with so many people, I’ve been surprised at how many have said, “You two have a lot of courage!” Courage? Really? We had never thought of it in that way… until this past week. This past week has taken some courage, as well as a toll on the nerves for the first time during our 2+ year journey.

On Sunday, we were traveling from New Mexico heading north to Colorado when our airbrakes on the RV had some type of mechanical issue, which resulted in an accident. As He always does, God was watching over us. No one was injured and no other parties were involved.

The RV has some pretty significant body damage and the Jeep has a little. Both vehicles were still drivable, so we headed back to our trusted RV repair shop in Tucson. […]

By |July 17th, 2020|Family, Marriage, RV Adventure|2 Comments

Suicide

Robin Williams, 1951 – 2014

Feeling compelled to comment on the loss of Robin Williams. I’ve seen comments of sadness, anger, and confusion. I am saddened by the loss. It breaks my heart that another person can feel that they have no other options and that the only way out is through suicide. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and to all those out there that are struggling with depression.

I also think suicide is confusing. Some say it’s selfish. I understand why people feel anger. “How can someone take their own life, don’t they realize how much they have?” It does destroy all those left behind, but I personally don’t think it’s selfish act. It goes against our basic human nature to survive. I think there’s more going on than we realize… (and I’m not talking about drugs, mental disease, and all the other variables the medical community associates with suicide)

 

These are old statistics, but did you know that:

Suicide takes the lives of nearly 30,000 Americans every year.
Many who attempt suicide never seek professional care.
Over half of all suicides occur in adult men, ages 25-65.
Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S.
Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-old Americans.
An average of one person dies by suicide every 16.2 minutes.
Source: SAVE

 

Rodger Andrews, 1946 – 1975
I lost my dad to suicide when I was 5 years old. I haven’t written about it previously. The impact of my dad taking his own life wasn’t just the end of his life, but it profoundly changed the path of my life and the life of my brother. I wasn’t old enough […]

By |August 12th, 2014|Christianity, Family|5 Comments

Game Night

Nope, I’m not referring to Monday night football.  While the kids were all still living at home, our house was always a buzz with some type of game going on.  Mostly some type of video game, but my favorite was game night when we would all play board games together.  Each of the kids has different strengths and each had their favorite game, so it was best if we switched up which games we played.

By |March 2nd, 2014|Family|Comments Off