Goals: Faith

One new initiative I'm kicking off today is to record a (hopefully) daily devotional video on YouTube. Hopefully in that I'll try to do this daily. I've struggled a great deal with putting aside a time to focus on my faith and relationship with God, and I'm hoping this will be really more of a forcing mechanism for me rather than any great benefit for anyone else. I've titling each with Devotional in case you don't want to view them. Here is the first one.



I had to rush to a small town in Alabama to see my grandfather Saturday. My Mom told me his prostate cancer had spread throughout, so I wanted to get our family there to be see him. We still don't know how long he has as it may be a matter of days or weeks. Hopefully, we'll know more later. It was quite a twenty-four hours in Alabama.

We arrived after lunch to find Papa and his wife, Granny Ann (they've been married over twenty years). Papa recognized us as he sat in his chair, but he was hardly himself. He was able to see our three-year old playing soldier, calling him "General", and shooting him as well as neighbors. Granny Ann was fairly upset most of the time. As he slept, she recounted the travails of the last three weeks to my wife. They included the struggles she's had steering his wheelchair, as well as her own problems.

We headed off to a hotel to wait for my parents, who were driving down from Memphis. We all headed back to see Papa around 6:30 or so, taking them dinner which went into the fridge. The second half of the LSU-Tennessee game flickered in the living room as we sat next the sleeping man. It was difficult for my Mom at times to see him, but she was glad that they'd come as we headed to get catfish for dinner. She introduced our youngest son to Fried Catfish tails, which I thought was the low point of the trip.

In fact, the low point was around 2:00AM when Mom broke into our adjoining hotel room. She'd just received a call from Granny Ann's son, who told her Ann had fallen and broken her hip. She is now hospitalized hoping to have surgery after a kidney infection is treated. My Mom is now staying with Papa, who was much more lucid Sunday.

I'm still hoping to make the trip to Vegas this week, but I want to hold off just a bit more to see how all of this goes.

I'll be doing more work on my goals this week, and I'd like to increase my vlog output. I think it is helpful for me, and I know many folks have been encouraging to me.

I knocked out a photo for us to send with Christmas cards. Here it is.



I'm using Shutterfly for the first time to see how it works (ordered fifty of these for $10 or so delivered). If anyone else knows of better services, let me know.

I'm working on some different kinds of Christmas gifts to give this year. Christmas used to be my favorite time of year, but it has been a real struggle for me the last two or three years. It has become a time to worry about the future rather than to enjoy family, be thankful, and revisit my faith. I'm hoping that doing more myself rather than spending more will be a big step forward to make this a great Christmas.

That seems plenty for now. More later if there is more. Have a great day.