Time…Keeps On Ticking…Sometimes.

Around 4:30pm this afternoon…twenty years ago (sounds like the beginning of a Country song)…I gave my kids what I thought could be the last hug ever. The nurses then stole me away to parts unknown within Vanderbilt University Hospital where they prepped me for a bi-lateral lung transplant.

Only by the Grace of God do I offer a reason for my statistical abnormality against the medical establishment’s “mortality rates”. As I told “an old friend” recently, “Fifty percent of the folks who received a lung transplant around the same time I did…they’ve been dead for fifteen years.” (Note: Updated to meet today’s date.)

The ride continues to be a bumpy one. It is full of great times…and to be completely honest…crappy ones.  It’s always my prayer that should I see the sunrise, I recite, “Lord, thank You for another day with my wife, my children, my family, and my friends. Please keep watch over those I love. Thank You for all of the blessings You continue to provide to an undeserving soul. Amen.”

Today is just a tick of the clock…nothing changes.

Due Diligence

I want to offer my apologies for making it somewhat inconvenient to reach my postings. However, based on the hostile nature of certain social media outlets towards people with views not in-step with the BS passed off as “normal”…I wish to avoid cencorship.

What Matters…What Doesn’t.

As I approach an incredible milestone on this path I call “My Life”, I wish to call special attention to friends and family I (rather WE) have lost along the way. One should always appreciate and place their focus on the positive; but never do I want the memory of those I have lost to be forgotten. My focus and awe should fall upon the sheer number of miracles and achievements I have been blessed to witness…both magnificent and heartbreaking.

This upcoming milestone is a statistical achievement only my Maker, God Almighty, could deserve credit and praise for its existence. Though both exciting and amazing on many levels, this achievement pales in comparison to another just a little further down the road. Should God see me through this first milestone (as none of us know the number of our days), please be in prayer that my time on this Earth be extended ever so slightly.

Father, please forgive my ignorance and my arrogance. Father, forgive me for wasting so many of the sunrises You have granted me. Lord, You know my broken heart, my broken soul, and my broken life. You know all of my burdens and all of my pain. You have known me before I was in the womb and You know my eternal existence.

Father, to walk my daughter down the wedding aisle to her waiting bridegroom; if broken mind, and broken body be my lot; as a mere mortal this would make my life complete.

However, never interpret my fight to live and serve my Lord as over should He see me to this place and time I desire. Indeed! Countless memories remain I long to share with my wife, children & grandchildren, family, and friends.

Should God grant me the time, physical capacity, mental fortitude, and spiritual strength…my life compass remains pointed towards a particular birthday. That day…that lofty goal of a proud man…I set as the culmination of all the experiences and yearly anniversaries on borrowed time.. A small tick of the clock for God, over the halfway mark for the man who asked.

So much I still have to witness…experience. All the pieces of my human experience lay in the hands of our Father in Heaven, Christ Jesus.

May God bless you all. May you always treat each day as a precious gift. May you live it with love.

—Bill