My Amazing Husband

Although I wrote last week that I was having a rough lent (which is still true, but getting better thanks to a friend's advice), I have to tell you that I am truly grateful to be alive. I have the most amazing husband! He is so tender and caring, so thoughtful and supportive, so understanding and gentle. And he loves ME. I feel unworthy. I often wonder how on earth I got this lucky. I am so very blessed. Please pray for us as we begin trying for a baby!

I am struggling this Lent...

I am having some issues this Lent. I am really struggling.

There is a woman who sits next to me at work who used to be a friend/acquaintance whom I will call Jane. In the past 12 months, Jane and her husband filed for and are now divorced, she started a new romantic (and intimate according to her) relationship with a man in the office whom I will call Bob (I can only assume this is what caused her marriage failure) and she has stopped going to church (Lutheran). I just heard her on the phone renewing her prescription for her birth control pill. Jane has a two year old son who is truly suffering with her new lifestyle. She complains that the boy cries when she takes him to daycare, has trouble sleeping on the 3 nights a week that she has him (her ex-husband has him 4 nights a week), that he does not eat well. Jane's personality has changed tremedously since I met her almost four years ago.

You know how there are some people in this world with whom you simply cannot get along with? Bob is someone whom I have never liked, and from what I can gather the feeling is mutual. It has been made apparent in how they both act towards me when he is at her desk. I must say, this does not bother me at all. I have always been a person who is self-concious, but the fact that Bob dislikes me has no affect on me whatsoever. It is Jane I am concerned about.

As I said before, Jane and I were acquaintances. I was invited to her baby shower before her son was born, but I assume it was because I am very close with the woman who hosted it. My problem is that Jane has fallen victim to an immoral life and I have little tolerance for it. I have been avoiding her, but it is not really in my nature to be cold to people and it is really starting to make me feel crappy. I am unsure what to do?

Today we bury our great friend, Dave

Dave Joyce is the epitome of "What a Great Guy". It would be difficult, it not impossible, to find someone (other than the hundreds of criminals he put away) that would have a bad word to say about Dave, or about his work ethic. Dave was prodigious in both scope and in depth of knowledge, within whatever attracted his keen, perceptive, and often smart-assed, attention.

If you were lucky enough to talk to Dave in his duties as a Detective-Sergeant with the Jennings Police Department, Jennings Police Department-ATF Joint Task Force, or Major Case Squad, you soon learned to lean in and listen to this unassuming, soft spoken man. His knowledge was referred to as "encyclopedic", and with good reason. Sure enough, if you followed a direction that Dave might provide, it generally led in the right direction, the right person, and a good conviction.

If you were even luckier to know and talk to Dave personally, you learned even quicker to lean in close and listen to this, unassuming, soft-spoken, incredibly intelligent, deep, big-hearted man.

The policeman stood and faced his God, which must always come to pass. He hoped his shoes were shining just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, policeman. How shall I deal with you? Have you always turned the other cheek? To my church have you been true?"

The policeman squared his shoulders and said, "No, Lord. I guess I ain't. Because those who carry badges can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays, and at times my talk was rough... and sometimes I've been violent because the streets are awful tough.

But I never took a penny that wasn't mine to keep... though I worked a lot of overtime when the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help, though at times I shook with fear. And sometimes, God, forgive me, I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place among people here. They never wanted me around except to calm their fear.

If you've a place for me here, Lord, it needn't be so grand. I never expected or had too much. But if you don't... I'll understand."

There was silence all around the throne where the saints had often trod, ans the policeman waited quietly for the judgement of his God.

"Step forward now, policeman. You've borne your burdens well. Come walk a beat on heaven's streets. You've done your time in hell."