Empty

Life 2.0, Day 1

Today is October 16, 2025. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d make it this far without Jesus coming back. Turns out, there’s a bit more maturation to do, the goal being becoming more like Jesus,

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
For the whole creation hopes for and expects the revelation of the sons of God.

I am empty again. FGJ (the book) represents the “norm” of what the life of a believer may look like. It seems that I have left normal behind. My last post in the book was November 23, 2022. Within a few days, I had an accident that changed the trajectory of my life.
While cutting down a small tree in my back yard, the base of the tree I was cutting kicked out and knocked me back about 10 feet and I landed flat on my back and knocked myself out. I woke up with the saw at the base of the tree still running,, a yard or two from where I landed. I got up and continued to clean up the debris, not realizing that I was in shock after blowing out some of the disk between L4 and L5, and had also given myself a traumatic brain injury.

The next 3+ weeks were spent in total sleepless agony, as I awaited surgery. My back was all I knew to be the problem, and I did not suspect anything further. After my surgery, I remember not feeling like myself (in the head), and thinking, “maybe I had a bad anesthesia…. this should clear…”

The next two years were fraught with inability to concentrate, brain fog, lack of energy, depression and frustration. Business-wise, nothing was working, and I had plenty of things to point to for lack of my success other than the fact that there may be something wrong with me. Come August 2024, after relationship challenges at home, lack of success in my sales “career”, and ever-increasing desperation due to financial struggle, I approached my wife and asked, “What can we….What can I do to get us back on track, and fix our relationship?” Her reply, “Get help. Get serious, professional mental help, and get yourself well.”

I received that as a profound truth, not realizing at the time that she would ultimately be proven right; I needed help. Our relationship and communication was so miserable by that point, that I knew (as I heard the immediate answer when I asked God) that I could not “get healthy” in that environment. There was such a record of hurt, walls, and bad communication, unmet needs; we had tried so many times–counseling, forgiveness, daily connection times, dates… but the distance between us had grown to what had ultimately become irreconcilable. I announced that I would be leaving. 27 years ending in failure.

My next year (ended just yesterday) was spent in confusion, pain, loneliness, more professional failure, and inability to put down roots in a new area, with new people, new churches, and new attempts to find out how to move on. Shout out to the Orlando VA clinics, as I utilized nearly all of them, getting tested, screened, counseled, probed, x-rayed, scanned, and unfortunately, medicated.

I’ll have to finish this later, because I only have two hours of parking here, and I still want to grab a swim and a shower before moving on to my next temporary living space.