{"id":1202,"date":"2011-07-27T15:30:11","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T19:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1202"},"modified":"2011-07-27T15:36:18","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T19:36:18","slug":"normality-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1202","title":{"rendered":"Normality Rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father!<\/p>\n

With Kay\u2019s Kamp<\/a> coming up in a little over a week Lord, and just having gone through Jonathan\u2019s yearly Oncology exams and scans, my head and heart have been drifting back to some very turbulent and fearful times for our little family.\u00a0 Being helplessly thrown into that uncertain world of doctors, chemotherapy, steroids, surgeries and rescue protocols took Shannon and I to an entirely new place in our marriage, and tested our commitment and resolve to each other by fire each day.\u00a0 It was a harrowing time in our lives, and one that has shaped our family this last ten years to a great extent.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know You then Lord\u2026 I mean, I knew OF<\/span><\/em> You, but I certainly wasn\u2019t walking with You at the time.\u00a0 What I did know is that I was angry as Hell at You for doing this to us; for torturing my son that way, and for making us live in fear and pain.\u00a0 I blamed You for all of it Father, every little bit. \u00a0And somewhere in the midst of all of that turmoil, I hit rock bottom\u2026<\/p>\n

And You were there to pick me up.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest Father, I didn\u2019t realize it was You at the time. \u00a0I do know however, that somewhere in that dark, terrifying place I began to see things through different eyes.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that Jonathan was improving drastically, but instead of focusing on the despair I\u2019d been feeling while walking down those long, bleached hallways at A.I. Dupont<\/a>, I started noticing signs of kindness, and love, and hope that somehow I\u2019d missed before.\u00a0 It was a turning point\u2026 no, a starting point<\/span><\/em> in my life, and one I\u2019m still thankful for today.<\/p>\n

So therefore Father, today I\u2019d like to thank You.\u00a0 Thank you for new beginnings\u2026 for faithfulness to a broken, scared child\u2026 for Your healing light inside Jonathan\u2026 and for ten years of normality<\/span><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Yes Lord, we still have trials in our lives, and pain, and uncertainty.\u00a0 But now we also have the knowledge and comfort that You\u2019re with us on this journey; guiding us, nurturing us, and picking us up when we stumble on the Path.\u00a0 You see, I\u2019ve realized that \u201cnormal<\/span>\u201d<\/em> doesn\u2019t mean that life moves along smoothly, it means that we understand and Accept<\/span><\/em> that life is a journey of Your Design, and embrace it as the amazing Gift it is.<\/p>\n

Normality rocks.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father! With Kay\u2019s Kamp coming up in a little over a week Lord, and just having gone through Jonathan\u2019s yearly Oncology exams and scans, my head and heart have been drifting back to some very turbulent and fearful times for our little family.\u00a0 Being helplessly thrown into that uncertain world of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[124,691,350,1600,1602,1193,107,925,286,132,27,915,382,610,635,90,15,1117,4,173,6,1601,1598,619,871,42,208,847,444,5,1607,140,804,1603,464,120,396,116,374,161,60,1609,133,23,230,31,1608,1596,123,1597,81,613,683,227,117,817,1606,370,114,40,1604,789,106,1605,8,697,1599,663],"class_list":["post-1202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-a-i-dupont","tag-accept","tag-amazing","tag-angry-as-hell","tag-blamed-god","tag-bleach","tag-care","tag-chemotherapy","tag-child","tag-children","tag-comfort","tag-dear-lord","tag-despair","tag-different","tag-doctor","tag-embrace","tag-faith","tag-faithfulness","tag-family","tag-father","tag-fear","tag-fear-and-pain","tag-fearful-times","tag-feeling","tag-fire","tag-focus","tag-gift","tag-guiding","tag-happy","tag-healing","tag-healing-light","tag-heart","tag-help","tag-hit-rock-bottom","tag-hope","tag-hospital","tag-improving","tag-jonathan","tag-kays-kamp","tag-kindness","tag-knowledge","tag-life-is-a-journey","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-mother","tag-new-beginnings","tag-normality","tag-normality-rocks","tag-oncology","tag-oncology-exams","tag-path","tag-real","tag-realize","tag-shannon","tag-son","tag-start","tag-starting-point","tag-terrifying","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-through-different-eyes","tag-trials","tag-turmoil","tag-turning-point","tag-uncertainty","tag-understand","tag-walking-with-god","tag-wednesday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-jo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1205,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions\/1205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}