Yep, today represents my 500th post to this blog. It seems to me as if I just started, but 500 posts is a pretty good clip, particularly since there have been times I struggled to post.

For those of you who don’t know, I started this a few years ago to comment on quite a few different things, but mostly I wanted to talk about the happenings in the Church around the US and the world. April of 2008 however changed everything. My personal world was suddenly thrown into chaos as I worked to understand how a guy in great shape like I was could have a stroke, and more than that, how I could adjust to the effects of it.

My blog, this blog, became my therapy…..and in a very real sense it still is. At the beginning of my recovery my wife would read and help me edit before we would post. I often would just stare at the screen looking for words and trying to remember thoughts, and when I did get them, they often did not make too much sense. Paragraphs would be full of repeated words and sentences, and for a time seemed more of a testament to frustration than therapy.

What I could clearly see, amidst all the confusion, was that it may have been frustrating, but it was certainly not failure. If I were to do well, that was where my work was to be. And in some sense it is still often a barometer of how I am doing. My mind often still reels, and confusion still comes. Of course people tell me all the time they get confused too…..but in truth, and I am speaking quite sincerely here, the mind I lived with in March of 2008 and before is far different than the one that I deal with now. And the stark contrast is consuming.

What I do confess though is that it has been a gift from God. Does it bother me??? Sure it does, but the struggle I deal with has taken me deeper into life than I could have ever imagined. And though I stress to find my thoughts at times, I indeed have discovered that my life, my discovered thoughts and detours, and even my faith are far more meaningful, insightful, and rewarding than they were before. (yes, I know to not end a sentence with a preposition, but that is the way I talk)

Anyway, 500 with many more to go. Time flies when you are having fun, or when you are terminally confused…..I suppose I will happily admit to being a bit of both!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+