Navigating Rough Waters: Marriage, Suicide and God

In my forty six years I have seen many things.  I have discovered the inate ability to survive any situation.  Myself and my wife have celebrated our communion for over twenty years when it seems the norm to part after several months.  Time and time again, I have been approached by people both in and out of the church with the question of how we were able to endure and prosper.  The answer is a simple one although the execution is not.  Let me first tell you a few things about myself.  I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  I guess you could say my family lived the life of the lower middle class during the 1960's.  My father was in the military and my mother worked for the government.  Although we weren't broke there were still challenges.  There were days when we didn't have heat because our furnace was broken.  I can remember being so cold that my mother put all of my clothes on my bed just to keep me warm.  

As a child I never considered the consequences of what I was going through because it was fun to me.  As I got older and had a family of my own I recognized that life is all about perceptions.  The bible states that whatever a man thinks so is he.  This earmarks the importance of having a positive attitude about yourself and your ability to excel.  If you look at the life of a millionaire you may see time and again where he/she was in a worse situation than you have ever been in but they were able to find that one thing that made them special and begin to live the life they were destined to live.  It was this understanding the enable me to survive the roughest storms in my life.  In the mid to late 1980's I survived a test that I am sure would have killed the average human being.  My grandmother died in my arms, followed by my mother having a massive stroke.  MY son died in a tragic car accident while we were in route to see my mother.