Reflection

ah. memories. sometimes i love them...most of the time i hate them. its the end of another year. and, honestly, i can't tell you how happy i am for that. a new year means a new beginning...which i am in desperate need of.

at small group this week, matt put cards with our names on them around stage123. we each took turns at each card, writing how that person blessed us. i can't tell you how happy i am with that group of people. its so hard for me to open up to people about anything, big or small, past or present or even future. and for some reason, i've just taken to them. so at the end of group tuesday, we wrote on the back of our own cards about our lives in the past year. it was pretty easy for me! haha! its been such a roller coaster. there were some happy times and some times that i'm pretty sure my heart would have rather stopped beating due to the pain.

i feel almost like........ a new person, with brand new feelings, and an even newer outlook on life. i've lost so much. but i've gained greater things. i'm still working on certain things. my life now, when i compare who i was at the beginning of the year, is not really where i want it to be...but it is definitely headed in the right direction.

it's just amazing how Christ sees what your heart needs....and supplies that for you when He sees fit. i've learned, now more than ever, that my time table is no where near His. and my impatient tendencies are causing me to miss so many blessings that are right in front of my eyes.

something else is new for me. my head and my heart are not even close to being aligned. i'm one of the most stubborn people i know... especially when it involves what i know and how i feel. its almost a constant battle. i can't let myself go. i'm scared. its stupid. but i can't help it yet. i'm still working on all of that stuff. :)

i also need to get back to where my spiritual walk should be. i'm slipping and its scary. i don't feel like i have the will power for it sometimes.

this is the first time i've dealt with all of the loss i've experienced in my life. its all new for me. instead of shutting things out....like i've done for my whole life.... i'm working through the hard stuff. nobody likes hard stuff. but i understand now that its okay to have a bad day sometimes. its ok to hurt. i think that's why i don't know what the good feelings feel like.... because i've never felt the bad ones. i'm learning... plus, that sure does sound like an awesome 'new year's resolution'. :) *even though i don't believe in those either. :)*

i don't like Christmas. at all. and this is the first time i've ever ever been like this. i dont know really what it is: no money, no family, no husband... i don't know. it could be the loneliness i feel sometimes, the selfishness i have. the older i get, the more i realize how hard life really is. i put my smile on. i'm one of the best actors you'll ever know. there are times when i don't even feel like getting out of bed. but i do. it's just almost worth it to see the smiles on the faces i see. :)

so. i say all of that to say this:
2010 has been the most rocky of all my years.
2011 can't be any worse.
i made it through this year just fine...and even wiser... with more/better understanding and more grace than i have ever had in my life.

i can't wait for the rest of my life to begin next year. :)
i have a feeling that its gonna be better. :)

Even though I have setbacks....

Ah! I just feel like screaming sometimes.... and this happens to be one of those times! it just seems like every time i think i know where my life is going and i actually set some realistic, hard-core goals, something comes into view to block those goals out! Let me back up just a little bit.....

I've been having some hard times lately. Its not like I feel sorry for myself or anything....I just really really want a life with my parents. You know...like the normal things. But I've been dealing with it. For the first time in my life, I'm dealing with it. I used to put it off in the back of my head and act like I don't care.
So there's some progress. :)

I'm not sure when it happened.... but I WANT A FAMILY. I've never wanted that. I have always said that I was gonna die early (I know how awful that sounds, April.) so I didn't need to waste my time with something so unimportant as a husband or children. Now I want that. Its almost like I would be missing out on life if I don't have a family! Weird.

I was talking to two of my aunts yesterday when we were coming home from my Mawmaw's house. I had mentioned to them that I couldn't wait to have a baby (in like 10 years). Both of them stopped me cold in my tracks. As soon as I said that, they both told me that I don't need to have any children. Evidently this kidney disease that I have (thanks mom) is more serious than I thought. I wouldn't really listen to what they say normally... but one of my aunt's is a nurse and she knows about this disease. =// So that's where that is. I'm not really sure how to comprehend that. Both my kidney doctor and my gynecologist told me that it was risky if I decided to have children.... but of course, I didn't believe them.  Kind of a punch in the gut.

But seriously!!!! What am I even talking about??? :) I have: an awesome family, amazing friends, and a God who loves me. I don't have a boyfriend, so no need to even think about babies right now. :) I will be glad and stay blessed in all that I do have!!! :) Amannnnd!

one day at a time.

no need to worry about future things

when they aren't even in your grasp.

BigDaddyWeave!!!

I'm so very blessed to have such an amazing small group to be a part of!! I know I've only been going for about a month now, but every one of those guys are amazing! Saturday, we are going to see BigDaddyWeave!!!!!! I can't even begin to say how incredibly excited I am!!! (April: I want YOU in small group. ;) ASAP!)

The Start of Another Year ♥

Birthdays, for me, come and go with mixed emotion. One one side, I am so glad to be able to be alive; so grateful to breathe, walk, talk, love, live, smile. I have a few good people in my life and I thank God for that. But...at the same time... I can't seem to let go of the past. 

Tomorrow marks 2 whole years since the big, giant, awful, hurtful break up with Dustin. Even though I'm very glad I'm not in that relationship any longer, it still hurts a teeny bit to think about the way it all ended. 

Last year at my birthday party, ultimately I lost the one person I called my best friend because of some alcohol and girl hormones. It was stupid. It sucks how, after that night, everything between the two of us spiraled numbly out of control. But...It is what it is.  

This year::: I spent my 26th birthday exactly where I wanted. I went to church and heard an amazing message. I came home to pizza and a birthday cake, and got to spend that day with my amazing family! Then I went to see Saw 3D with 3 amazing people, followed by a laughter-filled trip to Chili's. I am so blessed to have them all in my life. 

So I say all of that to say this: 

Being 26 is bound to be MUCH better than being 24 or 25! :) 

Life is what you make it. 

This is going to be a year of change, a year of hope, a year of LIFE.

And I am so stoked about it.

A terrible cost:: What a Hero!

A terrible cost - timesfreepress.com

Joseph Jones was in his workshed, slathering green paint on a patio bench, one of the odd jobs he takes because the brick-laying business is slow.

A relative’s voice stopped his brushstrokes.

“Joe, I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but there are some Marines here to see you.”

Joseph stepped outside and, across the dead-end road in Dawnville, Ga., spotted his wife on the front porch of their red-brick house. Next to her were men with short-cropped hair, khaki shirts and blue pants.

He went numb. Their presence could mean only one thing.

Click to play video

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Joyce Jones stood inches away from the Marines. They were saying something, but her thoughts were on what her son told her a few days before.

“Don’t worry about me because, even if I get a nick on my finger, the Marine Corps will call you. If you see them coming down the driveway, then worry.”

Before the Marines could speak, Joyce told them, “No, you’re at the wrong place, just leave. It can’t be my child. It’s not my son. I know it’s not.”

She slammed her right fist into a brick wall so hard it broke her pinky finger.

Frozen in place, Joseph didn’t want to walk from the shed to the house. He didn’t want to cross the long, green lawn just to hear that his only son had died thousands of miles away in Afghanistan.

“It just hit me. It was like I didn’t have any feelings,” he remembered. “Like I was an empty shell. I just knew what they were going to say — that he was gone.”

As Joseph climbed the porch, one of the Marines read a checklist, asking the parents to confirm the name, address, date of birth and Social Security number of their son — Sgt. Joey Jones.

Joseph listened for a few seconds, then lost patience.

“Is it my son?” he demanded, his voice rising. “Is it my son or not?”

“Yes sir,” the Marine said.

“Is he dead or is he alive?” Joseph asked.

“He’s alive, but he’s in bad shape.”

Two days later, the phone rang in the Jones house. Joyce picked it up and heard her 24-year-old son’s weak voice from a hospital in Germany.

“Momma, I’m coming home,” he said. “Or most of me is.”

On Aug. 6, Joey and his fellow bomb technician, Staff Sgt. Eric Chir, entered the neighborhood near the bazaar in the town of Safar in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.

Moving cautiously, slowly, step-by-step through the beige maze of streets and alleys, they approached dusty mud-brick huts and storage stalls, some holding spare parts, others with collapsed walls and roofs.

They were looking for bombs.

And bombs were everywhere.

In five days, Joey and his bomb-disposal team had found more than 50 improvised explosive devices — the dreaded IEDs — in the bazaar and surrounding neighborhood. Disarming or destroying one IED a day was the norm until recently.

On this day, the usually busy bazaar was a ghost town. Five days before, two battalions of Marines swept through, clearing out the residents, merchants and probably some insurgents, making it easier for Joey, Chir and others to search the 2-square-mile area.

Most days, the bazaar was a social junction where tribes from the region came to trade food, tools, animals and information. Joey’s commanding officers told him the market held the key to stopping the flow of Taliban fighters, weapons and money into the province. With a mixture of people traveling through and the caravans of goods that traders exchange, there were countless ways to hide almost anything — even people — and transport them across the territory.

For days, Marines and soldiers had scoured the market and its hard-packed sandy footpaths, looking for any signs of bombs or weapons.

When they saw anything suspicious, they called Joey and his team, who hustled over and scanned with metal detectors, probing where their devices would ping, searching for deadly surprises.

“IEDs were laced everywhere,” Joey recalled. “Where we were operating before, there was an IED here and there ... [but] in the Safar bazaar, the IEDs were placed in roads and alleys, everywhere.”

The homemade bombs are cheap-but-deadly weapons whose use has risen steadily over the nine-year war in Afghanistan. In 2002, IEDs accounted for about 16 percent of the U.S. deaths in the country, but in 2009 and so far this year, they’ve accounted for about 60 percent of deaths, according to Department of Defense numbers.

Materials to make the bombs are limited only by the bomb maker’s imagination. Some are simple, 2-foot-wide pieces of wood separated by a rudimentary electrical circuit and packed with five pounds or more of homemade explosive, often cooked up using crop fertilizer.

Insurgents and Taliban fighters bury the bombs among rows of wheat, near trails that sheep have cut through grazing fields, along mountain paths and in village markets.

Anywhere a soldier might step.

***

On their sixth day in Safar, Joey and Chir got their first call of the morning — to investigate a line of storage stalls on a corner at the market.

Therapists Liron Silbert, right, laughs as Sgt. Joey Jones jokes around while she and Stephanie McCorvey, left, work with him at the naval hospital.

Joey said Chir was his “partner-in-crime.” Except for Joey’s short assignment in the northern part of the province, the pair had been side-by-side each day, trudging through fields and riding in helicopters and armored trucks.

When the two arrived at the mud-brick stalls to search for bomb parts, Cpl. Daniel Greer, a 25-year-old Marine reservist and firefighter from Ashland City, Tenn., was waiting. He and his team of engineers had spotted bomb parts.

Joey had met Greer, father of a toddler son, earlier in his tour. The pair had become friends quickly and joked often to keep a light mood during long assignments.

Inside a stall the size of a walk-in closet, stacked tires and boxes couldn’t hide the unassembled bomb-making pieces that Joey and Chir spotted. They searched the rest of the building and found nothing else.

Their work done, the three men walked across the 10-foot-wide alley behind the stalls and waited for their next task. Joey leaned his back against a 3-foot-tall wall, squatting slightly, briefly relieving the strain of 110 pounds of gear strapped to his body — water-filled pouches, ammo, food, a bulletproof vest, a metal detector, his rifle, a kit for marking bomb locations.

His skin damp with sweat from the heat, stress of the work and weight of the gear, he took a breather, if only for a moment. Minutes later, Joey readjusted his gear and stepped away from the wall.

And onto an IED.

“Everything went white. Sound went away,” he said. “I felt my body moving, but I didn’t know what was going on.”

The bomb blast flung Joey, Chir and Greer nearly 30 feet. Shrapnel sliced all over Chir’s body and shockwaves pounded Greer’s brain — damage that later killed him.

Joey hit the ground and opened his eyes.

“I could tell I’d lost my legs.”

ABOUT THE STORY

Staff writer Todd South, photographer Angela Lewis and videographer Patrick Smith traveled to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., in early September to spend two days with Sgt. Joey Jones and his family. While there, the Times Free Press team was able to capture photos and videos and interview the family and care providers about Joey’s wounds and recovery.

The Times Free Press has kept in contact with the Jones family and is committed to following Joey’s Journey through his recovery as well as the work his family, friends and the Dawnville, Ga., community are doing while he progresses.

Joey Jones at a glance

Dawnville, Ga., native Sgt. Joey Jones is a bomb disposal technician who deployed to Afghanistan from March until August with 1st EOD Company, 1st Marine Logisitics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force. He is currently assigned to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he is undergoing physical therapy and rehabilitation.

Marines rushed to him, tightening tourniquets on what was left of his legs — nothing below the knees.

Blood and tissue hung from Joey’s right forearm, his hand flopping. His left wrist bones were dislocated. The right arm had split open, the radius bone crushed, his hand hanging, unable to move under his control.

“Don’t let them take my hand; secure my hand,” he yelled.

He shouted out his kill number, a combination of blood type and other numbers that troops are trained to repeat out loud when they’re hit.

“JJEOD0007OPOS,” he screamed over and over.

He grabbed the nearest Marine, pulled him down with his left hand and asked him to say the Lord’s Prayer. He instructed the Marine to tell his family that he loved them and he’d see them again one day.

He woke up days later, alone in a military hospital in Germany, disoriented, tubes sticking out of his body.

Doctors had kept him stable, replaced pints of blood and injected medication to numb the pain before he could fly back to the United States and start rounds of surgeries on his legs and hands. He was in Germany for two or three days — he can’t quite remember — before returning to the United States.

His mother remembers the first phone call from her son in Germany.

“I told him. ‘You’re coming home baby, that’s the main thing,’” she recalled. “And you’re alive.”

***

As a child, Joey raced four-wheelers in the forest and played football on the lawn in front of his parents’ house, nestled in a rural cul-de-sac ringed by tall pines, hardwoods and dogwoods.

Joseph and Joyce saved for nearly a decade to build the house that would replace their trailer.

Sgt. Joey Jones concentrates as he tries to keep control of a ball in his physical therapy session.

Joey graduated from Southeast Whitfield High School in 2004 and got a job as a forklift operator at flooring manufacturer Beaulieu of America. He took a few classes on and off for two semesters at Dalton State College.

As far as he could see, the hard-charging days of high school football, playing defensive end and tight end, were behind him. Years in the carpet mills or laying brick with his father loomed ahead.

His high school sweetheart, Meg Garrison, the cheerleader one year behind him in school, had had enough. She’d been there for him since his junior year, someone he could spend hours playing board games with, a part of his family from the start.

But Joey drifted aimlessly, drank too much and gave up college to work more shifts for gas money. He ignored Meg.

She broke it off and gave him the cold shoulder when he tried to make up.

“There was a long time that I pushed him away,” she said. “I think at that point we were starting to have some problems; we weren’t getting along.”

Joey had flirted with the military, talked with family friends who had served, visited recruiters multiple times, but hadn’t made up his mind.

Then one day, lying on an emergency room table as an attendant stitched his head after a fight with a friend, one thought rattled around his brain.

“This isn’t it,” he told himself. “If I want this girl back, this isn’t how I do it.”

He looked at his parents standing beside him in the hospital and knew they had sacrificed too much to give him an opportunity to make something out of his life.

“That was pretty much the defining moment, laying on that table,” he said.

His parents initially fought his decision to join the Marines.

“My mom took it pretty hard,” he remembered.

With wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan and caskets arriving back in the United States each week, they couldn’t understand why their only son would want to put himself in such danger.

But on April 24, 2005, Joey left for Parris Island, S.C. He was 18 years old.

***

Two years later, after working on a security team for bomb disposal units in Hawaii, he landed in Iraq on his first combat tour.

In Iraq’s Al-Anbar province — where U.S. troops faced regular attacks from insurgents — Joey’s team guarded bomb units during missions. He manned a .50-caliber machine gun, standing in a turret atop a mine-resistant truck that rolled out with bomb technicians to investigate an explosion or disarm roadside bombs.

The first time he saw the aftermath of an explosion, the image stuck.

Sgt. Joey Jones, right, talks with his mom, Joyce Jones, in his hospital room.

An Iraqi Army pickup truck had hit a roadside bomb. The hull of a white Ford Ranger lay torn open like a can of tuna. Charred metal and bloodstains dotted the wreckage strewn along the road.

“It made me recognize what was at stake and what could happen to me,” he recalled. “It just brought home the idea of getting blown up by an IED.”

Joey realized that other Marines, soldiers, Iraqis and their children lived because the bomb techs put themselves between the bombs and others, risking their own lives each time.

He made another decision about his future and, after his eight-month deployment in Iraq, he was accepted at the Eglin Air Force Base bomb disposal school near Destin, Fla.

After graduating from the bomb school, Joey was sent to Afghanistan. In the third month of his tour, Joey saw a Marine trigger an IED as he was leading a bomb-sniffing dog across a footbridge. The blast hurtled the Marine into the canal and killed the dog.

Joey jumped in and pulled the screaming Marine’s face out of the water.

“He was yelling and his face just looked like blood,” Joey remembered. “And when I got him up out of the water, I saw his legs were intact, [and that was] a big sigh of relief right there. That was a really good moment, because I didn’t want him to lose his legs. ... I didn’t want to see that.”

A little more than a month later, Joey would be the Marine carried from the battlefield.

***

Joey’s family arrived at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the day after he did. Meg traveled with them, having reconnected with Joey while he was in Afghanistan.

Joseph’s voice cracked as he remembered seeing tubes “coming out everywhere” and massive amounts of painkillers pumping into his son’s body.

“We didn’t know whether he’d make it or not,” Joseph said. “He was just tore up so bad.”

For the first time in a long time, Joseph prayed. The whole family prayed.

Sgt. Joey Jones crosses the street with parents Joyce and Joseph on his way back to his hospital room after visiting the commissary.

Doctors had Joey on a cocktail of painkillers that was five times the amount his mother received for her injured hand. But it wasn’t the pain that bothered Joey most. It was what he couldn’t do.

The once-6-foot, 185-pound Marine needed help bathing, brushing his teeth, opening a bottle of water.

“I can take the mutilation, because I know there is a light at the end of this tunnel,” Joey said. “But being a burden to the people that I love ... the way I show love is doing things for people.”

With his mother having to bathe him, he would tell her he had no dignity left.

She would shake her head.

“Son, I have bathed this body since Day One, so it’s nothing new to me. I’m momma. You don’t have to worry about your dignity with me.”

Joyce manages a tired smile and clutches a golden Jesus that hangs from her neck. It hurts to see her son’s pain, but she’s happy he’s alive.

In the first weeks, Joey allowed only his father to lift him onto the toilet and off again. The weight pained Joseph some, but he couldn’t let on to his son.

“He’d ask me every time, ‘Now Daddy, if this hurts don’t do it, we’ll figure out some other way to do it,” Joseph said. “But I didn’t tell him; I just kept doing it.”

The feeling of helplessness angered Joey.

“He’d get mad sometimes. He’d say, ‘Hell, I can’t even wipe my own ass,’” Joseph said. “He said, ‘It’s all on account of one step, and now look at me.’”

Months later, at home in Dawnville, Joseph does what he knows — working with his hands. He’s tearing up brush and cutting down small trees to make room for an addition to their family home. They want to build a place for Joey to stay, where he can drive his wheelchair around and continue his physical therapy.

On a recent afternoon, Joseph looked for Joey’s dress blue uniform so his son could attend a Marine ceremony.

“My wife wanted me to find his shoes, too, but I don’t know what for.”

Tears come.

“I suppose they might put some kind of legs on him and let him wear them.”

Joseph paused.

“I don’t know, I guess things happen for a reason, but I hadn’t figured out the reason yet.”

***

Stephanie McCorvey, a physical therapist at the naval hospital in Bethesda, knelt beside Joey as he perched in a planklike position on the bed. His cast-encased forearms held him up as he moved his torso from side to side to build strength.

A sheen of sweat covered his face. It was midafternoon in September.

“How many is that Joey?” she asked.

“Seven,” he said.

“Push, push, push, push. All the way through,” McCorvey said.

Once he finished the exercise, Joey told her he was in pain.

“Where’s the pain?” McCorvey asked.

“In my right leg,” he replied. “Actually it’s in … it’s like it’s on my ankle.”

“You’re experiencing phantom pain,” McCorvey explained.

She lightly slapped around the sides and end of the stump of his right leg, using both hands to drum a steady pat-pat-pat rhythm on his flesh.

The drumming is a desensitization technique that tricks the severed nerve endings, she explained. Touching, slapping, stroking or rubbing gives the nerves a sensation other than pain to recognize.

Inches from where she touched, swaths of skin on his thighs are different shades of red and purple, a patchwork of skin folded over on itself, sealed off. The healing spots of skin grafts are just a few of the more than a dozen surgeries Joey’s had over the previous five weeks.

In a few minutes, Joey was ready for more exercises.

He rolled from his belly to his back, his face turning red as he mounted a rubbery balance ball atop the bed.

A captain from his bomb school stood outside the door.

“I don’t have balance like that,” the captain said.

“You cut your legs off and find it, I guess,” Joey replied with a grin. “I had two left feet. I didn’t need them anyway.”

***

While Joey finished the routine and climbed back into his motorized chair, his sister, Marsha Jones, and grandmother, Barbara Jones, waited outside in the hall, peeking in. They had just flown in from Georgia.

Barbara’s hands shook. She had driven here weeks before and had seen Joey feeble and sedated. She stayed with him all night, cared for him.

This time, she had flown in an airplane for the first time in her 71 years to see her grandson, the one she calls “Goober.” She stepped quickly into the room, hugging him.

TO HELP

The Jones family is trying to raise at least $50,000 to help pay for a wheelchair-accessible addition to their house so Sgt. Joey Jones can be with his family while continuing his therapy.

The family is working with local contractors to build the addition but still needs money to pay for materials and some labor.

To donate to the Joey Jones Benefit Fund, contact any Regions Bank.

“How was the airplane?” Joey asked, his eyes fatigued from the day, yet bright at the sight of his sister and “Nanny.”

“It was fine,” she said, her voice muffled in his shoulder as she hugged him harder.

She drew back to look at him.

“I look a little bit better, don’t I?” he asked.

Tears moistened her eyes. She touched his face gently and just nodded.

His head down, half a smile on his lips, he said, “We’ll get there.”

All admit that Joey’s traumatic injury has drawn the family closer. Joseph, a lifelong bricklayer, struggled in recent years to find work, driving him to drink. He now leads the family in prayer and finds purpose in staying healthy and sober for his son and helping him recover.

Marsha, 34, is amazed by her little brother, who used to lie on the floor and kick her bedroom door, begging to hang out with her and her teenage friends.

“He wants to get better so he can come back and take care of his family,” she said.

It took Joey’s first combat tour in Iraq for him to appreciate the treasure he left behind in Dawnville.

“I’d been away for a couple years, and I just realized what a wonderful family I had compared to what some of my friends had.”

To remind him of what waited at home no matter what happened, he had the word “Family” tattooed across the middle of his chest, just below his collarbones. Underneath that is the phrase “Unconditional Love.”

On Joey’s floor at the naval hospital, other fresh-faced young men, who would look more in place at a prom or high school football game, moved through the halls in wheelchairs, some with blank stares as families followed, filling the air with encouraging words.

IEDs in Afghanistan

Incidents

2007: 2,677

2008: 3,867

2009: 8,206

2010: 5,921 (as of June)

Coalition deaths

2007: 77

2008: 183

2009: 322

2010: 182

Coalition wounded

2007: 415

2008: 790

2009: 1,813

2010: 1,303

Source: Joint Improvised Explosive Defeat Organization

Few of the wounded smiled as they passed. Most looked ahead, wheeled to the next appointment, the next test, the next doctor, needle, chart.

Joey joked with nurses and care providers.

“I’ve got some shoes for sale. Won’t be needing them anymore,” he told a woman with the Marine Corps liaison office who stopped by to remind him of college classes he can take.

Back in his room, Joey kept the atmosphere light. While his relatives often sat quietly or talked to each other in murmurs and whispers, Joey cracked jokes, playfully prodding.

It’s his responsibility to “break the ice,” he said, to say “let’s be normal again,” his nearly ever-present grin a way to give back to the family.

“It’s harder to see them hurt than to hurt myself,” he said.

***

There are times though when Joey realizes he is now a double amputee and life is forever changed.

“I look in the mirror sometimes and just don’t recognize myself,” he said. “Sometimes you think of the memories of just six months ago ... what kind of person you were and how you became so strong. And now you’re no better than a child. ... It’s hard.”

Joey’s Facebook page lists his activities as motocross, volleyball, learning to snowboard, riding his street bike, working out and running — all things he cannot do, at least for now.

Most of his thoughts focus on day-by-day routine and recovery. But when he thinks of the future, he thinks of Meg and his son, Braiden, the child he fathered with another woman while he and Meg were split up.

Only a year old, Braiden likely will not remember his father as he was before the blast. Joey’s preparing for that, envisioning tough questions and emotions.

“Dad’s going to be different than all the other dads in a bunch of ways,” he said. “There are going to be times in [Braiden’s] life when he’s going to have a problem with that; it’s going to bother him.”

Meg steadies Joey like a rock, but he worries how much she can take.

“It bothers me every day, but I also have faith in her, and I believe her when she says ‘I got this’ and ‘I’m here for you.’”

A few weeks ago, Joey posted “Remember the man I used to be” on his Facebook page. Nearly two dozen responses followed in the minutes, hours and days afterward, all encouraging.

“I do want my friends to remember how hard I worked and what I was once, because I may never be that again,” he said.

Meg doesn’t flinch at this comment. When she first saw Joey in the hospital bed, just days after he nearly died, all she could feel was gratitude.

“It was kind of overwhelming, but at the same time I was just glad that he was alive,” she said.

Months later, she’s with him nearly every day, sometimes caring for him when a nurse is not around. As a waitress at a Dawnville restaurant her mother manages, getting time off isn’t a problem.

Through the ordeal, she’s gained perspective on her own life and the growing up she needs to do at age 23.

“I kind of look at it as we’re at a prolonged red light,” she said. “There are going to be ways for him to do anything he wants to do.”

***

Joey has been recuperating for nearly five weeks at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a few miles from his first stop at the naval hospital.

Three weeks ago, he took his first steps on temporary prosthetic legs — 6-inch-long aluminum tubes strapped to customized fittings where once he had knees. Steadily plodding on a treadmill, leaning his cast-covered forearms on the bars for support, his “sea legs” are much shorter and simpler than what he’ll eventually wear.

But he must master them before getting his permanent legs, complete with responsive knee joints that will move with him and adjust if he is walking up stairs or on a flat surface.

Meanwhile, his hands and wrists also must heal so he can use them to catch himself when he falls.

Most of his days are spent waiting, resting and healing between checkups and physical therapy appointments. On weekends and some evenings, he gets to leave the hospital with family or friends, see the Washington, D.C., area or eat at a restaurant.

Joey has seen other wounded soldiers sulking and feels the difficulties of the disabled. Giving in would be easier, letting his existence be swallowed like pain pills and feeling sorry for himself.

“Right now I’m a bilateral amputee. But what can I be?” he said. “I can be a bilateral amputee that walks on prosthetics that takes care of himself.”

Determined not to dwell on what used to be, Joey has set goals. Some are as simple as getting through the day, and others more long term — staying in the Marines and returning to duty.

But one hovers above all others.

“I will walk again.”

Last Night...

Thursdays are especially good for me. I love going to Rockbridge. Everything Matt says points directly at me. Christ is really speaking to me lately...whether its by an event that happens, a thought I have, or just something someone says. Last week, Dustin Coker invited us to come to Stage123 after service. They meet and just hang out, get into the Word, or just fellowship with each other. I didn't go last week, but I chose to go last night. And I'm so very glad I did.

I never ever ever open up to people...especially when I just start hanging out with them. Keith was reading in a book called "Cry of The Soul" or something like that. While the literacy of that book and the knowledge of Keith and Dustin are nothing compared to mine.... I actually understood the discussion...  I'm telling you right now that there was such a sweet presence in that room. The Holy Spirit blanketed me in a way that I haven't experienced in a while. And not to mention how needed it was. :)

The chapter of the book we were discussing was about Godly and ungodly despair. Here are some things I jotted down while we were all talking::

• Howling Prayer... need more than an answer or explanation. feeling lost. need perspective. SEEK GOD!! Psalm 77. Turn TOWARD your struggles; not AWAY from them.
• We don't turn it over to Him. Or put it in His hands. I bottle it up; suppress it. Questioning God honors Him, trusting that He has those answers.
• Memory is not just a thought, its imagination. We know He has shown Himself in Faith.
• To remember the past is to reshape the future with desire and hope.
• He brings us down to bring us up.

So ... the point in all this is to say that I asked for advice. I know that I wrote in an earlier post that when it comes to anything negative/bad/tragic...or anything that isn't good or happy... that happens in my life, I just pretend that it happens to someone else. I guess I do that just so that I don't have to deal with things. I've done that for about 11 years.... its hard to change that now, even if I did know how to.

When I tell them all this, I got look of intrigue, confusion, compassion, and absolute interest. That's when Keith said this: 

Imagine that I just got my leg chopped off. I could pretend as long as I want to that it didn't happen to me, but my leg is still gushing blood. You have to deal with it in order for it to be healed.

I say that to say this: When you need those certain people put in your life, the Holy Spirit comes and opens up your heart in order for you to receive that. HE is the only one who knows the path to take. All I have to do is open up my eyes, and my heart, and my mind, and FOLLOW HIM!!!!!!!!!! 

Wait For Your Rain

I cannot believe I'm this dirty
I'm ashamed to even ask to be clean
'Cause I can't think of anyone less worthy
I have nothing to offer or to bring

I throw myself on Your mercy
I throw myself at Your feet
I throw my filth on the grace of One who's beauty is beyond me
And I wait
And I wait

I'm not even sure how I got here
Wondered to this darkness from Your light
I still remember walking in the garden with You
Now I'm just stumbling through this night

I throw myself on Your mercy
I throw myself at Your feet
I throw my filth on the grace of One who's beauty is beyond me
And I wait
And I wait

I wait for Your rain to fall
The waves of Your grace wash over me
I wait for Your rain to fall
Strange how forgiveness comes so easily
When I call Your name
And wait for Your rain

Lord, this desert is killing me
My throat's dry from screaming Your name
I want to come home but the sands of time surround me
The dirt's finally covered my shame

So I throw myself on Your mercy
I throw myself at Your feet
I throw my filth on the grace of One who's beauty is beyond me
And I wait

Want To Be Real - Chris August

:) Just Sayin. I love being a Scorpio!

Life Pursuit: To survive against all opposition Vibration: Resilient Scorpio’s Secret Desire: To triumph

Description: Reputed to be the “most powerful” sign of the zodiac, Scorpios lead fate filled lives andhave intense and dramatic personal relationships. Even as children Scorpios are often found to be wise beyond their years. Many astrologers call this the sign of the “oldest souls”. Old and wise beyond the average, Scorpios often know all the answers, except sometimes; they too often have difficulty finding what they need to develop their own happiness. Passion, desire and power go hand in hand for Scorpios. Their biggest challenge and test in life is choosing between the power of love and the love of power. Coming to grips with their extraordinary emotional depths and sensitivity isn’t easy for those around them. They are different from all other zodiac signs and this difference has them walking, working and loving to a different beat. Others can often live with a Scorpio partner for years, but not really know them. Much to do with a Scorpio remains ever secret. Their eyes often blaze with feelings that words never express, and beware on the days or nights they hide their feelings behind dark glasses, there is likely to be a storm of some kind brewing. When you deal with a Scorpio you have to always deal with them on a psychic intuitive level. They often wear a mask. Too often they say “no” when they really mean “yes”. They have contrary natures. Once they find true love they can be the most faithful dedicated of all partners but fall out badly with a Scorpio and you are likely to find they will never forget or forgive. Most Scorpios are winners. The main thing they have to worry about is their attitudes, which make up their mind powers and can either make or break them. When they are negative about something or someone, or critical of themselves, they can tend to get in their own way.

I love email Forwards!

Got this in my email this morning. It really blessed me. (And yes, I did cry.) It's awesome to me that God really does use us when we least expect it.

Ugh...I hate it when the lightbulb flashes on!

It's really been like a month of 'revelations' so to speak. ...And it's only the 12th!!

I've been able to see that my 'strength' I show is actually a sign of weakness. I am so caught up in trying to be strong that I can't deal with emotions; I'm never angry, sad, tired, mad, upset. I let a few people see that "un-strong" side of me...but I do so with extreme caution. I lost trust...IF I ever had any in the first place. I've been burned...but I'm sure we all have. Life is a hard thing to deal with. So, instead of dealing with it as it comes, I watch it pass and put on my 'poker face' and pretend like it never happened. I don't have memories, good or bad. Sometimes, I get so caught up in that facade that I forget how to feel anything. 

But I'm working on it.

I was thinking at work today that there absolutely has to be a reason that I can't like a boy. To begin with, I have to say that I have absolutely protected my heart with a wall of brick so thick that I'm not sure dynamite can break it. But I have taken on this 'game', so to speak, where I play to find the next best thing. Let me explain. There was a boy, we'll call him Rob. I loved everything that Rob did: the way he said he loved me, the way he called me panda, he kissed like an angel. But then, when I got tired of it, I wanted to find someone who did all those things BETTER. What a stupid game. I ended up in a game of comparison. I hate games. Despise them. And here I was, making up the rules of my own little game as I went. I hurt some people; I developed more and more trust issues. Ridiculous. 

But I'm working on it.

So now...I like this guy. A lot. ( and that's a lot for me to even admit that. )  I don't have a clue how he feels. My belly flutters when my phone goes off because I hope its him. I look forward to certain days when I just know I'll get to see him. But maybe he doesn't see it. Maybe he's afraid...just like I am. I've protected myself from rejection. Nobody likes that feeling and I don't know what it means. So what's the next step? Who knows....

But I'm working on it.

The Paradoxical Commandments

"People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with  the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway."


Kent M. Keith

"The Paradoxical Commandments"

(And Stolen From April Ward:))

I'm trying...

What are you trying to hide? You won't let me inside. The fear's only in your mind. I can see it in your eyes. 


And I try to get through to you, but I don't know what to do. You're making it hard to get to your heart. And it seems these days that everybody wears a bullet proof vest.


Please take it off for me, I won't shoot...


I'll let you breath; I wanna feel you feeling me. Baby Love, don't bleed? If love is a blank dart shot from a heart-shaped gun, it only hurts you when you try to turn and run. When will you see that you don't need a bullet proof vest?

Times like this is when I need the Holy Spirit....

Galations 5:22
 ²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


Do you ever wake up and say, "That's not happening today."?
Love? NOPE!
Joy? Uh uh!
Peace? Nope. Somebody's gonna get hurt, that's the way its gonna go.
Patience? nah. they're dumb. I'm gonna shove em.
Kindness? nahhhh.
Goodness? later.
Faithfulness? Perhaps.
Gentleness? NOPE!
Self-Control? nah. the wick is short. its gonna be bad for everybody.


=D

3:42am

I hate to bug you but I woke up crying
I need to talk to Marilyn so bad
I think she is the only one that can help and understand
Where is she at when you need her
I miss her
I want her back
I need to talk to her
---Alma, my aunt.



I guess everyone else is feeling it too. :/
This sucks. for real.

Issues: I know we all have them, but GeeZ!!!

So...I'm having a little trouble.  I'm strong. I help people. I am a friend's friend. I'm always there when someone needs me. I go out of my way to be there for someone. I can't say no. I find it so hard to care about any guys, even if I want to. I over-look things that should never be over-looked. When something bad happens, I tend to turn the other cheek. **Sometimes, being too strong is being weak** Yeah. I don't have a very healthy way of thinking. But how do I change it? Everything in the world that I do always seems to just revert back to losing my parents. Why? Why didn't I just deal with that 11 years ago? Why can't I be normal? I don't want a single person to 'feel sorry' for me. I don't want hand-outs. I don't want help. I can do anything by myself. Yeah. No. I can't. You really have no idea what I go through on a daily basis for the sole reason that I don't let people in. Sometimes, its ok. But I don't want to. I would be vulnerable, an easy target. I don't cry. I'm never mad. It's hard to hurt my feelings. Its really not...but I seem to like you to think that's how it is.

All I want is for one person to want to crawl into the innermost parts of my heart and live there for a little while. And if that doesn't scare you off or leave you with the impression that I'm absolutely insane, then you will be perfect for me. 

I want to get to that place where I know that its ok to receive instead of give give give. I want to feel like I'm not a failure for saying no. I don't want you to feel like you need me just so that I will feel wanted. I want to show you the tears in my eyes for just once instead of feeling like I'm not accepted to you without a smile. I was told once that I hurt some guy's feelings because I slept with him and that's all he was to me. I used to like him a lot! I wanted him to be closer to me a few years ago. But as soon as I got the chance I turned the game. I let his feelings be the ones that were on the table. Not mine. It's a wall. A wall I'm not willing to have broken down by anyone other than myself. A defense mechanism. I run. I'm not proud of that. But that's what I do. 

Don't get me wrong. I do have quite an amazing life. I'm so content in everything materialistic. I have a good job. My family is hilarious. I have food to eat and a place to put my head at night. And for all of that I'm so grateful. 

But I'm so sick of the act.

Something bad happens in my life, I pretend that it never happened. I don't deal with it. I was in a relationship for 5 years almost. I see him now and it's almost as though I don't know him. I never knew him. 

I lost my parents in the one most horrible month of my life. It hurts me. I feel completely lost and fragile even now, 11 years later. But I talk about it now as though it never happened to me, like it is nothing more than a story. It does hurt. It's hard. 

I know its 100% ok to be sad. I know you can be hurt, angry, upset, etc. But there's something inside me that won't let that happen. 

"The key thing is that life events good and bad do shape happiness over long periods," Oswald said. "We are, in part, the product of our experiences. It's not all born into us."

The Rapture

It's My Birthday Month!!!

...And in honor of my birthday month, The guy who fills up our propane tanks at work brought me a delicious ghoulish treat this morning. =]]

My Jesus

Today's Message :)

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. – Acts 2:32-33

Peter proclaimed this message at Pentecost: The cross was God’s wrath poured upon Jesus for our sakes. The resurrection was God’s power that has broken the hold of sin and death once and for all. Now the Holy Spirit is released upon all of God’s people so that Jesus can be exalted in us and the Father can be revealed to us. God is actively involved with His creation. Are we looking to the Holy Spirit today? What do you see and hear?

Wow. For ME??? 

You're still Chasing!

Dear pain, oh it's been a long time
Remember when you were holding me tight
I would stay awake with you all night
Dear shame, I was safe in your arms
You were there when it all fell apart
I would get so lost in your beautiful lies
I let you go, but you're still chasing

Go ahead
You're never gonna take me
You can bend
But you're never gonna break me
I was yours
I'm not yours anymore
Oh, you don't own me

Dear hate, I know you're not far
You would wait at the door of my heart
I was amazed at the passion in your cries
Dear anger, you made me so high
You were faithful to show up on time
Such a flame that was burning in your eyes
I let you go, but you're still chasing

Go ahead
Put a target on my forehead
You can fire
But you've got no bullet
I was yours
But I'm not yours anymore
Oh, you don't own me

You tempted me to look back
But everything that we had together was a lie

I Will Follow You!

Perfect. This is exactly what I'm dealing with right now.

I WILL FOLLOW YOU!

I love finding old Pictures!!!

Cleaning out my closet this weekend, I found so many old pictures!

Awesome friends! Awesome memories!

This is me and Tommy for homecoming 2002  :)

Leah and Me! At Chatsworth COG for a picnic!

Me on a bike with some tats! :) When I worked at the harley store.

Jessica McArthur and me on "Twin Day"

Misti Miller and Me on a bus in New Orleans!!!

Ahhh! My hair!!! Senior Picture! I miss this!

Ahhhhh!!! Fall!!!!!!

i CAN'T WAiT FOR PUMPKiN CARViNG TiME!!!

((and now that i might just have an amazing guy to do it with me and create some amazing memories, 

i'm even more excited than i think i've ever been!!))

What I want...

If you are looking for someone to be your everything, don't look around, look up! God is the only One who can be everything. By expecting perfection from the flesh, you ask more out of someone else than what you can provide yourself. To be married is to have a partner: someone who is not always there or always on target or always anything! On the other hand, should you evver get in trouble and you don't know who to look to for help, you can count on your partner! It is to have someone to curl up against when the world seems cold and life uncertain. It is having someone who is as concerned as you are when your children are ill. It is having a hand that keeps checking your forehead when you aren't well. To be married is to have somone's shoulder to cry on as they lower your parent's body into the ground. It is wrapping wrinkled knees in warm blankets and giggling without teeth! To the person you marry you are saying, "When my time comes to leave this world and the chill of eternity blows away my birthdays and my future stands still in the night; it's your face I want to kiss good-bye. It is your hand I want to squeeze as I slip from time into eternity. As the curtain closes on all I have attempted to do and be; I want to look into your eyes and see that I mattered. Not what I looked like. Not what I did or how much money I made. Not even how talented I was. I want to look into the teary eyes of someone who loved me and see; I mattered!"




[[Thanks, April, for sharing this!]]

I'm His. :)

To hear Him say, "This one's mine!"

My heart is Spoken For!!!

My Sweet Babies :)

 Erica & Elisa:: My Sweet Babies

 This is me and my princess.

 My other princess. She wanted a Peecha too. :)

 My handsome man, Braden

That's 100%, pure love right there. :)

LPL Simulcast – Chicago

LPL Simulcast – Chicago

I attended this on Saturday (9-18-2010).

What a blessing.

As you can see, Beth Moore and Travis Cottrell are so in-tuned to the Holy Spirit.

We learned about the Law of Kindness!

I urge you to go quickly to any bookstore and get one of her books and any of Travis' cds!!!

What Makes Me Long for Heaven::

I heard this song last night on J103 on my way home from church.

I couldn't help but cry.

I miss my daddy so much, and my mom too for that matter.

I can't even express the joy in my heart just thinking about the time that they get to hold their little girl again and I get to be engulfed by their love.

I know they are here with me; I carry them where ever I go.

I really just want to leave this world behind and be with them, and my Savior.

That's what I live for.

Making it to live with my Jesus for all of eternity.

Kutless - What Faith Can Do

Hungry.

Dirty

Resentment & Revenge

Resentment is when you let your hurt become hate.
Resentment is when you allow what is eating you to eat you up.
Resentment is when you poke, stoke, feed, and fan the fire, stirring the flames and reliving the pain . . .

Revenge is the raging fire . . .
Bitterness is the trap that snares . . .
And mercy is the choice that can set them all free.

Alcohol::::::

Driscoll:  Repenting of his sin of abstinence from alcohol?

“After I entered the ministry as a man of legal drinking age, the drum was again repeatedly beaten for me by well-meaning older pastors.  So I never drank alcohol until I was thirty years of age.  About that time, I was studying the Scriptures for a sermon about Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine, as reported in John’s gospel, a miracle that Jesus performed when he was about my age.  My Bible study convicted me of my sin of abstinence from alcohol.  So in repentance I drank a hard cider over lunch with our worship pastor.”  (Radical Reformission, p.146)

Driscoll is clear on alcohol:  If abstinence is a “sin,” then beer-brewing lessons at church for the men of the church is a logical end result of such thinking.  But in light of Driscoll’s admitted problems with “cussing,” “anger,” “stealing,” etc., is it logical to think that he and the men of his church will be faithful in avoiding drunkenness by always drinking in “moderation?”  Below, Driscoll rightly identifies the problems associated with drinking too much alcohol.  However, because “self control” will always be a serious problem for sinful humanity, why would any responsible Christian pastor/leader entice the people of God toward such destructive, addictive behavior as alcohol, especially with its long, devastating history?  One failure at “moderation,” and any of the below Biblical examples of drunkenness (with the right circumstances) can become an unwanted personal reality.    

“Biblical Problems Caused by Drunkenness

·   Incest (Gen. 19:32-35)

·   Violence (Prov. 4:17)

·   Adultery (Rev. 17:2)

·   Mockery and brawling (Prov. 20:1)

·   Poverty (Prov. 21:17)

·   Late night and early morning drinking (Isa. 5:11-12)

·   Hallucinations (Isa. 28:7)

·   Legendary antics (Isa. 5:22)

·   Murder (2 Sam. 11:13-15)

·   Gluttony and poverty (Prov. 23:20-21)

·   Vomiting (Jer. 25:27; 48:26; Isa. 19:14)

·   Staggering (Jer. 25:27; Ps. 107:27; Job 12:25)

·   Madness (Jer. 51:7)

·   Loudness combined with laughter and then prolonged sleep (Jer. 51:39)

·   Nakedness (Hab. 2:15; Lam. 4:21)

·   Sloth (Joel 1:5)

·   Escapism (Hos. 4:11)

·   Depression (Luke 24:34)

·   Staying up to party all night (1 Thess. 5:7)” 

(Radical Reformission, p.148.  Reprinted as it appeared.).

WELL....WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT.... 

I HAVE THE URGE TO DRINK. I DO OFTEN. BUT AFTER SEEING THIS...WOW! ITS LIKE DRINKING IN AND OF ITSELF ISN'T A SIN...BUT EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PARTAKE...IS DEFINITELY A SIN. WHAT AN AWESOME PERSPECTIVE!!!!