A Renewal Of Life

I don't write on here often because I have another journal that takes up time. So when I do get to write in this forum I return to previous entries and remember what I wrote. I noticed that I've yet to praise God blog-style for my father's apparent recovery; my dad's situation was somewhat defined in an earlier post.

In a nutshell, my dad had surgery in early 2005 that ended up in an infection. From that, he took medication that became addicting, altering his chemical balance. From that situation, Dad Helton struggled for two.five years with anxiety-depression. While the anxiety left him depressed, he became anxious of becoming depressed. The way he described it was it being in a circular nightmare. One position always brought on the other.

Okay, so the nutshell was larger than I first intended. Because of state-of-the-art medicine and, more importantly, a wealth of prayers, my father came through the fight victoriously. As he mentioned, though, it's only over indefinitely, not permanently. For some reason, this "disease" tore him down and beat him up for so long, and the end may only be as the Lord allows. Since it's a newer "recognized" problem with hundreds of thousands of Americans, the research is still in its infant stages.

I want to openly recognized God's provision for my dad. I know during this struggle I had to review my sight of the Divine. There were a lot of times I questioned the Lord's timing and why His healing hands held back...but did they hold back the entire time? I don't know. It's easy to see healing bones or lacerations, but the mind's diseases are tougher to notice. I love my God but not for saving my father's mental stability. I love Him for being unwavering. He loved my dad enough to save him through his pain in a timely manner fitting for the dilemma. Hopefully in the two-plus years that he fought, my dad saw God's mercy to hold back the pain to its worst level and not get worse. He held my father's sanity to a position to not crumble. Finally, through these trying times, my heavenly Father never wavered and failed in His promises to stand by us. For that, I love my God.

Another Trip to the Zoo

This is somewhat late, but Sunday we went to the Brevard County Zoo again. We love the way Eli has grown since the last time we went there, and I was particularly excited to see his reactions to the animals being nearly-if not-a year older. Cari noticed his love for the birds. We went into the aviary-type portion where birds freely flew around and on the guests. Cari would put out her arm for these two birds to perch on and Eli began mimicking her. So cute.

My favorite part-other than feeding a giraffe-was seeing the rhinoceros for the first time there. It was farther away than I wished to see it, but at least I viewed its enormous self.

Here are some pictures of our trip. 'Nuff said.