Welcome to my Personal Blog, On the Potter's Wheel (OTPW), and when I say Personal, I mean Personal. If you have perused the site then you have come to find that it consists of a few other Blogs I have going. One is Daciple Ministries my Spiritual Blog and the other is Daciple Political my Political Blog. While those are very important facets of what makes up me as a Person, they don't detail the everyday, the life altering, the Personal aspect of myself and that is where OTPW comes into play. 

 

The very essence of this Blog is about my Personal Journey, where I have been, where I am at and where I am going. So to begin let me detail what has been going on in my life that has brought me to the point of creating this Blog and where I am hoping this will lead to in the future. 

 

I, like many people, have had to endure some of the hardest trials I have ever faced during the year of 2020. It is no light thing to say this has been by far the hardest and worst year of my life. Looking back I would have to say that the last few months of 2019 set the stage for what was to come for me in 2020. In September of 2019 I was fired from my job as a Sales Consultant at a Communications Company. The way in which I was fired still has me frustrated and upset to this day. To be clear I take 100% ownership that ultimately I was fired justly for actions that I was participating in that I should not have been, regardless the way things went down still makes me shake my head in disbelief. 

 

Just to get it out there, I was fired from my job because I was making up fake Social Security Numbers to bypass credit checks so customers wouldn't have to have their credit hit. This was and still is a regular practice used at this company and was taught to me by certain managers there so that sales could be closed without having people leave because they didn't want a credit hit for a product that would not require them to pay a deposit regardless of their score. 

 

The way that this all came about is what still makes me shake my head, to make a long story short there was a new guy who started at the company about 1-2 months beforehand. I thought he was a good dude, in fact we actually prayed together multiple times and had long conversations about God ect. The month that I was fired there was a contest going on with $1000 at stake and at one point he and I got into an argument over some of the things he was doing. 

 

During this argument he overheard me using the last 4 numbers of someone's SSN to transfer their services and for whatever reason decided to call my boss and tell him about the argument we had and then tell him about that transaction. The most screwed up thing about it was I felt badly over the weekend that we had even gotten into an argument, and I wrote this guy a note and gave him a gift card apologizing for my half of the incident. Like I said we prayed together, I wanted to make sure we kept a good relationship going. 

 

So I walked into work, gave him the note and right after I got pulled into the office and began the process that would eventually lead to my termination. So here I am trying to do what's right between us, not involving anyone else because that's how I was raised, and this guy went behind my back and essentially got me fired for a practice that literally everyone in the office participated in. As I said I accept the responsibility of my actions, I was in the wrong but the way everything went down just crushed me and this set the stage for all that was to come in 2020…

 

Moving forward from September to February and I had come to find myself dealing with my marriage being on the rocks. It was getting so bad that I took the initiative to seek counseling for myself and tried to seek a marriage counselor for us together.  As this was going on my Father found out he had cancer in his eye. When he told me that I just fell apart seeing that I had lost my mothers just a few years before from Lung Cancer. 

 

Shortly after he was diagnosed with Cancer he also began to have problems with his foot, his pinky toe was super messed up and he began to not be able to walk. This all literally happened within a week of him retiring. This began the long process of him having multiple surgeries which resulted in him having one of his toes amputated, and him having surgery on his eye.

 

Apparently the veins in his leg had collapsed and he also had a clot and because there was no blood flow to his foot whatever was wrong with his toe couldn't heal and began to die so he had to have it removed. 6 months later and he is still healing from the surgery.

 

So there I was in March/April dealing with a marriage that was falling apart and my Father being diagnosed with Cancer and in and out of the hospital for his foot, and boom Covid hits. For me the biggest issue with Covid was right when my life was spiraling out of control and I needed it most, my Church chose to shut down. I was a Sunday School teacher and having that responsibility every week, having that expectation, something to keep me invested in having to read and study my Bible was one of the few things that was keeping me centered and focused in my life at that time. 

 

When that was taken out from under me I was crushed but unfortunately that wasn't the end of the story. As I stated my marriage was on the rocks, and I personally was trying to do everything I could to the best of my ability to fix it. I was attending counselling for myself, tried to get my wife to go to one together which we only went once and she essentially refused to go back as well as refused to go see one for herself even though the entire idea of counseling was hers. I was working on trying to be a better husband, I was booking us mini vacations at nice hotels to get away, I was trying to be romantic, I was reading books ect ect ect.

 

I was doing all that I could think of, however on July 3rd my wife and I got into an argument over something absolutely stupid, fireworks of all things, and she did what she had been doing many times at that point and threatening divorce. Now I personally would never ever get a divorce save infidelity. I actually believe 100% in marriage, that it is sacred and forever. I would stay and work on it till I died, however at any point we had a disagreement she would immediately threaten divorce.

 

Finally I just had enough and made the biggest mistake of my life, I said fine if that's what you want then I will leave, so I left and ended up going to my Fathers house (which is right next door so not a big deal I thought). I personally never intended it to go beyond a night or maybe two. So there I was on the 4th of July, the 5th anniversary of my Mothers passing, laying in the room she had passed in, having lost my Mother, having lost my job, watching my Father go thru Hell, having lost my house, having lost my dogs and worse of all having lost my wife and kids. It was exceedingly brutal, it was the worst thing I have gone through in my life. It completely broke me. 

 

My whole life I have dealt with Depression and Anxiety, and for the most part I have been able to “hide” it, at least to the point of where I can function with it. When my Mother was dealing with her Cancer the Anxiety got pretty bad, but I can tell you nothing compares to the horrors I have dealt with since losing my Family. The Depression and Anxiety was so incredibly bad that I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't leave the house, all I could do is sit and cry for hours on end. 

 

In the first month or so since that day I lost about 30 pounds, I was a mess and what made it worse is the fact that while I was essentially dying, since my Fathers house is right next door, I had to watch them all move on like I was nothing and enjoy their lives. The daily rejection was awful, they even went on a vacation like 3 weeks after this, and left me there to take care of the dogs. 

 

Unfortunately this is an ongoing aspect of my life, since we have separated I have tried to do whatever it would take to fix the marriage. I have begged and pleaded and done all I can think of and offered help as best as I can, however regardless of all I have offered and done, it all has been rejected wholly and completely. Ultimately everyday I have been devastated about where my life is, never would I have thought at 41 that I would be stuck at my Fathers house with literally nothing on the brink of a Divorce. The battle against the Depression and Anxiety has been relentless and tiring, if I were to say that Suicide hasnt crossed my mind, I would be lying. 

 

As I said to begin, this is my Personal Blog and that is what has been going on in my Personal Life, it's been a train wreck to say the least. However with all that said it has led to the culmination of this Blog so let me now tell you how this Blog came about, what it's purpose is and where I hope to see it going in the future.

 

During this year, during all these events I have been having conflicts in Faith. I have felt abandoned, I have felt discarded, I have felt rejected, not only from my Family but from God as well. When all of this is going on, when it's all piling up it can be very difficult to see God. It has even led me to doubting my own Salvation, like hard core seriously worrying about it to a point I have prayed time and time again for Salvation. 

 

It was in the midst of one of these conflicts that I began to earnestly pray about the purpose of what I was going thru, how can God be in this, how can this be for my Good as Scripture tells us all things are for, how is God going to be glorified in my continual downfall and failures? While I was praying it was as though God flooded my mind and heart with the idea of this Blog, and with the verses from Jeremiah. The idea of the Potters Wheel.

 

When I look at my life as it stands right now, in literally every aspect of it, Mentally, Emotionally, Spiritually, Financially, Relationally to others, in all of it if there is one word to describe it, it could definitely be summed up as marred. My Life is marred, I say this honestly and truthfully, and that marring is almost exclusively my own fault. In all honesty I would say my life is so marred it is worthless and ought to be thrown away and destroyed, and those thoughts have haunted me for months now. 

 

Thankfully that isn't what God thinks about me or my life, and that is what He began to speak into my heart. I may be marred but what can God do with a marred Pot? Well He can restore it, He can reshape it, He can cause it to be stronger and more beautiful than what it was originally. 

 

And that is the intention of this very Personal Blog.

 

God is putting me on the Potter's Wheel, on His Wheel and He is going to begin to reshape me, reform me, strengthen me, change me, and create a new better Pot than the one that was found at the end of 2020. It is my hope to detail to you all this Journey I am excited to go on and I am welcoming you all to join me in this Journey as I am spun anew on God Potter Wheel. 

 

Some of the ideas that are behind this are for me to follow where God leads me to, to pick up things I have put down for years, to start new adventures, try new things, to have experiences and go after the things that bring me Joy and hopefully will Glorify God in the process. For years if not my entire life I have dealt with massive insecurity issues that have led me to continually try to shape myself in a manner to gain approval from others. I have for years now trying to be whoever it is my wife might like to gain her approval so our marriage could be better. My entire life I have done the same to gain the approval of my Father. 

 

That time is over, and I believe God has led me to utilize this Blog to break free from trying to appease and please others to gain their approval and affections and to begin to actually focus on the things I enjoy regardless if anyone else likes them. One example which will either be the thing to lead this Blog off with or soon to be on it, is the fact that I love Skateboarding. I used to Skate many years ago, however as I got older and got around other people I stopped expressing my love for Skating. 

 

Well now it is my plan to document myself trying to relearn how to Skate, a 41/42 year old trying to Skate? That's insane, and maybe it is but I absolutely love Skating and can't wait to try to see if I can get back on the board. I have so many other ideas about what this Blog can contain and it fills me with an excitement for Life that I haven't had in a very long time. 

 

So I hope that you will buckle your seat belts and join me for the ride, I am sure it is going to be one for the ages!!!

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   See you On The Potter's Wheel!!!