Pressing Puzzles

"I know my Jesus, I love Him, and I think if he needed me to believe that homosexuality was a sin, He would have mentioned it. He didn’t. When Jesus said that marriage was between a man and a woman, he was responding to a question about divorce, not sexuality.* And even the Gospels... well, even though they are gospel to me, I accept that they are also interpretations of what Jesus said and did and meant -we don’t have a single written word directly from Jesus. He could have left us something - he could have left another list of rights and wrongs when He came to Earth, but he chose not to." Glennon Doyle Melton - Aug 25, 2013 These words were penned by Ms. Glennon Doyle Melton who is an author and Christian blogger. Back in February of 2017 she announced that she was engaged to Abby Wambach a former Women's Soccer Champion. Glennon had been married to her husband (Craig Melton) for over 14 years before she divorced him due to his extramarital affairs.  Glennon had als...

I realize in today's family, the roles are changing rather drastically. I can think of another time when roles in the family were shaken up since World War 2. Life today seems more like unwed mothers giving birth to fatherless children and if they are married the couple only has about a 50-50 shot of staying married. I realize this doesn't seem to make sense, but that's the reality of the world we live in. Traditionally, in any house, the father was the person who was always considered the 'head of the household', but that role has deteriorated through the years. How did this whole idea start? Not surprising we can look to the Bible for the answer. As I mentioned back in a previous blog about Leadership, the book dictates that the male is the head of the household and will be personally judged on the spirituality of the members of the family. So we as the males have a heavy responsibility on the welfare of everyone in the family. Sadly, this task for the male o...

I thought this would be good around Valentine’s Day . I know I've addressed my marriage in general and the love I have for my wife, but in some way this would be part 2. Making a commitment by far is very difficult to do...and mean it! As I've mentioned before I've always tried to make it a point to follow through on any promise and boy is that hard to do. Trying to make a promise to the one you love is even harder! I love the line "for better or for worse..." and of course the two of you stand there together saying your vows, you're not really thinking about the "worse" part of the sentence just the better half. Anyone who has been married knows that at some point, there is always a worse part. I realize no one ever wants to talk about it, but it really is a test to any person’s commitment and marriage. In my case, we've lost family members, had illnesses, had to separate for job reasons, been broke (money) several times; so going through the...

I was going to add this to a previous post about identity, but I felt it needed to be addressed all on its own. I realize having an identity crisis and living a life can run parallel, but I want to look at just existing. The first thing that made me think of this was when I had released our pet turtle. I'm not sure what bugs me more, letting her go or knowing that part of my routine has changed for good. I say that because when I would put the dogs to bed, I would then feed the turtle. It made me think about emotional attachments to animals and people. I find it hard to have any emotional attachments to people and animals, but it almost goes without saying the difficulty of living my life without some kind of attachment to the ones I love can make me feel very lonely. In a way it’s like a double edged sword when it comes to the ones you care about. I chose to be married to my wife and have children. Not everyone makes the same decision and that's perfectly fine, I mean...

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I love my wife. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be married. To be honest, my tale of love was rather strange as a child. I was very self-aware of women very early in life, for example, I had cut out a picture of a woman in a bra and then proceeded to color in Superman symbols around her when I was 6 years old. I was really young when I had my first kiss, granted I tricked the very lovely young lady, but I got it! We were downstairs in my house and I told the girl to pretend to be a patient and I was going to be the doctor. (You can almost tell how this was going to end.) I remember being really excited, but nervous. I took a second to look at how beautiful she was; then I leaned down and kissed her right on the lips! Of course, right after that she got mad and left, but it was awesome. When I was in middle school, I did have one female admirer, but I also had the bully who liked her too, but she ended up liking someone else...I got stuck w...

I would like warn everyone right now that my wife could easily write the rest of this blog. ( It wouldn't surprise me if her comment is longer than my blog !) There are two things everyone needs to understand about listening, 1.) It's not the same as 'hearing'. Hearing is one of your 5 senses, it helps you with the listening, but they are different. 2.) Listening is work. I have told my speech and drama classes that for years and each time they look at me like I'm nuts. ( Depending on your definition !) To actually listen, it takes a lot of effort and energy. Eye contact and acknowledgment of the speaker is mandatory. As adult with Asperger's, the toughest of those has to be the eye contact. My wife is a very beautiful woman, but even with her good looks, I still have a hard time looking in the eyes for a long period of time...especially when she's mad at me! I've been married for over 20 years and the one thing that makes a differences beginning able ...

I guess like embarking on any puzzle, it must always starts with the first piece. So to begin, I have Asperger's Syndrome, in other words I'm Autistic, and so this literature will be about my struggles with this disorder as an adult. I was first diagnosed back in the summer of 2004. If it wasn't for my twin daughters, I might not have ever known all the questions I have ever had in life; to them, I will always be in their debt. Growing up, you are never really aware of any differences until the judgment years...6th thru 12th grade of school. A time when one always tests their own humanity against others; meaning, how will I measure up against other students.   In my eyes I seemed to be just like them; two arms and legs, ten fingers and toes, head and body...nothing unusual. Yet, for some reason, I was treated a little different than everyone else. That's one of those things that you can't quite put your finger on, but I observed on many occasions how kids would talk...