Nelson is exhausted like never before but overall seems to be doing better. In this entry he cheers himself up by thinking back to earlier years in Youth With A Mission and the people he met back then.
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September 1, 2022
I’m thankful for all the people who came to visit me at the hospital when I was almost dying [early July].
I’m thankful for people like Ken and Rob who made the trip across lots of miles to see me, and how long we’ve known each other.
We met in the late 90’s. That’s over 25 years ago. When I look at the pictures, it’s like we were kids back then, and I guess we were. Hawaii was free and wide open, unlike today.
I’m thankful to have known it then and to have had the chance to take it on wide open like we did, Brian and I, Ken, Rob, and others. What a place, what a time, what a blessing God gave us—what so many don’t get.
Lord, thank you for others we invited who joined, too, like Andrew and Angelo. Thank you that we made it to places people are now forbidden to go.
How cool it was to lead Kokua Crew and Little Red Church out there for 6 years, to have met Annso and married and done it together for all that time. How did I become the one to do that? Thank you for leading me to YWAM and all the other really cool people I met through that outfit. The numbers are huge.
Such amazing, risk-taking people who came there that I’ve known from back in 1996 up until even this year.
5:30 pm
The afternoons and evenings are not my time of the day. My energy level is totally sapped, and I’m struggling in so many ways. Annso is out walking with her Mom, and I’m just jotting a few things down to pass the time and get my mind free of a few things.
Today is a hard day. Will is sick and cries almost continuously. I feel so tired. It’s like I could sleep the clock round, but I don’t want to do that because it’s depressing for everyone else, and it might wind me up in the hospital.
Days like today, I wonder why this happened to us, but I know there are no answers really, and no real point in asking. There are all these healthy people walking around doing their thing, in my own family, out and about, and I am totally wiped out and ruined by this thing.
Right now, I feel about as empty and hollow as a human being can feel. I’m like a ghost who is dead, but I still live on in a shell of a body that’s totally worn out.
I used to take an oxycontin for the pain, and it would have a little high that went with it that I used to look forward to. But lately, there is nothing like that. My body has a high tolerance for all the dope I take, and nothing seems to do anything. I just pop all these pills morning, noon, and night like I’m supposed to.
You can’t base anything on feelings. Annso asks what’s wrong, and I have nothing legit to answer that justifies a person feeling bad. My symptoms are getting better, other than being dead tired, but that’s better than pain.
I’m a recovering alcoholic and feel all empty and hollow for no good reason. I need someone to come around and tell me to snap out of it by being happy on my own and pressing through, that I won’t feel like this forever.
We’re going to Michigan for Labor Day, staying at Drew and Jo’s place which will be nice. I hope it’s not too much for me to have many people around me for 3 straight days. We’ll see.
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“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27)