Some of Nelson’s journal entries are too lengthy to include in one blog post, since we like to stick with 500-600 words. Thus many are marked “Part 1, 2, or 3.” Today’s post is the first half of a two-day entry.

On this day, Nelson digs for the reasons why God stands back and allows things like accidents, murders…. and cancer to happen.

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 September 3, 2022

Today we leave Rochester for Sawyer to see if I can make it through a 5 day trip down there to see the family and show Annso’s parents that area and introduce them to some of the gang. I’m looking forward to it and hoping for the best.

I’m shocked it only shows that it takes 6.5 hours on Google Maps. I thought it would be more like 8. Good news, since we have little Will and that might be a challenge, depending on him. He’s been sleeping better after a bit of a regression to getting up 4 times during the night.

Babies are a challenge for sure, trying to love them and be nice to them, but keeping the walls up to keep your life from becoming a crazy circus where you’re up every hour of the day and night. I think when people try to use apologetics to defend God and make him out to be “nice” or that he doesn’t want people to suffer, they are going down the wrong path.

I have cancer. I can ask God, “Why did you give a 49 year old guy cancer—a guy who just had a little baby that you gave him? Cancer that might kill him inside of a couple years?” I can ask, “Why me? Why not him or her or him?”

God is good. He must have a reason. That’s true, but if you read the Bible, there are things that don’t have answers that satisfy human, politically correct-leaning ears, that want people sitting in church on Sunday morning at seeker friendly churches to be pleased with what they hear and to be happy.

Take this for example: “One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?’ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9:19-21)

Paul doesn’t defend God. He doesn’t act like God owes humanity a nice time or a fair shake. He simply says, “You have no ground to stand on, you who would question God. He does what he does, and your job is to deal with it.”

God is the potter and we are the clay. Simple as that. Not nice, not what I want, but simply the truth. I used to look for answers when I was younger, about God, but no pastor or book could answer other than just saying, “God is good.” And how unsatisfying is that for an answer, just a blanket statement defending anything God does.

tropical hurricane approaching the USA.Elements of this image are furnished by NASA.

God lets innocent people die horribly gruesome deaths at the hands of merciless tyrants without lifting a finger to help them. Probably so. Natural disasters like hurricanes wipe out thousands of innocent people. Did God do that? God allowed Job to get hammered. God allows me to get cancer.

(….to be continued tomorrow)

“The Lord of Hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? As for his stretched-put hand, who can turn it back?” (Isaiah 14:27)

Nelson often begins his journaling with thoughts of frustration with “his sickness,” as he calls it. Then gradually God pulls his attention toward the needs of others, and before long he’s tapping out a gratitude list. And he usually feels much better after that.

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September 2, 2022

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:18-21)

Interesting bit here about suffering and the decay of creation, and it seems, the body. I was sitting on the porch yesterday, definitely frustrated by the decay of my body.

I feel a bit trapped in my body when it doesn’t function like it used to and feels like it’s operating at only 30% or so. Every day I’m sick in some way. My energy level is in the tank, and lots of other things are running on empty.

The scripture above is a bit “big picture,” which is good to keep in mind. Life here is short, even though it’s all we’ve ever known, making it seem long and really important. Paul tells us that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be coming later… Don’t even compare the two.

It seems like once we get to that point, we won’t even think about this body or the problems we had with it when we were here. Hard to believe or even understand, much less apply when all around us we basically worship our bodies and our lives here and now.

Older people and people with terminal illness like me seem to have an easier time getting “one foot in heaven,” because they have a logical reason to believe it’s coming sooner.

I’m holding onto the hope that God is going to heal me so I can spend time with the little family he gave me. I don’t want to leave them, and I don’t even want to stay with them in the shape I’m in now, all broken down and unable to help Annso with most things. She has to do 90% of the work, not to mention take care of me. It would be nice to do the same back to her.

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In different news, I sold my bike [motorcycle] to Everett out in Kona [Hawaii], and while it might be like Christmas day to him, and I’m sure he literally lays in bed thinking about that bike, I hope his father, my dear friend, signed off on him riding that thing.

Lord, I pray for safety for Everett on that thing. Please keep him safe somehow like you did for me all those years. You kept me from dying so many times on so many bikes, and I would ask you to do the same for that guy. I love him and want him to have tons of fun but not to get hurt.

Please help him not to overestimate himself or his ability to handle the weight and power. Please put a hedge of protection around him. Amen.

This makes me think of little Will. So much of a person is hard-wired in when they’re a kid. The rest comes into him from us parents and his peers. I pray you can help me raise him in the best way, so he’s not overly fearful.

I haven’t prayed that much for Will so far, but I pray that now, that you would give us wisdom as parents to know how to raise him well, to know what to make into a big deal and what’s no big deal and is for us to just overlook.

I’m so thankful you gave him to us and trust us to raise him up. I pray he would see us following you, Lord, as a good thing and desirable to him. Please give him wisdom in that way, to see spiritual things and to have insight into your word. I pray for him to also take life easy a little more than I did and not take it too seriously and over-think everything.

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“A wise son hears his father’s instructions.” (Proverbs 13:1)

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)