Hi dear readers. I authored a post at TheQTree.com today that features details about God’s provision for our family during the upheaval & transition surrounding my husband’s career change to truck driving after 25 years at an industrial electronics repair company.
Perhaps our journey might bless you too. See that post here:
The Q-Tree is heavily vetted in the commenting arena so if you read the main post but are not given commenting privileges there please feel free to comment here at Special Connections.
May the Lord be with you!
Special Connections 
Its easier for me to post a comment here.
Do It Again has helped me also. /So Cory is a singer and not a car mechanic, ok, sure. /Cody’s song – love the vocabulary./ Great footage with the wolves. Whaaaat? That was a very nice car – lol./ Accidental? First time he knew of him buying off the streets. So he knew of him buying not off the streets? Sorry, as much as I love Toby, it makes me angry to hear of this tragedy, as I don’t understand the dynamics of it all. The kid had a very supportive dad, they had/have money, they had/have Jesus most important. The same goes for Rick Warren’s son. It all makes me want to throw the Book Of James out the window and say “What the F**K !!!” I just went to a funeral this weekend of an eighteen year old that took his own life. Then the aunt gets up and reads a poem about how. “The Lord called your name to come home that morning.” Uh NO, He did not! He may have called his name, but not to “come home”, but to say, “Live and trust Me.” Anyway, its all affected me deeply and no one in the family will probably ever read this, so I feel safe to say it without pouring salt in their wounds.
Whatever the next song was (I took notes while I was reading but didn’t write down the song title) is a great song./I think I have come close to Job’s status, but maybe I haven’t. It feels like I have, and feelings can be wrong, so I could be wrong about it. Why do you say none of us will? As I’m sure there are a decent amount of people who have been through the wringer since Job. The song “It Is Well With My Soul” was written after the author lost seven daughters from a shipwreck. (at least I think that is the story, I’m being too lazy to look it up)/I was a teenager when I decided I wanted to be like Job and say the Job 13:15 passage.
I give Nathaniel’s video a 5 out 10 vote and NOOO! not the colored album, that’s worth money – lol. I’m assuming he didn’t really drive around with that under the hood.
Lastly – I’m struggling with DP’s comment about her mother waiting until she was alone to go – what? I’ve actually heard this before and not sure how to handle it, especially right now with my husband wanting “the fat lady to sing” and some moments I too wish she would get on stage and start belting it out. Where does the control lie – I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to be in our court and so we wait for Him to hit the ball as we see its all in His court. We don’t understand what his purpose of it is, so we drudge on placing one foot in front of the other, however slow it is. As usual, I say anyway, I’m praying for the lady’s family that has had to say goodbye to their mother or whatever else she was to them.
Good to see you post something, BIG HUGS, Susan.
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Oh Susan, there’s so much that your comment brings to mind. I want to reply more fully after I get some sleep, I only got about an hour “nap” while I was working on today & tomorrow’s Q-Tree posts last night into the wee hours this morning…
Thank you for reading & commenting. It Really Blesses me that you stopped by ❤
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Take your time and get some beauty sleep.
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Hi Susan, Please check out my son Brandon’s comment here
Some of what he wrote is directly for You! ❤
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Oh Susan I can only imagine how painful that story about TobyMac’s son was coming so close to that tragic suicide. I have no words…
I guess I was referencing the magnitude of Job’s losses that seem, to me, more than what any of us might experience. I mean he lost all of his kids, & basically all of his property, all of his social standing, much of his health, & he’s left with an haranguing wife telling him to “curse God & die”. Why did God leave Her to continue to torment him? LOL
I’m always moved by the end of Job’s book where God asks a series of questions & really puts our viewpoint into His perspective. There is so much wisdom & profound truth there, & throughout scripture. What a blessing that the Lord gave that to us so that we can catch glimpses of Him in this life.
W/out asking Nathaniel, I’m pretty sure that he didn’t drive around with that album under his hood. 😉 😉 Clearly that storyline was a creative way to showcase that cover tune. What do you think the video needed to rate higher than a 5 for you, just curious? The first few times I watched it I didn’t even know it was my son singing, I thought he was just doing a video entry w/ the audio being from the original band (I clearly don’t know their stuff, & when I listened to the original I like N’s voice better 🙂 ). When we found out it was N’s voice we were kind of blown away because we didn’t know he had that level of skill 🙂
Yeah I can’t really explain DP’s situation. She & much of her family are staunch Catholics, including her mother, I believe. DP is convinced that her mom suffered complications from subjecting herself to multiple covid “vax’s” & in the end she was mostly unconscious & brain dead yet lingered on even after life support was removed, if I recall properly…
My husband has been talking like he’s got one foot in the grave & one on a banana peel pretty much as long as I’ve known him. He has feared getting older & the indignities that often accompany that process. Though neither of us has faced the more extreme health situations you & your husband have wrestled with, it is definitely difficult to have this mortal shell begin to break down in multiple ways. I guess we are All in His hands & He’ll call us Home when He sees fit.
Hang in there & hang on to Jesus!
I appreciate you reading my Q-Tree post & commenting here too–God Bless YOU & Yours so very richly ❤
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Valerie Curren
This is PAVACA (RDS) on Tuesday October 3rd. I hope you can see this message soon.
Love, love your opener at The Q Tree today! You and yours have been through so much, but continue moving onward!
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Sorry I missed this comment at the time you wrote it. When being an author on a Q-Tree daily the notifier gets filled up So Quickly. For some reason my “notifier” wouldn’t let me scroll back very far as the day went on & so I missed a number of comments, especially if they weren’t directly at the Q-Tree.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful & encouraging words. Sometimes the word of my testimony is all I have to share 🙂 God is good. Bless YOU precious sister. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! ❤
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Beautiful tribute to what our family has gone through the last 18 months, especially you and Dad! To God indeed be the glory! And you didn’t even mention figuring out paying for Josiah’s WEDDING right at the beginning of the career change! The Lord has been ever present for our family and sometimes seems to shine the brightest in our weakest, darkest, most uncertain moments. God may have unveiled to you the secret to contentment firsthand as He did to the apostle Paul! I have no doubt your post and openness and glorification of the Lord will bring a bit of hope and peace to many-a-reader!
As for Susan’s comment, there’s a lot to unpack there for sure. I think the big question though ultimately revolves around God’s relationship to the suffering in our world. Indeed many people since Job have suffered in horrible, gruesome, or evil ways. Why has human trafficking been so prevalent in our world for so long? Why does female genital mutation exist in cultures still today? Why do certain churches have a serious pedophilia problem? Why do drunk drivers typically survive crashes that were fatal for the other vehicles? Why are most nursing homes abundant in depression and neglect? Why do some people die so young?
The horrors in Detroit that lie just around the corner from the flashy buildings have brought me more up close with the issue of suffering than I ever thought I’d get without personally losing a close loved one or something. I find it hard to encourage someone with anything more than silence, prayer, and a warm embrace if they’re actively going through loss and grief. Anything more I fear would fall on deaf ears and appear trivial. I still don’t fully understand the complex relationship between God’s ultimate power, God’s perfect will, our free will, God’s perfect balance of both justice and mercy, and the enemy’s brief dominion over this world until the time God has established to return. The despair and neglect and poverty I see in Detroit on every shift I work is informative if not life-changing, and intimidating if not crushing.
But God has been spreading His light through people like myself into the areas of brokenness and darkness in Detroit. I must operate in His strength and peace that surpasses all understanding, or I’ll succumb to the anxiety that leers at me from every cracked sidewalk and crooked door. I have to cling to this faith that He is doing good works in this world and in each of us and that He’ll never stop chasing those that can be saved and brought into His Kingdom! I’m sure God will have some majestically complicated yet simplistic answer for why TobyMac’s son died so young and so tragically, if I remember to ask Him when I meet Him face to floor. If I die tomorrow, I already look at my life as a blessing due to the number of times I’ve faced dangerous scenarios and felt God had gifted me second chances at life upon emergence from those scenarios alive. Perhaps many of those around us have had similar second, third, and fourth chances at life we never knew of.
Jeremy Camp is another music artist that has a vigorous body of work on trusting in God through suffering. Jeremy was given the Jesus-loving wife of his dreams (after much anxst and effort to woo and marry her) just for her to die from a health condition months after their marriage. Jeremy is extremely open about that time in his life in his book and at his concerts, where he continually gives glory to God and millions have encountered Jesus through his music and his story. Did his wife HAVE to die for that outcome? Who’s to say? It’s an uncomfortable question philosophically and realistically. And it feels hollow to even venture a guess at one specific reason for the expense of someone’s life.
But knowing that God can and does use any of our circumstances for His glory and our eventual good is a comfort amidst the lack of definite answers. The enemy would have the population of this world be hyper-focused on the suffering and the trials, when in fact God has such beauty waiting in eternity with Him for those that choose to follow Him! And there are more answers in God’s Word than we give Him credit for if we only read and seek Him!
I don’t know if this helps at all, usually my philosophical rants get me more questions, but Susan I appreciate your honesty and I’ll be praying for you in your own current challenges! God bless!
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This is a Beautiful & deeply felt & thought reply. I hope to reply to you more fully, as I hope to do with Susan, since I’m still in the middle of (what seems to me) a marathon slog of back-to-back posts at The Q-Tree.
You’ve warmed my heart & given me hope, again, that whenever my time comes you & your siblings will be so very well equipped to survive & thrive in His Kingdom & to burst light into the darkness down here while still physically tethered to terra firma!
Love & Blessings be YOURS!
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You might also find the insights shared in this comment relevant ❤
Robert Baker
Robert Baker (@guest_1164815)Offline
Reply to Valerie Curren
October 3, 2023 10:05
#1164815
Valerie, within an hour after reading your comment I came across this in the book I am reading. It pertains to your comment about desire.
By the way, thank you for your post.
Reminiscent of Augustine’s reflections on the cheated soul noted in chapter two, C. S. Lewis informs us that we are too easily pleased. Rather than live in expectation of Jesus’ promises and rewards of eternal life in the world to come, we settle for less, far less. As Lewis argues, it appears that “our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” To use Augustine’s language, we live as cheated souls.
Paul Louis Metzger, More than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2023), 439.
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Thank you and I appreciate I can say what I feel and think with your mother, as I do believe she knows she can do the same with me. Life is hard and yes we don’t always get the answers we want and that’s ok. I still ask the questions just in case I do even get an answer. And that is one way I see we differ from atheists. As true Christians, we are ok with saying I/we don’t know this or that, or know why this or that happened or didn’t happen. They can’t as far as I have seen. It comes down to a trust issue. We trust Yeshua because we can. The atheists admits they can’t.
Its not an easy process to get to a certain level of trust, but it is obtainable if one wants to trust Him and see His faithfulness.
Not really sure why I wrote all that. Does it relate to the post, maybe, I guess. Sorry, my head is in a little bit of a fog right now as there is much stuff taking space. I am glad though to have been told of your comment. I would like very much to meet the whole family one day. Hugs and Prayers and Yeshua’s Blessings upon you and yours.
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Hi Susan,
I love how you & Brandon have been able to interface a bit. He might not have seen what you wrote yet because I don’t think he checks WordPress very often, having many other online arenas where he is more likely to hang out. I’ll try to let him know of your reply (assuming I don’t forget LOL) so maybe he’ll get back with you too 🙂
Hope all the chaos causing that “fog” has settled down into more of a dull roar. Much love & hugs back atcha ❤
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Clearer for now, but come later today, or tomorrow or next week…..lol….😜
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No doubt. Glad it’s a bit better now at least 🙂
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Brandon, I just re-read your comment with the intent to reply more fully. Honestly what you’ve shared is just so profound that I don’t want to Even attempt to dissect it in a convoluted reply.
Thank you for sharing so genuinely & transparently w/ your very unique perspective now working on the front lines in Detroit as an EMT & soon as a Firefighter in training as well.
Wherever you go I have No Doubt that you will bring The Light to dark places & shattered souls. God has created you for such a time as this!
I love you & am profoundly moved by the person you are in real life & in the spoken & written word. You are fearfully & wonderfully made!
❤ XO, Mom/Valerie ❤
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Thank you very much for your encouragement and kind words! I really didn’t think my comment would get that much traction lol. You and Dad have given me through God everything I need to make it in this life, and I thank you for the blessing that you continue to be! Thank you for standing up for the beautiful aspects of this country. God bless!
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Hello Valerie! I followed your link here from qtree in order to tell you more personally how very much you help me by sharing your thoughts and your walk with God. Your testimony is beautiful. Thank you 🙏.
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Oh Happy TY so much for these moving & encouraging words! I hope you read my son Brandon’s comment on this post–his screen name is All Rage No Stage–for it’s so uplifting to see a young person who Gets It & can express it to the level he does.
God Bless YOU so richly!
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I have A Lot of writings over the years at Special Connections where our challenges (& occasional "triumphs") are on display, hopefully to the Glory of God. Lots of the rough stuff, from my view, relates to special needs. God's carried & sustained our family through some pretty rough waters for almost 3 decades now!
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Hello Valerie!
Thank you for your sweet reply, I apologize for not answering sooner. I did read your son’s comment, at least I wasn’t sure it was your son until you said so; what a blessing for you. Take care friend 🌷🌷🌷
“Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. “
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So that gets a mega MAGA hug from this Momma Bear–Thank you! ❤
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Here is my husband Michael’s take on what was shared in the post about our family, from an email. I hope his insights might bless you too!
Valerie,
What a great and accurate testimony of a difficult road, and how God steered us through each obstacle. Great job!! I don’t fully understand all the paths he puts us on, and his grace and mercy is a mystery in and of itself. But I am nonetheless thankful for all of who he is and does in our lives. May he continue to guide us the on road ahead wherever it may lead us, and whatever the circumstances are that we face.
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