Truth Is Hard To Dig Out

Do you ever search for truth and find it is really hard to find. Error is easy. You don't have to care about being correct. You just find something that you like or that agrees with your preconceived notions and away you go.  Error is so easy.  I have heard the stat that 18.5 cops are killed by a black man for every black man that is killed by a cop. Try and google or use bing or sone other search engine to try and get the 18.5 names of the cops and almost always the search engine gives you the opposite, a black man killed by a cop. The truth is in Chicago during a years time, I forget what year it was and the article is no longer on screen. 2300 black men were killed and only twelve of them by cops. Cops are not the problem. I believe the article said all twelve of them were armed. Google cops killed in Chicago in 2019 and the top article on the search engine was about 435 people shot by police. Even our search engines support the false narrative. I know that cops fill out reports for everything they do, that is why the stats are available through the FBI and different universities that do studies. But we don't want the truth. Imagine if you will if every time the news spoke the name George Floyd they also spoke the names of the 18 and a half officers that were killed by a black man.  Compare one to 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5,18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, 18.5, .5.   That is the truth but if I could have found the 18 names to compare with the name George Floyd I would have done it but google it and try to do it yourself, it's not easy. I'm not a good researcher. But the narrative that a cop killed an "unarmed black man" is easy to find and is repeated in news articles, some 56 times. How many times was an "unarmed white man" killed by police. Not once, but not because it didn't happen. Even our ex-Vice President called a black man armed with a knife unarmed.  It is error and it is so easy to find, but the truth is not.  In  Prager U 5 minute video from 8/22/16, Heather Macdonald listed some other facts relating to police shootings. But still, the news will report the false narrative and not even the whole story. Like Breanna Taylor, Mike Brown. George Floyd but can you list the names of the 18.5 x 3 names = 55.5 name of cops that were killed by a black man. In the aftermath of the George Floyd rioting, 17 innocent victims were also killed. Can you recall those names?  By now I am sure the number is even higher. Will we see the same results for Breanna Taylor? Will we kill 17 more innocent people to demand justice for Breanna? In violent PEACEFUL protests. No Justice, no peace. What is justice, is it received at the hands of an angry mob or is it received after a careful investigation with emotions in check and a jury of our peers? The jury weighing the facts presented by attorneys on both sides.  When the verdict is not what we want is that justice.  Should our emotional rampages influence the jurors? Is that the truth and justice we want?  Our country is sick and those that are set out to destroy it will not treat you any better if they win. God help us. LVZ.

A New Day

 I have an amazing Grandson. I listened as he asked the nurse intelligent questions about his momma. Is that machine doing the breathing for her? He understands that God has taken his momma. I am thankful for a God that is with us in every trial. I am at a loss for words when I see this 34 year old with two kids taken. One is 11 years old and the daughter is only 13 months. It seems easier to bear the death of a 71-year-old friend that died also this week. His was unexpected also. God is the giver of life and the taker and we do not always understand. Every one of our days is known by God before one of them happens. From the beginning to the end.  Ben Patterson died Thursday, Summer died two or three days ago but is still on a ventilator. She looks like she is breathing, her chest goes up and down, but there is no life. It is hard for parents who already lost another child at age 28 to lose a second child at age 36. All I know is there is a God in heaven who knows every one of our days. I don't understand some of the whys but I trust God. It is a new day and I will be glad in it. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28:7

God bless, LVZ.

My Opinion

 I am troubled by the news. The media does not report fairly anymore. That is the reason they were given protection in our nation to report unbiased news. But most national news tries to persuade us to believe a certain way. If they were unbiased I believe they would give another side of the stories. When talking about Hydroxychloroquine, I believe an unbiased media would tell us the good. Tell us where Hydroxychloroquine was successful in places like India and Sweden. This pandemic is a political weapon, it is being used in the battle for this next election. I truly believe the left does not want to stop this pandemic until after the next election. Those on the left will say things like if it saves just one life it is worth it, but hydroxychloroquine has saved many lives in places like Mumbai India and Sweden, but it is banned. They don't want a successful treatment of this illness until after the election.  Sweden sold HCQ over the counter as a preventative. At the urging of WHO, they banned its sale over the counter, in two weeks their death rate skyrocketed 400%. The next day they made it available over the counter and in almost another two weeks the death rate plummeted 400% back to the level it was before the ban.  They are ahead of many nations in their fight against this illness. They did not shut down their economy or schools and their death rate is equal to many European countries that did shut down. If we wanted to save just one life, would we not allow HQC until something better is found?  Mumbai India gove it to their first responders in a preventative fashion and although some still contracted the illness, they had mild cases of it and no deaths among their 4500 police force. We are in a political battle between the left and right and so many actions do not make sense. Nancy Pelosi is always lecturing about wearing masks but was caught on camera not wearing a mask in a hair salon which are suppose to be shut down in California. But here she is in a salon, using her position to get a treatment that is not allowed for just common folks. It is a political battle, and I believe the elite in Washington know better but are willing to sacrifice our lives to push their political agenda. Are their political motives behind most of the news reporting we hear? I think so.  I do believe the disease is real and we need to take precautions, but most of what we are facing is pure political fighting. That is my opinion. God bless, LVZ.

Relationships

 I have not had the best relationship with my children. I believe a lot of it stems from the difficult relationship I had with their mother. Both my children's mother and I grew up in dysfunctional homes. So we passed that on because our kids were grown without a perfect family background. The best thing you can give your kids is a good home life. But the reality of it is we live in a dysfunctional world and a dysfunctional home is quite normal. I don't write this to blame their mother, as I had my own dysfunction to deal with. But I know I loved my children, both of them. I loved my biological daughter and I loved my son just as much even though I was not his biological father. It may have been dysfunctional thinking of a very young father in his low 20's to decide I would never tell him that I wasn't his biological father. I was very young to be a father and in hindsight, I wish I had done otherwise. But we can never go back to the past and change it. It's done, I cannot fix it. I even thought I was a pretty good father for many years but looking back like so many others I started off being very selfish.  But I have good memories of time with my children. I remember coming home from work, tired and laying down on the couch and this little tyke would lay on my chest and we would both doze off.  I remember playing cars with him in the back yard and making roads for toy cars in the dirt. I remember a neighbor looking over the fence and seeing me with my 2-year-old playing cars in the dirt. He made a comment about me playing cars and I felt embarrassed as a twenty-something-year-old young man. Looking back on it I was doing the right thing playing at my son's two-year-old level.  I don't even think the neighbor meant anything negative with his comment. Through the years I have many good memories. I loved him as my own.  My daughter came along and I loved her also. She was a girl and probably played like a girl and perhaps I didn't do as well. I remember her making a song "It's raining its pouring, my daddy is boring". I probably wasn't giving enough attention to her. But I loved her. I made soup for lunch one day and my son finished his soup and without me watching, my daughter switched bowls because she didn't want it.  I made him finish his soup which was really hers because I was looking at the bowls in front of them and didn't really realize until later what had happened.  I wasn't a perfect father but I loved them. I remember when my beautiful daughter chipped her front tooth. I felt like it hurt me. I loved them.   Around age 14, a well-meaning relative told my son that I wasn't his biological father and it seems like it went downhill from there. It seems ever since there has been a chip on his shoulder like I always mistreated him and treated him differently than his half-sister. I was the disciplinarian, their mother didn't want to be a parent, just their friend. So any discipline fell on me. We were not together as parents on almost anything. I think the very last time I gave a spanking to my son was when he pointed a rifle at his neighborhood friend over what was probably a $10 or less item.  He hasn't forgotten it. He feels I was too harsh. I may have been, but what I wanted was to teach him to never point a gun at another human being for no reason. A $10 toy is not a good enough reason.  Perhaps if he had been my biological child he would have gotten past it and learned the lesson I desired to teach.  He felt I treated him differently than his sister, and I believe that is true, simply because boys and girls are different, simply because no two personalities are the same ever. I know that I loved them, as the imperfect father that I was.  I always felt as he matured, he would understand, but even in his forties, he still seems to hate me. I can't fix it, there is nothing I can do to fix the past. I believe the only solution is to forgive any and all wrongs. If we don't fix the dysfunction in ourselves we set the next generation up with the same family sins. I have prayed for thirty plus years for my children and it seems I will go to my grave without seeing healing in our relationships. I often wonder what can I do differently. Any mistakes are long past, there is no going back and reliving them. It is by grace alone that I will face my heavenly father. None of us can earn grace. We simply receive forgiveness from God and move on. I will go to my grave knowing I loved my kids and did the best I knew at the time. I hope they will find the same forgiveness and I'll see them in heaven someday.  It is the same in our world today, people talking about our racist past and failing to see the progress that was made in the '50s, '60s, and even in the last President when we had a Black President for two terms. We cannot fix the past. Tearing down statues does not fix anything. The past still happened just as it did so many years ago. The path to healing is to forgive any and all wrongs.  Perhaps someday we will realize how important it is to forgive others is. People, all people have sinned and fallen short. We need to forgive and move on. The only one that can wash away our sins is Jesus. He died on a cross for that very purpose. He didn't stay dead, he rose on the third day and now lives in our hearts if we will let him in. I think about my past relationships and what is going on in our country and feel forgiving one another is the key to a healthy happy life. Forget the past, forgive it, and move on. Eternity is nearer than it has even been. We do answer to God for the life we lived, relationships are the only thing we will take with us. I know I loved my children, as imperfect as I was, I loved them the best I knew.  God bless, LVZ. 

There is nothing wrong with me that I know of. I just try to examine my heart periodically to see if I am in the faith. I want to make heaven someday.

Living Is Hard

 If we make stupid mistakes we have to live with them. I have made my share of mistakes when I did not listen to good sound advice.  I am reading a Max Lucado book and he is writing about consulting God. Do you pray to God before you make decisions big or small? Do you pray and read the word asking for God's direction? This book is hitting me where I live. I don't even want to talk about some of the stupid decisions I have made when I knew better but just went ahead and did what I wanted to do. Let me tell you from experience that is stupid.  Hindsight is 20/20 and let me tell you hindsight says listen to good advice. If you don't know what to do ask someone with experience in what you are trying to make a decision about.  If building a home, ask someone that has done it. If a business decision, ask a Christian businessman. If you want to know about economics ask someone that studied the economy, please don't ask a politician.  It amazes me the people that will take the word of a politician over the word of an economist about the effects of raising a minimum wage. That is downright stupid. About the only thing you might want to consult a politician for is if you are running for an elected office, you might want to ask them about that. I want to give Max some credit here, some of these questions, not all I read in his book, "Facing Your Giants". If you want marriage advice, ask someone who has a strong marriage. If you want child-raising advice, ask someone who is doing a good job raising their kids. If you want financial advice ask someone who is doing good in that area. Don't ask someone who is going to tell you what you want to hear.  You might as well not ask anything of someone like that. Twice I had a parent of someone I married advised me not to marry them. I did not listen and those were my two shortest marriages of all. God will still love you and walk with you but you will still suffer the consequences of a bad decision. God doesn't walk away when we don't listen to him, he will work with us and help us in our trial. But we still suffer the consequences of bad decisions. If you break a law and end up in prison God will be with you during your prison sentence, if you are in Christ. He will use that experience to try and help you make better decisions. Living can be hard if we have to pay for every one of life's lessons out of our own experience. How much better it is to learn from other people's mistakes. I want to give an example from my own life. I was a new engineer and I took over a set of drawings. I thought I understood the process and so did the engineer that recommended me. The first customer that I did my own set of drawings for was the most difficult customer with the most changes.  I messed up and I had to ADCN and DCN every drawing for that customer in the first few weeks after that release. But experience is a good teacher and I really did understand my set of drawings after that experience and did much better with the following customers as long as I held that position. But learning through experience that way was hard. In those two shortest marriages, the parent told me their daughter would hurt me. And hurt me they did. I had one minister that married me one of those times tell me, you can go through this hurt as many times as you want and we will be here for you to help you.  But it is up to you how many times you want to go through this hurt. Sometimes God speaks to us through the good advice of experts in that field. God tried to speak to me through the parents of those two women that knew their own daughters better than anyone. I did not listen and suffered hurt and more. God can speak to us through his word, but sometimes God speaks to us through other Christians that have more experience in a certain area. If we have any doubt about a decision, it may be best to hold off and pray about it some more, until we feel peace about a decision. I could have saved myself so much trouble and hurt if I had just listened to good advice. Even a non-christian parent will love their children and give them the advice to steer them in the right direction, simply because they love their children. One preacher said to give weight to what a parent tells their child. You don't have to agree but consider carefully what they tell you. That is what honor your parent means. Give weight to their words, don't just brush it off. They have been down the road of life a lot farther than you. Living can be hard when we don't listen to God.     God bless, LVZ.