Let me start by apologizing for not being very visible around MyChurch. I am still here, lurking in the background and helping the MyChurch Team in any way I can. For the past month or so, I've been pretty much "under the weather" fighting illnesses associated with being a full time wheelchair user affected by a degenerative neuromuscular disorder. I am also in a transitional phase where I am trying my best to reduce my keepsakes, read that my life's travels in books of knowledge and miscellaneous other junque, to reduce the clutter around me. Yes, I'm a pack-rat that cherishes and keeps everything. It's the way West Virginia hillbillys are; your life can be seen in what's up in the attic. I even have the first box of crayons that I ever scribbled with. My mother saved them for me; with a LOT of other childhood stuff too.

I've spent the past few hours sorting through books; lots of them. The books span from the late 1960s through 2005. That is when I accepted the fact that I was being so severely affected by my illness that the final chapter of my life was just starting to be written. Now, don't get me wrong, this final chapter is going to be The Best because for once in my lifetime, I am starting to understand what it means to really be dependent on God, seek Him in the most intimate manner and strain to hear every Word that He speaks in that still, small voice. After all, I am preparing to meet Him for a glorious homecoming.

What I am parting with today are the volumes and volumes of books that have taught me so much over the years on the technical side of things. The four years spent at Virginia Tech was when I really got filled with every imaginable equation and fact that I would need in my quest to become an electrical engineer. The math textbook titled "Ordinary Differential Equations" was anything but ordinary. Then there were the digital and integrated circuits books that laid out the building blocks for what was eventually to become a desktop personal computer. While I was in college, we had to use thousands of "punch cards" with Fortan IV programming to solve complex problems. I remember waiting for days to have my stack compiled only to learn that one of my cards had a missing semicolon somewhere and the whole compilation came to an abrupt halt. We used the hunt-n-peck process of a keypunch machine whereas today it would be point-n-click. We sure have come a long ways over the past 30-some years. Who would have thunk it?

Folks, this has been one of the hardest days in my life. I sitting here shedding tears. I have carried these books everywhere my life has taken me. They represent the technical foundation that my career was built upon. So many memories. But it is time to move on. Time to part with some of what I cannot take with me. I have dreaded this day where I would begin to pass on my prized collections of junque. Much of it will be destined for the county landfills. The value is only seen by me and really hurts from deep within. I am at a loss as to exactly how to handle this. My mind is failing me and these books are physical representations of what used to be readily retrievable in the grey matter. All the while, these books are now useless to me and must go.

But parting with my history is killing me...

Dave

P.S. This is just another one of my "from the heart" ramblings as to what I experience as a person with an incurable terminal illness that will take me before my time. I am comforted, however, to positively know that it will be in His perfect timing. I've got nothing to hide, blogging is an outlet to help me get through this trying period of my life and all of you have been the best friends that I've ever known. God bless you all!