Greetings to all:

It has been a long time since I have published and I do not even know if anyone is still looking at the blog. Further more a lot has happened since 01.04.08 when I believe it was the last that I published. I will be the very first to admit that January was a very difficult month, even more than I ever expected. I have come to the underestanding that grief in our society is "very cold." And I do not just mean the weather outside, but I mean the emotions inside and the new rela-tionships that have to be formed. I personally am finding it to be a "very cold" and difficult process and as I touch base with others they are telling me the same thing. I am getting this from people who's spouce died as much as 18 months ago, and even 3 years ago.

Why is this? I am still reading, thinking, and working on that answer, but I believe that the biggest part of it has to do with our society and the desire to not talk about dying, death and grief. I therefore have felt God calling me to talk more about this and try to help people under-stand that if we talked more about it we would better understand and it would go better. So beginning on Sunday, February 24 and for the next three Sundays at 3:30pm I am going to do a class on Dying, Death and Grief. I really believe that God is calling me to do this and is and will help me to get it all together. Praise the Lord!

So now how am I doing? I know that I am doing better than January and feel that over all I am making progress but I still have a way to go. It certainly is not an easy road, and certainly the most difficult grief road that I have been down, but I continue to Praise the Lord becasue I know that God is with me and is guiding me and helping me all the way. God is good - all the time! All the time - God is good! My ability to fold clothes in an orderly way after they have been washed is improving each week. My cooking is coming right along. Marty and I had dinner with four other couples about every four to six weeks. And just a few weeks ago I had them here and fixed the meat, patato, and vegetable everybody ate it, said it was very good and to the best of my knowledge no one got sick. I guess I would have to say that my two biggest down falls so far have been keeping Marty's birds feeders full and her plants watered on time. I really am not sure what it is, but I always seem to get behind on those things. I think I have only killed one plant so far, so actually I guess that is not to bad - and I must say that it was not doing to well when I took over.

Well, I just felt the need to pubish something this morning and though there is more that I could say, now I am feeling the need to get to bed. So I am going to sign off for now, and I will see if I can not get back on again sooner.

Have a positive day, take care, and God bless.

Jack Hess
Romans 8:28

PS For some reason the spell check did not work, so you better believe that I am not going to take credit for any words that may be miss spilled - it is without a doubt the computor's fault. I guess I better go back to the way I use to do it, which was to write in word perfect and then move it over to the blog. Proof again that trying to take the short cut, is not always the best way. So here is hoping that I have caught most of the type-o-s and miss spellings. God bless!