Live your faith, share your life.
A friend posted this article, The Suicide Epidemic by Tony Dokoupil, to her Facebook profile and strongly encouraged people to read it. I have quoted extensively from this substantive article, but please do not let that inhibit you from reading the entire article. There is so much more that Mr. Dokoupil includes in his article (including stories [...]
21 years ago today I knelt in my living room and asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. I asked Him to forgive all of my sin (past, present, and future) which He of course forgave. He took all of my iniquities to the cross, in my place, so that I would not face [...]
Over my vacation last week, I had been praying for encouragement and a reminder of God’s calling on my life. That or a revelation of where He might be leading me next. As always, because He is a faithful and wonderful Father, He has communicated quite a bit. One of the biggest encouragements was His reminding me of the dream, with crystal clarity, I had in 1995. The dream occurred the very night I asked my pastor at that time to pray for me to receive my calling and to know exactly what it is.
I know the title of this post is … provocative? … but you will know why I titled it that way in the next sentence. Today I had two different folks alert me to two fascinating articles: Out.com‘s In the Reign of the Gay Magical Elves and The New York Times Sunday Review The Decline of [...]
Introduction
Regular readers of my blog know that I recently lost a former partner and 23 year friend to suicide. The topic of writing a blog post to help other people do suicide intervention/prevention came up a couple of times during all of that unfolding. I have had experience doing successful suicide interventions in the past but still mourning the loss of Michael, I just couldn’t bring myself to write this post until now. If interested I wrote, “I love you Michael, Always” as a tribute to him. I am also writing this post in honor of not only him but in honor of all of us who were deeply impacted by his suicide. While it may be posted today, I do see this as a living document and I will edit and add resources and links as I learn more. Also, please feel free to offer your own feedback, questions, and resources in the comments or contact me privately.
I was desperate and accepted a job as a telemarketer. That is where I met Amira. Amira and I immediately connected as kindred spirits. She invited me to go dancing one night and I was mentally registering that we would probably go to a gay bar or some cool “anything goes” bar, have some drinks and dance the night away. The next day however, that dream got dashed.
“Randy, I am looking forward to go dancing with you. I think you will like my friends.” I responded, “I am looking forward to it too. It will be great to get out, meet people and unwind.”
I like talking. A lot. Especially after a nice shot of caffeine OR when I am really tired. Or… any time in between the caffeine buzz and being really tired. Unless I am tired of people and need to be left alone. And even then I am usually texting, blogging, tweeting or Facebooking. Communicating = [...]
I got this message from a regular blog reader this past week. I have been slammed with work so please forgive the delayed response. But this hits a nerve for me and I wanted to blog it out. Here is the message. I have edited it to maintain the anonymity of the reader and the [...]
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact [...]
This is a status update I posted in the evening on January 1st 2013: As an older single person it’s hard to not feel like an after-thought or a fifth wheel sometimes. Even so, I have to assume the best and spend time with the One who is always near and available. A Facebook friend [...]