Wrather Thoughts

A daily journal of the thoughts, ideas, and life of Ed Wrather who is a pastor and writer of the Burning Bush Devotional www.theburningbush.net wrather@dobsonteleco.com

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Facebook

Join facebook.com and be my friend. Just do a search for my name or email address (wrather@dobsonteleco.com) and send me an invitation to be your friend. You can also be my friend on MySpace at www.myspace.com/edwrather or use the custom MySpace link: http://www.myspace.com/reloc.cfm?c=2&id=e7a49a40-a44f-45ef-a6a3-f16693b1dbd9

My facebook friends are more numerous with currently 394 and there is a Burning Bush Group there that you can be a part of us well. My MySpace friends are fewer at currently 3 but one of my friends there is helping me to improve my page. As I have found out some prefer MySpace over Facebook and some prefer Facebook over MySpace. Hopefully, through this I will be able to have more meaningful interaction with the subscribers to the devotionals and others that find me through the Burning Bush website, this blog or in some other way.

Monday, August 06, 2007

A Difficult Summer

I think that this summer has been the most difficult of my life but it could have been worse. We started off with the tornado on May 5 and still have not gotten the damage repaired but may have some work done this month. My Dad was very ill and passed away on May 24. My wife was staying at a hospital with her sister for a few days as her sister had had a double knee replacement surgery. A long time member of our church passed away the next day and his funeral was on Saturday and my Dad's was the next Tuesday.

We had to immediately try to finish cleaning up my parent's home so that a cousin could move in to take care of it and pay some of the bills. When I had just finished with that we became foster parents for children that we had known for most of their lives because their father had gotten another arrest.

The boy's cancer had been in remission but almost immediately upon our having them placed in our care we learned the cancer was back and he had four tumors. Chemo was begun and nearly every day it was necessary to drive the children somewhere to take care of something.

Last Wednesday the boy was placed with another foster home that can do this on a longer term basis since my wife has to return to work soon so we can maintain our health insurance. We found out Friday that the latest bone marrow biopsy shows that the bone marrow is free of cancer. I believe it is an answer to prayer.

We were driving to see our son and grandkids at Broken Bow when we learned that my mother-in-law had broken her ankle and cannot put any weight on the foot. So we drove 400 miles back on Friday so my wife can stay with her mother.

During all of this we are having to deal with the issues surrounding my parent's farm and DHS trying to place a lien on it and force the sale of it. Not sure yet what is going to happen with that. I have a sister but she lives in Bermuda and so most of it is up to me to take care of. My mother is still in a nursing home not far from where I live in poor health mentally and physically.

We have also had our own health issues - so I have been a little distracted.