A look at my account information reminds me that I am just shy of my 3 year anniversary on JU, by about a month.

I would be hard pressed to detail my exact whereabouts three years ago today at this time, but it wouldn't be long odds to guess I was sitting somewhere 760 feet below the scorching surface of Death Valley, working what I could get to support my family. I would have been unaware that in less than three months, events would be set in motion that would change my life radically...again. It was shortly after this time in '04 that I left the mine for a job I thought would provide a better future, a job that dumped me unceremoniously only two scant weeks after the birth of our son and left me with a broken down car, scavenging cans on the highway and looking for a way out.

Oh, what a whirlwind stretch it has been. We moved to Texas in October of '04 with little more than a promise and a weekly unemployment check to tide us over. For two long years I worked as a news carrier....err, media distribution specialist, delivering papers in the rain, snow, sleet and hail, going through the better part of four cars (the fourth we sold still running) before acquiring a more promising job and more consistently reliable transportation.

I've been kicked out of a church, prit'near run out of a town, arrested, libeled, investigated, harassed, intimidated in various ways, and ostracized. And through it all, I'm still standing.

I've run for office(garnering 15% of the vote), continued college (knocking off a whopping 44 credits in 9 months' time), met much of the Guthrie family and played for some of 'em, and established a solid reputation in the IT field in this area.

Add to that the not at all small feat of producing over 2000 blogs.

And now that I have time to breathe, I stop and wonder. I have never understood God's purpose, God's plan, only that He HAD a purpose and a plan. And while I've never been so arrogant as to think I was a significant part of that plan, I've always hoped, always prayed, that He could set aside just a little bit of blessing for me and my family.

Three years ago was a climax. I was living a life of quiet desperation. And when I would stumble in home at 2 AM from the mine and find my way to the comfort of my bed, I could think of nothing bigger than the next day or the next paycheck. My life was my job, nothing more than a routine I would repeat day after day with no purpose, few rewards, and little luxury.

We're a long way from "being there" even today, even as I speak. But as I round the homestretch towards getting my Associate's and moving on to my Bachelor's, I think I know where I'm going. I may not know all the details, but at least things make sense to me. My routine is still a mundane one of constantly having to be somewhere, but at least now I have to be somewhere because I'm GOING somewhere. In January I hope to embark on my pursuit of a Bachelor's degree; in two years I hope to be preparing for law school.

Two years. That's less than the three years we've been here. That's not a long time.

And if the next two years are anywhere near as busy as the last two, I don't know when I'm going to sleep!