I find it interesting how events in our lives seem to gravitate towards a specific month. Almost as if every year, around the same time, we decide to get back into trouble. Of course, the simple fact of the matter is that since there are only 12 months, if something is going to go wrong in a year, there's an 8.3% chance it will land in any given month. And since usually more than one thing of noteworthiness happens in any given year, the act of reflecting back on specific months gives the illusion of any one month being, "a bad-luck month".
Regardless, November, while not being a bad-luck month, is certainly a month of happenings in my life. So it is, with my birthday rapidly approaching, that I find myself looking back over my Novembers.
As I just mentioned, November is my birth month, but disregarding that, the first thing of noteworthiness (for today at any rate) that occurred in November took place 6 years ago. I had a very good friend of the time who I admittedly held some romantic interest in. Well, not really, but I certainly interpreted them as such. It was a time of darkness in my life when I despaired of living. My friend moved off to college and I kept in regular contact with her. One night she mentioned how it seemed I lived each day simply to make it to the next. I was struck by this truth and could not deny the only reason I woke up in the mornings was because I had not yet died. I spent the whole night contemplating how I was living my life in relation to how the bible instructed I should be living it and came to the conclusion that it was time for a change.
I also realized at this time that the only feelings I had for her were strictly friendly, but having shut out everyone so firmly since Mark's death I called it love. Freed from the burden of this false label, I decided to take a trip up to her school to tell her how a simple statement had turned my life around. She was thrilled I was coming to her college and expressed a hope that I would attend school there so we could hang out more, she further went on to mention how I always seemed to called at just the right time to cheer her up.
When I got there, however, things took a sudden sour turn. While playing a game of 8 ball, with a man no one knew, he calmly told me my friend was dating this guy, and left. When I asked her about it, she told me it was none of my business, and that we were no longer friends. It is perhaps the single greatest regret of my life that our friendship was lost over a simple lack of communication.
November was also the month my cousin committed suicide. An event that reminded me how to cry and kept me from visiting another friend over Thanksgiving; a fact that I was never really forgiven for.
November was the time that I had to leave Countryside for a while a couple years back as a member of the church began spreading lies about me to her friends and family to cover her own sin. She never did come clean about it although all was forgiven long ago.
Though it was not in November, I started dating Amy very close to November, and though it will embarrass her greatly for me to say so, it was in November when I first kissed her ;)
And while it was also not in November, I would like to mention (while being reflective and what-not) that it was not too long ago that the 1 year anniversary of my grandfather's death rolled by. I will forever lament that my children will never get to know their great-grandfather and see all the amazing things he built for us while they were fresh and taken care of.
It was also the 1 year anniversary of learning my dad has cancer. It has been an amazing year of learning for my parents and myself as we come to help one another out and learn how to live with this disease. My stance has not changed one bit from the first moment I learned the news. I still wholly believe that God will push the cancer into remission and even if He does not, cancer is not what will end my father's life. My dad getting cancer did not catch God by surprise, it did not shorten the numbers of his days. From the very beginning, God and God alone was going to be the One to call my father home. It may be a little morbid to talk about how I think my dad is going to die (especially when I word it like that), but as I already stated, I have complete faith that God has control my father's body, and while it may be hard for the moment, there is a point to the suffering, the least of which was allowing me to serve their needs this summer time.
Yes, November is quite the interesting month.
