It was recently brought to mind about labels that we take on as Christians. There are so many labels that we can choose to apply to ourselves. For example, I would consider myself a Messianic Jew, or Messianic Christian. This label identifies me with a group of Christians who have taken it upon themselves to celebrate not only a Saturday sabbath, but also the feasts as set out in the Old Testament. But to be honest: a Christian is simply that – a Christian. Whether we believe in predestination, whether we are pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib, whether we drink wine or juice in our celebration of communion: a Christian is a Christian.

In his letter to Corinth, Paul talks of how the Christians even then had taken on labels. The arguments then were “I follow Paul.” or “I follow Apollos”, and so on and so forth. And I wonder at our need as humans to identify with certain groups or labels.

The reason that I have been thinking about this is because of something my cousin has been recently addressing in his own life. Now, let me start off by saying that sin is sin, and we must always remember that the first sin came simply as Adam and Eve eating a fruit off a tree, and when it comes to salvation, each sin is as great as the next.

Now, my cousin, in recent years, has come out very bravely to admit his own personal sexual struggles in his life. It takes a lot of strength to admit such things, and I applaud his humility in sharing with us. He admits that while he has always had an attraction to women, he has also had to struggle with his attraction to men. Again, I thank him for his humility in sharing, because I know I wouldn’t be able to be so courageous to share such an intimate struggle.

The problem I am having, however, is in his identification with the lifestyle. He would consider himself a “bisexual” Christian. And I do not agree with that identification.

I understand that each of us has struggles, and that we can more easily identify with those who have the same or similar struggles. I just don’t think that those struggles are something that we ought to attach to our title as Christian. I mean, what would a person think if someone was talking to them and said “I consider myself a Lying Christian.” or “I’m an Alcoholic Christian.” We might just turn our heads and laugh at the person.

So, my question is: why is it okay then to attach our sexual “identities” to our label as Christian? I don’t consider myself a “heterosexual” Christian, nor do I consider myself a “promiscuous/adulterous” Christian (one of my own issues that I have dealt with). I am a Christian, and it is only by God’s grace and strength that I don’t indulge in those sins, so it would be in my best interest not to identify with those things in which I struggle.

On March 14, 2012, my little pug chased his last truck and went up to doggy heaven. I love you, my precious forever-puppy. I will miss you forever.

After a brief battle caused by the side effects of her medication (the doctors weighed the pros and cons of giving it to her), my grandmother passed away this month at the age of 80. I love you and miss you, Grandma, but I know you’re in a better place now and all your worries are gone.

It has been a long time since I updated this blog. I think it’s time I came back and graced it with my presence again, especially considering that the rush and the ups and downs are currently at a low.

I’ll give a bit of a rundown as to what has happened in my life since I dropped off the face of my blog…

In December, I left my husband, took our son, and moved back home. Despite many of the good parts of our relationship, our issues had made things very toxic and it just wasn’t a great situation (we are now working towards reconciliation and great progress has been made there). Shortly after I left, Lemar made the decision that he was going to get treatment for some of his issues down in Phoenix and he wanted to take our son with him. So, I sent our boy off on a trip with his daddy.

He had a blast, and he and Lemar had a great time together. The plan had been to put our boy on a plane with some friends of ours and I would meet them in Grand Forks and bring him home from there, but there was a big mix up and he ended up missing his flight. So, I made an impromptu road trip down to Phoenix to pick up our son and bring him home. 3200kms. One way. I’ll expand more on that trip in another post, but suffice it to say that 32 hours of driving in two days makes for one VERY tired woman!

Before I left, Grandma had been in and out of the hospital a couple times with heart and breathing issues. On February 5, she was admitted to the hospital for her final stay. On February 18, not even 20 minutes after my sister arrived with her boys to say her goodbyes, Grandma left us for a worry-free eternity.

And now that all of the highs and lows have passed, I’m left feeling… missionless. The last two weeks of Grandma’s life, there wasn’t a day that I wasn’t there in the hospital, and all of us took our turns sleeping on chairs and couches at the hospital through the long nights. But now, life is quiet. I had at least been looking at getting a job, but due to internal issues with the job I’d applied for, I was told not to hold my breath for the position to open.

Whatever the case, God will direct me in the way that I need to go and put on my heart the things that I need to do. Counselling for myself is the next step, and who knows where things will go from there.

I’m sad to report that the on-going saga with my grandmother is continuing and worsening. During her lucid moments, she does not even have the energy to take herself to the bathroom, and yet, when the dementia hits, she’s as feisty as a cornered raccoon. Last night was an especially hard night for my family as they struggled to keep her from running out and away into the cold. It took my brother, my dad, and my aunt until 12:30AM to get her into her bed and to sleep, and within 2 1/2 hours, they were up and at it again.

Today, she has a follow up appointment to determine the results of the previous tests. Since the CT scan came back showing no obvious signs of abnormalities, I think it’s fairly safe to assume that this sudden onset of dementia is just that. I never pictured my grandma in this state, and it’s hard to be so far away from her and my family when it is obvious that this has become a struggle for them. Her favourite quote was always “I’m tougher than an old boot, and smell twice as bad.” When the voice at the other end of the line sounds like a meek little mouse who doesn’t even remember her own granddaughter’s voice anymore, it tears at my heart.

To top everything that is going on in my life off with a nice bowl of cherries, yesterday an ovarian cyst decided to rupture on me while I was out hunting. Ovarian cysts are nothing new to me, I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, and I have had them rupture before, and just went through the pain. But yesterday’s blow out was so intense it felt like someone had stuck a saw inside me and given one good hard rip through my insides. I ended up at the hospital, going through blood tests and ultrasounds (to make sure it wasn’t my appendix), having demerol stream through my blood vessels (oh baby, that was nice!), then being sent home with orders of bed rest.

So, I’m supposed to be on bed rest until tomorrow. Hunting season is now closed for me as I won’t be able to get out between now and Wednesday, so my hopes of bagging a deer this year are now trashed.

When it rains, it most certainly pours.

Today, my family finally told me that my grandma has been doing very poorly for the last few weeks. Actually, my dad believes that her decline started earlier this year, but since she lives alone, and my dad rarely sees her in the summer, no one really caught it or saw it coming.

Despite the fact that me and my grandmother didn’t see eye-to-eye on many things, and despite the fact that she could be hard-headed and stubborn at times, I loved her with all my heart.

When I was 7, my mother left and it was up to my dad to take care of us. My dad worked as a guide in the summer and lived on the island so he could not take care of us in the summer. My grandma took it upon herself to take care of us while my dad was on the lake. For almost a decade my grandma spent half her year caring for me and my brother. She made sure I ate my breakfast in the morning, and my bed was made before I went to school, she made sure to pick me up at the end of the driveway from the bus when it was raining, and that there were always tasty treats in the cupboard.

Right now she is going through a terrifying spell of what appears to be paranoid schizophrenic dementia, but the doctors are running tests and have done a CT scan, the results of which will be available tomorrow.

Her current delusion is that a group of men came into her house, strapped her down, and implanted devices in her ears that they’re now using to control her and read her mind. These “men” also use a light outside in order to exact their controlling measures upon her life. She has told my dad and my aunt that she is currently protecting them from something very bad happening to them. Every time the phone rings, she runs and hides, and she can no longer sleep in her own house due to her overwhelming fears.

This whole situation has been draining on my dad, who is pretty much my grandma’s sole caretaker right now. He has to be on guard 24/7 in case the delusion goes further.

I will update tomorrow with what the doctor says about the CT scan.

Tomorrow is the opener for regular season rifle hunting! I am very excited to be getting out there and hunting tomorrow. I am also very nervous.

Tomorrow begins a season of firsts for me.

1) First Time Deer Hunting Alone
Until this year, any deer hunting that I had done was done side-by-side with my daddy. Unfortunately, my daddy lives 1000 miles away now, and it is no longer feasible for me to just drive out to his place for a hunt.

2) First Time Hunting in Saskatchewan
This is an entirely new area for me. I can’t just go out and hunt the same old fields and forests that I grew up in. I have to learn a whole new area, get to know a whole new set of neighbours, and do it all by myself.

Hopefully, these two firsts will bring an entire new set of firsts to follow along.

Wish me luck! I want to be able to yell “BIG DOE DOWN!”

…just take me out back and put a bullet in my brain.

Recently, my grandma’s house was broken into. She lives in a crappy little house that was built over 100 years ago, out in the woods on the lake. It’s a beautiful little spot, but hardly an ideal place for a woman who just turned 80 years old and who has had numerous health issues in the previous years and no longer has a driver’s license.

I’m not aware of how everything went down exactly, but this is coming from what my father told me.

All through the summer, someone has been breaking into my grandma’s house and stealing money here and there. She didn’t tell anyone about any of it until the most recent incident.

As long as I can remember, Grandma has had a spare set of keys to the house hidden in her shed. Over the course of the years, they’ve been moved from spot to spot, for security purposes. But this break-in… she found the keys outside on the ground. Of course, there was money missing AGAIN, and this time the cops were called.

The cops came out, investigated, confiscated two family firearms (one of which was my great-grandfather’s), told my father that my grandmother was suffering from dementia, and then left my family to pick up the pieces. I’m not a fan of the police to begin with. Other than protect my husband (then boyfriend) from being killed by my brother the night that we met, there isn’t really anything the police have done for me. And I might agree with them slightly on my grandma being demented (she calls me by my aunt’s name and call’s my dad my brother), but don’t turn this into my grandmother being the criminal.

ALL of this could have been taken care of had she just let us know what was going on. So, now my aunt is there taking care of her. Trail cams have been installed to watch the property, and the keys have not been returned to the shed.

Please, if I ever get to that point, just save us all the misery and have me put down.

Deer hunting season hasn’t even begun yet for me and I’m already feeling like quitting. This is my first year not only hunting a new area, but hunting deer alone. Prior to this, I had my daddy to rely on for everything. I feel very alone. I haven’t even had a proper grouse hunt! Yeah, I’m probably throwing a pity party and I’m sure this feeling will go away once I’ve got my rifle in my hands and I’m out in the woods stalking some deer. But right now, I just feel like a fish out of water.

I’ve done two things tonight that I’ve never done in my life before.

1. I gutted a pumpkin. Yeah, I’m 27 years old and have NEVER gutted a pumpkin (or carved one for that matter)!

2. I shot a pumpkin to bits with three different guns.

The following photos immortalize the precursor and aftermath of what I like to call “Death of a Pumpkin”.

First… the pumpkin. I was going to carve a face for it, but my son didn’t quite get the fact that I wanted him to draw JUST a face on the pumpkin. I was slightly horrified when he drew this…

So, I just shaved out the mouth a little.

Next, I gathered my weapons of choice. A Mossberg 702 Plinkster .22LR, a Marlin 336C 30/30, and a 20ga Remington 1100 G3.

I moved the pumpkin into the yard and chose its final resting place. And no, we don’t mow our lawn. We believe in letting it grow au naturel. Or maybe I just don’t own a lawn mower. I don’t know, the former sounds way better.

I chose the .22LR first. I mean, really, you’re not going to notice a few .22 shots if you’ve already obliterated the pumpkin with a shotgun or a 30/30. Bear in mind that I was shooting my son’s rendition of me, so it was kind of off-putting actually trying to put together a nice grouping. I shot five rounds into it.

Next, I went with the 30/30. Three rounds. I loved seeing the pumpkin pieces fly!

And finally, the 20ga. I’m not sure if you truly understand shotguns until you’ve used one to turn a pumpkin into spaghetti squash.

I was thinking of erecting a tombstone.

I am ITCHING to go hunting right now. Not that I would bother to hunt on a Saturday, but I would love to go deer hunting tomorrow. I can’t even go duck/grouse hunting because the days that I have available are now spent working because one of our customers failed to tell us that the land we were dumping on was not owned by him and was merely leased so I get to spend my time off cleaning it all up.

I’ve decided that next year I’m going to have all my hunting options available to me should I want to hunt anytime between September and December. That means archery, muzzleloading, AND rifle.

The problem is that I have to drive an hour and a half to find a place that sells good equipment, and even then their service is poor at best. Perhaps it’s because I’m a chick and they don’t take me seriously. I don’t know, it’s just really annoying.