Commerce City

Dougie's mother lives in Denver and he hasn't seen her in three years, so he has to see her and I make sure of it.

Since we've rescheduled everything else because of the AC going out, there really is no schedule to keep besides getting to Kingman by the 19th and Las Vegas by the 22nd.

Karen is an amazingly strong, kind, and good- humored woman. It was a pleasure to meet her and hang out with her and her dogs, Ranger and Callie, for the day. It's always interesting to see how family members interact, and seeing Doug and his mom together was endearing. He didn't hold back in his teasing and jokes, nor his love for his mama. They embraced and held each other for a couple of minutes when we arrived and departed. They went through old photos and keepsakes together, hunted for great grandma's Bible copyright 1903 but couldn't find it. We made breakfast together. I did a load of laundry, cooked spaghetti for dinner, got the van cleaned up and organized and used my clothesline for the first time inside the van to dry my clothes.

Doug showed me old pictures of his family, his father and grandparents, his childhood photos, his siblings, aunts and uncles, his dad's truck, his prom date, his wedding picture, the picture of him coming back from Iraq, and his mom's car... along with stories to accompany each. Karen also reminisced and shared the history of the family and things she remembered. She told us about her little brother Remmy Lee who died at age 5 after playing with matches and catching himself on fire. Doug didn't know about this, and suddenly some things that had been disturbing him about his childhood came into focus and made sense.

So often we as humans are quick to judge, to make assumptions and only see things from our one-sided perspective. How much more peaceful life could be if when we feel hurt or angry, we could just stop and think about things from a different perspective? "What on God's earth happened to that person or is happening to them right now that caused them to do this?" Empathy and compassion go a long way. Yes, there are real jerks out there, but I'm not going to let them bring me down to their level. "Bless those that curse you," Jesus said. Forgiveness is powerful and opens up the power to manifest beautiful things in life.Read more