DAB Family. I have been an on and off member of this community for ten years. Let me say at the beginning of this testimony that I’m gonna’ ramble and gush. I’ve prayed and cried, laughed and grown with so many of you out there. I love you all.

Brian, You have been an immeasurable blessing.

I found this podcast about a year or so after the death of my second child, Katherine. I had come to Christ later in life, and my journey has been peppered with attacks and challenges. The loss of my second child, my second daughter was, and is, my deepest one. She was born with trisomy 18, Edwards syndrome. This is a chromosome abnormality similar to Downs syndrome but the chromosome involved is critical. Doctors deem the condition as “Incompatible with life”. We, (my wife Diane and I) fought and wrestled with death each day. Our daughter Patricia, was three at the time and she suffered as we went through and struggled to save her baby sister. After two months and two days we lost.

I work long days in my business and as such I never had the time to grieve. Taking time off sends the wrong message. I should not have been concerned. I had been overlooked for a while, so, in hindsight i realize it would not have made a difference. As it was I was overlooked, and that time would have been better invested with my family and being there with them and for them in that time. Still, I am encouraged and fighting to remain hopeful for the days ahead.

Family, I covet your prayers at this time. I feel my time at my job is becoming a waste. It just seems like a dead end. I work as unto the Lord and I am overlooked even though I have seniority over those who are given privileged positions. I have always done my job with the intention to carry out my duties at the highest standards but it seems that the lowest ones win out. I struggle with discouragement and embarrassment as each week I suffer the ignominy of seeming demotion while others take the positions I so desperately need. While the rate where I work offers an exceptional rate of pay, the economic decline and personal travails have put me in financial stress/peril. For years. Through God’s grace we get through. But the stress of making those ends meet, getting through the other side at times tears me up inside. It seems that just as I have reason to think I’m turning the corner, that new street leads to the same old despair.

I have a few business ideas, book ideas , ministry ideas that could create an avenue for escape but fleshing them out is hard, and it’s difficult if not impossible to know which of them is best, what Jesus wants me to do. My present job is an informal place of ministry. I am the only evangelical, Bible believing Christian at my job. If I leave to receive greater financial gain don’t I give away that territory? At the same time doesn’t perusing a career choice that takes me out of the firing line, and places me where I can preach Christ and speak the word freely, advance His kingdom? I’m stuck in so many ways.

Please pray for my family, wife Diane, children Patricia and Joseph as they endure the trials that come my way. Please pray for my endurance and or deliverance. Pray for the instructions from God on which way to go. For hope and the strength to endure… no, grow through all that is in this season of my life.

This is Scooter in Yonkers. I love you all. God bless you. Know that I am praying with every prayer I hear in the podcast. Isolation is one of my biggest problems. Thank you to whoever it was back in October of 2015 who said that we don’t have to go through it alone. It made me a solid member of the community after eight inconsistent years, blown about and tossed by the winds and waves of life’s challenges. I am listening to the Christmas party just to pick up my spirit and feel that holiday connection that seemed so fleeting this year. It’s working.