My life in the Big E

What can I say.. I love my life. I am incredibly blessed to have a great family, an incredible church family, and a wonderful job. But there is one part of my life that I find the most challenging, and at the same time the most rewarding.

My life in the Big E... well it is not exactly the Big Easy I am referring to. Although being me is not necessarily a hard thing to do, give me a clean pair of pants and a job that needs doing and I am there! No... if it were that "EASY" I would not waste my limited brain capacity, blog space or your time to espouse such diatribe. No, the "Big E" I am referring to here, is the vast and incomprehensible Estrogen Oasis that I find myself currently residing in.

As most of you who know me are aware, I am the father of 4 daughters ages 7, 9, 16, 20. Between them and the lovely wife of my youth, I have come to appreciate the finer aspects of survival in the testosterone deprived environment of the domicile I call home! It is a drastic change from the life I grew up in with 3 brothers, no sisters, and a mom who barely survived the various encounters with snakes in the house, dead cardinals in the freezer, and various household treasures that were broken and then meticulously reassembled with superglue, duck tape and bailing wire. (I suppose that is where I learned my trade!)

Don't jump to conclusions... I love my life! I love my family! But strictly for the purpose of survival I have learned to recognize and realign my thinking, my words, and my actions to survive the constantly changing torrent of emotions that are raging through my house! I have learned to tiptoe through the vicarious and dangerous hormone minefield with the same stealth and urgency of a cat walking through a room of sleeping pit bulls!

And yet, despite the constant feeling of being a negotiator in a life or death drama of which pair of shoes goes perfectly with this outfit... I have come to cherish each and every moment that I spend helplessly tossed two and fro in this vast ocean. Like the hugs that I get, when one by one these beautiful daughters of mine come by my easy chair headed to bed. Or the way they will crawl up into my lap and just sit.... noone saying anything... just content to be with one another. And yes, I even love the tension that exists when every strand of dna in the room is aligned against the limited amount of manliness that I can muster in the floral, potpourri lotion scented environment of our home when I suggest we watch something other than a chick flick. Yes... I have learned to appreciate the diversity of life that God has given to me.

It is in this diversity, that i can see the hand of God in my life. In so many ways.... I would not be the man I am today... if it were not for the women that they are..... I would not know how to love as I do... to cry as I need to... to be quiet when I should.... and to just be dad. Thank you Jesus that you brought balance to my life.

Love, Honor, Service
Pastor Eugene