Rick Beeman

  I mentioned yesterday that I was struggling with NOT wanting to get my hopes up and how that was contradictory to my faith. If I’m praying for something shouldn’t I naturally get my hopes up for it?  I’m a little bit jaded emotionally because I am tired of heartbreak and I don’t want to be hurt or go through that pain again.  So I’m emotionally insulating myself, but is that the right thing to do?  God instructs that if you have enough faith you can move a mountain.  I’ve never been able to move mountains so I guess I must be deficient in the faith department.  Or at times I feel like I am.  Then something peculiar or fantastic happened this morning depending on your point of view.  I mention all the time how God speaks to me. Well not only me, but He speaks to all of us.  I believe I’m called to help other people hear God’s voice.  Yet I haven’t been banging that drum recently because some of things I felt as if He told me have not co...

  Well I had two good/not so horrible days in a row.  Now I start a new streak tomorrow.  How is that for an optimistic way of saying I had a bad day.  Again, I’m trying to be vulnerable right now, but I’m not looking for sympathy.  I’m trying to be transparent because society conditions us to put on masks of accomplishment hiding any vulnerabilities that we might have.  I’m here to help lead the charge that it’s ok to share weakness.  If the world did more of showing vulnerability, maybe we could share more empathy with each other rather than compete with each other.  If you are hurting, lonely, depressed you are not alone.  There are millions of us out there in that same situation but we’ve been conditioned to hide it.  This isolates us in thinking that we are the only one with the problem(s) and everyone else out there is normal or has it better than us.  I used to be so obsessed with what people thought of me. My insecurities st...

  Two good days in a row…awesome. When I say “good” I think I need to explain how the definition of good is entirely subjective.  It’s meaning has changed quickly in my life.  To me “good” days means days that weren’t awful.  I am starting to string a few of these together.  I felt moments of joy return to my life in fleeting moments.  I’ve mentioned before the difference I’m feeling between happiness and joy.  Happiness is circumstantial whereas Joy is not.  Nothing big happened that would cause me to have a great day, but it was satisfying nonetheless.  In the months of darkness and heaviness I’ve experienced in the last year, it was a welcome respite.   Today was a teacher work day.  I was able to Telework so I didn’t have to do my long drive into school.  I also made sure I got all my work done on Saturday and this morning so I could have my afternoon free.  I’m really digging the teaching schedule.  I should...

  It dawned on me earlier today.  I’ve been married for more than half of my life.  Now this might not seem like a great accomplishment for those of you that are over 50 and have had one marriage to your name (which is the way God designed it to be…but I digress).  I have two 15 year marriages and I just turned 57.  So more than half my life was spent with the responsibility of being a husband/father.  One of the ways I’ve tried to live my life was putting other people’s needs ahead of my own for most of the time.  That’s been the ideal anyway.  So when you’re in a God centered marriage, God comes first, wife second, children 3rd, occupation 4th, then the rest you can fill in according to your convictions.  So more than half my life I’ve tried to put my wife’s/family needs ahead of my own.  So much so in fact that I didn’t have a life/identity outside of being a family man.  That is taking it’s toll on my identity now that I’m separ...

It might not seem like it at first glance, but I feel like I’m turning a corner.  Yesterday’s post I was wallowing in loneliness and despair, yet today I feel better.  The spots of despair are becoming lessened while the spots of peace are becoming lengthened.  This doesn’t mean that I won’t have my bad days, its just that the horrible days are finally becoming fewer and farther between.  I’m not 50-50 between despair and peace just yet.  But by my unscientific calculations (guess) I am 25% Peace and 75% despair.  That might not seem like much but for months it was 5% peace to 95% despair with some days being as low as 1-2% peace.  You see I really love(d) my wife/family. Having them ripped away (I realize that it was my doing) felt like my skin being ripped away emotionally speaking. Those were rough times which I NEVER want to experience again.  So even from going from 5% to 25% is a marked improvement and I’ll take it.  Hopefully tomorrow ...

This is the third part in a series where I am examining my life in detail.  This is in part to evaluate my past so I can learn from my mistakes as well as give me hope for the future.  I have answered who am I? and What have I done?  Now I will examine marriage and relationships.  I was very fortunate to grow up in a God fearing home.  I understand that I won the genetic lottery as I lived a very privileged life growing up.  I didn’t really appreciate all the blessings that I had, and I don’t think many kids do.  For me it was just normal.  I think if you have a healthy childhood, no matter how you grow up, rich or poor that is normal to you.  I have taken many parenting classes over the years.  I have surmised from these several things.  But the principal thing is unity for a parent.  The most important aspect of being a mother or a father is for the husband to love the wife and likewise.  This will give the...

For children, divorce is like the father grabbing the left wrist of the child and the mother grabbing the right wrist in a tug of war for control and affection of the child.  Kids are obviously the ones injured in the tussle.  Alienation is using words and actions so the child will shun the other parent in the tug of war.  I for the most part have let go of the wrist in order to not further harm the children.  Here is how Wikipedia describes Parental Alienation: Parental alienation is a social dynamic, generally occurring due to divorce or separation , when a child expresses unjustified hatred or unreasonably strong dislike of one parent, making access by the rejected parent difficult or impossible. These feelings may be influenced by negative comments by the other parent and by the characteristics, such as lack of empathy and warmth, of the rejected parent. I have mentioned past illustrations of alienating actions in previous versions of this blog so I wont re...

#2 What a surprise! I flew back in November to surprise Jennifer…and boy were we both surprised. We had been so careful as to “protect” ourselves. Then my last night there…well we got a little… how shall I say this, less fastidious on the consequences for a few good reasons. Well they seemed good at the time anyways. After all, we still wanted to travel the world, and being situated in Dubai (right in the middle of everything) made that all possible. So this is a little PG-13 in the form of imagery, nevertheless, afterwards I turned to her and proclaimed. I think I just made you pregnant. She of course blew me off. I didn’t really want to believe it myself. So I fly back to Dubai the next day. As Im having my morning chat with God, I very clearly and matter of factly heard Him say, “Jennifer’s pregnant.” So all of sudden, I start convincing myself maybe I can’t really hear from God. Then He clearly said “Whether you want to accept it right now or not, she’s pregnant. Yo...

It was a very special day today on a couple of levels. First of all, God has really been speaking to me lately. Just to put it out there as a matter of faith I’ll tell you about it. First of all…meeting and becoming engaged to Jennifer was an absolutely called shot by God. Now we have to work out the details. My career, her career, her dissertation, when exactly to get married, where to live, what to do with her dogs, her house, which way to roll the toilet paper over or under..etc. So while I was with Jennifer I felt like God told me that everything would get sorted out in a spectacular way in two months. That word was around the middle of Feb. (I forgot to write the exact date down). So its going to happen somewhere around Mid-April I believe. God is so cool when he gives me these dates. They always come to pass. So this week God told me that to prepare for the future and for guidance I was supposed to fast for two days. Just a short little one, and Jennifer did too. We a...