Joanne

I have a daughter, Joanne who just turned 21 on Sunday (March 13). She has a troubled past....You know old story, child of a broken marriage, lived with an unattentive mother, no limits. She is probably as close to me as any of my kids have been, and my heart always breaks for her...a lost child. It's hard not to hold myself personally responsible for that, the "I should'ves". Within the last year we've reached out to her in where she lives in Denver to try and resolve a few things and give her the options of having someplace to call home and family (she's always had that, but made some bad choices).

It's hard not to remember Joanne as a young child. I remember going through a bad period a number of years ago, when she was about 6 or 7 years old. I'd lost my (poorly managed) business, and was working doing roofing work with a friend of mine. I had gotten a piece of roofing aggregate in my eye, and the subsequent visit to the emergency room had aggrevated it so that BOTH eyes became swollen shut. I was for all intents and purposes, blind. Joanne had been participating in a church play called "don't give up", and was sitting at the dinner table on this particular day, while I sat in a chair in the living room, feeling the sun on my body, but not being able to see the warmth of the day. A unique and unsettling experience for one who has been sighted all of their life. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself when I heard this little voice singing quietly behind me "Sometimes it's not easy...being a child of the King...Sometimes the songs he gives us, are kinda hard to sing...". I broke down and started crying from blind eyes.