Hey, folks, I’m back from my trip to Wash. D.C. My surgery didn’t go nearly as well as I’d hoped it would, but I’ll live. I visited the wall and said my so-long’s to my partner. It was very crowded and I tried my best not to break down but was totally unsuccessful. I cried till I thought I couldn’t cry anymore and felt a pain that I thought was behind me. I never thought I could feel so bad again. As I blubbered out the words to my friend, I could slowly feel the Lord’s strength taking over. He must have felt that I needed to feel the pain first, I don’t know, but then He took me by the hand and led me to a place where I could be at peace with myself. I told Billy that I would see him again when it was time and that I knew he was in God’s arms. I told him that I no longer tried to drink and drug my pain away and that I walked with The Lord now, in a different army, in a different war. I could not for the life of me control my tears and I cried till I thought my heart would burst. Heck, I’m crying now. As I left the wall to go back to my hotel, I somehow felt an inner peace. The next day, after classes, I went back to the wall to see it in the dark and make sure my part was finished. I thought there was more to say but instead felt ok and had nothing further to say to Billy. God was with me, I could feel His presence. I think this was the most profound thing that ever happened to me. It’s over now. Billy and my heart are at peace. God, how I still miss him, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a91997 – Michael Dingwell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, folks, I’m back from my trip to Wash. D.C. My surgery didn’t go nearly as well as I’d hoped it would, but I’ll live. I visited the wall and said my so-long’s to my partner. It was very crowded and I tried my best not to break down but was totally unsuccessful. I cried…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-tins"],"modified_by":"Webmaster","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}