my careless contagion

Nebraska, you're not for everyone. But on this road trip, you were home to a great and unexpected blessing. Yes, I accomplished what I set out to do, which was to uncover what went wrong in my life. Not only that, but my expectations for this trip turned out to be inferior to how it actually unraveled.  It's clear, as I sit down to write this — the final post of my Nebraska retrospective — God chose to bless me on this trip. But you know what? It wouldn't have happened had I not said that prayer and put it in His hands. While the outcome may have looked obvious to anyone else, to me it did not look obvious. All I knew is I did not want to run afoul of God's plan or timing. That last sentence contains what I have learned in the last 20-plus years since I lived in Nebraska. Things are better left in God's hands than my own.  What went wrong all those years ago? I pushed God out of my life, leaving me to make dreadful decisions which took me far from His care....

The city of Kearney (population about 35,000) represents a "coulda been" for me. It could have been so many things — the town where I attended college, where I made it solid with my girl, where we settled down to live, where we bought our home and brought our children into the world — but, instead, it's a town I hardly know. I remember buying music, some of which I still own today, at the mall and other shops. I remember taking a drum set my brother was getting rid of to a music store in the bricked section of town. I got my wisdom teeth taken out here. After my stint at McCook, I thought I would finish school here, as a lot of my friends were already attending and it was an affordable yet good school. The girl I wanted to be with was already going to school here and, indeed, still lives here. But that didn't happen. Not the school. Not the girl. Not the house or the kids. Not anything. Kearney. What coulda been.  Kearney from Yanney Park. Kearney was my se...

The capital of Nebraska is Lincoln. Here is the capitol building in Lincoln. And neither capital or capitol is capitalized . How fun! English is only slightly infuriating. Lincoln, Nebraska. It's the state's capital. It's the home of Cornhusker sports teams. Nebraska has no professional sports teams, so the Cornhuskers are it. It's safe to say Nebraska is sports-obsessed. If you care about sports, it's a great place to live. To me, growing up a three-hour drive away, Lincoln was a great place to visit.  My dad was in the National Guards, starting in South Dakota (Hot Springs and Rapid City) and ending in Nebraska (Lincoln). National Guard duty entails a few weeks' commitment in the summer as well as every other weekend during the year. I often went with my father on the weekends and spent that time tooling around Lincoln, often by myself. It was more exciting than time spent in a town of about 4,000 (Broken Bow), needless to say. Sometimes too excitin...