{"id":62,"date":"2012-07-02T09:25:59","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T15:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/?p=62"},"modified":"2012-07-06T05:51:11","modified_gmt":"2012-07-06T11:51:11","slug":"water-melancholia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/2012\/07\/water-melancholia\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Melancholia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

But I can\u2019t bring myself to drink it\u2014all I can think about are the eight people I\u2019d give my left arm to be able to send this glass of water to:<\/p>\n

Brian Gardner<\/strong> \u2013 My literary agent\u2019s (Rachelle Gardner<\/a>) husband, Brian, is a firefighter in Colorado Springs. He\u2019s spent the last week grabbing an hour or two of sleep where he could get it as he fought the Waldo Canyon fires. I\u2019m hot, grumpy, and thirsty sitting inside my non-burning<\/em>, air-conditioned home in a pair of Bermuda shorts and flip-flops.\u00a0Brian is sleep deprived, physically exhausted, and yet, man-upping-it in a thick, fire-retardant suit so that several fewer people will lose their lives, homes, photo albums, tree houses, and fish tanks. And he\u2019s not complaining, because this is the stuff of heroes, and heroes don\u2019t whine\u2026they work<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Bonnie Tyler asked, \u201cWhere have all the good men gone?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tell you where they are: they\u2019re holding hoses, flying planes, and back-burning forests in Colorado this week.<\/p>\n

Our Child in Uganda<\/strong> \u2013 Our family is in the process of adopting a child from Uganda. Our kids have been plugging allowance money into an adoption jar for a year now. They just hit the $100-mark. (That\u2019s no small feat when you get a couple dollars a week for cleaning out a chicken coop, sweeping out the garage, and changing the cat litter.)<\/p>\n

At this point, we don\u2019t know whether our child is a boy or a girl, but there\u2019s a good chance he\/she is alive and sitting thirsty<\/em> in an orphanage someplace about 7,000 miles away.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t realize how hard this phase would be. It\u2019s probably good I didn\u2019t. Knowing that one of my children is across the globe, hungry, thirsty, and needing picked up, and there\u2019s nothing I can do but wait\u2026well, it\u2019s causing a pain in my chest that nothing but a future \u201cGotcha Day<\/a>\u201d in Kampala, Uganda, will take away.<\/p>\n

Six Nebraska Army National Guard Soldiers<\/strong> \u2013 Nebraska just sent six soldiers to Afghanistan for a nine-month mission. They held the deployment ceremony two days before Father\u2019s Day. Two days before\u00a0Father\u2019s Day<\/em>\u2026are you kidding me? I cannot begin to imagine how hard it would be to be gone from family and friends for 9 months. And then there\u2019s the weather\u2014it was 100 dry, dusty, degrees in Kabul today, and these soldiers are in full military garb.<\/p>\n

In a couple days, I\u2019ll be lighting sparklers in my backyard with my wife, three kids, and a few close friends. While we\u2019re having fun, these six soldiers will be defending the very front line of my freedom to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of BBQ, friendship, children, home, back yards, and sparklers.<\/p>\n

There are simply not words big enough, beautiful enough, or poetic enough to express my gratitude for the sacrifice our military men and women make for my family.<\/p>\n

The Ice Has Melted\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>In the time it took me to write this blog post, the ice has melted. The condensation ring below the glass has completely soaked through my narrow-ruled legal pad notebook.<\/p>\n

I still can\u2019t bring myself to drink it.<\/p>\n

It now feels like it doesn\u2019t belong to me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Leave a comment on this blog post<\/a> for a chance to win a FREE signed copy of Zeke\u2019s book, Man on the Run<\/em>. Also, follow me on Twitter<\/a> or Facebook<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"