THE PITFALLS OF WANTING

(Written by Buddy Wendling)

My Brother Jake was a special person.



He loved everyone he met regardless of their religious views, political leanings, sex, age, or color. He saw us all as children of God and therefore something to be loved. He loved sunny days when the smell of fresh cut grass was in the air and the possibility of using his hands, head, and heart to plant some of God’s green creations. Planting and landscaping was his art, and the earth was his muse.



He loved to fish and hunt. He wasn’t too concerned with whether he caught fish or got a deer, he just loved the idea of being in the woods where God could be seen in every direction. Hunting and fishing was a love we shared.



I looked forward to any time when I could sit in a boat with him, or sit around a campfire in the bayou explaining to him all of the night sounds and listening to his wonderment at such amazing and beautiful things. One of my greatest regrets is that I didn’t take the time to make more time for things like that with him. I always knew that he would be there all through my life, and that we would always be best friends and find time to be together.



As it turned out I was wrong, his life was cut drastically short and so many people were robbed of the company of such a special man. When I look at his pictures I see his beautiful face and that smile that was the most real thing I’d ever known, but I also see all the mistakes I ever made in not taking every chance to be with him. Regrets are terrible things.

I know that when people lose a loved one they often have a tendency to elevate that person to Sainthood. This isn’t the case with my Brother, Jake. He really was all the wonderful things you hear, and so much more. He did have his shortcomings like any other human, for he was not perfect. He didn’t always manage his money very well, and he had a tendency to spread himself too thin in an effort to please too many people. But when he told you something he meant it. If you needed something that he had he would give it. He would readily sacrifice his comfort for another’s.

The thing Jake wanted most in life was to serve the Lord, and he did so in all that he did. He wasn’t always quiet about it but he was never offensive about it. He made it into a fun thing and would joke with people about it, which was incredible in it’s self because to him it no laughing matter. He just cared for people’s souls and didn’t want to hurt their feelings.





The second thing that Jake wanted most in life was to be a father. He loved little children, and he was also worried that his last name would not be carried on if he didn’t have a son. Anytime you saw Jake with a child or around children he would be beaming with a great big smile.





In many ways he had so much in common with them in that his faith and love was like that of a child. He had faith because it was real, he had love because it was natural. As Jake grew older he became more concerned that he might never be able to parent a child of his own, so he became somewhat obsessed with finding a woman to help him with this. Along the way he met several good women, but they never seemed to be in the same head space as him at the same time, so things wouldn’t work out. In Matthew 10:14 the word says “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.” In a way Jake applied this to potential relationships. It is what ultimately led him to the person who harmed him the most, who robbed him of all he had ever been and all he would ever be.

In the Spring of 2010 Jake was introduced to a girl who was many years younger. He found her attractive and exciting and I think he likely saw her as someone at a good age to help him bring a child into the world. It must have seemed as if he’d struck gold. The eternal optimist in Jake took over and he began to foster a relationship with her.

At first he was blind to her flaws. She would talk down to him, and as time went on she would threaten him with things that she knew mattered the most to him, such as the relationship they had. He began to discover that she drank alcohol and used drugs. Jake was celebrating almost 3 years of sobriety and even still he found ways to love her.

It has been rumored that she was having a relationship with her ex-boyfriend and that while Jake was at work she would be carrying on with this person. I believe that Jake had arrived at a place in his heart that told him things would never get better with her. I think he realized that she was not fixable and that if he stayed he might eventually sink to her level. Still he tried, because he was the kind of person who never wanted to hurt another person. I’m sure she threatened him with terrible things like ending her life if he left her. It was revealed that she had a mental illness that compelled her to act this way. She knew it was so yet she knew that she had options which would allow her to be more normal. Still she chose to live without accepting those options. In doing so she put Jake through hell. She preyed upon his desires and used them against him.

On the day of June 17th her hateful grasp was finally released. There are many versions about what may or may not have happened on that afternoon. She herself has told several versions to people. She told police and family that she and Jake had been laughing and joking around in his living room before they were to have dinner with her parents. We know from Jake’s neighbors that this isn’t the truth. Neighbors say they heard her yelling at Jake, cursing at him and talking down to him. Neighbors said that they often heard her yelling at Jake, saying mean and hurtful, hateful things to him. She also told police that Jake had gotten up to go get a shirt out of the closet and as soon as he entered the room she heard a shot. We know from witnesses outside that Jake had come out of his home and gotten into his truck, driven to his mail box and then driven back to his house, and a shot was heard moments later. It is believed that she told Jake that she was pregnant and that she had been unfaithful to him. I have heard that she said many things to many people, but because I was not there, I do not know.

All I have to go on is the relationship I had with my Brother and how well I and the rest of his family knew him. Other family members had witnessed bad behavior directed at Jake from her and were alarmed enough to try to talk to him about it. He simply wasn’t ready to hear it or deal with it. Perhaps the Lord had a greater plan for Jake and no amount of talking would change that. It is said that “the Lord works in mysterious ways” and perhaps it was time for Jake to leave this sad world and enter into God’s arms.

I will not continue to write about the many inconsistencies regarding her actions up to, during, and after my brother lost his life. I will say that there are a great many unanswered questions and a mountain of evidence to support that something happened in that home that detectives simply are not willing to explore. To them it is an open and shut case. They’ve seen it a million times and that’s all there is to that. But to the family and friends of Jake there must be more to the story. In the end Jake is still gone. Regardless of how he lost his life, or who was directly responsible, he is gone.

We know where Jake is now, and for that we are so thankful. Never again will Jake toil under a scorching sun so that he can buy gas or food, or be lonely on a winter’s night, wishing he had a wife and child. Jake now only knows bliss. None of us can know what Heaven is like, but we do know through our faith that is eternity in paradise. Knowing that and knowing that Jake is living it is a wonderful thing. Even though I know these things I miss him. I long to be with him and to do more of the things that I should have made time for. I guess that in my deep down heart I also want to assuage my regrets. I know that I miss him every moment, as do the rest of the people that loved him so.

The pitfall of wanting something so badly is that you can become blinded by that desire, allowing you to make costly mistakes.

AVOID PITFALLS



MY LESSON TODAY IS:

No relationship is worth taking one from their family. No humanly relationship is equal to one’s faith in God. God sends us signs, and it is up to us to read them and abide by them. If you are living with a person who is sick and refuses to be helped and who through this sickness is hurtful and abusive then you must not allow yourself to stay in this situation. You must get out. Life is too short to allow yourself to be so unhappy. Listen to your loved ones. Pray to God for the answers and act upon them when he gives them to you.



He heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds
Psalm 147: 3