About Me

My photo
I'm 30 years old and, even though some people hate the idea of leaving their 20s, I embrace getting older (I like to think I get better with age!). My entire world revolves around my two amazing, full-of-life, little boys- Jake and Eli; I never believed in love at first sight until I held those beautiful boys in my arms. I'm a passionate person and give 100% in everything I do, whether it's parenting, my job, or my relationships. I am extremely competitive, driven, and motivated... I really, really hate to lose. I love my God, my family, and my country. Enjoy cooking, writing, reading, and baseball- especially the Texas Rangers. I'm extremely interested in getting to know people/people development and ask daily questions on Twitter to aid in this endeavor. I'm constantly trying to better myself; I never want to stop growing as a person. I'm terrified of complacency, but have an ability to find happiness in any situation. Bloom where you're planted. I love life and believe in experiencing it to the fullest. I'm learning as I go and definitely having a ton of fun along the way!

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Veteran's Day Service : In Honor of Joshua George

Thanks to my dear friend Krystle, I had the honor of sharing Josh's story with Living Hope Church in Whitney, PA, during their Veteran's Day Service this past Sunday.  I also had the extreme privilege of handing out silver coins - designed by Josh through Love Your Veterans - to the veterans in attendance.  Below is the message I shared.





There are a lot of things I could say about my brother; so many things, in fact, that there isn’t enough time in this service, in this month, or the rest of this year to share with you all of the amazing things that Josh did in his lifetime, enough time to recount all of the wonderfully funny, quirky, unique, and inspiring traits and actions that made him my “Joshy.”

What I can tell you, though, is that Joshua Michael George loved music, loved sports (especially baseball and his Texas Rangers), and enjoyed hunting.  He had a servant’s heart and from his childhood, knew that he was born serve others.  On the day of his death, Josh was 8 weeks away from receiving his degree and becoming a paramedic.  Josh was a veteran of the United States Army, volunteered with inner-city, at-risk youth, and loved his nephews – my two boys – with his entire heart.  An above all things, though, Josh was a Christian and had an unwavering love for the Lord.

Now I could stop there and you all would walk away from here, thinking that Josh had lived a perfect life in which he carried many important titles – Christian, Uncle, Veteran, Paramedic, and to many, as we learned after his death – Hero… but in the words of the late, Paul Harvey, I want to share with you “the rest of the story.” 

Josh’s life – his legacy – isn’t beautiful in its perfection, but rather is beautiful because of the flaws, the pain, the hurt, and the tears that led him home; home to his family, yes, but even more importantly, home to his Heavenly father. 

You see, Josh had more titles to his name than the ones I’ve already mentioned.  Josh was an on-again, off-again user of illegal pills and he was (on more than one occasion) a drunk driver– my baby brother was an addict, a trainwreck, and in many ways, for years it seemed to many people, a hopeless cause.

Josh’s addiction, as is almost always the case, started innocently enough.  Josh started illegally using prescription pills in high school as a byproduct of a football injury to his shoulder.  Josh, always so sweet and trusting, took some pills from a fellow player to relieve his pain – not knowing 1.) of the ramifications from a legal standpoint and 2.) not realizing how that one decision would forever impact the rest of his life.  Josh wasn’t thinking, “I want to develop an addiction to prescription pills;” he was simply thinking that he was in pain and wanted to power through to finish the game.  In that moment, he went from being a typical, All-American high school athlete from small-town Texas, to an addict constantly looking for the next high.

In his high school years alone, I can remember two car accidents – one where he blacked out, crashed his truck, and was rushed to the ER where he was immediately force-fed chalk to try and rid his system of the many-in-number, many-in-form types of pills he had consumed.  Officers at the scene said that Josh must have passed out, causing his foot to fall heavy on the gas, and accelerating before running over several mailboxes and then ultimately crashing into a chain-link fence.  The accident could have been so much worse and my mom, during this episode and the many similar ones to follow, always told Josh that God must have big plans for his life to have allowed him to escape death so many times – turns out that she was right…

Having, quite literally, barely made it out of high school alive, Josh briefly attended a local community college where he planned on pursuing a profession in criminal justice; shortly after his second semester, though, Josh realized that his heart was in the Armed Forces.  That desire to serve something greater than oneself led him to enlist.

I’ll never forget giving him a hug and saying goodbye as he boarded the bus in Shreveport, LA; the bus that would take him to the airport headed for boot camp in Fort Benning, GA just three days before his 21st birthday.  I remember the mix of emotions: wanting to cling to the little boy who had taught me to believe in love at first sight, but wanting to keep my distance from the man who, on so many occasions, had – through his poor choices – broken his sister’s heart; I wanted to tell him how proud I was that he had chosen such a selfless path, but also wanted to selfishly beg him not to go; I wanted to tell him I how much I loved him, but knew that three little words could never fully capture just how much he, above anyone else in the world, held my heart – something I didn’t fully realize until many years later.  So, I mustered up the courage long enough to say, “I’m proud of you and love you.  Write me when you can.”

And write me, he did.  When he sent letters, he shared of the trials of boot camp, but always finished his letters talking about how happy and how proud he was to serve his country.  The first time I saw Josh after boot camp and thinking that he looked like JOSH; pill-free and in full recovery, he looked like the brother I hadn’t seen in over 4 years.  I also remember thinking that I knew it wasn’t possible… but he seemed taller, thinner for sure, but also taller, as though the pride he had for serving our country made him feel 10-feet tall.  He loved being a soldier, so you can imagine how crushed he was when he was sent to the Warrior Transition Unit at Ft. Hood, preparing to be medically discharged from the Army, just two weeks before he was set to deploy to Afghanistan.

Josh lost several friends, the fellow soldiers he called “brothers” during that mission.  Though he never pulled a trigger in battle or felt the Afghanistan soil beneath his combat boots, he spent the rest of his short life suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Survivor’s Guilt, regretting that he hadn’t been there to fight alongside the men he loved as family.  Every day until the day that he died, Josh wore an Army hat with an American flag, remembering his time in the service, and honoring the friends that he lost.

A couple of years after leaving the military, Josh met a woman named Melanie Davie, who had recently put together a national campaign called “Love Your Veterans,” that was dedicated to raising awareness, appreciation, and support for our military heroes.  Love Your Veterans, was then and still is today, focused on helping our veterans as they return home and struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder through two initiaitves – the Triumph Program and HONOR Mentoring. 

Josh was a founding member of the Honor Program which works closely with youth support agencies across our country to employ veterans who can give at-risk kids the real heroes missing in their lives.  Josh worked with inner-city children, many of whom had older brothers, sisters, and even parents in gangs.  Josh’s goals within HONOR Mentoring included teaching self-esteem, respect for others, discipline and strength of body, but what he did best was show them love and compassion, and teach them they deserved better and should seek to rise above their circumstances.

A few months into his mentorship, Josh gave me a call and asked if he could come over for a while – he said he had something to show me.  When he arrived, he pulled out a piece of notebook paper where he had used fine-tipped markers and colored pencils to create a red, white, and blue heart that was adorned with four stars.  He explained the meaning and mentioned that his design could become the official logo of Love Your Veterans – and it did.  Now this official logo and been added to coins that are sold to raise money for funding of Love Your Veterans.  Josh never even told us about the coins and we only learned about them when my parents each received a coin with a letter from Melanie, sharing with them how much he had meant to the program.

Eventually, Josh moved away from Dallas and closer to home so he could pursue a career as a paramedic.  I don’t know if it was the Survivor’s Guilt, the physical pain he experienced on a daily basis, or the return of the same familiar demons that had historically haunted him when he was in our hometown, but Josh returned to the use of pills, slipping further into his addiction.

For the next several years, Josh would ride that all-to-familiar rollercoaster of addiction and attempted recovery, but no matter how hard he tried, Josh never could escape the need for the unnatural high.

In May of 2014, I received a phone call from my mom who, with a trembling voice, asked me to pray for Josh.  This wasn’t the first time I’d received such a call, so as I had always done in the past, I braced myself for the worst. 

When I asked my mom what was going on, she explained that Josh had finally realized that his addiction was preventing him from being the man he was meant to be, so he quit, cold turkey (something that doctors have told us was extremely dangerous).  And though he’d suffered from withdrawals before, this time was different. 

Josh was constantly hallucinating and, almost every time he slept, he was having the same recurring nightmare where he was having a physical battle with Satan and, at the conclusion of each of these nightmares, the devil would laugh and ultimately win.  By this point, I was convinced that Josh had finally reached a stage where he had consumed so many pills for so long that he would either live the remainder of his life with severe mental illness or cease to live it all. 

The dream continued for a full week where, time and time again, it ended the same – with the devil victorious and Josh awakening, terrified, almost inconsolable, at what he had witnessed.  After several days, Josh had the same dream one more time; in this last vision, Josh yet again was battling Satan, but this time, he wasn’t alone. Towards the end of the battle, Jesus arrived and conquered the devil FOR Josh, knowing that my brother couldn’t do it alone.  That was the last time that Josh ever dreamed of the devil; it was also the first day of the rest of his life.

Over the next few months, Josh recommitted his life to Christ and became involved in his local church.  When he visited my family and I in New York last December, he talked about his dreams of the devil telling me, “Dude,” (he always called me “dude”), “that was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through in my life, but in the end I knew that God was with me”  He also told me how the song “Oceans” by HIllsong Live, had helped him get through those tough time and had, in a way, become his battle cry.

In addition to overcoming addiction, Josh became a straight A student in the paramedic program and, though we didn’t know it until many months later, he became an inspiration and source of strength to those around him.  In fact, one of his friends reached out to Josh on March 10th to talk about her struggles of having lost a loved one. 

Josh responded with this text, “I’ve definitely been in situations that definitely should have left me 6 feet in the ground.  Accidental overdose at 16 from a migraine. 3 car wrecks that totaled every vehicle.  Was taking medicine for pain management and I came off of it on my own and saw the devil and I fighting in my dreams for a straight week and I could never beat him up.  He’d just laugh at me and then finally God was there and God scared him away.  During this time I was hallucinating and seeing demons but God had me in his hands the whole time.”

Josh then continued, “Someone asked me the other day, ‘Why does God take good people.  I said, well, if they’re a Christian they were ready to be in heaven anyways.  And it’s up to our belief and faith in God to know that your loved one is there that he’s with you too.”  And this is the part that gets me every time, “We will never know why we lose loved ones so early until we get to Heaven, then it’ll all click.”

This self-fulfilling prophecy was sent via text within 12 hours of Josh taking his final breath on earth and opening is eyes in the presence of Jesus.

Since that time, I’ve thought about my brother as the prodigal son, having strayed so far away before finding his way back home.  He struggled for 12 years and returned to the Josh we all knew and loved for only 10 months before dying from cardiomegaly – an enlarged heart, proving something we had known all along… our sweet Josh had a really, really big, larger-than-average heart. 

And I have no doubt that his heart was not only large, but full – full of love and laughter, full of joy and happiness, full of memories of a life that mattered and made a difference, and full of gratitude for a God that forgives, stands by us, and never stops believing in or loving us – even when we deserve it the least.  

We’ve estimated that over 500 people came to Josh’s funeral, and while the service lasted less than an hour, we were all there for over three hours as people streamed through, telling us of how Josh had changed their lives, challenged them to worker harder in school, went above and beyond as a paramedic who took care of their infant son. There were former drug addicts who talked about how Josh helped them overcome addiction and veterans whom he’d never met; one even told my dad that he didn’t know Josh, but had come to the funeral to “salute a soldier.”

Josh would have turned 30 in 3 days – yes, his birthday fell on Veteran’s day, which is so completely appropriate given how much he loved his time serving his country as a soldier.   Nothing would have made him prouder than to know that his name was mentioned in front of so many of you, his brothers and sisters of the Armed forces - He would have thanked you all for your service to our country, for your sacrifice, and for loving something more than you loved yourself.  He would have also been honored to share his story of overcoming and of returning home, with you all – his brothers and sisters in Christ.  He would have smiled his half-smirk, and chuckled his deep-gutted laugh, feeling so humbled that you all had cared enough to hear his story.  

For anyone who is hurting or knows of someone who is struggling, be it with addiction or general hardships in life, Josh would want to tell you to never, ever give up – on yourselves or the ones your love and that while things may be tough and healing may not happen in the timing we prefer, that God is and always will be bigger than the challenge and that He will help you overcome once you are truly willing to give it all to Him.


Again, thank you for your time and for hearing Josh’s story.

No comments:

Post a Comment