I have enjoyed writing all my life which likely began with being discovered as a good story teller (and by then I also was winning spelling bees because I have a good memory for memorization (at least I did then growing up. They used to make us give speeches starting at age 8 or 9 before the whole school in the auditorium so I learned I could speak too even though I was very shy then.
Mrs. Crell or Krell, my 4th grade teacher was one of the best teachers I have ever had but before she got pregnant and gave up teaching for awhile to have her baby she discovered me as a writer. I remember sitting there with her reading my hand written story for the class. She asked the class if they knew who had written this story. The little girl sitting next to me said, "It's Fredric because he is blushing." The class laughed at this as they knew me to be a very shy but also very tall boy for my age. This recognition of me as a story teller fit in with my father and grandfather's story telling abilities. This was something that made people popular when the country was being settled because there was no television or movies then. So, people who could tell the stories of their lives were greatly more successful then than those who couldn't articulate what was happening around them.
So, I saw this then that I was like my father and grandfather at relaying important information through stories either completely true or slightly fictionalized for polite reasons.
In 1998 I got a heart virus that I almost died from for about 8 months from fall 1998 until May 1999. So, often as I passed out from my heart virus when my body could not oxygenate my blood no matter how fast I breathed I was the only one I knew of in California who survived this at the time. So, I had to used meditation methods as I passed out over and over again to keep me from panicking as I knew if I panicked even once I would die like all the others had that I knew about.
Later I learned what actually had happened to me because the doctors defined my illness as a heart virus that often is contracted by getting your teeth cleaned at a dentists office. You have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting foreign matter in your blood then which can be fatal in the form of a heart virus.
So, as I lay on a guerney at STanford Medical near Stanford University in California, I saw all the 60 or so other heart patients being readied for various open heart surgeries and other procedures. I promised God as I looked at all these terrified people that I would start a blog (they didn't call them that then because the Internet was very new then in 1999). So, when I recovered completely, surprisingly by May and June of 1999 I started my first web site to share all the miracles in my life brought to me by God and his Saints and all his angels all my life. This is why I started blogging then in 1999.
Also, it was good because I was forced into retirement because of my heart virus then at age 50 in Fall 1998 which was also a big surprise to me. Fortunately my wife and I were able to afford this. But still, it was very surprising and a big shock for a person that had fully expected to work until I died like many of you.
So, the blogs I have started since 1999 and this one I started in 2007 in the fall have been very helpful for me in having more of a purpose in my life while raising my then youngest daughter with my wife then in 1999. My youngest will be 20 soon and my oldest son while be 42 and my step kids 44 and 45 now. So, Blogging has been a really amazing experience for me since 1999 after almost dying for 8 months.
I'm very grateful to God for saving my life so I could help save your lives and to help your souls too. Everything I can do is by the Grace of God. Every day I know I live or die by the Grace of God and so often what I write is full of the Grace of God too because of this. So, I'm very Grateful God for the amazing life you have given me and for giving me the Grace to help so many others through this Blog and in all the many other ways you have graced me with in my life.
By God's Grace
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