Joyfully After All

Joyfully After All Dedicated to all of us searching for joy, smiles & help to navigate this crazy journey called life. I am unashamedly in love with Jesus & talk about Him.

I am available to speak on a variety of topics. I am willing to travel to wherever you happen to be. I use PowerPoint as well as a variety of other forms of technology to share God's love and healing power.

Grief is an interesting journey. Just this morning this photo came up in my memories. Our family loves Yahtzee. During C...
06/05/2026

Grief is an interesting journey. Just this morning this photo came up in my memories.

Our family loves Yahtzee. During Covid we would get on Zoom and play tournaments. Covid and the release of Zoom to the masses was helpful to our family, we no longer had to wait till we were in the same room to hold our “world” tournaments!

Early this morning this photo and the memories associated brought smiles and giggles. Later, as I saw the photo again it brought anger and tears.

Same memories. Same photo. Same day. Different hour.

One emotional wave was positive. The next was a rogue wave of grief. It hits ya randomly sometimes.

I’m learning to be ok with that. Big love equals a big void when that person is gone.

Jesus is showing me that it is ok to enjoy this AFTER-BEFORE life. It is good to continue to have wonderful adventures, everyday moments, and to fill my life with joy. It is also ok to pause and roll with the rogue waves when they hit.

Time strikes me as a funny thing. As a kid time moves so slowly, as an adult at work or the dentist it can drag on. Yet ...
05/25/2026

Time strikes me as a funny thing. As a kid time moves so slowly, as an adult at work or the dentist it can drag on.

Yet the years zoom. Middle age hits before you are ready.

We quickly move from running around the playground playing tag to watching our children cross the monkey bars, and then we are speaking at our parents’ funerals.

It is easy to see why the great philosopher of Ecclesiastes states that everything is futile.

So what does it matter? Why does it matter if we are Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Agnostic or whatever? Why does it matter how we fill our days?

It matters because this life, these trips around the sun, it’s not the be all end all. It isn’t everything.

It matters because we don’t live our lives alone. Our names may never show up in the history books, but how we treat others matters.

Tomorrow many Americans have the day off. There will be picnics, BBQ’s, fireworks, people will gather. Yet it isn’t just a day to drink and play croquet.

Tomorrow America pauses to remember not just those we know, but those we don’t who gave their lives in service to our nation. Those who served and made it home in casket.

Memorial Day. A day to pause and be thankful. Thankful for lives that said, “America is important. America is worth my ALL”

Those lives matter. Their choices matter. Their sacrifice matters. May our lives be lived in honor of that.

Thank you soldiers, sailors, marines, coast guardsmen, aviators, airmen. All who gave “their last full measure”.

My Mom and I just watched Sight and Sound’s The Great Awakening. It was very well done. The thought that sticks with me ...
05/17/2026

My Mom and I just watched Sight and Sound’s The Great Awakening. It was very well done. The thought that sticks with me is, “The Christian is immortal till God says their work is done.”

These last 5.5 months and really since August of 2025 when we heard Dad’s prognosis and God showed us that Dad’s time here was ending I have been very MAD at God. Angry and incensed. How DARE God take my dad so soon!

I tried to live intentionally, making the most of those last months, then weeks, then days, and then moments. And I think I did. Dad left knowing he was dearly loved. I got to hold his hand and bid him adieu. That isn’t something I take for granted.

Still, I was ANGRY and it was God’s fault. God is the giver of life. He gives. He takes away. Each breath we have is because He allows it.

My Dad hated that it was cancer that God used. It was a fear he had ever since he was around my age and his dad had the same cancer.

I was mad at God for letting it be cancer.

But today, watching The Great Awakening I am reminded that I shouldn’t spend the rest of my life mad at God. It’s a waste of time.

There are so many instances I can point to where God protected my Dad. But 2025 was when Dad’s service here was finished. He did what God had for him to do.

God didn’t let cancer get him. God didn’t steal my dad from me. God let Dad go HOME. It just happened that it was a genetic evil called cancer.

Honestly? I still have my Dad. Every time I do something for someone else. Every mug I drink at Java Moon. Every time I see people with Jesus/Brad glasses. Playing Yahtzee or Sorry. Listening to others and truly putting them first.

My Dad taught me to be Jesus in those ways.

I’m still going to miss my Dad, but Dad was immortal till God said Dad’s work was finished.

It isn’t God’s fault.

Humans chose sin. We chose death. See Genesis.

God chose forgiveness. God provided a path to eternal life with Him.

Death is hard. It should be. We were designed for life by life Himself. Yet if we choose Christ, if we choose to trust Scripture, death doesn’t have the final say.

Anger shouldn’t be my default, Dad wouldn’t be impressed. It doesn’t honor the man who raised me. Hope. Peace. Service. Joy. Those are the words he would want me to live by.

So it’s time to finally and once and for all set aside my anger. It’s time to remember all my Dad taught me about our Savior and live that way.

Mother’s Day in America is this weekend. It hits differently this year. I enjoyed celebrating it with my whole family, i...
05/08/2026

Mother’s Day in America is this weekend. It hits differently this year. I enjoyed celebrating it with my whole family, including my Dad. He knew how to make ya feel special.

Dad may be gone, but this girl, MY girl knows how to fill my life with so much that I don’t have time to dwell.

I became a Mom on 2-2-02, but it wasn’t till 1-5-12 that I held a child of mine in my arms for the first time. My only living child and what a human she is!

Sweet and sassy. Silly and strong-willed with a hefty dose of stubborn! She loves WIDE and LONG. She is incredibly loyal and would do anything for those she loves. My Sassyfrass & my Snowflake.

I remember holding her the first night we were home. Sitting in her room. Lights off but for a small nightlight. I sang her a little song I wrote.

Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you.
Yes I do. Yes I do.
You’re my precious Snowflake.
You’re my precious Snowflake.
I love you. It is true.

Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you.
Yes. He does. Yes. He does.
Jesus died to save you.
Jesus rose to save you.
He lives in Heaven. It is true.

Will you love Him? Will you love Him?
Read your Bible and pray?
Read your Bible and pray?
Follow Him. Obey Him.
Follow Him. Obey Him.
Invite Him in, to your heart?

Just a little song from a Mom’s heart, but it became her sleep song for years.

I remember being amazed that God gave me THIS human. God trusted me with this human. So tiny at first so dependent. It shook me with awe. Being a Mom was my deepest prayer and finally I was to a living child.

It’s been 14 years and I’m still amazed that God trusted ME, flawed, struggling me to raise such a precious soul.

Snowflake- I love ya!

I remember the Mother’s Day before Snowflake. Those were hard. Incredibly. My heart goes out to all those who yearn to be Mom but are not. To those who outlived a child. To those who no longer have their mom around. You are in my heart and prayers. Mother’s Day can be a hard day. Be gentle with yourself.

Brad (Dad/Papa): circa 1983. Dad- happy 75th birth week to you! I love you. I miss you. I hate doing life without you. I...
04/27/2026

Brad (Dad/Papa): circa 1983.

Dad- happy 75th birth week to you! I love you. I miss you. I hate doing life without you. I know you don’t want to come back. Enjoy your 1st birth-week in Heaven.

More photos to come tomorrow.

We are going on a MUCH needed vacation later this year. It will be good to get out of town, have lots of Mom/daughter ti...
04/27/2026

We are going on a MUCH needed vacation later this year. It will be good to get out of town, have lots of Mom/daughter time and help Snowflake experience some cools things for the first time.

New memories. Fun memories. Memories we were planning on before Papa died, but had to postpone. It’s finally time.

It will be hard though to leave our fur family behind. They will be taken care of by people I trust. I will just miss their sweetness and fun.

Still, getting on the planes and flying East to make good memories and be with loved ones, it will be good and I believe important in our healing. I’m excited .

Dad,Memories (& a porch) were made today. You would have been right there in the midst of it all, doing your part. I am ...
04/23/2026

Dad,

Memories (& a porch) were made today. You would have been right there in the midst of it all, doing your part. I am thankful we are making these memories, but dang I wish you were part of them.

Love you forever,

Me

4/30/26. Brad Kremensek would be turning 75. He will now always be 74. When you are 7 years old 74 seems OLD! When you a...
04/22/2026

4/30/26. Brad Kremensek would be turning 75. He will now always be 74.

When you are 7 years old 74 seems OLD!
When you are 40, 74 is still a little way off. When you 43 and your Dad will always stay 74, well 74 seems like not nearly enough.

He taught me so much. I’m a functioning adult. I can survive without my parents. I’m not a kid anymore. In fact, my kid will be a legal adult in less than 4 years. So do I need my Dad? To survive in this world? No. But to live? Yes.

For awhile I was doing better. I was forcing myself to enjoy the photos and memories. To find solace in the videos and snippets of his voice.

But that’s just it. It wasn’t how I really feel. Deep down in the part of me that only God sees, the part that I don’t even like to explore and fight my therapist on, that part? It’s still mad as heck at God!

“But God is love.” you say. And “God had His reasons. Everything happens in God’s time. He is gracious and merciful.”

Yeah I know that God you are referring to.

But I watched what pancreatic cancer did to my beloved father. I watched as he starved to death. I watched as medicine couldn’t ease the suffering, and we were all HELPLESS. And the mighty, powerful, omnipotent, loving God did nothing.

For a man who just spent his life loving this God and loving all people. Who lived for making people feel better and happier. And God let him suffer! And then HE took him away forever from those of us who love him most.

I didn’t see mercy. I didn’t see love. I saw suffering.

It isn’t just my family. This is common. That’s what makes me so mad. I’m not alone.

I read the news and it’s just a messy, broken, suffering world and God is taking His darn time stepping in and fixing it the way He says He will.

I still love Jesus and I believe Jesus loves us. I believe God is good. I believe in Scripture. I’m just so angry at all the suffering and why hasn’t God intervened?

People are dying horrific deaths. People are living lives of misery. God has told us the real final outcome. But He’s deliberately delayed it. And I hate that.

I know, you will want to tell me, “God is giving everyone a chance to turn to Him.”

Well, people HURRY UP WON’T YA??? Why do you tarry???? Just choose Jesus so we can end all these nightmares. I don’t want another person to have to watch a loved one suffer horribly.

I want to get to Utopia (Heaven).

So yes, I’m angry. 43 years with my Dad. Knowing 74 is all he got. Seeing suffering on a daily basis. Life right now has me angry.

In the end it gets better. But right now? I want to skip these in between chapters and just rush to the good part. Because the good part?

It is REALLY good and under the anger I am also a little jealous that Dad is at the good part and I’m not, yet.

I’m thankful to know that God is loving me through this grief journey. He is loving you too on your journey. He is patient. He is merciful. And He can handle our deepest, darkest feelings. They don’t scare Him. They don’t make Him love us less.

We may spend a time running from Him, but He is steady and right beside us through it all.

In time He may show me where His mercy was last Fall. I don’t see it now, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

To love God and be a growing Christian we don’t have to get it right all the time. We don’t have to be perfectly holy. In fact we won’t be. We try. We do our best. But we forgive our failures.

We remember that God’s love is in His loyalty. He doesn’t always answer us with a “yes”. He isn’t Santa. But He doesn’t abandon us.

And that right now is what I’m clinging to. The God who stays. Even when my volcano erupts.

When I’m grief angry God is my steady.

My Dad’s 75th birthday is a week and a half away. April 30th isn’t going to be the same anymore. I wonder how Heaven cel...
04/20/2026

My Dad’s 75th birthday is a week and a half away.

April 30th isn’t going to be the same anymore.

I wonder how Heaven celebrates birthdays. 🎂 Hopefully Dad gets a very special cup of coffee.

I love ya Dad.

04/16/2026

Like many people I enjoy true crime podcasts and shows. I like the ones where the crime is solved. I don’t want any unsolved mysteries. I like seeing the perp go to prison. Justice. I like justice.

They do make me reflect on my journey.

Most of the perps are called monsters. They dehumanized. We as humans don’t like what we are capable of so we dehumanize the worst behaviors and call those people monsters.

It took me years. I am 13 years out from learning about my ex and what he was doing during our marriage. And yes it was horrific.

But he is still human. Jesus created him in his mother’s womb. Jesus bled on the cross for him. Jesus walked out of the tomb for him. Jesus wants him in Heaven.

He is where he needs to be and needs to stay.

Using my nerd skills and my counseling degree I’ve spent a long time researching and studying what kind of evil causes p**o** behavior. It is not something that counseling can “cure”. Yes there are instances where the person no longer hurts others. 9/10 times it is because society has separated that person.

Prison is necessary because humans sin and many do it in very evil ways. But those are still people loved by Jesus. Which shows how amazing Jesus truly is.

It has taken me years to truly truly forgive. It has taken years to put that trauma is the past and be at peace. I have learned the forgiveness is for me. My relationship with Jesus feels more honest when I forgive.

Do I ever want to reconcile? No way. Nope. He is my past. He gave me my child and she is the best gift I have ever been given. But that’s it. She and I have a beautiful life now. She has a future that is full of promise and excitement. Being a teen is a crazy rollercoaster but one full of hope, smiles, laughter, excitement.

Perps of all types need to be separated from society so that people can live beautiful lives. And that is the long reason why I enjoy true crime documentaries.

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