When Life Tries to Steal Your Blessings – Strive

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Throughout my life, I have experienced both moments of extreme happiness and the depths of depression. Circumstances, relationships, and sometimes our own decisions can push us to either end of that spectrum.

Early in life, I often looked to others to make me happy. Not that I couldn’t find happiness on my own, but having someone else to focus on seemed to make it much easier. Their worlds, thoughts, and hopes gave me a welcome change and the chance to experience new things, which brought a sense of happiness. This pattern, however, also created codependency that would devastate me whenever those relationships ended, swinging me to the opposite end of the spectrum.

After working through those periods and realizing this was not a healthy way to live, I began developing my own internal “happiness meter.” It allowed me to find simple pleasures in the things I enjoyed—without everything revolving around other people.

In many ways, my blessings became the places, the activities, and the memory-making opportunities. The companions were still important, but they took on a different role. They were no longer the center of what I was doing; instead, they were fellow enthusiasts who simply enjoyed the same activities, places, or events.

Happiness can be found in simple things. It doesn’t require big, elaborate trips—the kind I once thought were necessary. Real joy often comes from completing a project, improving one’s health by reaching a new physical goal, learning new skills, or discovering fresh opportunities to explore.

If you know me, you know I love fiddling. It has been at the close to the center of my life since I was about eight years old. I love hearing and watching other players, being around fellow musicians, and most of all, performing with my fiddle. Sharing my time and energy to uplift the tradition brings me great happiness—whether at a regional fiddle contest, a concert, or special events like the Grand Master Fiddler Championship, now held at the theater at The Factory in Franklin, Tennessee in September, which I have hosted for 18 years, or judging at the Smithville Jamboree in Smithville, Tennessee.

Though the hours can be draining, exhilaration always comes from the activities, the music, and the people.

No matter what your joys in life may be, the old devil can try to steal the very blessings that bring you uplift.

Recently, while headed to Smithville, my reliable old Explorer decided it wasn’t going to make the trip—about halfway there. On a holiday weekend, I found myself sitting on the side of the highway in over 100-degree heat, trying to figure out what to do next. After about 40 minutes, I arranged for a wrecker service from back home to tow the vehicle to a local garage. A good friend then dropped everything to drive me to the airport so I could rent a car. After loading my belongings into the rental, I went home, changed out of my sweat-drenched clothes, and got back on the road. I arrived only five hours later than I had originally planned.

The event itself went beautifully; we managed to work around the heat and sporadic rain. Toward the end of the second day, however, another challenge appeared: an unexpected storm drenched my merchandise table and ruined a significant amount of inventory.

It would have been easy for the breakdown, the anticipated costs of the tow and repairs, and the loss of merchandise to leave me angry, sad, frustrated, and short-tempered with everyone around me. But that didn’t happen. I stayed in my place of blessing and refused to let the old devil steal my joy, no matter what he sent my way.

You can control where your mind goes and how you react. This trip could have been miserable, but I chose to make it anything but. I shared wonderful conversations with old friends, heard amazing music, and watched talented dancers. I even had an interesting conversation with the tow truck driver during the roughly hour-long trip back home.

Making the best of a bad situation can keep your blessings intact and thwart the enemy’s attempts to steal them. I wish that for you always.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his books at the Store .

When the Bucket Returns: Childhood Pranks

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I remember as a child, especially when the family gathered, there were always more children than you could shake a stick at.

When you put a bunch of boys together, they often got into mischief—usually by playing pranks on each other. Sometimes they would even gang up and pull one over on some of the girls in the group.

Sometimes that mischief involved a bucket. It could be filled with water, ice, dirt, worms, or anything else someone might not enjoy having poured over their head.

Of course, it was all in good fun, and the favor was soon returned in full measure when one least expected it.

Sometimes adult life brings similar moments, when it feels as though fate—or something else—puts you squarely in the crosshairs of a bucket filled with the unimaginable. It may not be as messy as those childhood pranks, but it can feel just as heavy when it lands on your head.

As children we knew the rules: get drenched, howl with laughter, and wait for the perfect moment to strike back. But these adult buckets don’t come with a return policy. Once they’re emptied over you, you’re left standing there wondering how to dry off when the water keeps coming from somewhere else.

For me, this past week felt exactly like that. I would wake up to a message or a call and feel the first cold spray hit. By mid-morning another drop would land, then another, until the whole week felt like standing under a faucet someone had forgotten to turn off. Even the good news from earlier in the month now felt strangely distant, like sunlight I could see but no longer feel on my skin.

After some wonderful, uplifting moments I had long chased and desired, each day that week brought news of another passing—first two musical friends, then a cousin and a coworker, then another musical friend, and finally a musical hero.

Each one chipped a little more paint from my surface, leaving my life a bit more exposed and my emotions raw to the touch.

When life turns on a dime and the hopes and dreams of what lies ahead are suddenly sidelined by an unexpected death, it’s sometimes hard to understand how one day everything can be on the right road and the next the path disappears into the fog and haze of grief.

Maybe the work isn’t to find the old road again, but to learn how to walk through fog without needing to see the whole path at once—trusting that the next step will eventually become visible, and that someone else might be walking it with us.

Find more of Randall’s writings in his books at the Store.

Edward Uptegrove: A Virginia Patriot Story

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Among the earliest German settlers in Pennsylvania were a Mennonite group known as the “Original 13” families. This included three brothers—Derick (Dirk), Herman, and Abraham Op den Graeff—who arrived aboard the ship Concord on October 6, 1683. They helped found Germantown (now part of Philadelphia) and, in 1688, signed the Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery—the first organized religious protest against slavery in the colonies.

It was Isaac Vanbibber Op Den Graeff’s son, Edward Uptegrove (also spelled Updegrove or similar), who was born around 1739 in Pennsylvania. He married Sarah Lewis, and together they had at least six to eleven children, including Isaac Uptegrove (1761–1817); Susanna/Susannah Uptegrove (1760–1840), who married Benjamin Melton in Albemarle County in 1787; Hannah Uptegrove (1770–1854), who married Elisha Collins in Albemarle in 1794; Solomon Updegrove; and others who later simplified the surname to “Groves” after moving to North Carolina.

In the mid-to-late 1760s, the young family migrated to Albemarle County, Virginia—a rapidly developing Piedmont frontier region of rolling hills and fertile river valleys. Still largely rural and agricultural, the county was transitioning from wilderness clearings to established plantations and small settlements, with Charlottesville emerging as its new courthouse village.

As murmurings of revolution grew, local leaders—including a young Thomas Jefferson—organized resistance. In 1774, Albemarle County held meetings opposing British policies. In spring 1775, following the Gunpowder Incident (when Virginia’s royal governor Lord Dunmore seized colonial gunpowder in Williamsburg), the county formed an Independent Company of militia. Roughly 155 volunteers (later growing to nearly 300) marched toward Williamsburg to demand the powder’s return or compensation, though they turned back before any major confrontation.

Local men also enlisted in Virginia Continental regiments, such as the 14th Virginia, which fought in major northern campaigns like Brandywine and Germantown. The county supplied recruits, provisions, and militia musters. Edward likely first felt the Revolution through committee activities and musters in the mid-1770s, with demands increasing by the late 1770s.The war arrived physically in 1778–1779 with the transfer of thousands of British and German (Hessian) prisoners captured at Saratoga. Starting in early 1779, the Albemarle Barracks (near Charlottesville along what is now Barracks Road) housed up to about 4,000 prisoners. This placed a tremendous logistical burden on the rural county, bringing economic activity, security concerns, escapes, and constant interactions with the community as locals supplied food and guards.

Benedict Arnold’s British invasion of Virginia in late 1780 prompted the Virginia legislature to relocate temporarily to Charlottesville for safety. The county remained relatively quiet on the battlefield until June 1781, when Banastre Tarleton’s raiders struck Charlottesville itself, aiming to capture the legislature and Governor Jefferson. The raid brought direct combat, property damage, and chaos—partially thwarted by Jack Jouett’s famous nighttime ride.

At the height of Virginia’s crisis, Edward stepped away from raising his young family to answer the call. As a private in the Albemarle County militia in 1781, he joined thousands of everyday Virginians who shouldered muskets to defend their homes. That pivotal year, traitor Benedict Arnold’s forces torched Richmond, while “Bloody Ban” Tarleton’s cavalry threatened the heart of Albemarle. Local militia scrambled to protect families, supplies, and the prisoner barracks while supporting the broader campaign that funneled British troops toward Yorktown.

Though no single battle bears Uptegrove’s name, his service embodied the quiet resolve of local defenders whose vigilance helped secure victory at Yorktown in October 1781. He returned to civilian life but died by 1785, leaving a patriot legacy recognized by the Daughters of the American Revolution (Ancestor #A117995).Uptegrove’s story reminds us that the Revolution was won not only on famous battlefields but also in county militias across the land. His descendants spread across the frontier, carrying pride in Edward’s service and instilling that commitment to country in generations to come.

Edward Uptegrove is Randall’s maternal 6th Great Grandfather.

Read more of Randall’s writing in his books from his Store.