i was looking back at my post from september 11th last year, and was struck by how much it applied to my life right now ... so here it is again, slightly shortened & revised.
this morning started in much the same way as it did 11 years ago ... clear blue skies, crisp morning air with the promise of fall. but suddenly it all seemed so wrong. however, allowing our lives to come to a screeching
halt is exactly what the terrorists (and satan) would have wanted. they thought
that attacking our ideals, and some of our precious lives with them,
would bring our nation to its knees.
it did. just not in the way they had hoped. they didn’t account for our hope.
i
think about job. God allowed satan to take almost everything that was
precious to job - his children, his servants, his possessions, and even
his health. but the one thing satan could not take was job’s faith.
despite all that happened, job refused to curse God.
when
an enemy comes against us, they will try
and strike us in every way that they think will get to us. they think
that if they attack who we are, then they can take away Whose we are.
but they cannot. unless we let them.
i have to admit that i have let them. i am sad to say that i have even cursed God. i forgot that i am not who others think or say that i am. i forgot that i must choose to rise above.
the
hope that rose in the midst of such devastation, more than anything, is
what sticks with me about that horrible day. and it is what compels me to do the same.
"let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.” (hebrews 10:23)
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
lest we forget ...
I can’t believe that tonight marks 4 weeks since everything
changed. Most of you know what’s
been going on with my mom. In the
face of a disheartening diagnosis, it is far too easy to forget all the ways
that God has already moved in the situation … to forget who God is. We have a long road ahead of us, but
here is a testimony of all that God did that weekend, and continues to do, so that we may
not lose heart or hope as we walk out our faith each day.
I was scheduled to have a heart cath done on Friday
afternoon, and my mom decided to drive into town for the procedure. I told her that was fine, but warned
her that a number of my friends would be in town so I would probably be busy
with that Friday morning & Saturday during the day. That being said, she still may have
stayed in town through Sunday had it not been for the next miracle.
All of my friends were coming in town for a weekend-long Amy
Grant event. I could not afford to
attend the event myself, but was just excited to have all my friends together
in my town for several days. Then,
on Thursday, a last-minute anonymous scholarship was offered to me, making it
possible for me to attend. This
was a miracle for me personally because of the healing it represented. It was also a miracle for my mom
because it solidified her decision to leave town early Saturday afternoon since
I would now be busy Friday night and from Saturday afternoon through Sunday.
On the day of my procedure, I couldn’t eat or drink anything
after 7am. I prayed that I
wouldn’t be overly hungry and that my blood sugar wouldn’t bottom out. This is a small request in the big
scheme of things, but even with the procedure starting later than planned, I
felt great all day. Right before
we left for the procedure, they called to say that their equipment wasn’t
functioning properly and that they needed to reschedule for Monday. This complicated my plans for Friday
and Monday, and complicated things for my mom who wanted to get back and take
care of things at home, not to mention leaving her in Nashville when everything
went down.
The next miracle came when the hospital called back to say
that the guy working on the equipment would be done within the hour, and that
they could do the procedure after all.
So we headed to the hospital, along with two dear friends, one of whom
used to work at that very hospital.
As she met those who would be working on me, she discovered that she
could not have handpicked a better team.
They were all nurses she had worked with in the past and of whom she
thought very highly, and the doctor was highly recommended by all she asked.
Going into the procedure, I asked for as little medication
as possible so I would be up to attending that evening’s concert. The doctor told me I could try doing it
with nothing at all so I decided to give it a go. My body’s natural pain response totally took over and I
experienced only slight discomfort.
The procedure went very smoothly and quickly, and everything came back
normal. It’s frustrating to still
have no answers, but I continue to trust God, His timing & ultimately His
healing.
I was released a short time later, and after resting for a
little while and some dinner, had a great evening of music with friends. The next day, my mom and I had a quiet
morning at the house, spent a couple hours at the pool, and then she headed
back to Cincinnati. She made it
back around 9pm. My brother Rob
was there but left soon after. It
was just a short time later that she was incapacitated by a blinding headache. My dad was out of town, but for
whatever reason, she didn’t call him right when she got in, so then when he
couldn’t get a hold of her for their ritual nightly call, he knew that something
was wrong.
My dad called my brother and told him to go back to the
house. “I just left there and she
was fine,” was his reply. “I don’t
care. Something’s wrong.” Then he called the neighbors and asked
them to go check on my mom. There
just happened to be some cops right across the street attending to a parked car
that had been hit, so they alerted them to the situation and together they
banged on the door. The dog was
going crazy, but there was no answer.
When the neighbors used the spare key to open the door, they could see
my mom lying on the ground, but the dog wouldn’t let them get in. The cops called the paramedics, and
they got to the house about the same time as Rob. He corralled the dog so they could attend to my mom, and
then he followed the ambulance to the hospital.
They did a CAT scan right away and discovered a large brain
bleed for which they knew surgery would be necessary. A few hours later they did an MRI, and what they saw led
them to do surgery immediately. My
other brother, Phil, who was in Athens, Ohio had called his girlfriend, who was
in Kansas City. She called her
parents, who live on the East Side of Cincinnati. Her dad, an ENT surgeon called his friend, Dr. Shibobbian, a
well-known neurosurgeon who had already worked on Rob and my dad, and asked him
to do my mom’s surgery. Her mom, whom
my parents had never even met, stayed the night with Rob at the hospital. This was all after 10pm on a Saturday.
All of that to say, it is a miracle that she is still
alive. And it is a miracle that it
did not do more damage.
My mom came out of surgery around 6:30am on Sunday morning,
less than 9 hours after everything started. My dad got to the hospital around 1pm, and she was already
awake, talking and even joking. We are praising God for the huge improvements
she has been making daily since then.
On Sunday, she couldn’t lift her left arm or leg. On Monday, she had regained much of her
strength, but had very little dexterity or sensation. Tuesday, her dexterity had improved – she was even able to
pluck and put on makeup :) She was
eating, sitting up in a chair, and doing some walking with assistance. Friday, they moved her down to the
rehab floor where she stayed for 10 days. She came home this past Tuesday, July 10th and
started her chemo pills and radiation treatments Monday, July 16th.
Through it all, she has remained very sharp mentally. Everyone was shocked at how good she
looked and was doing. She is
getting stronger every day, adjusting well to life at home, and made it through
her first week of treatments and rehab with flying colors. This past Wednesday, she even went back
to work for a few hours.
Doctors are of course keeping a close eye on things, but we
are just taking things one day at a time, and in the midst of difficult
circumstances, may we continually remember and testify of His goodness, and
never cease to believe in His ability to perform miracles.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
let love win ...
i’ve heard a lot of people say that last year was one of their hardest and that they were looking toward 2012 with great expectation for new and exciting things. when i stop and think about it, 2011 was actually probably one of the best years i’ve ever had. yet, as it came to a close, i was left with a very bad taste in my mouth and very little anticipation for the new year. this was very unlike me and i hated feeling this way. i knew that a lot of it had to do with me not dealing with and being obedient to what i was hearing God say. and i knew that i could only hold things at bay for so long. but i kept plowing ahead and sweeping my growing discontent under the rug.
then today i went for a run. alone. that was the last thing i wanted to do. but i also got the sense that it was what i needed. so i laced up my shoes and headed out the door. “something’s gotta give,” i thought. i didn’t want to need a big emotional moment to turn things around. i just wanted the humility to start taking steps back in the right direction. “God, i need to hear from You. bring me to the end of myself,” i prayed.
as i reflected on the little hurts and disappointments that i had allowed to take root and grow over the past several months, the song ‘brand new day’ by fireflight came on my ipod:
I'm holding on
To things I shouldn't
It's time to let them go
I've been on a losing streak
Hit so hard I couldn't speak
But when I hear Your voice it fades away
He was already starting.
i ran past a house with a little yappy dog that has chased after me on more than one occasion. today i made it past the driveway without him noticing, but then he bolted from the porch and barked at me emphatically from the other side of the fence until i had passed. i pushed on up the hill, thinking i was home free. then the next thing i knew he was right behind me, at my ankles. i whirled around and screamed “GO HOME!” at the top of my lungs. he backed down and i took several steps in his direction, scaring him off further. it was then i noticed that the horses in the pasture next to where this was all taking place had not been startled by the commotion but were actually walking towards us ... toward the dog. they were intervening. i continued backing up the hill while the dog stayed put, clearly intimidated by the horses. after a few more barks, he turned and headed home.
tears filled my eyes as the full weight of what had happened began to sink in. the image is etched in my mind. like those horses, God is waiting to intervene. but i have to do my part. i can't sneak past my little demons anymore, and i can't just endure their annoyance from afar. they had caught up to me and i needed to turn and face them with all my might, or they were sure to take a chunk out of me.
as i continued on, the next lines in the song were:
And I can hear You say
It's a brand new day
The pain goes away
I'm headed for the door ...
Your love, it burns
Away my darkness
You guide me when I'm blind
You are the light
That shines inside me
Showing me
I'm So much more
my spirits lifted. each song that came on was exactly what i needed to hear, but it all comes down to this from ‘the hunger’ -
Do you want to spend your whole life jaded?
Stuck in a rut that you created
Why don't you break the cycle?
Let love win
will i let love win? that’s the choice i have to make in the new year. it’s not going to be easy, and it’s probably not going to be pretty. but like this line from dierks bentley’s new song ‘home’ that i heard for the first time today -
Free, nothing feels like free
Though it sometimes means we don't get along
Cause same, no we're not the same
But that’s what makes us strong
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