Love and Death

One thing that I've come to learn over the past 15 years is that who I used to think that I was is no longer completely true...and who I currently think that I am will likely change in the future, too. Let me try to explain without boring you with the metaphysics of my tiny pea brain. Over the past couple of decades, I have done things that I said I would "never" do, and I failed to do things that I always thought that I would or should.
That brings me now to the topic of Love and Death. Throughout my adult life, I have had very little fear or worry about death. Like I do with so many other aspects of my life, I held death as just an inevitable truth. "I don't have any control over it....why worry about it..." kind of attitude. Well, recently I had noticed a chink in my "why worry about it" armor. And, today as I was driving home from work, I passed a cemetery and experienced a physical and emotional response to seeing a grave being dug. My brain shouted out to the cemetery something like "Stay away from us!"
My response surprised me. But it didn't take me long to figure it out. I have never loved anything or anyone the way that I love my family. I want to protect them from everything. I don't want them to experience the pain of seeing someone they love die, and I don't want any of them to die (obviously). I know that this isn't realistic, but I'm not choosing to feel this way or think this way. This change in my philosophy wasn't by choice. I hate it; it's foreign to me; and I don't know what to do with these feelings of vulnerability.
So, I looked up death in the Bible, and the first thing I came to was 1 Cor 15:55 "Where Oh Death is thy victory; Oh where Death is thy sting?" That wasn't comforting to me......
But, then I read the entire chapter..... Paul discusses the resurrection of Christ. There are several passages that struck me, but the one that I read over and over...."And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame."
I was shamed somewhat by this, but more than that I was put back on point. "I die every day as surely as I glory over you.." What I read throughout chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians was "Yeah, this life is painful and sorrowful...there is no shelter from the deaths of this life. Don't wilt because of it. Make sure the ones you love know not just the harsh realities of this life, but also know the Message of our Resurrected Savior. Don't focus on sheltering; focus on empowering them to face this world's pain through the power of the Truth."

3 Things

I read an article from Pray! earlier regarding 15 Ways to Make Prayer a Natural Part of Your Family's Life. Most of the suggestions seem to be quite useful and practical. I really like #3: "Whenever you see or hear about someone in need, take time to pray about it with your children." I like the idea of praying immediately for things. Often, when someone says, "Please pray for me" or "Please pray for so-and-so", I pray with them right at that moment.
The article spurned me onto a tangent, which I am prone to find. Answer this question for yourself: If you could only teach your kids 3 things, what would those 3 things be?
I have my 3, but they were difficult to come up with. I'd like to know your 3.
My three: 1) The meaning and implications of Christ's life, death and resurrection; 2) How God wants a relationship with everyone through each person's day to day life and through prayer and 3) How to stay away from financial debt.
Coming up with only 3 is very challenging, and chances are, if I answered the question once per month for a year, I'd probably come up with at least one different answer each month.

Prayer for Sydney

Being a father of 2 young sons (4 and 2 years old), I have a keen sensitivity to matters regarding children. When Blake, my oldest, had to be hospitalized over a year ago and received an IV line into his little wrist, I could hardly bare the thought of my son being put through the ordeal. I argued with the nurses regarding whether it was necessary. Ultimately, I lost the argument, Blake got stuck and I nearly passed out.

Lena Brown emailed me today with a prayer request for a young girl going through a horrific ordeal. She has been battling neuroblastoma cancer for 3 years now. She had been in remission for 2 years. She had a lot of routine tests run last week and the test results were devastating. She has cancer back in her bone marrow, her spine, her pelvis, and a couple of places on her head. She will be starting chemo back tomorrow, but this is just a way of trying to keep it from spreading until they can come up with something else, which will be some sort of clinical study that may or may not help her. The one they are leaning towards is a study out of Vermont which will be a chemical they add to a normal chemo mixture and administer to her for a week then normal chemo the rest of the month. Only four patients have tried this study, two are still doing the treatments, two have passed away. There is nothing more the Dr's can do.

She feels great and is so full of life. The family didn't have a clue that this was back in her little system, because she laughs and cuts up all the time. She even comes out of an adult strength chemo session with a smile and asking for chicken nuggets. Her will power and determination to live far surpasses anything you have ever seen.

If there was ever a worthy cause for prayer, Sydney is it. I pray that God blesses you for your prayers regarding Sydney.

Silver Ring Thing 434

Apparently, there has been a youth group movement over the past few years called the Silver Ring Thing that is based upon I Thes: 4:34. It is a committment to service, relationship and abstinence until marriage.
Check out there website: Silver Ring Thing website.

Well, of course, service, relationship and abstinence is bound to upset somebody because we all know how terrible they can be when mixed together (humor intended - sarcasm). Sure enough, here is an article from FoxNews.com regarding a girl who is in trouble at school for wearing her ring. Silver Ring Thing girl trouble.

I have read this on the heels of reading an article where a school district has made a formal apology for trying to edit a photo of two homosexual males kissing from their school's year book. Now tell me, has the world just gone nuts or am I missing something here?

Max Lucado - Manna

Max Lucado - Manna From Heaven story

Max Lucado has always been one of my favorite Christian writers, and when I think of him, I have to think of my sister-in-law Renee. She is the one that introduced me to his writings. Renee does a fair share of writing herself, and after I read the above linked story, it struck me that Renee and Max both have the ability to relate to the reader through simply illustrated terminology and imagery.
I look forward to letting my kids experience the manna from heaven experience.

Winter Easter Wonderland

Easter Egg Hunt 2007 occurred today at GFBC during a virtual blizzard. There were approximately 25 kids in attendance. We had all pretty much decided that it was too cold to hide the eggs outside, and had elected to hide them inside and just make the best of it. Well, while the kids were eating hotdogs, the sun came out and the wind calmed down. It was actually quite pleasant outside if wearing a jacket. So......... we decided to move the festivities outside and proceeded to scramble outside to hide eggs. After we had "hid" about 80% of the nearly one billion eggs that we had, the sun disappeared, the wind picked up to hurricane strength, the temperature dropped to seemingly -30 degrees and it began to snow your typical April blizzard quantities of snow. I say "hid" because we basically littered the ground with them all.
So, as you may guess, we were faced with a moral, ethical and potentially legal dilemma: Do we send our children out into the blizzard conditions to collect all types of candy and noise making, choking-hazard type toys that no parent would want to give a child? Or do we chalk it up as just one of those humorous twists in God's grand plan for our lives, keep our beloved children in the warm safety of the church facilities? Needless to say...........we then decided that since we had desecrated the church grounds with plastic orbs, that we may as well clean up our mess, and we couldn't possibly find anyone more willing or energetic about cleaning up such a mess as a bunch of 2-12 year old children who conveniently had presented to the occasion equipped with baskets that were ideal for the retrieval of such items. You bet!!!! We bundled them all up, pushed them out the door and sent them out in pursuit of the plastic treasures.
Granted, I am from South Texas, but it was a very surreal experience watching an Easter egg hunt during a winter weather advisory. I am pleased to announce that the kids absolutely had a ball. They were cackling with laughter as they scrambled around through the snow drifts. When it was all said and done, you just had to smile with a satisfied feeling that you have created some amazing memories for a bunch of kids. So, a few of them lost a finger or two to frost bite, but that just gives them another way to cherish the event that was Easter Egg Hunt GFBC 2007!
By the way, I have disposed of all photos and video of the event due to fears of social services interventions.