Imagine if someone offered you the chance to live for two weeks with two other people in an area about the size of three or four phone booths.
Before you answer, hold on a minute. It gets worse.
Courtesy of OhioMemory.org
It’s a closed environment, so nothing extra comes in, and no garbage goes out. All the food you’ll be eating during that time needs to be freeze-dried and packed inside. It’s not modern day freeze-dried food, either; it’s like, 1960s freeze-dried food. Add water, stir, and eat. Want to eat it hot? Add hot water.
On top of that, there’s no bathroom. You’ve got a little suction tube for liquid waste and you’ve got some bags for solid waste. Not a great deal of privacy, either.
What do you think, are you in?
Of course not. Why would anyone in their right mind sign up for that?
Now what if I told you that if you can endure these conditions, you get to walk on the moon?
From 1968 to 1972, the American space program sent a series of missions into space that resulted in 12 men walking on the moon and returning safely to earth. Would you be willing to endure the cramped quarters and terrible conditions if you could look forward to setting foot on the lunar surface?
That paints things in a different light, doesn’t it? Life is largely the same for a Christian; the main difference is that instead of two weeks, we’re looking at 80 or maybe 90 years or so.
This life has some fun times, and it has some miserable times. The older you get, the more you understand the temporary nature of things on this earth, and the more you realize that everything around you will one day turn to dust or otherwise become worthless. The joy, however, comes in knowing that you’re on your way to a destination of unspeakable happiness, where you come face to face with God Himself and can ask Him everything you’ve ever wondered about, you can praise Him with no distractions, and you can rejoice in the fact that nobody who’s there will suffer pain, heartache, or loss ever again.
The longest time of any Apollo mission that astronauts spent on the surface of the moon was during the final mission, Apollo 17. Two astronauts spent about 75 hours…a little over three days…either in the Lunar Module or out on the surface of the moon. That whole mission lasted about twelve and a half days from start to finish. Twelve and a half days in cramped quarters eating nasty food in exchange for 75 hours and three moonwalks on the moon.
In a Christian’s case, unspeakable joy that doesn’t end alongside your Savior in a body that doesn’t decay. That’s worth 80 or 90 years, even if a good percentage of them get rough.
Better times are coming. Hang in there.
Enjoying DareGreatlyNow’s posts? Let me know what you think. Email me at tim@daregreatlynow.com.
Hi everyone, just a sad, quick update. A few weeks ago I mentioned Molly, a little 7-year-old warrior fighting for her life in the hospital. I’m very sad to report that this morning she passed from this life into the next.
God was gracious, and even though it’s been very difficult, I consider myself blessed to have been able to follow her story. In their updates, the family mentioned that every time they put out an urgent call for prayer, there was an improvement in Molly’s condition a short time later. An army of prayer warriors did what they could, but in the end, God wanted Molly in Heaven more than he wanted her here.
Please pray for the Ingram family, who, I have to imagine, is shattered, exhausted, confused, and has been focused on nothing else for the past month or so and now has to deal with the insulting reality that the world continues to turn even though their lives have been turned upside-down. Molly leaves behind a Mom, Dad, and little sister Sunny.
Molly, for those of us who trust in Christ as Savior, we’ll see you on the other side; it just hurts that we have to wait until then. Thanks for touching so many lives.
Lord Jesus, we don’t understand, but we know you’re good. May your name be praised, and may you bring good out of this somehow.
For additional info, please see Molly’s Belly Blog on Facebook. (You’ll have to request access, but it shouldn’t be an issue.) Also feel free to check out the Team Ingram Blood Donation Group in honor of Molly.
The most recent Belly Blog entry breaking the tough news from her dad, Cam:
5-Jul, 5:55AM (Hour 0)
Molly Alice Ingram was met at the heavenly gates by Jesus, who took her in his arms and said “well done, my good and faithful child.”
Have you ever been so mentally or physically worn out that you can’t even take care of yourself?
Emotionally wrung out, physically depleted, and/or mentally exhausted people have a difficult time performing all but the most basic of functions. If they’re providing care for someone else while in this state, they’re certainly not taking proper care of themselves.
In these situations it can be extraordinarily difficult to have any prayer life to speak of, save for a singular focus. I’ve heard the term “intercessory prayer” for a long time, but only recently heard it described as praying on someone else’s behalf because they are either unable or unwilling to do it themselves.
To look at it another way, you might be the only person with the ability to address a certain issue through prayer.
There’s a special family in Northern Virginia whose little girl, Molly, developed a condition in the womb that resulted in her being born with some of her internal organs on the outside of her body. Now 7 years old, last week Molly went into surgery after months of preparatory procedures aimed at moving those organs inside her body. Initially things looked good, but as time went on, Molly’s heart and lungs had a very difficult time adapting to the increased pressure of having not only the organs moved inside her abdominal cavity, but the added pressure of swelling due to surgery. It’s been a very fluid situation since the process first began over a week ago, and at times it seemed doubtful that this sweet little girl would make it through the night. Molly, her parents, and her medical team at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have been forced to contend with countless complications that cast a heavy fog over the path that would bring her back from the brink.
Imagine sending your little girl back for surgery, and you and your spouse await word from the surgeons to find out how it went. During the surgery, a nurse comes hurrying out of the operating room, only to return a short time later with a cooler containing blood for transfusing, and your daughter’s name is printed on it. Then later they bring in still more blood for her. In the first 18 hours after her initial surgery started, Molly required 40 units of blood. In the days that followed, her medical team had to advocate on her behalf in order to convince the hospital to allow Molly access to its critical reserve of blood products.
Molly in her room (Photo courtesy of “Molly’s Belly Blog”)
In all of this, Molly’s parents are staying with a host family during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Their little girl has undergone half a dozen surgeries since the first one, some of which focused on unexpected areas of her body that were fine before she went under. Molly simply wouldn’t stop bleeding, her blood pressure wouldn’t come up enough, and the clotting and blood pressure medication the team administered robbed her extremities of oxygen.
Her parents, while obviously prayerful for their daughter’s life, are exhausted, separated from their other daughter, and dealing with a situation that changes often. In the week following the initial surgery there’s been much more bad news than good, and if you’re prone to worry, there’s been much to worry about. Molly and her parents are simply unable to pray for everything that needs to be brought to God and still function on a day-to-day basis.
That’s where we come in. As it became evident that the surgery had not worked as planned and that Molly’s life was in a precarious state, people began praying by the hundreds. These people, from around the globe, have covered this family in prayer 24 hours a day.
About a week into the ordeal, Molly turned a corner and began to improve. It’s still not clear what the outcome will be, but at this point there are literally thousands of people praying on behalf of Molly and her family, lifting them up in constant prayer. This little girl, whose life at times seemed to be hanging by a thread, has to date received a whopping 150 units of blood.
Acutely aware of just how precious a resource available blood is, the family found a way to tap in to the desire of everyone that wanted to help the family. After forming “Team Ingram” on a Red Cross app, the family requested that volunteers donate blood in Molly’s name. In just 24 hours, Team Ingram jumped into the top 1% of blood-donation groups, replenishing many times over the amount of blood used in Molly’s treatment so far, and potentially saving many other lives in the process.
Although I’m sure there were numerous “passing prayers” or quick prayers uttered in half a breath for Molly, there have collectively been many hours of deliberate prayer on behalf of her and her family. Some of this was intentional, focused prayer pleading with the Lord for Molly’s life. She’s still here, but still needs persistent prayer. God still listens to the prayers of His people. I don’t know how all this will end, but the targeted prayers focused on specific topics seem to have moved Molly in the right direction. All glory and honor belong to the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Graphic courtesy of “Molly’s Belly Blog”
If you’d like to follow along with Molly’s saga and add your prayer (or blood donation) support to her and her family, please request to join the “Molly’s Belly Blog” or watch this YouTube video of her story…and please keep her full recovery in your prayers, because God listens to His people’s requests.
Please pass this post along to anyone you think will make an appeal to God on behalf of Molly and her family.
Strange times we’re in. While there are many people that no longer have the job they held a month or two ago, many others now work from home. For those folks, the reality is that sometimes they just can’t produce the same quality from home that they’re able to at their normal place of business. I don’t advocate for shoddy workmanship, but it’s important to understand that if you’ve turned in low-quality work of some kind, all is not lost.
We’ve heard many times that God can take terrible things and use them for good. It’s like saying God loves us. We’ve heard it so many times we lose our appreciation for what it means. What if I told you there’s a story in the Bible where God used someone’s poor-quality work to both glorify Himself and accomplish His will at the same time? That might make you feel better when you’re unable to produce the same quality of work you’re accustomed to turning in.
There’s a story in 1 Kings 20 that has a funny little twist. The Bible often glosses over big events in a very short amount of time, and if you blink, you’ll miss it. In this case, the Israelites were at war with a numerically superior foe, the Arameans. Verse 27 says that the Israelites were like two little flocks of goats, but the Arameans covered the countryside.
The Lord was kinda mad at the Arameans in this engagement, so he enabled the Israelites to cut down 100,000 of their enemy in one day, and verse 30 says that the rest fled into a nearby city. Here’s where you’ll miss it if you blink: “But the rest fled to Aphek into the city, and the wall fell on 27,000 men who were left.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a wall large enough to fall on 27,000 men. In order to have a wall that big fall on so many people at once, we’re talking about failure at a spectacular level. The book doesn’t say anything about how that wall was constructed or what made it collapse; we just know that it happened, it was bad news for the Arameans, and it was all part of God’s plan.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not condoning work that’s intentionally sloppy or poor. If you can’t meet the level of what you’re ordinarily capable of though, do the best you can. There may be a divine purpose for that imperfection later on down the line.
Exiting an aircraft with Tony and his very recognizable jumpsuit
I’m certainly no skydiving guru. While I was a skydiving student, though, I had a few memorable jumps. I’m not sure what the requirement is now, but when I was working on getting my A License (the most basic jumping certification), the rule was that you had to accumulate at least 25 jumps and meet certain milestones along the way.
I was in the plane on the way up for my 23rd jump. The weather was turning sour, so this was the drop zone’s last load of jumpers for at least a few hours. We saw the cloud bank rolling in, and we were trying to rush up to altitude so we could jump out and land before the clouds obscured our view of the ground.
Another student named Jeremy and I were going to jump with our coach Tony. Tony was pretty familiar with us and we had all jumped together before. He wore a neon orange jumpsuit that was so bright it looked like it ran on batteries.
On a jump with Tony as my coach
I don’t remember what the freefall objectives of the jump were, but once we arrived at altitude we hopped out together and began going through our freefall plan. We fell through our predetermined “time to separate” altitude, so we broke apart to get some distance between us before we opened our parachutes. All three of us opened the chutes without a problem, but much to our surprise, the cloud cover had blown in much faster than we anticipated. We couldn’t see the ground anywhere. The only thing we had were our altimeters; we knew how high we were off the ground, but we didn’t know where we were in relation to the airport, so we couldn’t line up in our landing pattern. Since the wind was pushing us the whole time, the longer we floated aimlessly, the further off course we drifted, leaving us less margin of error for a safe landing at the airport.
Since Jeremy and I were still students, each of us had a one-way radio in our jumpsuit shoulder pockets. There was a guy on the ground with a walkie talkie that was waiting to spot us, and he would radio instructions about which way to turn and when to do it. Until we popped through the clouds though, it was useless for all of us.
Tony took the lead; he was the lowest jumper “under canopy,” so I followed him, and Jeremy followed me. I was glad Tony’s jumpsuit was so bright. It was eerie and unsettling to drift without direction in a thick fog. The last time we saw the airport, we were right over it, but the wind can be a lot stronger than you realize when you don’t have any visible references.
Suddenly we popped through the bottom of the clouds at a low altitude. The airport was impossibly far away! We had bled off so much altitude in the fog that there was no way we could make it back. Tony’s canopy had a much higher performance capability, so he made a break for the airport and was able to make it back. With our “vanilla” student rigs and oversized canopies, though, Jeremy and I had no chance of reaching the airport.
The dropzone where I learned to jump was home to the Guinness World Record holder of sport parachute jumps. Don Kellner, who just recently completed his 45,000th jump, was on the radio giving instructions to Jeremy and I. Don’s a funny guy; he doesn’t pull any punches, so he says it like it is and doesn’t sugar coat it.
“Well…find a place to land” came through the radio. Thanks Don.
We had blown way off course. We were now downwind not just of the runway, but of the entire airport complex, and we had a choice: land somewhere in a neighborhood, land somewhere in a wooded area, or land in a big rock quarry. Don advised us to shoot for the quarry.
When you’re a novice jumper, you usually have a flat patch of grass that’s as big as a football field to land on, and there’s usually plenty of other open space nearby (runways and the grassy areas next to them are usually pretty long). All of a sudden, a hilly rock quarry that didn’t have any wind indicators seemed like a pretty hostile place to land. It was the best of our bad options though, so we went for it.
With Tony out of the picture, I was now the lead in the flight pattern. I made a series of turns to get us lined up for what looked like the longest stretch of the flattest ground at the bottom of the quarry. We floated below the horizon and became committed to our flight path.
We both stumbled and took a few bumps and bruises as we tried running out our landings on the side of a hill. We made it safely to the ground without any blood or major injuries. After the canopies fell to the ground, we excitedly checked in with each other and exaggerated to each other just how truly awesome we were with lots of laughs, wild gestures to help relive the experience, and congratulatory slaps on the back. As we took a deep breath and looked around the bottom of this hole, we realized that we didn’t even know which way we should start climbing up out of the quarry. With all the midair turns we did, we lost all sense of direction and couldn’t even point to the airport or the nearest road.
Something tells me that we weren’t the first wayward skydivers to land in this quarry. Before we could even decide what to do, two of our other instructors, in their goofy neon jumpsuits, appeared on the rim of the quarry, shouting and waving to us. We were rescued!
Some general perspective on living: Life isn’t always going to go the way you planned. There are going to be times you find yourself traveling through a disorienting fog. Sometimes you’ll feel abandoned by the people you depended on (or you simply can’t keep up with them). In those times, when you’re at the bottom of a hole, someone might just show up to help you. They may not be what you expected, but it’s still an opportunity to find out which way to climb out of the hole.
We’re passing through strange times; it might not be a bad idea to accept a hand up when it’s offered. Keep your chin up; brighter days are coming.
I don’t know if you or
I are going to make it through this COVID-19 thing. I bet that we will, though.
How do Christians band together in a time of social distancing and self-quarantines? It’s an interesting question, and it’s going to take some innovative thinking. This is where the world needs your help.
Ordinarily the term
“disruptive” has a negative connotation. “He’s disruptive in class,” etc.
That’s not the only meaning of the word, thankfully. “Disruption” can also mean
an upsetting of established norms in such a way that it forces a new norm. It’s
what happened when motorized vehicles replaced horses. Digital cameras replaced
film cameras. Cell phones took over for landlines. Amazon.com came on the scene
and drove a lot of brick and mortar stores out of business. The people behind
these seismic shifts are known as “disruptors.”
Coronavirus has
certainly upended large portions of our lives and caused us to have to readjust
in major ways. Schools and colleges are all of a sudden shutting their doors
for the rest of the year. Churches are canceling in-person services. Bible studies
and prayer meetings can no longer meet in the traditional sense.
People don’t usually
like change. Well, this time around, a virus is forcing change on us all.
Things are changing so fast that we don’t yet have established “norms” in the
wake of this pandemic. For a lot of folks a major burden of our new reality is
the loneliness and lack of in-person human contact.
We were created to be
social beings. It’s simply how God made us. Some people need social interaction
a lot more than others, but we all need it to some degree. When we’re suddenly
unable to socialize in the ways to which we’re accustomed, it’s a major shock
for a lot of folks. As Christians, we’re often reminded in scripture to meet
together regularly, to “do life” together, and build one another up.
How do we do that when
we can’t meet in person? I’ve watched church on my computer for the past two
Sundays. I heard recently about a church that held a service at a drive-in
movie theater. I think that’s a fantastic idea, but those facilities are not as
common as they once were.
This is where you come
in. I’m challenging you to think like a disruptor. Because this is an actual
problem the world currently faces, I’d really like to encourage you to provide
comments here. Here’s your challenge:
How can people still meet together to build one
another up without physically being closer than six feet?
Technology is a mixed
bag. Now we can have meetings without even being near the other attendees. You
have Zoom, Facetime, and Skype, and those are incredibly valuable tools in some
respects. Connecting two users isn’t difficult, but it gets a little more
complicated if you want to have a dozen people in the same meeting. Also, when
you’re stuck in your home, it’s a poor substitute if you’re facing anxiety or
depression (to be sure, it’s better than nothing!). What other ways can we
leverage technology to decrease isolation? Please post your thoughts!
The phone also works.
I’m talking about actual voice calls. Everyone has phones, but nobody calls
anymore. For some people, chatting on the phone versus sending an email or text
goes a long way.
Then you have in-person
meetings. These days I yell to my neighbors from across the street. It doesn’t
quite have to be that far, but if you want to honor the authorities’ guidelines
of having meetings no larger than 10 people, no closer than six feet together,
is there a way to make that happen feasibly? This might be a ridiculous mental
image, but it’s a thought-prompt; is there a way to have a dozen people sit
close together by building little plexiglass “cells” (imagine a scene from a TV
show or movie where someone is visiting someone else in prison)? What if a
dozen cars came together in a circle in an otherwise empty church parking lot
and everyone on the driver’s side of the car rolled down their windows to have
a discussion? (That circle is probably a little too big and everyone would need
hearing aids and megaphones, but can we make the idea work somehow?)
I don’t know what the
answer is, I’m just trying to get the creative juices going. Right now
Christians (and non-Christians, for that matter) need ways of meeting together
and helping each other up after they fall or get knocked down. A lot has
happened, and a lot of change has been forced on us. How can we implement
change on our own to make this situation a little more bearable, especially for
the people that need to be around other people?
“How does my idea
help?” Well, you’re reading this, aren’t you? I don’t normally have a huge readership, but you’re not the only
one that reads this. Your idea, even if it’s incomplete, can spark an idea for
someone else. Let’s say you have no ideas. That’s okay, you can still help
crack the code on this problem. Will you pass this entry on, either by
forwarding it to someone or sharing it on your social media?
You
are a string, but we are a rope. We WILL get through this…maybe
in part by using your ideas.
Your
decisions have consequences, but don’t let those consequences put limits on
you.
In college I majored in
Biology, but I went the first three semesters without identifying what I wanted
to focus my studies on.
You can get through your
college experience that way, but I wouldn’t advise it. The best part about this
route was the blissful ignorance of those first three semesters. I attended a Christian
liberal arts college, where as a part of the degree requirements, each student
had to complete courses from a wide array of educational topics to round out
his or her knowledge base. In those early semesters in college I took courses
in anything from Biblical Literature to Psychology to Math to Spanish to Ethics
to Macroeconomics to Tennis.
I’m not sure why it
took me so long to realize it, but after awhile I figured out that I was
running out of these “Gen Eds” to take. I needed to figure out how to fill the
remaining five semesters. In an epiphany, I began to understand that I needed
to figure out what I wanted to declare for my major. I ended up selecting
Biology with an Environmental Emphasis.
As you can imagine, if
you want to major in a science, it means you’ll need to take lots of science courses.
That’s not a bad thing as long as you start on them right away, but if you wait
to get started on them, like I did, it means you’re living, eating, and
breathing science classes later on.
After my realization I
worked with my faculty adviser to figure out how to make it work. I was a Bio
major, but didn’t get signed up for the most basic of biology classes until
halfway through my second year. Then I signed up for a four-week summer Bio
course with class all morning and lab work all afternoon, Monday through
Friday. (My brain nearly melted during that class. I was an average student
that just finished my Sophomore year, and most of the other students in the
course were Freshmen honors students that had spent a semester abroad and now just
needed to catch up.)
Junior year was also
packed with science classes, but I still managed to “kick the can down the
road” with one of the key requirements for a Biology major: two semesters’
worth of Chemistry. By the time I began Senior year and started getting into
Chemistry, I realized that I was in over my head. I couldn’t stand Chemistry.
The professors were great, but I had a terrible time grasping a lot of the
material. I had waited until my last two semesters to take two semesters of
Chemistry. There would be no withdrawing from the class to arrange a more
convenient courseload.
It was already a busy
year…I had a Senior Seminar to deliver, I was the Vice President of the Paddle
Sports club, I had a few work/study jobs, a buddy and I were getting ready to
drive out to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, I had a weekly workout
routine at the gym, and there was general fun to be had (after all, it was
Senior year!).
Even with all I had
going on, my whole senior year began to revolve around how I could pass
Chemistry. I skipped out on some pranks or outings that would have been fun to
be a part of. There was a study group that I started attending each time it
met. I linked up with one of the Chemistry Majors, who never seemed to sleep,
for help on my homework when I was frustrated and at the end of my rope. With
plenty of patience he walked me through each problem. Joel, if you’re out
there, thanks for all your help! You saved my bacon!
After all of the
craziness and mental anguish, I finally passed both semesters of Chemistry.
Never was I so happy to complete two classes.
I whine about it, but this
was a crisis of my own making. Because of the choices I made, I backed myself
into a corner and made my path to success much more difficult. Here’s the
tie-in: even when you become a Christian, your problems don’t go away. God
loves you and forgives you if you’re truly sorry, but you must still live with
the consequences of your past actions.
Becoming a Christian
does not remove all the pain and agony you face. In some ways it makes things
more difficult. The good news is that a relationship with Christ gives you hope
and strength to face each day, even when each day has repercussions of your
previous actions.
As one of God’s chosen,
He provides what you need to overcome each obstacle. You may have made your
circumstances more complex, but He’s the one that is able to supply for all of
your needs. Christianity
is not an escape from your problems; it is an opportunity to have hope when
facing them. Consider that as you work toward becoming the person He
wants you to be.
A view of Earth rising above the lunar surface during Apollo 8
When I was a kid I
wanted to be an astronaut. I loved learning about the space race of the 1960s
and 70s, and at one point I knew the name and assigned crew position of every
Apollo astronaut that flew on a mission during the Apollo Program.
In 1961 the Americans
had barely touched space. America’s first man in space, Alan Shepard, didn’t
even complete an orbit; the weak rocket he used only got him high enough to
kiss the edge of space. The Soviets had already sent their first Cosmonaut into
orbit, and this launch was a weak American response, barely doing enough to
keep us in the race. Less than three weeks later, American President Kennedy
threw down the audacious goal of beating the Soviets in a manned mission to the
moon before the end of the decade, as a way of establishing American
preeminence in space.
Thus began a harrowing
eight or nine years for NASA. It had to not only figure out the best strategy
for meeting the goal, but it also had to develop skills and equipment that didn’t
exist.
The process moved fast
and grew increasingly complex with time. First NASA sent up one astronaut at a
time, and the longest that any mission stayed up was just over a day. Then it
started launching two astronauts at a time. They started to do spacewalks, to
rendezvous with other orbiting objects, and to see if a capsule and crew could
physically last for the two weeks in space that it would take to make it to the
moon and back. Finally, it was time for the Apollo missions, which carried
three men and the ability to use a lunar lander that would be used to land on
the moon.
By all measures, Apollo
was a beast of a program. The spacecraft systems’ subsystems had subsystems. Engineers
working on the spacecraft worked in round-the-clock shifts, and projects still
fell behind schedule. Everyone worked at a breakneck speed to get things ready
to meet the deadline. In January 1967, the first Apollo mission finally drew
near. Three astronauts sat atop their huge rocket and conducted a final test to
demonstrate that all systems were ready to operate on their own.
Then an unmitigated disaster
struck, freezing everything in its tracks. As the rocket still sat on the
launch pad, a ferocious fire erupted inside the cabin, and killed the three
astronauts before they could escape from the capsule. The fire killed America’s
second man in space, its first spacewalker, and a rookie astronaut. The
devastating setback stunned the nation. All work stopped while NASA, the
spacecraft contractors, and even Congress sought answers to what went wrong and
whether the moon was worth the cost.
Fellow astronauts escort Grissom’s body to Arlington Cemetery
It wouldn’t be until
October 1968, more than a year and a half, before another manned American
launch occurred…an eternity when considering JFK’s looming end-of-the-decade deadline.
With time running out, everyone needed to figure out how to grieve but still
move forward. In the miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon,” Wally
Schirra, the commander of the first space mission after the fire, was asked
about preparing for his upcoming launch while living in the shadow of the
Apollo 1 tragedy. He responded “You’re sad. You mourn the loss.” He paused
for a moment before adding “But you don’t wear the black armband forever.”
Without question, there
are tragedies in peoples’ lives that knock them down hard. The death of a loved
one; a betrayal by someone you trust; a feared diagnosis; a job loss; a
terrible injury; an addiction you’re fighting through. There are serious and
legitimate times in our lives when we just can’t be an effective contributor to
God’s kingdom. Nobody faults you for things that are beyond your control. It
takes time to fight through many of these problems, and many times God will
make something good out of them. Just make sure that you don’t start using your
sorrows and difficulties as an excuse not to move forward with what God’s
calling you to do.
You’re the only one
that knows whether or not this is an issue you’re dealing with. You WILL be knocked down;
Jesus promised that we’d have trouble in this world. Sometimes you need to stay
down for a minute, but don’t forget that you do need to get back up again.
Don’t wear the black
armband forever. There are people you might not even know about that are
waiting for you to get back up again.
Lee with two of his grandkids after returning home from the hospital
When my father-in-law
Lee suddenly had a medical emergency right after Christmas a few years ago, it
caught us all off guard. For almost a week we didn’t know anything, and all we
could do was wait for new developments.
In order to shield the
family at the hospital from having to do all the communicating through texting
and phone calls, I started emailing out updates to close friends and family. The
list of recipients grew quickly though, and soon we had our own Facebook page
to help keep people updated and to pass along specific prayer requests both for
Lee and for the needs of his family. Lee meant a lot to a whole lot of people,
and eventually hundreds of readers received the daily updates I sent out.
There must have been
some people hitting their knees hard in prayer on Lee and his family’s behalf,
because Lee eventually opened his eyes. After spending a few days in a
medically induced coma with a body temperature somewhere in the 80s, his body
had some adjusting to do when he regained consciousness. He was extremely disoriented
and weak, but, at least for now, he was still with us.
We were all thrilled to
see Lee moving in the right direction, but the world didn’t stop turning
because he was in the hospital. My young family was far from home; we were able
to stay in the area for a few more days, but I had to get back to my job. We
had already stayed about a week longer than we had planned, and we couldn’t
stay much longer. Lee was still in the hospital when we left to head back home.
The day we left the hospital, he was weak from a related surgery he just came
through, but was still happy to see us and understood why we had to leave. We
had no idea at the time, but that was the last time we would see him in person.
We made it back home the next day and we closely stayed in touch to hear the
latest news.
Time went on and Lee
got discharged from the hospital. Since his scare, the only times that I had
spoken with him were in the hospital when he was exhausted or groggy. After he
had made it home and had time to recover some of his strength, he called and
wanted to speak with me on the phone. After getting a little bit of an update
on his progress, he began to thank me. I assumed he was referring to the rescue
breathing I did for him when he initially lost consciousness. Just as I was
about to brush it off, though, he surprised me.
Of course he appreciated
my helping him live long enough to make it to the hospital, but that wasn’t the
main reason he wanted to thank me. He was more thankful that throughout all the
updates I sent out to the masses, I kept the focus on our family being open to
accepting God’s will, rather than forcing God’s will to comply with ours. Lee
didn’t have a problem with intercessory prayer, but he appreciated the balance
I put on the messaging. It turns out that on multiple occasions during his recovery
in the hospital he had read every email I sent out. He was surprised at all he
had missed while unconscious; he enjoyed reading the emails to catch up on all
of it, and he felt that the updates had taken the right approach.
That was the last time
I ever spoke with Lee. A few months after coming home from the hospital, he again
caught us off guard and unexpectedly passed from this world into the next. I’m
not sure if it was God’s plan all along to have Lee recover enough to come home
after his initial scare, or if all of the prayers sufficiently moved God to
give us a few more months with Lee, but in the end, God had His way even when
it conflicted with ours.
At Lee’s memorial
service, as a testament to his character, the church was packed with hundreds
of people. Extra chairs had to be brought in to seat everyone. Lee lived his
life knowing what was truly important while ignoring what wasn’t, and people
recognized that.
It’s so easy to get wrapped up and even be consumed by the things of this life, but it’s important to live in light of eternity. Too often we lose sight of the fact that very few of our daily struggles or any other distractions that preoccupy us will even be a memory once we’ve moved on from this life. The only things that will have eternal significance are the actions you’ve taken to know God and help others know Him too.
How’s your focus? Are you
paying attention to the things that are important? As you go through life, are
you leaving a positive lasting impact on the people with whom you interact?
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The next few days after my father-in-law, Lee, got whisked away to the hospital were a blur. Whatever had gone wrong with his heart was a complicated thing. Doctors put him in a medically induced coma and dropped his body temperature for a few days as a way of “rebooting” him. Since this was right after Christmas, family that had just left turned around and came back. One of Lee and Pam’s daughters flew in from Alaska. People were constantly calling, trying to find out the latest information, even when there was nothing new to report. The adrenaline we all ran on started wearing off, and the exhaustion began setting in.
Lee’s hospital was
about an hour away from his house, where my wife and three young kiddos were
staying. My wife would go up there every day, but an extra two hours of travel
time a day added to the burden. My kids started getting antsy; at the time they
were 5, 4, and 14 months, and Mommy had never been away from them this much
before. In her place, they got a guy that meant well, but just couldn’t compare
to Mommy. Some of the meals I came up with were really just glorified snacks,
and sometimes it was the same thing over and over again. The walls started
feeling like they were closing in on all of us. We needed to find some kind of better solution as we got
closer to the time the doctors were going to try to raise Lee’s body
temperature and revive him.
Lee and Pam knew a
bunch of people in the area near the hospital, and we decided to make the drive
as a family up to that region with the intent to start staying the night up
there somewhere. We packed a bunch of our stuff and left Lee and Pam’s house
not knowing where we’d be spending the next few nights. We made it to the
hospital and went to the waiting room where we saw lots of familiar faces.
During the day all kinds of friends and well-wishers came and went, some of
them even bringing much-appreciated care packages of food and things to help
pass the time. My kids enjoyed the extra time with Mommy, even if it was in a
waiting room. Even with all the extra family and friends helping out, though,
they didn’t have to stay in the same room long before they started getting
antsy again. They needed somewhere to feel settled.
During the day we were
still trying to find a place to stay. One family offered us an available room
in their home, but five of us is a lot to cram into one room (especially when
two of the kids still napped), so we wanted to see if we could find anything
else. Someone had two rooms available for us, but they had a dog that my son
would’ve been allergic to. Late in the day we got word that there was a family
willing to let us stay at their place. They had two rooms for us, no pets, and
the house was less than five minutes from the hospital. The offers weren’t going
to get much better than that and it was getting late, so we grabbed it. By the
time we arrived at the house it was after dark. The house was cheery and still
decorated for Christmas, and when the door opened we met some of the sweetest
people we could have hoped for. Jay and Esther and their daughter Tracey welcomed
us into their home in one of our young family’s hours of greatest need.
Jay and Esther were
great-grandparents, and they had a large family. Their house was so warm and
welcoming, and someone was always popping in because…that’s just the kind of
place it was. They had one of their grandsons staying in their basement at the
time, and he and a visiting friend helped us bring in our luggage, pack ‘n
plays, and anything we brought with us. By the time we got there, it was time
to get the kids to bed. We got our daughters set up in one of the rooms, and we
set up our son on the floor in the room where my wife and I stayed. I think my
wife and I spent a little time visiting with the family before we collapsed
into bed, too. That was our first restful night of sleep since the whole ordeal
with Lee began.
The next day my wife
headed off to the hospital early again, but my kids and I were able to stay in
a place the kids finally felt comfortable and occupied. If memory serves, Jay
and Esther had five kids; as grandparents and great-grandparents, many children
had come to visit this house, and there were all kinds of fun things for my
kids to play with and explore. They also had all kinds of Christmas decorations
that sang or danced after it got squeezed (a favorite for kids). In addition to
all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, they had a foosball table and a pool
table in the basement…something that kept my kids occupied for a very long
time.
Our hosts also figured
out that Daddy was good at getting his kids riled up and roughhousing, but
maybe needed some help in the food preparation department. Oh, man, they were
so great. My kids actually started having balanced meals. Those wonderful
people made it possible for us to put one foot in front of the other on our
march through the trial we faced.
Last story about
staying at their place. During naptime one day, I laid down my youngest in a
pack ‘n play in a room by herself. I laid my son down in his sleeping bag on
the floor in our room, and I set up my oldest daughter to play/color/draw on
the bed in our room. My son fell asleep right away, and I told my daughter I
was going to read on the floor. Once I laid down, though, I figured out pretty
quickly that I wasn’t going to stay awake long, so I let her know I’d probably
take a nap on the floor. My five-year-old daughter got down off our bed with
her little blanket, came and lay down beside me, and all three of us took a nap
in a row on the floor. We were finally in a place where we could rest.
I’ll get you caught up
on Lee in my next post, but this one’s about how much we were able to benefit
from the generosity and hospitality of these wonderful people. That was their
gift, they loved helping people, and it was amazing and much appreciated to be
ministered to in that way.
This whole site is geared toward encouraging you to use your gifts to live a life of higher impact for Christ’s Kingdom. Not everyone is going to be an international gospel singer or someone that proclaims the truth boldly in stadiums across the globe. I don’t know what your gifts are. You might not accomplish anything earth-shattering by being hospitable to someone who needs help, but let me tell you…it can mean the world to the person receiving the help. Whatever your gift is…please…find a way to use it. God gave you that gift for a reason, and if you let Him, He’ll tie you into His master plan.
