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The Mylogram - Answering?

I spoke to a friend the other day about the mylogram. After listening, he said to me, "Bob, my prayers must be a waste of time, God isn't listening or must not be hearing me..."

...After the local anesthetic, the dye insertion still created pain that shot across the whole left side of my lower back and left butt, causing my back to jerk while the injection was occurring. It hurt unbelievably. Then, apparently my spine is messed up a bit, cause the dye didn't want to get out of my lumbar spine into my thoracic area, requiring repeated attempts to turn me upside down, which caused increased intense, burning pain in my thoracic spine (between the shoulders,) and down my sides. (It may also have also created back problems in the radiologist that was trying to help hold me on the rotating table.)

Mostly, I remember being in intense pain, holding onto the table crying quietly trying to stand the rotation, so they could get results. I heard one of the doctors talking to another doctor, asking if they should stop. I spoke up and said no, don't stop, please get it. So they continued. They finally got some of the dye to work its way into my thoracic area, so they could get some pictures. After the test, I wasn't doing to badly for a couple hours, so they sent me home.

After arriving home, the pain from the exam (guessing the anesthesia was wearing off) really kicked in. Then, that evening the headaches started. We followed the rules & the next day, I stayed off my feet as much as possible, lieing down, drinking lots of fluids. Back on my regular pain meds, we managed the headaches, until they started getting worse Thursday night. I slept horribly that night, maybe off and on, fighting pain and headaches. Friday morning, I couldn't move, normal, but not. My wife made the decision that we go to the ER. I was hurting too much to argue.

We got there & the pain got so bad that I threw-up all the coffee & water I'd drank that morning. (I had been hurting too bad to eat.) I ended up getting a blood patch, where they take blood from your arm and then insert it into the spine. The doctor who did it was awesome. Afterward, I recommended to the nurse that he give anesthetic lessons to the mylogram doctor. Within 10 to 15 minutes of the procedure, my headache was gone & I was back to my "normal" pain levels with everything else.

It actually stayed gone for about two days and I got a milder version of it back on Monday. That persisted until Wednesday. Today, it seems to be gone completely. Other effects of the mylogram are that I have more lower back pain and thoracic pain than normal. Added on top of my other pain, its definitely not comfortable. It was confirmed at my doctors appointment on Tuesday & Heathers doctor's appointment yesterday. And then, I made a laughable attempt to go to the grocery store with Heather for a few minutes yesterday. It was painful. However, Wednesday, overall, was one of my better days pain wise.

So, back to my friend... and God not listening. I had to stop him & let him know, that God had been listening. Yes, throughout the whole thing, I lost almost two weeks of my life that were another blur of increased & ongoing pain. But then, that would assume this life belonged to me & not my redeemer. I responded to my friend that God has a purpose, even though I don't see it, or know what it is. I am a tool to be used by Him. To share His love. Then, throughout the month, we saw additional acts of provision from God. Love notes from His people that we can't ignore or claim they were of us.

So, I told him he was wrong, his prayers and the prayers of many others were working & being heard.

See, it may not be all the answers I want right now, but God has been providing above and beyond. So, please keep praying. God is listening. My pain is nothing but a poor shadow of the pain He embraced on the cross to redeem me. His love burns so bright for us, for me, for you, that he embraced death to save a muddied soul like mine. He got dirty for me, for us. He took unbelievable pain & love for us. From His pain & death came forgiveness, healing & new life. And He is still working, still answering today.

Today is the Day of Salvation

Today is the day of salvation. Jesus does not wait long. Urgency comes from the New Testament writers through God's inspiration, about the soon return of Jesus Christ. He died on the cross for our sins. Jesus took the punishment we deserved, and then He broke the punishment for those sins, broke the power of death itself and rose from the dead. He did all of this, so we could have eternal life.

Eternal life, us changed by the sacrifice of God, calling & crying out to us for our personal relationship with Him to be restored.

In 2 Corinthians 6:2, the Apostle Paul, quoted from the Old Testament In the Scriptures God says, "When the time came, I listened to you, and when you needed help, I came to save you." That time has come. This is the day for you to be saved.

Very simply, In the Gospel of John, Jesus had the conversation with Nicodemus, about how to be "born again".

John 3:4-21 Nicodemus asked, "How can a grown man ever be born a second time?"
Jesus answered: I tell you for certain that before you can get into God's kingdom, you must be born not only by water, but by the Spirit. Humans give life to their children. Yet only God's Spirit can change you into a child of God. Don't be surprised when I say that you must be born from above. Only God's Spirit gives new life. The Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to. You can hear the wind, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going.
"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked. Jesus replied: How can you be a teacher of Israel and not know these things? I tell you for certain that we know what we are talking about because we have seen it ourselves. But none of you will accept what we say. If you don't believe when I talk to you about things on earth, how can you possibly believe if I talk to you about things in heaven? No one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from there.
And the Son of Man must be lifted up, just as that metal snake was lifted up by Moses in the desert.
Then everyone who has faith in the Son of Man will have eternal life.

God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!

No one who has faith in God's Son will be condemned. But everyone who doesn't have faith in him has already been condemned for not having faith in God's only Son. The light has come into the world, and people who do evil things are judged guilty because they love the dark more than the light. People who do evil hate the light and won't come to the light, because it clearly shows what they have done. But everyone who lives by the truth will come to the light, because they want others to know that God is really the one doing what they do.

I know I put a lot above, but that is the urgency I sense, ...today. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was quoted, reading from the book of Isaiah, "The Lord's Spirit has come to me, because he has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners, to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers, and to say, 'This is the year the Lord has chosen.' "

Don't delay. Don't wait for the next day or a different tomorrow. Don't let it wear off. Don't pull out all the technical arguments. Wherever you are, you can bow your head, you can ask forgiveness for the wrongs you have done in your life, you can ask for Jesus to forgive & wash away your sins and come into your heart.

If you prayed those things above, from your heart. You will be saved. You become a new person in Jesus Christ.

Rom 10:9-13 If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved. For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.

The scripture says, "Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed." This includes everyone, because there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles; God is the same Lord of all and richly blesses all who call to him. As the scripture says, "Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved."

So, Today is the Day of Salvation. Are you making it yours?

Reason, not the enemy of faith.

Reason is the enemy of faith. It’s a quote I saw tonight, from a person who is very logical. I disagree with it.

It’s interesting, if you will, but people try to reason faith away with logic. It’s interesting, a non-Christian, and even Christians (myself included,) try to fit God into our view of the world, into our little boxed in view of how we “think” things work. Do you know how many Christians I’ve heard that from? “But you can’t do that.” “Well, I guess God’s decided not to work this time.”

Excuse me, for a moment, while I fall back on one of my favorite Christian authors, C.S. Lewis. In the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe, the White Witch has decided to take Aslan’s life in exchange for Edmund's. Her and her minions danced around the stone table with glee, excited that they were killing the only enemy that had a chance of defeating their rule. Later, the stone table broke, Aslan was back, he broke her magic & brought more armies to the great battle where her wand was broken and she was finally killed, with a look of fear and shock and confusion on her face. I believe this was not unlike Satan’s shock & fear when he found out that death could not hold our Lord. He thought he’d won. It was not within his scope of understanding, that the earthly realm and the things that happen within it, were bound within a stronger law, that the laws of God for all eternity. Like the witch not understanding that she was not seeing the laws that were in place before Narnia was created.

It’s almost as if we compared everything to an egg, and our universe and existence, where we lived was in the yolk. Yet we never saw the shell or the masters hand holding egg, yolk, shell and all in His hand. Until God cracks the egg & takes us out of the yolk, where we live, and we see His face and eternity, do we realize that, yes, there were rules that we had to live by in the yolk, but they were only a shadow to the rules outside the yolk.

That’s what faith is. It’s an eternity rule. It’s a gift from God. It comes from listening to or hearing God’s Word. And according to Hebrews 11, it’s like flour to bread, it’s the substance of things hoped for. It’s also evidence of things not seen. Can any of us see, taste or touch our salvation? No. But we know we have it.

I wonder. If we had been there in Jesus day, when He walked the earth. And we tried to use reason to convince the blind man that could see, or the leper that was clean & whole, or the lame man that could walk, or the centurion whose daughter was healed, or Lazarus who was brought back from the dead, that Jesus wasn’t really the Son of God and that everything was a fluke; I think they would’ve laughed or smiled at us, quietly, maybe sadly & then ran off to continue spreading the news to people who would listen. We would then take our aloof, logical selves and sit down with the Pharisees & Sadducees, and discuss reasonable ways to explain away the miracles & the faith.

Maybe the simplest thing to say is, that faith is trusting God.

I said all of this to say, No, Friday morning didn’t turn out the way we hoped. But if it had, who would’ve gotten the glory? Fannie Mae, a law firm, or God? So, what’s changed between Thursday & Friday? Is God off the throne? No. Has His ability to care for His children changed? No.

So, continue to trust with us & continue to pray with us. God is faithful. We are still trusting Him. Even when we don’t know what the next 30 days will bring.

Exercise... (the light kind, hoping 4 the right kind)

It's another weird part of the journey. Being in pain all the time and the side-effects of the medicine to try & make it tolerable.

Well, my last doctors appointment I found out that I have gained a lot of weight. The winter months have not been easy. The cold from the winter months seems to make the nerve damage/problems I'm having worse.

The doctor has had me on nerve blockers, which, they seem to help on a cursory level. But since the doctor has been trying to figure out what is still causing all the trouble, we are still trying to determine what the right medication levels and solutions are. Well, I've never really had an understanding of "medicine-induced weight gain". Until now.

Our doctor had mentioned that one of the medications he had me on caused weight gain. Well, coupled with the increased pain & reactions of my body, due to the weather, I've had a really hard time maintaining the push I had the year before to keep the weight down. I also have the contributing factor, that pushing myself physically has caused really bad episodes.

So, needless to say, we were shocked at my last doctors appointment to find out that I had gained between 40 & 50 pounds. The tough thing is that I thought I was eating in a way that I would actually continue to maintain my weight or even continue to lose a little bit. I was so wrong.

Well, our doctor has changed my nerve blocker & I have found that my appetite has gone back to normal. So, last night was my start of a light regimen of exercise. I have talked to friends who are constantly in pain, and they state that exercise seems to help with tolerating it, quite a bit.

The hard part I have to watch, is that most of the time the physical exertion has put me in pain for days. Even the simplest tasks have been devastating, some to the point to where both my wife & I were wondering if I would end up in the hospital from it.

Well, whatever the doctor finds, I want my body to be easy to fix. So, in spite of all the weirdness and all the pain, I am determined to try and get my body back on the right track to where it was losing weight, pre-weight gain pills.

While growing spiritually, I want to make sure I'm not growing physically. I want to honor God with my body too. Uggh & lol. It's going to be a lot of work ahead. So, I request your prayers & encouragement. Thank you.

Thank you

There are many times in life when we just need to turn away from the chaos in our own lives and say Thank you.

Thank you to our military & your families. Putting your lives on hold and in the way of danger to protect freedom and serve the people of this country is a great & honorable thing. You make me proud to be an American. God Bless all of you for the gift you have given us. We don't take it lightly!

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Thank You, from our family to You & Yours.

Chosen Moments

The past month has been tough & the past couple weeks tougher. I've spent a lot more time battling pain & have had fewer moments of less pain, fewer moments to use, to share, to have. Yet, in the same breath it's incomplete to talk about the bad, without talking about the good.

Nerve damage is a funny thing. Walking around always in pain, the medication taking it down to a dull throb (never would’ve thought I’d say it's good when the pain only feels like someone has shoved two balled fists up under my rib cage, lol.)When I spend so much time in pain, I don't know what to do. It steals hours & days. When I'm weak & even the simplest day to day tasks become mountains. Yet in-between there are moments, moments to live for, moments to take joy in, moments to share, moments to serve. It may seem strange, but I choose to give & live in those moments, to serve God, to serve my wife & family. I choose to share hope & joy in those moments.

Each moment is like a cool drop of rain on a hot summer day. How many times, how many days, have I forgotten that my life is a gift to share and be shared? Sometimes its hard, when my moments have been cut down from 8, 12 or 16 hour days, or 7 day weeks, to choose where to spend what's left. It seems strange, each day, to make that choice. I sometimes get segments, where I can push the pain away, or hold it back with medication. Sometimes I can spend that time with children (gently now, or you'll break dad - lol) going for coffee, lunch with a friend or helping a friend or working on a computer remotely.

In the midst of it all we have chosen hope & trust in God over fear and panic. That's not to say that all days are perfect, but we are still chaining ourselves to hope. We are chaining ourselves to trusting that God is faithful, He has a plan and He is in control. So, we are still doing everything we can to move forward. Some days it may feel like 2 steps back, but we are pushing and hanging on to that 1 step forward.

So, what is the good, what is it that I hold on to, who or what can actually provide the strength to get through those days? The strength comes from knowing how much God values people. How much He values you & I. Enough to send His Son to die for us, to take our place.

There are probably a million analogies I could use to talk about it: If your child or loved one’s blood was the only thing that could cure the world of a fatal illness and you gave them up to save the world. About a soldier gone to war, to protect this country, to protect freedom, so we could have that chance to live in freedom. So many more could be used, all designed to tug at our heartstrings and make it personal.

Colored words & emotional pulls aside; God’s Word puts it simply for us.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Romans 10:9-11

Yes, there are struggles, but He said He would never leave us or forsake us. He also promised that He would give us rest & help carry our burdens.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30

Whatever pain you carry, if it’s the loneliness of friends and family gone or if it’s the emotional scars and sadness from troubled years gone by or injuries from accidents or war; God is there with peace and strength to get you through. So, as this weekend progresses, with Good Friday & Easter, I will be thanking God for the gift of hope & eternal life that He gave. I will also be looking for ways to not just worship & thank Him with my mouth, but also with my life.



Share hope & a smile today!