A Day at the Park

We live, we learn.

As we stood outside our daughter's hospital room I said to Angela, "We have had only a handful of bad days together, and this is definitely one of them." I said this as Carley's anesthesiologist was inside her room loading her I.V. with a sedative. We watched from outside as Carley counted backwards and slipped into a comatose state, then the doctors closed the door to keep us out in the hallway while they reset her broken arm.

I spent the last half of Friday Nov. 27 second guessing every decision that lead up to the events that brought us to the hospital that night. If we would have let Carley stay at her Papa's a little longer...If Carley would have gone with her aunt and Gagi to Georgia...If I would have decided against taking a bike ride...If we would have turned left out of the driveway instead of right...If I would have rode beside her with more concern for her safety...then maybe everything would have been okay. But everything was not okay on this Friday evening.

Earlier that day as we sped down the hill on our bikes, I was leading the way ahead of Jacob, Carley, and Taylor. As I completed the decent and began to climb the hill at the end of our road I heard Jacob calling to me. I turned to see no bikes riding toward me and quickly realized something had happened. Then I heard Carley crying out and running in my direction. I got off my bike and ran to her knowing this would not be the typical "you'll be okay" speech I give after a fall. I saw the fear, the pain, and the disfigure arm as she ran pleading for my help. A hug was all I could give.

Jacob headed back home to get help and Taylor pushed two bikes back up the hill as I carried Carley back home. Angela met us half way in the car and we headed to the doctor. Because of our flawed health care system, Carley spent about 7 hours with an untreated broken arm and was only given the equivalent of one Tylenol pill for the pain. That's 7 hours with a completely dislocated fracture of both bones in the left forearm, and virtual no pain medicine at all. She never really cried out in pain but patiently, with tears in her eyes, waited for the relief she trusted her Mom and Dad to bring her way. She's always been tough, but this day she was the toughest!

Relief eventually did come her way. A good staff at Greenville Memorial eventually got the job done and she's now on the road to recovery. She is also looking forward to getting her cast put on this week (they only splinted her arm and wrapped it allowing the swelling to go down before putting the official cast on). Carley is now debating which color to choose for her new cast. We joked "Clemson orange", but she's leaning towards "baby blue".

It was one of the worst days of my life. I think I will always remember her running toward me for help and it will forever break my heart to have her feel any real pain and real fear. But Angela and I both used the experience as a teaching opportunity that benefited both her and us. An event like this is a good indicator of just how grounded you are in your Faith. And I'm glad to say that it is our Faith in God through His son Jesus Christ that made this event not only tolerable, but in many ways, beautiful.

We are working on getting Carley's x-rays, but in the mean time, the above picture is an x-ray from the Internet that is comparable to her break. Doesn't that make you cringe?

Mid-life "crisis"?

Crisis is an interesting word. I just looked up the definition and it simply means "a turning point". Although it is often associated with danger or trauma, a crisis, by definition, is not necessarily a bad thing. So why does the term "mid-life crisis" conjure up so many negative implications? Well, when I hear "mid-life crisis" I tend to think of a 40 year-old balding guy riding around in his convertible Mustang trying to pick up college girls. Or I think of a 40 year old wife and mother getting wrapped up in an affair with her kids' pediatrician. And I guess both scenarios will create the "turning point" in their lives. But while I believe a mid-life crisis is inevitable, I also believe this crisis can be a positive one. One where no one gets hurt and there are no regrets. For example, here's mine:

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Last summer I felt restless. I knew I wanted something but I didn't know what I wanted. But I was pretty sure it was a motorcycle. So as I began looking at Harley's I was getting more and more convinced that the lack of a motorcycle was indeed the void in my life. I had cool images of me riding country roads as the sun was setting. Images with my wife either riding along and holding on tight or waiting at home for me with her newly fueled infatuation and respect for her biker husband....yeah, that was the shape of the hole in my heart...the shape of a motorcycle.

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But Angela didn't agree. So I secretly waited and watched and ever so gingerly slipped the motorcycle dream into conversations to numb her defenses. And I finally got to where I felt I might could get a motorcycle and not a divorce as a result. Victory! But the guilt of Angela's lack of enthusiasm coupled with the guilt of me wasting family money on my toy, lead me to reconsider.

So one day as I was in Wal-mart near the end of this same summer, I was walking down the bike aisle I noticed a road bike. It had thin wheels and rounded handlebars like my old 10spd back in the day. $140.00 later and it was all mine. My visions of riding the country roads in the sunset were about to become reality!

Flash forward 8 months and I'm on my 4th road bike and have logged over 2000 miles. I entered my first Time Trial race a couple weeks ago and finished a strong 81st out of 89 riders. And I'm set to ride my first metric century (68 miles) next Monday. But perhaps the most impressive thing about my new cycling hobby is that I have no desire for a motorcycle. I no longer have that two wheeled shape hole in my heart. I guess a bike fit that hole just fine.

I believe it was God who put that hole in my heart. But it was a hole of a bicycle and not a motorcycle all along. It was in my materialistic, self-centered glasses I wear that caused me not to see a bike. I saw a Harley. Because a Harley would make me look scary and cool. But God didn't want me to be scary and cool. God wanted me to wear tight cloths, sweat, come in 81st place, and get healthy. It might not be my script but, looking back, I couldn't have written it any better.

And as a bonus gift for this "crisis" God sent my way, He reveals Himself sometimes as I'm out riding. The above pictures are a couple of examples from my cell phone.

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The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalms 19:1)

A Quick Post

Wow, I've been Blogging for a year now! I just realized that this is the first month that I haven't posted something on my blog since I started back in 2008. Since it's March 31 already, I guess I better write something....In about three hours I'll be joining in with a large group of bike riders out at Donaldson Center and ride about 30 miles. I keep wanting to join in the group that I'm certain is much faster than I am, but I always chicken out at the last minute. I've been riding in the group that averages 18-19 mph, and I want to see if I can hold my own with the 20+++ mph group. Maybe next week I'll give it a go, I just want to be sure I have my nitroglycerin tablets handy.

This is also my week to teach Sunday School again, so I'm spending a lot of time in Bible study trying to put a lesson together. I'm teaching on Luke 23. The crucifixion and death of Jesus. I'm off on a tangent right now trying to get my mind around all that took place during Jesus' death. Where He was and what was taking place during those three days. The Apostle's Creed, which I grew up saying every week, states that Jesus "descended into Hell", and I'm trying to find the truth in this statement. I'm learning this is a tough topic to understand, Death. The Bible teaches about many types of death (the physical, the spiritual, the first, the second , and so on). I found my self saying "why can't it just be easy to figure out?" But then again, it's the depth of the scriptures that makes studying the Bible necessary and rewarding. Because if it was easy, it wouldn't require a life time of devotion. So I continue ahead....because I hunger and thirst!

The Jesus Fish

I can never find a good reason why Christians use a fish symbol on their cars to represent Jesus. I know Jesus called His believers to be "fishers of men", but this doesn't seem like He was desiring to be associated with a fish. Well Angela recently did a Bible study on the book of Jonah and what she found has changed my view of the "Jesus Fish" symbol in a good way. I'm going to try and explain her thought process and explain why we now believe the big fish in the Jonah story is a representation of Christ.

Charles Spurgeon (one of the world's greatest preachers) said that when he reads the Old Testament he makes a "B-line" towards the cross. In other words he believes the Old Testament is written to forecast the coming of Christ and, knowing that, we should be able to find Jesus in all the stories and events. I believe this to be true also. But when I thought about the story of Jonah and the whale, this truth about Jesus was not obvious to me. I assumed the whale was a punishment from God and after 3 days Jonah had learned his lesson and straightened up. After all, this is parental discipline at it's best...when a child misbehaves the parent should punish until the behavior is corrected....right? But this does not line up with the Gospel message. Jesus did not come to punish but to save. So how can this story be about Jesus?

The answer lies in Jonah chapter 2 during his prayer inside the belly of the fish (or whale). It's easily over-looked, but his prayer inside the fish is in the past tense. It is documented word for word because it is in quotations, but he is referring to the past as he is presently in the belly of the whale. This sounds insignificant but it changes the text entirely. Jonah was dead in the ocean!...then the whale that "God provided"(Jonah 1:17) brought this man back from the dead into a re-birth. The whale was Johan's savior, Jonah's salvation. And it was provided to him by God through Grace (Jonah did nothing to deserve it).

Jonah's prayer inside the belly of the whale is one of gratitude and praise. Not two things a person would feel in the midst of a punishment. And only after recognition of, and appreciation for, God's gift of salvation is Jonah set free to do the work God originally called him to do. So punishment did not change Jonah's heart, but God's grace changed his heart.

So with this understanding of the story of Jonah, we have Jonah (the sinner). We have punishment (death by drowning in the sea). We have the whale sent by God (Jesus). And we have a heart that's been changed (Jonah's re-birth). That's a pretty good representation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and a pretty good reason to have the symbol of a fish to represent Jesus. So have you been swallowed by the "great fish" yet?..or are you still in the sea?