Tears from Laughter

I’ve got to stay up late tonight and pour out some of the things in my head.  It probably wouldn’t matter if I went to bed right now, because I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep.  And I’ll pay for this tomorrow, but since this is my journal and I try to write as often as I can about how my life is being reshaped, I certainly can’t pass on a great opportunity to share.

Today has been a day that should be marked down as a major memorable moment in my life.  A very important and life changing moment.  It has only been six months since I was diagnosed with depression and started medication and counseling to help get through a very difficult time in my life.  I had really hit the wall hard and didn’t see any way out.  There’s wasn’t anything I could do except submit to getting help.

Today has been a day totally opposite of how I felt back in February and March.  Today I laughed and laughed until my whole body hurt and tears were streaming, but it has felt so good!  I’m actually anxious to climb into bed because I’m confident I’ll have one of the best nights of sleep in months.

I’m in Louisiana on business for my company and I’m here with my friends, and co-workers, Jeremy and Ron.  Put the three of us together and we’re like a bunch of old college buddies having a great time.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve not laughed as hard as I’ve laughed today, since I was in college.  Jeremy actually said tonight, “if people heard some of the stuff we’re laughing about, they’d think were idiots.”  And he’s probably right, but I don’t really care, because it has been such a healing day for me.  I’ve needed this.  I’ve longed for this, and I’ve prayed that God would give me an opportunity to have fun, laugh, and cry tears of laughter.

I’ve needed to know that even though I have to work to provide for my family, that every day doesn’t have to be stress.  There can be fun days too.  There can be days when, even in the midst of work and figuring out tough problems, we laugh at nearly everything and just enjoy the company of good buddies and friends.

I can sit here tonight and say I miss my family a lot and can’t wait to see them when I get home, but I can also say I’m extremely thankful for the day I just had.  And I can’t wait to have another one just like it tomorrow!

Church Confession

I just listened to a great sermon by Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church, from Sunday September 14th.  You can listen to it by going to the Mars Hill website, or you can download it from iTunes, by searching for Mars Hill Bible Church.

For those of you who listen to the podcasts on line, you know Rob is finally back, from a much deserved sabbatical, and has resumed the teachings from Philippians.  I’ve really missed his weekly teachings and I’m so happy to have him back.  I’ve been listening on line for about three years and have learned so much during this time.

In this teaching, Rob has lots to say about openness, confession, honesty and being raw before each other within the church.  A topic I wrote about on this blog on September 10th, called Addicted to Love and a conversation that came up during our ABF time this past Sunday.  Either God is trying to do a new work within my life regarding the deep secrets I carry, or He’s wanting the church to wake up and realize that its people are dying inside and need to be set free from their junk, their Egypt’s, their exile.

Here’s a few quotes from the end of this teaching by Rob. 

“If church isn’t the place above any other place where you can be as honest and raw about the actual junk in your life, then I don’t want anything to do with church.  If church doesn’t lead the way in being the kind of place where you can be transparent and honest about your struggles then it isn’t church.”

“If this time and this ritual with this tribe of people isn’t the kind of place where you can actually reflect and you can actually go into the most dark painful places and you can have people come around you and carry you, then we’re just pretending.” – Rob Bell.

Now if my friend Keri was listening to this, right about now is when she’d say “right on!”  And I have to agree.  Maybe this is the reason why I’ve had such a disconnect with my local church, but have felt such a connection with friends from Twitter.  It seems like there’s more openness, honesty, and confession among the group of Twitter people then there actually is within the church.

With much sarcasm, Rob said that ”were so worried about people finding out that we’re not perfect that we struggle with being real with each other.”  (Paraphrased by me.  You can listen to the sermon to hear the exact quote.)

There is a place for confessional with in the christian church and it’s high time our leadership figures out a way to make it happen.  Too many people are becoming lost in their struggles to not do something about it.

Would love to know/hear your thoughts!

Bite…swallow, swallow!

Every wonder what the inside of your son might look like?  Arriving plenty early for Halloween, were the xrays of our son from his most recent swallow study.  Pretty cool I tought, so I’ve decided to post them for all to see.

I really wanted to get this update done yesterday, but I’ve just had two incredibly busy days.  I’m so ready for the weekend and hope I have a chance to rest a little.

Wakeland’s swallow study at TSRHC on Wednesday did not go as we had hoped.  He has improved so much since his swallow study on September 3, however, he still has food and liquids that are getting hung up and pooling around his air way, which causes concern by his doctors that he could possibly aspirate some of it, which could land him back in the hospital.  So, the decision was made to put the NG tube back in until October 8th.  Three more weeks, which really sucks and especially for my wife who has been dealing with most of this on her own, due to my recent travel.  At least they are allowing him to have pudding, yogurt smoothies, chocolate milk, and any other thick food we can think of.  He has strict orders to take it slow on these items, so we’ve been prompting him to take a bite, then swallow, swallow, hoping that anything that might hang up in his throat, will move on down before he takes another bite.

The cause of all of this is migration of Botox into the muscles at the base of his tongue following a surgical procedure where Botox was injected into the salivary glands, in an attempt to stop his drooling.  The drooling has decreased about 80% and on September 8th he wore the same shirt the entire day without being wet and with no bandanna.  The first time in nine years. 

Everyone keeps asking us if we’d ever do the Botox again, since it will wear off in six to nine months and need to be repeated, and our answer has been “YES!”  As serious as all of this has been, the doctors have learned a lot about Wakeland’s particular case and every precaution possible will be taken the next time this procedure is performed.  As parents of a drooling child, you can’t imagine how it makes us feel for him every time we see his dry little chin.  We want the best for him.  We want him to be happy and we want the other kids to see who he is beyond the drool, because he’s a pretty cool little guy.

Rob Bell | Jesus Wants to Save Christians

When I was at the Q conference in New York last April, I met a wonderful young lady from Zondervan, who happened to sit at my table on the second day of the conference.  I really enjoyed talking with her and hearing about her job with Zondervan.  I especially enjoyed her response when I told her I was a huge Rob Bell fan.  She said “give me your information and I’ll send you a copy of his new book coming out in October.”  Yes!

Flying back from New Orleans last night, I was looking at my Relevant magazine and noticed an add for Rob’s new book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, a manifesto for the church in exile.”  I’ve been so busy with work and with Wakeland’s little set back, that I had totally forgotten about it.  So, when I got home I asked my wife if I’d received anything from Zondervan and she said yes.  I was excited and knew it was probably the new Rob Bell book.

Today we headed back to the hospital for another swallow study for Wakeland, which I’ll try and update about tomorrow.  It wasn’t great news. (We’re bummed!)  I had some extra time on my hands while we waited, so with new book in hand I read every free chance I had, and let me just say I am a little biased, but it’s really a great book.  I’m loving it and if I wasn’t so exhausted from getting home so late last night, I probably would have read the whole book today.

I’m not going to tell you a whole lot about the book because I wan’t you to pick up a copy and decided for yourself if you like it.  (If you’ve liked the first two, you’ll love this one.)  However, there’s a couple of sentences at the beginning of the second chapter that really jumped off the page at me, because it speaks to where my life has been this year.

The chapter begins with the descendants of Solomon enslaved in Babylon and while they were in exile, they turned their pain into poetry.  And then Rob describes how they weep and cry out in Babylon.  Here is what he says.

“And what happens when people cry out?  In Egypt, the cry kick-started redemption.  In Egypt they cried out in their slavery, and God heard their cry and did something about it.

Because God always hears the cry of the oppressed.

When the system works for us, when we have the power and choice, when we’re ruling from Jerusalem, when we have no needs to speak of, who needs to cry out?

Crying out reminds us of our dependence.

Weeping leads us to reconnect with God.

Our tears are sacred.  They water the ground around our feet so that new things can grow.”

Amen!  I’m so thankful that God used my tears to water the ground around my feet and I’m so grateful that new things are starting to grow within my life.

I can’t wait to read the rest of this book.  Supposedly it’s not due out until October, but I think you can get it right now on Amazon, so go on line and order your copy today.  I highly recommend it!

Thanks Beth for the book!  I love it and will be telling everyone about it!  Grace and peace to you!