In his last post, Mike made it abundantly clear that he owns this blog, although I thought it was mine for several weeks!  He asked me to post a guest blog several days ago with one stipulation:  it is not to be about him!

Wow!  It’s very hard to believe that it was just one year ago (October 23rd, 2008) that this most interesting of years began for our family.  I can scarcely comprehend that 365 days have elapsed since we began this journey with a seizure that revealed a peach sized AVM (mass of intertwined veins and arteries) in my brain. 

It’s also Jared’s fourth birthday celebration which was largely ruined last year due to my theatrics.  

Thus began a journey for us that would take this family through the heights and depths…through good days and bad where my very life would hang precariously and tenuously on a precipice…between life and death. 

The Word Fellowship meets again Tuesday Oct. 27 at Crossroad Church here in Earlham. The Word Fellowship consists of a group of 35-40 pastors and church leaders. If you are either please consider this an open invitation to join us!

There will be 3 messages given with singing, and significant amounts of time allowed for discussion and prayer. Our theme for this Fall’s meeting is “Through Many Tribulations We Must Enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Specifically, we will be exploring what the Bible reveals as the relationship between suffering and the Kingdom of God.

Following our normal pattern two messages will be expository sermons with a biographical sketch for the third message.

Click here to see a very cool (10 minute) video of how the brain has an uncanny ability to rewire itself…even with half missing!

I had another seizure Saturday night (Oct. 10th, 2009) and this one nearly scared me to death.  I have wanted to set some things straight about our situation.  This is a good opportunity to do just that.  Our church had a Fall Festival planned and we were supposed to go out to a country home for hay rides, bon fire,etc.  But when it snowed nearly three inches it behooved us to move the festivities indoors.  

I don’t really understand codependency but I think this word most accurately encapsulates my feelings toward the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota…and St. Marys Hospital.  I know I need(ed) them and even though they may not admit it publicly I think they also need(ed) me…if only to glory in the miracle of a life that almost ended nearly seven months ago.

I didn’t check out the math…but I’m just guessing that Karla was right when she said that as of two days ago I had been alive for 16, 436 days.  That sounds like a big number… but you know what?  It’s not even depressing to me as these multiples of 5 can often be. 

 

Again, I’ll never tire of saying this: “I’m just happy to be here” and enjoy days like this with my family. I wanted to pass along some cool pictures I was able to shoot from the plane ride that Benj and I took on Saturday morning September 19, 2009 and also a couple pics of “the real Thomas.”

 

We (the pilot Brian Bean, Benj and I)  took off from the Winterset airport at about 9:00 a.m. and flew around central Iowa for about an hour and a half.  The world looks entirely different from 500-1000 feet above the earth than it does from ground level.  It was an awesome day for a plane ride! 

A picture of Crossroad Church

Earlham ball fields

beans glorious beans

The “Real” Thomas

Diamondhead Lake

Lake Panorama

Happy Guys

For those of you who don’t know, which is probably most of you, today is Mike’s birthday.  We always go out for lunch on Friday, as this is Mike’s day off.  As we were eating yesterday, he said, “When I turned 43, I never would have guessed that I’d be happy to make it to 45, or that reaching that age would be in question.”

I suspect that there are many of you out there wondering, as I would be if I were in your shoes, just how much I have changed…if any. 

We’ve been laid low but this was a Rocky Mountain high!  

Backpacking again!

Foggy morning in the Rocky Mountains

A Hungry Trout

A pleasant reminder that all of God's promises are true... a fitting end to a good trip!

We have been on the go since the end of July when we made a pilgrimage to Six Flags Amusement Park in Gurney, Illinois.  The next day we visited the Field Museum in Chicago. 

Personally I wanted to tour the factory where Jelly Bellies are made and distributed.  Then we were off to the other side of Lake Michigan for our annual week’s stay at Maranatha, a missionary and Bible conference center positioned just next to Lake Michigan. 

The boys and I enjoyed the unprecedented (for us) 7 foot waves that came thundering over us and upon us.  The rip tide was unbelievably strong!   At the pool, which is located next to the beach, they have a pole with flags on it: a green, yellow, and red flag to give swimmers some indication as to what to expect. 

We sat under solid Bible teaching for a week and heard from a missionary (former Moody Bible professor Ray Badgero sp?) whose aim it is to restore the name of the Lord among Native Americans on an island just off Vancouver Island…very exciting to hear of his passion for Native Americans.

Then it was back to Earlham!  We arrived home around 9:00 p.m. Saturday evening and didn’t have to think long about where to go to church on Sunday morning.  There’s no place like home!  Even though I had no part in the service there was no place I would rather have been. 

Two days later Luke (17) and Benj (15) and one of their friends and myself headed off to Colorado.  Ultimately the goal was to get Luke and his friend Andy down to some place south of Colorado Springs for a two-week world view conference called “Summit”, but before we did that we thought we might as well go backpacking for a few days first!

So I called up afriend who lives in a southern suburb of Denver and asked him to arrange something relatively easy.  The first day we ended up hiking nearly 1,700 vertical feet in four miles….before we ended up discovering that we were on the wrong trail…so back to the car we went.  I looked at it as extreme physical rehab, a sort of X-Games for the physically impaired.  I was a bit wobbly toward the end but found my core being strengthened with each step.

By the time we made it down to the cars it was nearly dusk and we had little drinking water left.  But we found the correct trailhead.  And so we did what any normal person would do in our situation.  We drove the 20 minutes to town, ate at a Pizza Hut and stayed in a hotel.  The next morning we were up early and had a gentle hike (2-1/2-3 miles) to an alpine lake which shall remain nameless.  The fishing was out of this world!  We hauled in several different species of trout…. and not just trout… these were big trout!  So instead of backpacking just a few miles we hiked 13-14 miles in total.

For me this trip was hugely symbolic… an undeniable proof of God’s preserving grace in my life.  It was neat to have the sense that in one year’s time, nearly to the day,  I had gone from backpacking with Benj in the Bighorns to now backpacking again.  If not a complete circle it is nearly complete.  Thank you Lord!

Another good day to be alive!

 

Me and my old pastor buddy Tom Curtright