Recovery & Strength

I could sum up how things have gone recently as...(insert long pronounced sigh here)! Not bad, but not great either. Sara & I work at a school & so our year is based more on the school calendar then the yearly calendar. That being said, this "year" has been incredible. So many joys & exciting moments coupled with so many moments of sorrow & struggle. I feel as if God is taking our family through a refining process. All I have to say is I hope I look good & polished after this!

For all of you who are wondering, my surgery went incredibly well. The doctors were very pleased with the outcome. It appears that it is going to stop the problem & prevent cancer as they were hoping. The surgery is the easy part though for the patient. You're out cold & you have 6 people all working on you. The hard part is the recovery process. This recovery has brought with it many ups & downs. The pain I have felt through this process is hands down the worst I have ever felt. If you take the pain I felt when I blew my knee out the first time & times it by 10 you may be at the level I felt. My first two weeks were incredibly painful, but I worked through it with the sweet help of my loving wife. Pain medication & me typically don't mix very well so I did most of this without any medication which I'm sure intensified it even more. Currently I am doing very well. I am way ahead of schedule in my recovery process & learning how to eat again. I started with blending everything & am eating almost normal once again. However, I have to eat smaller & take much longer or things get stuck. I have had food stuck numerous times & let me tell you this...IT IS NOT FUN! It's a process of recovery that won't be complete until around Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for the surgery though. I have none of the pain I used to have & for the first time in over 10 years am able to sleep through the night without pain. I didn't realize how sleep deprived I really was until this surgery & I began to sleep normal again. What a blessing sleep is!

As Sara & I were reflecting on this "year" it amazed me at what has transpired. We lost our only Grandpa, we lost a Father, & we recently lost a family friend & someone who Sara was particularly close to. She suddenly passed away from Pancreatic Cancer (I know...been there done that before). We had numerous changes in our work, personal life, social network, & future planning (more on this in weeks to come). We also had a baby, won a state championship in basketball & many other big things, but minor considering everything else. I remember going to Disney World last July knowing that we were pregnant with precious little Jordan & not having too many cares in this world. WOW, what a year has changed. I am sitting in my office looking out into the bare & empty hallways of our school & reflecting on the year it has been. Sometimes things don't fully hit you until you slow down enough for the impact to happen. Now is that time for Sara & I. We are reflecting. We are reminiscing. We are giving thanks for the journey. We have had no choice but to grow through this process. One way or another we were going to be different through this year. It was just a matter of strength & joy or bitterness & sorrow.

The one thing that I keep hearing from my family, friends, co-workers, & my students is that they have been amazed at how I have handled everything this year. They are impressed with the strength that I seem to posses. Let me first start with death. I have this perspective on life of it being a journey. Everyone has their own journey & no matter how hard we may try we simply can't replicate anyone else's. It is unique to us. Along this journey we will all have times of great triumph & times of great sorrow & struggle. However, the main constant of it all is not how we get down this road or how fast or slow we travel it, but rather how we embrace it. The one common denominator of every ones journey though? They all end. In one way or another every ones journey comes to an end. Some seem like tragic endings, some seem to soon, & some seem like poetic justice to a life well lived.

The one thing I think I hold onto is not settling for my sorrow of missing someone, but rather contending for the memory of a life well lived by them. If life is a race that we are all running (Hebrews 12:1), then wouldn't you think Jesus is our biggest cheerleader? He is that over joyous dad at the finish line that is simply ecstatic when his kid crosses the line. He's that dad that bulls his way through security & embraces his son or daughter on finishing the race. So if life is a race that we are aiming to finish & finish well & Jesus is cheering us on then I imagine that meeting in Heaven would go something like this: "Well done! You made it. I'm so proud of you." Our rebuttal may be: "But Jesus, I ran an awful middle 100 meters & I stumbled around the final corner." "But you finished! You made it. All that work & you made it. I am so proud of you. Let's go out & celebrate!" I also figure that if are races aren't the same then some are made for different races. Some of us are made for sprints (100m), some of us are made for a mile run (400m), & some of us are set up for marathons. Why is a baby lost to some & a old man is lost to others? It's all about the race you're designed for. The greatest tragedy is not dying in my eyes. The greatest tragedy would be not effecting people around me by my loss.

Sara & I have gone through 3 deaths that shook us up pretty good in 8 months. However, how can I sit in sorrow when I think about where they are? A.W. Tozer said, “I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.”  Whether it happened as small children or whether it happened late in their life, the three deaths happened at moments of worship. They happened with the individuals ready to embrace their God. A great family friend of ours put it this way on Saturday: "When you die you begin to go on a walk with Jesus. You begin to talk about what just happened & talk about life. Before you realize it, you look back & can't see home anymore. That's when Jesus says 'We're closer to my home then yours. How about we just go to my place.'" I thought that was a beautiful portrayal of what I have witnessed over the past year.

It is always easy to be strong when it's easy to be strong. "To hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart...that is true strength." I told our students in our last chapel together that growth is all about tests. You never know if you truly grew unless you test yourself. If all I did with my basketball teams was practice, we woul never know how much we've grown. You have to put yourself into situations to grow & to test growth. I have been tested this year & I feel I have grown because of it. Life is just simply a bunch of choices. I woke up every day saying "This is the day that my Lord has made & I will rejoice & be glad in it. I Trust you God & I know you have plans to prosper me & not to harm me. Today I choose joy!"

“How can I get away from your Spirit? Where can I go to escape from you? If I go up to the Heavens, you are there, If I lie down in the deepest parts of the earth, you are also there. Suppose I were to rise with the sun in the east and then cross over to the west where it sinks into the ocean. Your hand would always be there to guide me. Your right hand would still be holding me close.”
Ps.139:7-10

As Paul said, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Strength is within us all. It is nothing great inside a few small people. It is within each of us. I do not want to be happy some days. I do not want to have it all together. Many times I have crumbled in Sara's arms & just cried. I will tell you this out of my journey though...Joy is so much sweeter than sorrow. It's hard to choose joy & then to have to choose it daily. Sometimes you have to choose it many times throughout even one day. It is worth it though. God is good & his blessing is amazing. Even through this year, He has been so faithful to provide all of my needs & open new doors of blessing.

As I close this year up, I summarize it by a quote from Max Lacado's 'Outlive Your Life'. "It’s not enough to do well. I want to do great. I want my life to matter. So, I'm living my life in such a way that the world will be glad I did." What do you choose today? My advice...choose strength & joy. You never know what it'll do to those around you, but you can count on it rocking your world!


My precious kids. I love them both to pieces!