Planting Stakes

This has been a very eventful week. A week filled with looking back on life-changing events and looking forward to whatever may lie ahead.

Our son, Luke, was born 23 years ago this past Tuesday. What makes that event so memorable is the fact that he was born 6-8 weeks early and weighed only 3 lbs. Wendi also lapsed into a coma for a day and regained consciousness only after dialysis restarted her kidneys. Scary times! But in all of this given the perspective of time, I see God's faithfulness and that was one of many moments that helped define who I am today.

In my Bible reading plan that I've been reading/listening to for the past couple of months, I have been struck with the number of times that God's people were instructed to erect an altar and worship God for the great things He had done. Moses would constantly remind the people of the how God brought them out of Egypt and saved them. In 1 Samuel 7:12, Samuel took a stone and named it "Ebenezer" (stone of help) because the Lord helped deliver the Israelites from the Philistines at Mizpah. It's in remembering God's faithfulness in the past that we can look forward with confidence, knowing that God is with us and will deliver us from whatever trials we face. Does that mean that life will be easy or there will always be a happy ending? Of course not, but I believe that since He loves me so much, He will always have His best for me. That can be a hard thing.

Samuel erected an Ebenezer to remember that God helped Israel at Mizpah. I have some thing similar akin to what some people may refer to as milestones. I like to call them stakes. There are definite times where a stake is planted in my mind that I look back on and remember what God has done. Here are some of them: January 19, 1981 - I met Jesus Christ and surrendered to him in my dorm room at Dykstra Hall; June 29, 1985 - the day I got married. September to November 1988 - Luke's birth, Wendi's coma and pulmonary embolisms; August 1990 - December 1990 - when we first learned of Chris's heart defect and dealt with possibly losing him at birth and in the months following his birth. November 1995 - my Walk to Emmaus experience in which I experienced the Love of Christ in a different way that has continued to impact me to this day.

The latest stake to add in my life is September 8, 2011. I had been experiencing hematuria off and on since May 2011 and discovered in August that I had a kidney stone. I had the stone blasted in a procedure called lithotripsy. It may sound painful but up to now I've had no pain whatsoever. When I was in recovery the doctor told Wendi that he had found a small tumor in my bladder and removed it for biopsy. He told her it was probably like skin cancer, something that you just remove.

In the week following the procedure Wendi and I lived in a world of not knowing what the future would hold. Do I have cancer? How bad is it? What are the next steps? We've done a lot of research on the internet, which can be a good thing. But one of my pastors wisely pointed out that on the internet, you get everything without knowing what applies to you. For instance if you look up all of the symptoms for a headache - you get everything from a minor everyday headache caused by stress to something life threatening like a brain tumor or meningitis.

This past Thursday the doctor didn't have much to say. I had to ask him all the questions:" Is this a low-grade tumor (slow growing)?" -Yes. "Would you call it a 'superficial' tumor?" - Yes. Not much else came out of that conversation. We left with just as many questions that came with. I guess I have bladder cancer, but shouldn't I know for sure? I don't even know if I can give blood. Needless to say that we're in the process of switching doctors. In the meantime, we're still living in the world of 'what ifs.'

No matter what the outcome is, we're trusting in God and that He will be with us throughout this chapter of our lives. 

Daring to do the Daunting

Directions for taking apart a garage door motor.

Earlier this summer, in June to be exact, our garage door stopped working. The motor still hummed, but the door itself wasn't moving up or down. I went to OSH to see how much a new opener would cost and balked at the $200 price. I wondered if I could fix it myself.

I'm not a very handy guy. I don't have much in the way of tools and when I do attempt a project, it ends up taking multiple trips to the store and multiple hours to get it done.

When I was a kid, I'd take my bike apart - all the way down to the frame and put it back together. I wanted it to re-lube all of the moving parts and make it seem like it was brand new. I remember once having extra parts after the bike was reassembled, and found out that I had skipped a couple of steps in putting things back again.

I looked at the garage door and saw that a small plastic gear that works with a worm gear was completely shredded and the bottom of the motor housing was filled with what looked like snow flakes. I went to Fresno Ag, because "if they don't have it, you don't need it." Well, they didn't have it and I needed it! I went on the internet and found the exact part I needed at Amazon.com for only $3.40. I ordered the part and it was here within 3 days. I also found the directions for replacing the part on the internet (you can see a part of it here). I had everything I needed and the whole summer to do it. The only thing I lacked was the confidence that I could do the job.

Could I do it? Probably. I had replaced part of my sewer line last summer. I had also replaced the front door lock in July. Every time I looked at the diagram, I shuddered to think of the task at hand. It was too much for me.

Last Thursday I took time off from work to go to the doctor - that's another story for later. Afterwards, I decided to try the garage door. I followed the directions and got everything apart, but ran out of time. Also,  I had problems getting the old plastic gear off the shaft it was on. I used a nail to get the roll pin (I didn't know what they were until now) out that was holding the gear in place. I went to my father-in-law's and borrowed a punch to get a new pin back in. It took until Saturday for me to get everything back together again, but it all worked and I was pleased with the results.

I won't lie - I had my doubts during the whole repair. I did pray before I began and while I was  working. As I was writing this entry, one verse kept coming to me - "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil. 4:13). I also was thinking about how the Israelites would forget God's faithfulness over and over again when they were wondering in the wilderness. I am just like them, forgetting how God has been with me and will continue to be.

One of the names of Jesus is Immanuel - God with us. At the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says "surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (28:20b) Those are good words to remember.