The Rough Terrain of the Path

It's 3:05 in the morning. My sickness is keeping me from rest. God and I are having a wonderful time together. My friend and Christian brother lays within his home fighting the ravages of chemotherapy. I rejoice in my discomfort this night having prayed that God would give me his sickness so he might rest. I don't know if God has indeed done this but as I fight this physical disruption I am praising God thinking that maybe my friend is having a peaceful night.

My apologies to those who have traveled the path with me and found me slow to post my latest movements of the journey. My intentions have been there but my post surgery period has been different than I expected. I thought that it would be a quiet time of recuperation and that I would have a great deal of time to kill. I had pictured catching up on my many books and laying out months of sermons and when ever fatigue would set in I would close my eyes and nap until strength would return. It has been anything but that. I have pretty much had minimal rest and am working pretty much a full day each day. I have even been out and about more than I thought though I don't like to drive very far. I am trying to minimize the recuperative period so that my healing can be accomplished but there are so many needs and so much to be done. I am learning an important lesson and pain is the instructor.

I have been humbled by the outpouring of love and good wishes. It is hard at times to be on the receiving end of blessings but is important to allow yourself to be blessed. To a person I have been told to take it easy and not be in a hurry to jump back into the fray. But I must confess there is this little section of pride that likes to proclaim how I have taken on quickly the tasks that are usually mine to own as if I am someone of some special sacrificial status. I confess it is feeding my own prideful need for recognition. Wow does it hurt to say that! But I have learned this and today, if by no other reason than sheer fatigue I am going get over myself and rest. No more foolishness this day! The path will be before me whenever I am able to rise up again and continue my travels.

The doctor has not given me an all clear on the cancer so I may have more challenging sections of the path to walk. I had better build up my strength. This Beetle's path has roadside rests. See you after the break.

The Next Mile Marker on the Path

Well it is now a week to go until surgery. I have been working (and I do mean working) at truly releasing my illness to God to be used by Him for His glory. Wow that sounds so deep and profound and conveys me to be such a pillar of strength. So why don't I feel that way? Yesterday we had the most incredible worship experience I have had in a long, long time. We met with the brothers and sisters at Sojourn in Louisville, Kentucky. What an amazing presence of the Spirit! They had one truly rocked out praise team and at one point they started doing my favorite hymn, Be Thou My Vision, in a very powerful way. I started to sing the first verse but soon was overwhelmed and began to weep before my God. I have made it known for many years that I wanted this hymn played at my funeral and I think I started to let it get to me, you know, my own mortality. My emotions traveled from earth to heaven as I pictured leaving the ones I love to me then standing face to face with the One whom I have loved for so long. I saw Him in all His glory and realized that some of my tears were due to the feeling of having disappointed Him so many times and finding that He still loved me. The family at Sojourn blessed me with an experience of what leaving this earth might be like; a sadness intitially for not being with my wife and our family and in a moment transitioning beyond them to God's presence and the displacement of all my worldly attachments and worries. You don't have to be out of your body to discover this, you have to be out of your self. I have discovered in approaching this mile marker that I have really been wrapped up in me. I have been arrogant and have lacked humility. This surgery and its affects will humble me further and by God's providence this is what I need. Maybe, just maybe I will finally lose enough of my self in Him to let Him accomplish the most significant thing He ever purposed in my life. Can you imagine what the next mile marker on the path will be like?! Hang on! The path is growing more interesting.

See you after surgery
The Beetle