An Open Letter To My Mom and Dad

Christmas was different this year for the Hendon family. We made a decision to not spend money we didn't have on things we didn't need. But we we did do was spend time together, laugh together, play together, we even cried together--not tears of sadness, but of joy. I have to say this Christmas was one of the best I ever enjoyed as an adult. For those of you who have been following my blog I wanted to share with you a letter I gave to my Mom and Dad on Christmas day. It was from my heart to theirs and meant a great deal to me to share it with them, and now I share it with you.....


December 25, 2009

Dear Mom & Dad,

I want to wish you both a very Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart. Years past have been filled with money and gifts and this year I have none of those to offer. But I wanted to at the very least, tell you how much I love and appreciate what you two have done and how you have helped me get through a difficult time of my life.

It is not the financial help that has meant the most to me. It is something more. As I have walked through the past few years and reflect on my life experience something amazes me. You have been in all the places I have been and you made it out. This gives me strength and hope.

You lived a good part of your lives down south in financial want and yet it made you appreciate money and you have never taken it for granted. I, on the other hand, came into money and let it intoxicate me. My lust for things--bigger boats, more toys, and so on drove me to ruin as I totally mishandled what was laid before me. Yet at the end of it all you guys have been the one thing that has helped me and given me the encouragement to hang in there and not give up. For you have been through so much in your lives yet you have come OUT each and every setback in a real and powerful way.

The temptation in these life rocking experiences is to lay down and not keep moving forward. Then that experience defines you as a person and you just never get over it. There is a story in the Bible about a man called Terah. Terah is a name we don't quickly recognize as prominent in Scripture. Yet he was a key person in the history of the Jews. He was the father of Abraham, the greatest single man in the history of the Jews. You read about him breifly and his three sons in Genesis. In Genesis 11:27 it says, "This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot. 28 And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans"

Not really much is made of this but it is one of the most telling verses in the Bible.What has happened here is one of Terah's sons--Haran-- dies in Terah's arms. You know the heart wrenching pain of holding the lifeless body of your own child in your arms and seeing them gone. It hurts--you know cause you been through it twice. The grief and the pain are deep and almost unbearable. It is important to grieve, to go through the healing process. A person has to make a decision to get beyond it, to rise above it, and to move forward. Otherwise you will get stuck there and never get over it.

In Terah's life it was in his heart to go to Canaan--the land of promise--along with his whole family, including Abraham. "And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. 32 So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran." (Gen.11:31-32)

Do you see what happened here? Terah starts the move to the land of promise with the entire family but he gets to a city called "Haran" which is coincendentally named after his son who died in his arms, and he can't leave this city. He decides to let this place define him. He cannot get over the hurt, cannot move on and cannot get over it so he dies there,and we never hear of him again. From there Abraham is stuck in this place with him, when God comes and says "Get up! Get out! Get on with your journey".. and of course we all know the result of his obedience to God.

You guys have been through so much in your lives together. There are so many times you could have stopped in your journey and just died there. But you refused. You have suffered the loss of children and grandchildren. You have fought cancer and life threatening accidents and injuries, you have battled personal struggles and relationships--and yet you kept moving forward. You have kept going on, you have refused to give up. Only faith can do that, only a heart that has been captured by the love of God can do that. You two are Abraham and Sarah to me. You have inspired me, challenged me, and helped me to keep moving, to keep going--to never give up no matter what!

My Christmas this year is different than any in the past years. Where before it came and went with all the presents and lavish gifts you could ask for, this year it is abounding with all the unseen yet vital things that make life worth living. My Christmas is filled with hope, with love, and with faith... and all mostly because you shown me the way by your refusal to quit, and your determination to keep moving NO MATTER WHAT!

I love you both. Thanks for your example and your life--Merry Christmas!!!

Mike

Saying Goodbye To 2009

It is the last days of 2009 and WOW! what a year. It has been quite a journey. From the beginning it was one that will go down in the books as a year firsts.

For the first time in 35 years of marriage, I spent most of the first part of the year living away from home trying to sort out all of the baggage that had accumulated from my nearly 4 year prodigal journey that left my relationship with my wife strained, stained, and stilted. In the process of time all marriages go through tough times, but for the first time it really looked like my marriage was over.



I closed my business, "Heartland Home Center" due to fiscal the economy and other fiscal "issues". I had never failed at any business venture up to this point, in fact, I seemed to have the "Midas touch" when it came to business up to this time. Everything I had done in the past was very successful and extremely profitable. This venture was extremely costly and entirely futile.



Due to the failure of my business I filed bankruptcy. A very difficult pill to swallow for a man who prided himself on his excellent credit rating and business savvy. In that process I lost everything that my previous success had afforded me. A lovely home of 4,000 square feet. A Sea Ray yacht of 45 feet that slept 6, my personal assets and equities that I was counting on for future retirement. Money, comfort and security were things I just never thought about heretofore, but now things were different.



These losses don't even take into account the personal, emotional and spiritual battles that an individual faces when going through loss. Medical professionals talk about how we humans cope with loss in a process called grief. They talk how in the various stages of grief we process our loss until we can move on. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While these stages are debatable and not necessarily experienced in a set order, I can surely testify that I have struggled with them.

My daughter used to tell me denial isn't a river in Egypt. Yet I can tell you at the beginning I kept saying to myself--"this can't be happening to me..." But it was and no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, that 800 pound gorilla would not go away. For months I would not go talk to an attorney even though letters from creditors, notices from the IRS and phone call after phone call from collection agencies piled up like leaves under a huge oak tree. I kept waiting for a last minute miracle, a bailout, I even started buying lottery tickets(something I never did) thinking I can beat this. Obvious denial over a situation I let get out of control through not doing ANYTHING cause I refused to face reality and get proactive.

I spent night after night unable to sleep, unable to find peace, and unable to figure out what to do in the face of incredible adversity. Anger started creeping in like a London fog on a mid-summers night. My inward frustration and disappointment turned outward as I simmered internally over the thought of how different things would have been had God come through for me, or my wife would have stood by me, or my friends would have helped me. In this preoccupation with self and self-pity depression gripped my heart. I retreated into myself and secluded myself from everyone. I felt like Elijah after Mount Carmel and thought, "It is enough Lord, please take my life..."

This is very difficult to write. After all we don't want to hear about such struggles and defeats in a persons life. Then why write it you say? These are things better left unspoken and kept from sight. Maybe so, but for the person who is struggling today in your own mire of hurt, confusion, and loss--I want to give you some encouragement. Not simply the typical words of "hang in there" or "it's going to get better..". Not even the normal, "Don't worry--it will all work out...".

I want you to hang in there, I even believe with you that things will work out for you and get better. In my situation all of that is true. As the year draws to a close it is ending much better than it began. My marriage is being healed and is on the road to recovery. We are talking and sharing in ways that we have not for years. Our love is growing and our hearts are being knit together again after near disaster. I can say from the depths of my heart that I not only love my wife, but I like her too! Which may seem strange--but is no mystery to anyone who knows the importance of your spouse being your best friend as well as your lover. This too is a miracle!

Financially we are bouncing back and being blessed in indescribable ways. In two weeks we are moving into a home that is a testimony to God's love and faithfulness.
This home is an allegory to my life. I bought this home that was completely run down and a total mess. It has been totally re-done and is brand new on the inside. It has been done with things accumulated from here and there, things purchased, and things freely given. It has been transformed from nothing to something very special that has significance for us as a life changing testimony to the faithfulness of God. My wife called the transformation "magic", I know it to be nothing more or less than the GOODNESS of God!

But let me tell you the most important part of this whole story. Apart from the restoration of my marriage, separate from the recovery of my financial situation, and above the new home and all that goes with it--is the renewal of my faith in God. In the fact that God is enough for me. I have found that through all of this God is all I want or need. I may never 'own' another business, I may never have another yacht. A 4000 square foot home may never be in my future and money to burn and financial independence may never be mine. BUT! I don't need ANY of that to live and enjoy life. I have the ONE thing I need to live this life and be happy, content and satisfied. I have a relationship with a LIVING, LOVING, LORD--whom I love and Whom loves me. It is ENOUGH for me, in fact it is MORE than ENOUGH for ME!

I believe when He becomes ENOUGH for us, we have found the key to EVERYTHING.

Goodbye 2009, you have added much to my life--you even subtracted from my life--but at the end you brought me one more year closer to Him who is the same YESTERDAY, TODAY and FOREVER! God used you, 2009, in some marvelous and mysterious ways. Am I going to miss you? No, but I will forever cherish the experiences and rememeber the places we have been together!

Hello 2010! What do you hold for me? We shall soon see!

Get Up and Get Out!

I went down a road tonight that I travel numerous times daily from my home. With all the rain we've had the last few days the road has flooded and it was closed. This is by itself, given my lack of patience, a huge source of frustration for me. What was worse was they didn't mark it before you turned to go down the road, you turned ,went some distance --only to find out you have to turn around go back and find another way. I stopped my vehicle at the barricade thinking about what I should do. Cursing the situation was not helping. The thought of going around and trying to go through in my 4 wheel drive truck even crossed my mind because I was ddetermined to get to my destination. As I made my turn around I grumbled about how the closure should have been marked before you went down the road. This delay as well as the detour really agitates me. Then the Lord used that moment to speak to me.

He reminded me of the roads I have chosen at times in my life that have only brought me to have to stop--turn around and find another way. He reminded me of the delays and detours that have frustrated His purposes being fulfilled in my life. I know in the Sovereign Reign of God His ultimate purpose will be accomplished in my life. I know that even detours are just that--detours. It does not mean you are not going to get where you were going--your just going to get there some other way.

And then there are delays. No one likes delays. In American culture we are now the microwave generation. Think about it, a cross country journey used to takes weeks. Now it is only a matter of a few hours on a jumbo jet. Yet we grumble about a twenty minute flight delay. Think about communication. Not too long ago our best form of long distance communication was a "pony" on an "express". Then the telegraph and soon to follow a telephone. I remember when a phone call took minutes with a rotary dial phone and a long distance call that always required an operator. Today, with our cellular generation, my call travels from my phone to a satellite miles up in the atmosphere and back down to earth ANYWHERE practically in the world in a matter of seconds! If my call gets dropped, my how we complain that we have to take a few seconds and do it all over again.

In the kitchen, meals that used to take hours to prepare now literally take only minutes. We can go through a drive-thru and in a few minutes pick up a entire meal for the whole family. Modern times have made us the "instant generation". Instant results are mandatory for contemporary culture. For most of these things I am personally grateful, but for the present day mindset they have brought us to--I am not. To us delays are an inconvenience, to God they are simply a part of the process--even a part of His will.

I want to encourage you that delays--like detours--do not mean you are not going to get where your supposed to be. It just means it's going to take a little longer. Do not let our American mindset get us derailed at the onset of delay, Realize that God has a building program in delays--a character building program. But also realize satan has a program in delays.

Remember Terah--Abraham's father. We all know Abraham and his significance in the program of God, but Terah received the call to "go to another land" and receive a new identity as the covenant people of God alongside of Abraham. Except why don't we ever hear about him? If Abraham is the "father" of faith, why isn't Terah the "grandfather" of faith? When we come to know Abraham in Genesis 12 he is travelling alone with the exception of his nephew Lot. But when he got the call to leave Ur of the Chaldees, he left with his WHOLE family, including his father, brother, and all the children.

I read in Genesis 12:1 where God spoke to Abraham and it syas, "And the Lord had said..." In other words in was written in a past tense. God had previously spoken and He was now re-issuing his spoken word. When He originally spoke it, it came in the context of the ENTIRE family. In Genesis 11, the Bible identifies the family as Terah, Nahor and Haran--Abrham's brothers, and Lot--Haran's son-Abraham's nephew. Unfortunately we read how Haran died in his father's arms before they left Ur. So, Terah, Nahor, Lot, and Abraham, and all their families left for Canaan to find their destiny in God's eternal promise.

But hidden away in Genesis 11 is a very powerful truth that you need to get a hold of. It says in verse 31, "and THEY went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there....and Terah died in Haran."

Haran in Hebrew means "mountaineer". Amazingly this town bears the same name as Terah's son. We don't know anything about Haran from Scripture, but names say alot about the individuals that bear them. For example, Jacob means "deceiver" and we know what he was in his character before his encounter witrh God. Haran was a mountain climber, in fact, this journey they were on would have been his joy and delight. But circumstances being what they were he never got to make the trip. But his father brought him in his heart, in fac,t no one knows how deeply Terah's grief was over his son's loss but Terah himself. Painful experiences have a way of resonating deep in our hearts and lodging there for a long, long time.

We can carry the residue of those painful hurts in a hidden place masked by smiles and thoughts of denial. A divorce, a death, a betrayal, an abuse of some sort and we are indelibly marked for life unbeknownst even to ourselves. We pronounce I am over it, it doersn't bother me, I am o.k.. But unhealed wounds, unresolved issues will always eventually have to be faced. In fact, God in His infinite mercy has detours and delays DESIGNED for this very purpose.

I personally believe God brought Terah to Haran for this express purpose. He had some unresloved issues over the death of his son--who wouldn't. When they came to Haran the Scripture says they "dwelt" there. This was not their destination, but it was a part of the trip necesarry for Terah to get this dealt with in order to get on with the future. The truth is that it is impossible to reach for tommorrow while your holding onto the past. A past hurt, a past disappointment, a past loss can and will come, it may even "delay" you but listen beloved--God has brought you there to HEAL you and set you FREE from your past so you can embrace your future.

Do you know what Terah means in the Hebrew? It literally means DELAY! Delays are inevitable as we have to deal with issues in our lives. BUT! Delays are meant to bring healing and deliverance. But if you are not careful dealys CAN be deadly. If you do NOT receive the healing balm of GILEAD and by the grace and power of God get delivered from your hurt, you could quite possibly get "stuck". How many people, like Terah, have come to "Haran" the place where they should be climbing mountains, but they are stuck--and can't seem to get up the mountain to get to God's purpose for them. Scripture says of Terah that he never got past Haran. It says sadly, "he died there."

Beloved let me encourage you to "get up" and "get out!" God came to Abraham and said exactly that. His father was stuck, but he could not let his father's hurt be his own demise. He left his father in Haran, and after a delay went to God's promise for him. I have been "stuck" in so many ways in my own life. I have "dwelt" (to make a home), where I had no business dwelling, but I tell you it is imperative that we GET UP! And get on with our destiny. Detours and delays--they are a part of the journey, but they are not our DESTINATION! They are just places along the road we must cross to GET WHERE WE ARE GOING!

Are you stuck? Are you experiencing a delay? Have you found yourself being detoured? You are not in a BAD place--you are right where the Father wants you. Allow the Holy Spirit to heal your hurts, to give you closure to your wounds, to grant you strength to let go of your past--so you can EMBRACE your future. God bless you and GET UP AND GET OUT!

Evening THEN Morning

I was sharing in Westville Correction the other day in a weekend seminar. The seminar topic was on "Knowing God", and I was talking how we come to know God through experiences in life both good and bad. There is alot of people who preach a Gospel that proclaims God's ultimate aim is to make you more comfortable. But the truth of the matter is that God is MORE concerned about making your life more conformed to His Son and NOT more comfortable.

What this means is to get to the place of conformity takes PRESSURE! Face it, we NEED pressure! Pressure --the right amount is what gives a guitar string perfect pitch. To little and it is flat and out of tune, too much and it is sharp and can even "break" the string. The good news is God knows what you can handle and promises not to put too much on you. But He does not promise you freedom from pressure--because He knows that is not healthy either.

The fact is before things get better sometimes they get worse. Hidden in Genesis 1 is this principle. It is in verse 3, "Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day."

First evening THEN day. Note darkness is first, then light! Think about it, hidden here is a spirtual principle that we must grasp in order to find strength during the times of pressure--or 'darkness', lest we become weary and faint. Did you ever get a word from God that spoke of deliverance and divine help only to find things took a turn for a worse instead of getting better.

You are not the first to experience this. Remember when Moses went to Pharoah with God's word to "Let My PEOPLE GO!" Exodus 6:1Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” God had surely spoken to Moses and deliverance was on the way as God 'saw' the pressure they were under(bondage), and promised to send them deliverance. So Moses goes to Pharoah proclaiming the word of the Lord and what is the result?

In Exodus the 5th chapter it tells how that after Moses went in to Pharoah that things got WORSE! Now they have to go out and get their own straw to make bricks and they have to still meet the same quota as when the straw was brought to them. Do you see it? Evening then morning, worse then better. Evening is what makes the morning so beautiful and meaningful.

I shared with the men the darkest time in my life when I lost my son to leukemia. It was the toughest thing I've ever endured, but because of that I was brought to morning! God used that experience to bring me to Him and rather than cursing the darkness He taught me to praise Him for the LIGHT! Many go through such things and blame God, get mad at God, take it out on God by becoming bitter and hard. We make God the scapegoat for our failure and take out our disappointment by holding back from him.

Well in sharing this message I wrapped it up with an exhortation to NOT blame God for the evening, but if you want to get mad at somebody, get mad at the devil and SERVE God with all your heart in order to get even with the devil.

After prayer we took a break for lunch. As I sat there a man walked up to me named Jim(named changed to protect the innocent), he asked if he could talk to me for a second. I said sure and asked him to sit down and share what was on his mind. He started out by telling me he was mad at God and was not serving God out of anger and deep hurt. He began to cry softly and then to sob almost uncontrolably. He couldn't talk for the tears. I put my arm around him trying to console him and after quite awhile he got control of himself and told me this story.

One night while being at home with his 3 kids, his youngest ran out of diapers. He left the kids to go to a convenient store to get more diapers. On returning he turned the corner to his subdivision and saw a dark flume of smoke rising to the sky. He said his first thought was "I hope that is not my house". But sadly it was. Not only did he lose his home but all 3 of his children perished in the fire. He became bitter and blamed God for the tragedy. Consequently he tried to soothe his pain in drugs and alchohol and his whole life went out of control, Thus he ended up in prison and just added insult to injury.

He said he saw that day the futility of blaming God and wanted to stop the path he was walking and see "morning". I assured him God was the only one who could turn such hurt into healing and on the other side somehow there was beauty for these ashes.

Afterwards I thought how awful what this man experienced. I can no way liken my experience to his. My heart hurt for him and yet I was amazed how God in His love reached out to this dad and how morning always follow evening! Think about it--evening THEN morning.

A Puzzle Called Life

I know this guy who has been extremely blessed. He grew up in middle class America with opportunity and promise in great measure. With talents and abilities he has done well by world standards. Surrounded by supporting parents and family he enjoyed life's greatest pleasures, smiles around huge tables filled with good food, hugs and prayers when life wasn't so kind, and words of encouragement in the face of every challenge.



When he was just 17 years old his parents moved him in his senior year from a large school of over 2,000 students in the city, to a country school of less than 200 students 65 miles away.

He was pretty bitter about it and spent most of the beginning of his senior year ditching school and driving back to his hometown to be with lifelong friends. This plan worked until one day while ditching, the hogs got out of their pen and ran wild into the road. When his mother in a panic called the school to send him home to help get the pigs back in their pen, they informed her that he was not in school and had called in sick. Those pigs cost him his car keys and the humiliation of riding the bus for two weeks.



Not all was bad in the country though. On his first day at the new school he ran into a young lady who captured his interest. She was to him the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He accidentally on purpose tried to run into her at every opportunity to try and get a chance to meet her. He saw a guy talking to her who he knew from football practice. He was the new kid but he made a bit of a splash at the school by being a football standout. She happened to be a cheerleader and when he saw Ray talking to her he immediately went to Ray and asked him to arrange a "date" with her. When Ray asked why he simply replied, "Because I want you to introduce me to the girl I am going to marry."



He did indeed make the introduction and they did indeed get married the year they graduated High School. Probably not the best life plan to marry at that age, but destiny was working on many fronts. He would learn the trade of carpentry that would eventually lead him to running a construction company that would build millions of dollars of real estate and develop millions of dollars of property. She became a postal worker but later paid the price for further education and getting a degree in nursing, became a RN.



But on another front in the early days of their marriage, God was at work to implement a recovery program that would set the real course of their young lives for eternity. It is funny how God works. You make plans, you implement said plans, and with hard work and a few breaks things fall in place and your life comes together like a five hundred piece puzzle. But life is more like a fifteen hundred piece puzzle and God is there to help with the pieces and the sections we really never want to see or put together.



For example they never saw it coming but together in their little kitchen they knelt down and asked Jesus into their hearts and had a real encounter with God. You can still see the joy in his eyes as he recounts how he poured all the alcohol he had down the kitchen drain and for the first time in his young life felt the freedom that only God can impart. They were brought into a new freedom that was strange but wonderful, hard to comprehend but was better "felt" than "tellt".



But lacking good teaching, fellowship, and continued application of truth they both slowly lapsed back into their old life after just a few months. To some it appeared to be just a passing phase they went through, but in all truth a mighty seed was sown and more pieces of the puzzle were coming together--like it or not.



Later that year great joy filled the house with the arrival of their first son. My friend could not have been a happier dad and his wife was the best mom he had ever seen. Laughter filled the home as he began to grow and show his own precious personality. I have to say as someone who personally saw this child, even I knew there was something very special about this young boy. Before he was two years old he knew, by heart, the words to over twenty children's songs. He had a memory that was amazing. Once he saw or heard something he could recall it at will. He loved to sing, to say his memory verses, and to laugh.



Oh the laugh! His laugh was contagious and his giggle would break down the coldest, hardest heart. No matter how hard your day was or how difficult a time you were having, five minutes in the presence of this child had you laughing from your belly until it hurt. As a bystander you don't realize nor appreciate, sometimes until later, the special gifts and blessings that some have until they are gone...



It was getting close to Christmas--babies first Christmas! The tree was up early and presents abounded for an eight month old baby who didn't have a clue what all the hoopla was about. But this would be a Christmas that would be bittersweet. Two weeks before the big day, this precious little child was running a 104* temperature. They both began to worry and decided to take him to the small county hospital emergency room. Completely overwhelmed they waited while doctors checked him out. Expecting to hear a report of flu or pneumonia they anxiously waited for the news.



Instead, the doctor asked them to drive 60 miles south to a much larger and better equipped hospital. They said doctors would be waiting and would run more tests. But that is all they said and without a thought they made the trip to another hospital. After arriving, more tests were run and after hours of anxious waiting it looked like they were going to finally get some answers. But that would not be the case. Doctors came out and said they had called down to Riley's children hospital in Indianapolis and arrangements were made for a room to be ready, and be prepared for an overnight stay.



This really gave pause for worry and fear. They left and drove the hour and half to Indy. It was a long drive, it was a long day. Upon arrival they were greeted by hospital staff and immediately admitted to a room. Nothing can prepare a person for this kind of experience but Riley isn't just a children's hospital, it is place with great compassion and great people who help parents as well as kids with life's greatest challenges.



It took several days to get his temperature down and then came the results after days of tests. The parents, and grandparents who came down for the day were called into a small conference room. It was a warm room painted in bright colors with peaceful paintings on the walls. But the warmth of the room would not help with the cold hard news they were about to receive. It was leukemia. Not just the regular kind either. They had a three dollar word for it that I can't spell or pronounce. This news was like a wall falling on them. It was suspected from the start but there were only four reported cases of this type of leukemia in children in the whole country. Diagnosis must be confirmed and reconfirmed before they will utter a word of this to parents. It was a sure death sentence for there was no cure, nor hope for a cure, in the near future. They were honest and candid in the prognosis, yet they offered compassion and all the care at their disposal for the difficult days ahead.



They all left the room except for the parents and together they sobbed for what seemed like hours. How could this be? Why is this? What is the purpose of this? After a time my friend's wife stood up and said "I know what I am going to do. I'm going to God, He is the only One who can help us. I am going to call your grandfather(who was a preacher), and get them praying and then I am going back to God". She walked out the room and did indeed do exactly what she said, she went to God and never looked back. My friend stayed in the conference room and buried his head in his hands and cried more and asked more questions and became more overwhelmed. But a loving Father was still putting pieces of this puzzle together. Pieces that were hard to fit, difficult to see and discern, and pieces that no one wants to touch.



First Christmas! For this family all those presents sat under a tree at home unwrapped, untouched for this Christmas would be spent at Riley. It took that long to get his white count down to a safe level where he could go home and remove the infection from his small helpless body. What started as a run to the emergency room turned to be a two and a half week stay through Christmas. They went to a store and bought a Glo-worm for a present so he could have something until they got home. The hospital also gave many toys to all the kids who couldn't go home and they also gave a voucher for a nice meal out for the parents to enjoy.



This was taking time to process and internally the truth was they were just hurting. This eight month old baby had an incurable disease and had a limited time on this planet. How long? No one knew. A few months, a few years, no one could or would dare to say. But this much was sure, his death was certain. There would be weekly trips to the hospital for a blood test to keep an eye on the white blood cell count. Too many white blood cells and he would not have the ability to fight off simple infections and could die from a simple case of the flu. Way too many and his blood would clot in the tiny vessels in the brain and have a stroke.



Careful monitoring of his blood just became a way of life. Bouts with pneumonia and the flu were encountered like enemy invasions trying to take a nation. More trips to Riley, more needles, more pain, more ugly pieces to this puzzle. More questions than answers, and more pain than peace. More brokenness and more sorrow but breakthrough was coming because the Master builder was working on the BIG picture. We get lost in the moment, in the small part of a momentary loss or hurt, but He has a way of blending that into the picture of life that has another side altogether. Yes, there are shades of darkness in every life. But like any picture the darkness is there for contrast. If the darkness defines the light you have a very fuzzy and unclear picture. But when the light defines the darkness it puts darkness in its proper perspective.



It is really hard to understand darkness. Its' purpose, its' role in our lives. You know the age old questions. "why does evil exist?" "how does a loving God allow it?" There is no context to answer life's questions outside of the Light. To see this one piece of the puzzle without the whole picture makes for a miserable and hopeless existence. Yet we do it every day in the human condition.



For months after returning from that initial experience, my friend tried to act as if he could handle this. He put up a strong front of a man doing what strong men do--bury your hurt and buck up an be strong! His wife returned to God and pursued Him with all her heart. He became harder, more stubborn and more determined to do this on his own. It was vain but again, it was a necessary part of the picture. He started drinking more, trying to dull the hurt. He played his music more staying out all hours of the night and then came the moment of truth.



After a Saturday night out where his rock-n-roll band performed out, he crashed on the couch after coming home at three-thirty in the morning. His wife got up while he slept off the night before and went to church. As he lay out in a state of unconsciousness, the television blared on a religious show. It was Jimmy Swaggart, an evangelist from Baton Rouge Louisiana. He awoke out of a deep slumber in time to hear that preacher say that it was time to quit running. It was time to run TO God and not away. He said God knew the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, and that He wanted to save, heal and forgive.



It struck a note in his heart. He began to cry. He went to the bedroom and dug out a Bible his preacher grandfather had given him earlier after his first brief encounter with the Lord. With tear filled eyes he went back to the couch and let the book fall open. It fell open to the book of Revelation chapter two. He began to read, " Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works...."

He mind went back to when he first met Christ, the joy, the forgiveness, the freedom, and the peace. What happened? How do you walk away from that? He cried out to the Lord on his knees right there at his couch in the living room. He experienced the love of God again forgive his sin and take him back. He made a commitment to walk with Christ and love and serve Him if He would forgive him. He felt the very peace and presence of God roll over his soul and wash away every sin in his life. There was no doubt in his mind what God did and what it meant to him. This prayer meeting went on for about an hour amid tears of joy and shouts of victory.

When his wife came home from church that afternoon he met her at the door. He smiled and asked how was the service. A strange question cause he never asked before. She looked at him and then did a double take. She knew immediately something was different. That he was different. She asked him what was going on. He began to weep and laugh all at the same time as he told her of his experience of coming back to Jesus. They embraced and wept together as a new part of the puzzle had just been filled in by the Master Builder. A piece of great light and revelation had come forth and the picture was getting clearer.

He did do his first works again. He got water baptized, found a local church to get involved in, where he could grow and be fed, but best of all he fell in love with Jesus all over again. This isn't a fairy tale. It's not ...and they all lived happily ever after... In fact things just now get interesting as there is much more of this puzzle to come.

Part two of this will continue next week as the puzzle called life came together. I want to share it with you because I believe it could help you in your journey. You may be puzzled by this puzzle called life. I am not sure I can help you with answers but I want to help you see the BIG picture so you don't get lost in the pieces....God Bless!

Eat Your Peas!

It's funny how we think and the changes in how we think with time and experience. The stuff we thought important at one time fall by the wayside, and the stuff I deem important today may not be important at all tommorrow. Conversely, the things I think unimportant right now may become ALL important down the road. I remember how angry or frustrated I could get when I thought one of my kids was wasting an opportunity or giving up on a pursuit I thought important.

I remember when my son quit the Pop Warner football team and how agitated I became with him because I felt he was very good and giving up on something that he should stick with. Now I realize it was probably my own dream I was chasing as I vicariously wanted to see my own dream of achieving football success through him. You see, I was pretty good too and quit on my dream when I could have went to college and taken it to another level but decided to go another direction with my life.

I remember when my daughter decided to give up the cello. She was pretty good too and her teacher was one of the best in the region. Her instructor played in the symphony and told us that talented cello players were few and far between and schools would gladly give scholarships to those who come to their schools to play. But she decided to give it up and it really frustrated me. Honestly, I didn't really care that much about the cello, but I cared alot about that scholarship. Again, perhaps, it was more my own failure than hers. From an early age I was a musician too. I learned to play a guitar at the age of 10 or 11. I remember my first guitar, a Silvertone solid body electric. My dad taught me to play as he himself was pretty good and played in a band on weekends for fun and extra income.


In the early years I devoted myself to playing my guitar day and night, night and day. I was getting pretty good and could play the top 40 of most anything in those days of 70's rock'n'roll. I had my own little band, several actually, and eventually ended up joining the musicians union and playing with my dad's band every weekend. But again, I stopped applying myself when I started making a little money and music stopped being a PASSION I pursued and just a JOB I performed. Alas, another opportunity wasted, another gift left virtually unwrapped. I wish I would have taken lessons, sat under the best, and really done something with the talent I have been given. But I didn't and It is just another thing I wonder what could have been...



You see now what I meant in my opening statement. I don't think I was ever disappointed in my kids, it was a floating disappointment within myself that I had a hard time putting my finger on until lately. When you are young you live in the moment and the moments change. You change, you are molded by those moments and actually become a product of your choices and the impact they have on you. It is easy to run to and fro and difficult to stay fixed and purposeful in your life. Instead of doing ONE thing well, we settle for a MYRIAD of things done partially well or even haphazardly at times because we put too much on our plate. It is hard to be a specialist at hodgepodge! In the real world we don't look for a specialist of multitudinous of multiplicities when we are sick. We want someone who knows our particular problem or situation inside and out and can give or do specific things to help us. We do not want generalization or approximation, we want specifics!



Then why aren't we more specific? I ask myself why haven't I been more aimed and determined? David said in Psalm 27:4, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple" Because anything less is a waste of talent, a waste of time, a waste of life. I hate waste. Waste not--want not. That's how I was raised. I know that is not an actual Bible verse, but it should be right over there next to 'cleanliness is next to godliness'. This has really been rolling over me this week. I remembered a time when Cassandra, my daughter, was 4 years old. She was what I would consider a good eater as long as you fed her want she wanted.




She was a very picky eater to say the least. For example, she absolutely hated onions with a passion. If she saw them in or on or even in the vicnity of her food she would turn up her nose and leave the food in disgust. BUT! She loved salsa, a dish filled with raw onion.



Back in the early to mid 1980's Chi Chi's restaurant was very popular as a Tex-mex eatery. At least once a week from the time that she was eating table food we visited Chi CHi's which was close to our home in Indianapolis where I was a pastor. She literally grew up eating this salsa by the bowl full. Once when we had friends at our church for a revival meeting Cass and our evangelists' daughter who was the same age as Cass, about 3, got into a fight over the salsa dish while we got lost in conversation. Lauren reached over and grabbed her arm and bit a huge, hard bite on Cassie's arm trying to defend her bowl of salsa. Later, after we got them quieted down and got them each their own bowl of salsa, we looked over and they both had the bowls tipped up to their mouths drinking it like fine wine. It was hilarious!




Isn't it funny how she would not touch and onion in anything else but when it came to salsa she ate it voraciously. Well, once at the dinner table at the age of 4, we were enjoying a rare meal at home. I believe it was pork chops, one of my personal favorites. Along with it, Terri had made potatoes and green peas. We dished out her plate with a chop, some potatoes, and a helping of green peas. She ate the chop, devoured the potatoes and would not touch the peas. She went to excuse herself from the table and I stopped her and said "Wait a minute girl, you're not going anywhere till you eat those peas." She started to cry, being the sensitive girl she is. But even in tears she was not going to eat those peas. I scolded her and told her how hungry little children were in third world countries and how we simply could not waste this food. I told her how good those peas were for her and how she needed to learn to like them.





Finally I pushed a few peas off to the side and gave her a compromise. You eat just these few peas and you can be excused. She put some them in her mouth and then said she needed to go to the bathroom. Unbeknownst to me, she had pushed them into her chubby little cheeks and went into the bathroom and spit them out. I finally ended this standoff and the fact is she won. I could not best a 4 year old at the dinner table and what is really bad is she outsmarted me! She ate NO peas and outside of some emotional scarring, she walked away unscathed. To this day she still wouldn't eat a pea for any reason under any circumstance.

I wonder how many times God has put peas on my plate in my life and invited me to eat. Yet I turned my nose up and wasted a valuable experience or blessing because it simply didn't appeal to me. Some things we love, like a great dessert, we would never pass. But what about your peas. What about those things you don't like, you may even have a distaste for. Will you eat? How does prayer taste to you, how much do you LOVE to fast? How much do you savor fellowship with people who you may not pick as friends, but they need you and they need your ministry. He will not force ANYTHING on us, He's so much smarter than I as a loving father. But He has some things for you that you need, and that you may not like, but go ahead and eat anyway, don't waste ANY of His goodness! It is necessary for your growth, it is important for your BALANCE.

My next blog I want to share with you about a waste that changed my life. Bless you and remember: EAT YOUR PEAS!

Drifting

Have you ever had that certain sinking feeling deep in your insides as you realized you just did something really stupid and there was nothing you could do now but watch it unfold right before your eyes. It is a really sick feeling.

I mentioned in my first blog my addictive personality. I don't do anything casually. For example, I love boats. But it is a disease for me and not just a casual affair. So instead own owning a boat or two, I've owned at last count a total of 14 boats. All but one have been Sea Ray's and my last one was over 45' long and would comfortably sleep 6. It had two 454 cubic inch engines and weighed in at over 22,000 pounds. When cruising Lake Michigan, as we often did, it got one-half mile to the gallon at cruise speed. It held 300 gallons of fuel and was a gas pumps best friend.

But I love boats! Probably more than I should. Once coming in off the lake one afternoon, the weather was getting bad. The wind picked up and the current in the river where our dock was was swift and swirling. The thing about a boat that size is you have to keep it under power because once at the mercy of the wind and current it is impossible to control. As a good captain you pride yourself on nice smooth dockings and it comes rather easy with time and practice.

One form of entertainment for me around the docks was to watch people bring in boats in challenging winds and currents. The "newbies" put many scratches and dents on brand new boats due to lack of experience. Sometimes watching someone put a boat in a slip sideways was very entertaining! But not when it was MY boat.

As I was turning the boat into the slip I accidently took it out of gear for a second and the wind and current spun the boat entirely in the wrong direction. On my left was a brand new boat worth about 600,000 dollars. On my left was another brand new boat worth about 850,000 thousand dollars! My options were few. Let the boat drift into one of these brand new boats or ram it into the slip knowing I would probably ram the pier and do damage to my own boat. Well I chose the later. Putting both engines into forward gear I rammed the gas and aimed the boat to the back of the dock. Sure enough, I watched in horror, helpless, as the bow of the boat headed to the piling with the bow pulpit heading for a huge crash. Your anchor is mounted up there and in a boat that size it is no small thing.

The anchor caught the piling and the loudest bang I have ever heard from a docking boat came booming from the front of my boat. My stomach was sinking, my eyes were almost in tears and my heart was pounding like a bass drum on July 4th. I hurriedly got control of the boat after bouncing it off the pier and managed to get it into the slip. I couldn't hardly bare to make the walk up to the bow to see what damage had been done. But after securing the boat and heading up front, I was amazed. The only damage was a bent anchor and a bent anchor bracket! I was so fortunate. I uttered an little prayer of thanksgiving under my breath and thought to myself, "what a great captain I am."

Why is it we allow ourselves to drift along until something happens out of our control and then we helplessly watch as the consequences unfold before our eyes and our stomach sinks in that awful feeling of despair. I realize that in so many important things in my life I have been passive, complacent, and even careless at times. I have been "shipwrecked" simply because I didn't give due diligence to the important things, the small things that mean so much to our life before God.

The thought that birthed this whole blog came as I realized today that this month I will turn 53 years old. Over a half century old, more than one half my life behind me and still I feel there is so much I have yet to do. I want to preach 2,000 more messages, lead 20,000 more people to Christ, sing 60,000 more songs of praise and worship to our God, and above all else I want to sit in the congregation when my daughter, Cassandra, sings one more song for Jesus and then my son, Dan, steps up and ministers the Word of God in power and demonstration of the Spirit. When all that is done I feel I can go home then.

But until then I have to shake off any tendecy to drift. I must live with purpose and become all that the Father has destined for me to become. I am done with that "sinking" feeling and I challenge you to come up a little higher with me. Life is not a "lazy river" that just casually gets you to your destination. But it is a more like the Colorado river and your going UPSTREAM. But you can do it! You can make it! Keep your heart with all dilligence for out of it are the issues of life.

In closing I want to leave you with the words of E.M. Bounds:

“We are constantly in a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. The trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more than anything else. Men are God’s method. The church keeps looking for better methods; God keeps looking for better men.”

God bless! He's looking for YOU!


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Back To School

Being my first blog, I should write something extremely witty and insightful. After all, that's my goal for this blog, to write deep and profound truths that will engage you, challenge you, and inspire you. Much of what I will share here will be major mistakes that I have made and learned hard and valuable lessons along the way.

You know what they say about God's tests, "you never fail one of God's tests....you just keep taking it over and over again until you pass." I love the feeling of acing a test, but rarely has that ever been my experience. At the age of 52, I'm still taking some tests that I just can't seem to pass.

I remember at the age of 41, I became obsessed with a desire to fly small airplanes. I enrolled at the local airfield for ground school and shortly therafter I was flying in cool, crisp air, enjoying life from a whole new perspective. As with most things, having an addictive personality, I was picking out an airplane to purchase so I could fly without the restraints of available planes. My pick was a Cessna 206, a 6 seater with great take-off and landing capabilities and all the equipment I needed to get my instrument rating with. I was so proud of this plane and outside of the tension it introduced into my marriage(we'll address that issue in another blog), it was the perfect plane for my mission.

I flew this plane as often as I could, almost daily. I logged several hundred hours of time with an instructor in the pursuit of this instrument rating. You see, it is relativly easy to get a pilot's liscense with a VFR rating. That means as long as conditions are such that visibility is excellent and the sky is clear you can fly according to Visual Flight Rules. But it is a whole other brand of flying where you fly "blind" because conditions are so bad outside the plane, the only thing you trust are your instruments inside the plane.

This was something that required much patience on my part, not a strong family trait, for I spent many hours "under the hood". Meaning, I put on this device that enabled me only to see my instruments and cut me off from the outside world visually. So here I am on beautiful clear days flying under a hood, making every approach and landing, within 200 fet of the ground, trusting only my instruments because I cannot 'see' anything but guages.

Instrument flying is alot like faith. Life seems to be so easy when things are clear, even 'sunny'. Faith is so easy to live with when you don't need it. Most days you can fly an airplane and never need to even look at your instruments and for most of our lives we don't need our faith. We just fly by the seat of our pants, for everything is smooth sailing. But then............

One day, after many hours of training, and two frustrating failed attempts to pass my instrument inflight test, with the FAA inspector, I did pass. I got my instrument flight rating and it gave me the right to fly in instrument conditions. It was a right I hoped I would never need but if it arose I was ready.

On a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon my wife, my son, his friend and myself left Gary airport for a flight to northen Wisconsin to take the two boys to a week long wrestling camp. The flight up was uneventful. Beautiful skies, smooth air, and lights winds made for a nice trip. When we landed I fueled up, picked up my rental car and drove the boys to camp. We enjoyed a nice lunch, drove back to the airport and made ready for the return flight home. I went in to the office to file a flight plan and check the weather because conditions had deteriorated considerably.

On the weather plotter a rather large band of storms with alot of thunder and lightning was moving from the south right over Chicago. The best course of action was to fly southwest, out of the way, letting the storms pass to the northeast and fly up behind them back into Gary. It was a marvelous plan that worked out very well. We could see the fierceness of the storms from a safe distance away and made our way around them and headed into the airport. All of my hours of training and test taking was finally paying off, I had averted some very dangerous weather and while tense at times was nearing home when the worst possible event took place.

Gary airport is located on the southern most tip of Lake Michigan. People rarely understand that while Indiana's most beautiful asset, it also has a tremendous impact on our weather as well. For example, we get snow, winds, and weather that no one else gets simply because of this large mass of water.

As I was making my final approach to the airport a thick, dense, and impenetrable fog moved in just ahead of me. So Chicago central, the people who control all the areas' air traiffic had no information nor help to offer me. This was it. It was my first time I would have to do an instrument landing in terrible conditions. My wife was understandbly nervous, my own heart was pounding in my chest. I calmed myself, drew a deep breath and assured myself that this is what all those hundreds of hours of training was for and I was ready.

I got my instrument approach sheet out and put myself on the marker to make my approach in what continued to worsen as the fog grew thicker and denser. As I made my first appraoch everything was going perfect except for one thing, after breaking out 200 feet above the runway, I had no visual of the runway. According to the rules, if after your intial approach and you are 200 feet above the runway and you have no visual you must abort and try again. So that is what I did. I pulled up, contacted Chicago center, and announced a second attempt to land.

All of my training had not really prepared me for the mental stress that I was feeling at that moment. Mentally, I was wishing I had never taken up flying because now, not just my life but my dear precious wife's life was hanging in the balance. My mind was speeding like an Indy car around the same track....what if? I saw in my mind the next days headlines announcing a small plane accident that claimed the life of two. I saw my two children receiving the dreadful news of a terrible accident.

But then I realized that training isn't just about doing the right thing, although that is what you train for. It is about NOT doing the wrong thing! I realized that at that moment the wrong thing was to panic, the wrong thing was to try and force this plane down in bad conditions. I assured myself there was a way out of this, even though outside my window was just the thickest blanket of fog I had ever seen.

I brought the plane around the marker and made my second approach. Things were no better, in fact they were worse. I had turned on the runway lights, something you do remotely with your radio button, and on my final appraoch never even saw a glimmer of runway. I pulled up, my wife was was now visibly shaken and nearly in tears. I reached over and patted her and gave her a firm and calm assurance that we were going to be alright. She said, " Mike you can't even see the runway and I can't either. How can you say it is going to be alright?" I told her we were leaving the Gary airport and would land at another port with better conditions.

I called Chicago control and asked for conditions at nearby airports. All close were under the same weather conditions so I announced to control I was going to South Bend. We flew the 30 minutes to South Bend and flew into the most beautiful clear night I had ever seen. After we landed my wife got out and literally kissed the ground. We got a room and the next day came back into Gary in perfect conditions.

You could say that I didn't pass the test in one sense. I didn't get that plane on the ground in Gary in those conditions. I refused to force a landing that I later found out was impossible. Upon returning I learned the airport was closed after my last attempt for conditions were zero zero. That means zero visibility and zero chance of landing. What all my training did teach me is that there is always a way out. It may not be the way you want out, but there is always a way out.

Some of you are sailing along right now and things are great. Enjoy the ride!

Some of you have flown into some pretty miserable conditions. For the first time you really need faith. To look out the window all you see is a foreboding of difficult things to come. The important thing for you now is not to resort to your feelings, not to react to what you see with your physical or natural eye. If life's tests have taught me anything, it is that there is always a way out. All your training and all your preparation may not help you in what to do, but it is what you DON'T do that may save your life.