I have decided to discontinue the Monday Message series of posts. I will still be posting regularly (more regularly in fact) but I am not going to use the format of a weekly post to do it. Sometimes I feel like posting more frequently and others I am less profound in my comments so I am going to post as it comes to me.
Stay tuned for more and thanks for taking the time to read my blog! As the readership has grown over the past few months, I am touched that you find it worthy of your time to stop by and read what I have to say. Thanks!
Have you ever just screwed something up to the point that you weren’t sure you could undo what you had already done so that you could do something different? Did you follow that? See, I made a mess out of that sentence! This is that time of year when we tend to make resolutions and ‘new’ commitments to begin doing some things, stop doing others, and do some things better. Sadly, most of our commitments will lack the necessary resolve and will fade about the time the Super Bowl rolls around. Continue reading
I have spent some time recently reading through several passages and studying up on the incarnation of Christ. The incarnation is that incredible, one of a kind miracle, through which God came to earth as a man. For anyone who has been in church any length of time, the wonder of that statement can be somewhat lost. God came to earth as a man! There is no other event ever to occur in all of human history that compares to this miracle! It is unparalleled. Continue reading
At church Sunday, we finished up our series “Unveiling the Vision” where we revealed our e³ strategy. That’s basically our road map for how we execute the mission Jesus gave us in the Bible: “Doing whatever it takes to reach whoever we can with the hope we have in Jesus“. It’s pretty simple: three E’s:
Today, I am thinking about my son, Topher. He turned seven years old yesterday. It has me thinking back to the first few days he was with us. We had a normal pregnancy. Tab became more beautiful and I gained a ton of weight! We had no reason to suspect anything was awry.
Topher’s delivery was also completely normal. He scored high on all those initial tests they give a kid when they’re only minutes old – which I always thought was completely unfair because they haven’t had any time to study! Talk about a pop quiz! The nurses took him back and the next 24 hours went smoothly.
During the second night on his life, Topher went into serious breathing distress. His O2 levels dropped dangerously low, and the medical staff that was on at 3am swept in and took him from us. Delirious with fear, his mother and I spent the rest of the night at the nurses station watching our brand new child struggle to gulp in the air he so desperately needed.
Tests were run the following day and a pediatric cardiologist found an atrioventricular defect in Topher’s heart. It’s a kind of hole in the heart where fluid won’t stay where it should and instead backs up in the lungs causing congestive heart failure. This type of defect was typically seen only in kids with another type of genetic condition. The geneticist did his work and three days later they confirmed that Topher has Down Syndrome.
In one moment – an instant – everything about our expectations had changed. The situation had been what it was all of Topher’s time in the womb, but we just found out about it. Those early days, we had many unbelievable fears. Even now, we can’t fully see God’s infinite plan concerning our son. But Tabitha and I both can assure you that God is in control! I wonder how Joseph felt when his brothers did this? He had this cool dream where his brothers all bowed down to him and stuff – it was cool! I’m sure he must have scratched his head a time or two and questioned whether or It was a long time before he saw God’s plan unfold and could say this!
I have rambled a lot more than I intended. I guess I am just thankful today. Topher turned 7 yesterday and it just has me thinking about how awesome God is and what an amazing gift the lens of hindsight provides. I watched him dance at his party on Saturday and it makes me want to do a praise dance and just say thanks God!
