Nothing (Without You)

A little over a week ago I noticed a little place on my right calf that looked like an insect bite. The skin around it was red and swollen and my entire calf was sore. I assumed that I had been bitten by a spider while goofing around in the garage on Thursday. I took Benadryl and Naproxen and thought nothing of it.

Last Saturday it got worse. The redness spread down towards my ankle and the swelling extended around my leg. The “bite” expanded to the size of my pinkie nail and started to fester.

By Sunday morning the redness and infection had taken over my whole leg. The “bite” was now the size of a dime. I promptly got up and went to the Emergency Room. They cut it open and mashed it and did all sorts of things that made me feel just great. They gave me an antibiotic and some Tylenol with Codeine and told me to come back for a follow up on Monday.

The doctor came in Monday morning and immediately admitted me to the hospital. I had contracted a lovely little condition known as MRSA . They put an IV in my arm and dosed me up with some serious antibiotics. The ones they had given me on Sunday were basically useless…I might as well have eaten some PEZ.

During the course of the day it was also discovered that: 1) my blood sugar was high, 2) my blood pressure was high and 3) my good cholesterol count was out of whack. So…I hit the health care trifecta. I spent three days in the hospital and now have to take about 1400 pills every morning.

Yesterday afternoon I made the mistake of taking my meds on an empty stomach. If you are ever considering this…hear me out.

DON’T !!!!

I was about as sick as I have been since we all contracted salmonella in Elizabeth City…but that is another story and an altogether different (more evil) kind of sick. The bad thing was that I hadn’t eaten so there was no food in my stomach. Think about it for a minute. Throwing up food is bad enough…but throwing up and yielding nothing but bile and stomach acid is on another level…a very bad level. Then there were the cramps that came along with being curled up on the bathroom floor in the fetal position. A very humbling end to an interesting week.

So…one week later…how do I feel?

My leg is still sore. We have to redress and repack (yes, repack) the wound every day. These medicines are seriously making me nauseous…but I’ve been told that goes away once you get used to them. I’m still sore from the puking and from the bedridden state I was in for the early part of the week. I have ended my life-long stance of protecting spiders though. I used to vehemently defend them and tell people about all of their contributions to society. Now…I just squash them.

Sat Dec 23, 10:48 AM ET

A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district’s decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation.
The man, who was not immediately identified, on Friday also set fire to a Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica, said Fire Captain Garth Milam.
Seeing the flames, Sheriff’s Deputy Lance Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the man.
Flames were devouring a Christmas tree next to the Liberty Bell, where public events and demonstrations are common.
Beside the tree the man stood with an American flag draped around his shoulders and a red gas can over his head.
Seeing the deputy, the man poured the liquid over his head. He quickly burst into flames when the fumes from the gas met the flames from the tree.
The deputy ordered the man to drop to the ground as he and a parole agent sprayed him with fire extinguishers.
“The man stood there like this,” the deputy said with his arms across his chest and his head bent down, “Saying no, no, no.”
The man suffered first degree burns on his shoulders and arms, Milam said.
Kern County Sheriff’s Deputy John Leyendecker said the man had a sign that read: “**** the religious establishment and KHSD.”
On Thursday, the Kern High School Board of Trustees voted to use the names Christmas and Easter instead of winter and spring breaks.

Okay…I admit it…I don’t get it. I can understand someone being upset that a school was using terminology that offended him. I can understand a non-Christian being upset over Christian terms. I can even understand someone being compelled to protest such an action. But setting yourself on fire? Really…is that the brightest (no pun intended) way to draw attention to your cause?

I’ve seen the photos of those Buddhist monks lighting themselves on fire in protest of the war in Vietnam. I’ve read stories of others doing the same sort of thing to draw attention to various atrocities. It’s not like setting yourself on fire is unheard of. But…isn’t it a bit extreme to do so because some school called it “Christmas” break instead of Winter break?

I’ll be honest…I’d be kinda ticked if they used other religious terms so I can empathize with those who don’t want Christian names attatched. But…setting yourself on fire?

I don’t know that there is anything I want to protest so badly that I’ll dowse myself in gasoline and flick my Bic. Poverty upsets me. World Hunger upsets me. The world-wide AIDS crisis upsets me. The joke that American politics has become upsets me. There are a LOT of things that tick me off…but I ain’t setting myself on fire for any of them.

How about you guys?

Evidentally I can preach. I’m not saying that to be arrogant, but apparently it is true. I had the opportunity to preach quite a few times before I came back to Bible college and I think I did okay in most of those situations. I can’t say that I really knew what I was doing though. Most of the sermons I preached before this year were thrown together or adapted from sermons I had heard elsewhere.

This semester I took an Into to Preaching class and learned how to structure topical and textual sermons. Over the course of the semester I had to write two sermons (one of each style) and preach them. I think I did fairly well. My instructor told me that both of my sermons were well constructed and organized. I’m not going to lie, that made me feel good. I’ve always wanted to be a writer but have struggled to find my outlet. After taking Public Speaking last year and Intro to Preaching this semester, I think I have found an area that I really enjoy and that I’m pretty good in.

The best thing about it is that I’m not wasting time when I spend it writing sermons. I learn from the research I put into them and others learn and are encouraged when I preach them. I’m learning that I can develop a preaching style of mine own and share Biblical truth in my own way. That’s been fun.

Preaching and writing sermons…fun…who would have ever guessed?

Well…two months have gone by rather quickly and I find myself looking at exams this week. It’s been a good semester for the most part. I stumbled a bit in my American Denominations & Cults class but it was due to laziness on my part. I really need to take the next four weeks and refocus before the next semester starts.

I just started a new ministry at a church near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s quite a bit closer than the church I was working with up in Virginia. I’m excited about being there and my family seems to be pretty happy about the switch too.

Well…I haven’t jumped on the blogging train quite like I wanted to. Part of that is because I am currently taking 17 hours while trying to be a husband, father and youth minister all at the same time.

The other reason is because I spend most of my time online at another site. I have a feeling that is about to change though. I have been posting there for over three years and my blog/journal there is one of the largest threads on the site. I have a lot of time and energy invested there and it’s hard to up and sever ties overnight.

I’m sick of the place though. It claims to be a Christian community but the fighting and bickering that goes on in its Theology Forum is embarrassing to the body of Christ. The bad thing is that it is starting to spill over into other areas and there really isn’t a way to stop it. I spent the better part of this afternoon watching a thread go from a Hindu girl asking honest questions about Christ, to an all-out war against Roman Catholics and anti-Catholics. Neither side put the welfare of that seeker first. Both sides just had to prove their point and forward their personal agendas. In my attempts to stop some of it I was accused of having a love-fest with a bunch of pagans. I just don’t think I want to be a part of a place that allows such things to go on in the name of Christ.

So…I will be trying to figure out how to translate my very “loose” style of posting to this very structured format. I hope that some of my compadres from that other site follow me over here so we can continue the fellowship that we’ve enjoyed for the past three years.

I’m sitting here in my underwear, listening to The Elms, drinking a Saranc Black Forest beer while my two sons watch Foster’s Home For Imaginary Monsters. My daughter has finally crashed and my lovely wife is still pulling her shift at McDonalds.

 Owen Thomas is singing a nice little song about how real men cry and want to have a heart like Jesus. I really do want to be a real man if that’s the case. I’ve been out of work for over two years now and even though I’m a full-time student and serve as a youth minister on the weekends, I sometimes feel like a failure as a man.

It’s not that I’m one of those super macho dudes that finds validation in sterotypical male fashion…I just feel like I’ve failed my wife and kids sometimes. Daddy is supposed to be the one out working to pay the bills. Mommy shouldn’t have to go put up with people in the drive-thru at Mickey D’s so Daddy can sit around and play on the internet during Summer break.

I guess I might be giving myself too much grief. My wife and I agreed to this arrangement before I ever went back to school and she seems fine with it but that doesn’t always make my guilt go away. I know that we planned it this way and that I only have four more semesters before I’m out…but sometimes I feel so lazy. I enjoy the freedom that I have right now. I feel like I may be taking my wife’s sacrifice in vain.

Which brings me to what’s REALLY bothering me these days.

God is too good to me. I know it…He knows it…we all know it. I don’t deserve the sacrifices He has made for me and yet I sit back and take advantage of them. It’s so much more than pulling a crap shift at McDonalds too. He was willing to give up His glory in heaven and come down here to put up with us. He was willing to die and make it possible for us to be with Him forever.

And here I sit…in my underwear…sipping my nice cold beer while my kids enjoy the digital cable TV that we really can’t afford. Why do I do it? Is it because I don’t know any better? Is it because I don’t know what He wants me to do? Or…and here’s where it gets scary…is it because I know His grace and mercy are there when I screw it all up?

I can almost justify my wife’s sacrifices because I am in school and I will eventually get a job that will support us. But what about God? How do I justify it? Why do I even try? More importantly…why does He keep putting up with it?

These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night.

This may end up taking the place of all my other blogs…we’ll see what happens over the next couple of weeks.