Daddy Won't Let You Fall!

Elijah & his 13 balloons for being brave
during the X-rays.

The past couple of months have been a blur. It's hard to believe that not even three months have gone by since Elijah's third surgery. He cruised right through it and is doing so well now. In fact, we joke that we're experiencing Elijah 3.0 now that we're on this side of his third surgery. He has more energy and more zeal for life than ever before. And he certainly talks more than he ever has. In fact, at dinner tonight he told me that he has some money (which he doesn't), and that he keeps it on the counter (which it's not) and that he'd like to buy some fruit with it (which he doesn't eat), and that he would like to put it in a big, tall bank someday (which I actually couldn't argue with). On most week days, he's chatting with me right up until I leave for work, and I can still hear his little voice sweetly ringing in my ears for most of my morning commute. I'm always amazed (and sometimes amused) when God uses little things that Elijah says to shed light on my relationship with Him. The one that has ministered to me most recently and most vividly came during our stay in the hospital for his most recent surgery. After he came out of the cardiac intensive care unit and was moved to the stepdown unit, Sarah and I were able to move out of the Ronald McDonald House and into his room with him. Every morning would start with a blood draw as early as 4 a.m., immediately followed by a trip to the radiology department for a chest X-ray. Seeing your  toddler startled awake at 4 a.m. by a needle stick in the arm and then rolling him downstairs and placing him on a hard table under bright lights and restraining him while a big, scary machine hovers over him is not (not, not, not) a pleasurable experience. While the machine and the lights were scary to him, it was the seemingly unstable nature of that table, having no side rails, that was the hardest for him to handle. The first time we placed him on that table, he clung to my arm so tightly that I thought we'd never un-pry him; the only thing I could think to tell him was that, "Daddy won't let you fall." I didn't even think he could hear me above his screaming, but I said it repeatedly without realizing it in the midst of the chaos of that first X-ray. The next morning, as we placed him on his mommy's lap in the wheelchair and started out of his room, his little voice made a declaration that I'll never forget: "Daddy won't let you fall! Daddy won't let you fall!" Over the next couple of days, those words became Elijah's battle cry as we rolled him out of his room, onto the elevator, down the long corridor to the radiology department and into the exam room. The urgency in his voice would intensify the closer we got to the scary table, until his proclamation was drowned by screams of protest. But something started to happen. With each passing day, he grew more and more brave and less and less afraid of the process. By the end of his stay, he would confidently declare that "Daddy won't let you fall!" just before I would lift him out of his mommy's lap and carry him to the table. Once on the table, he would hold my hands tighter than he ever did before his surgery, and he wouldn't let go the entire time. He would then calmly wait for me to pick him up and place him back in his mom's lap so that he could begin petitioning for his well-deserved reward--a colorful mylar balloon.

It will be a long time before my son understands how much of an impact his words had on me during those seven days. They carried me through some of the hardest and most intense moments of that hospital stay. For each of his three surgeries, there were moments when both Sarah and I felt that our world had completely crashed down, and that there was absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel. These moments mostly came when Elijah would take turns for the worse and send us and his care team scrambling. I'll never forget one of those moments in January 2009, days after his second surgery. We were living in the stepdown unit with Elijah and providing a lot of his care. Something was wrong with his digestive system, and he was struggling to keep his formula down, which was keeping us in the hospital longer than we wanted to be. No one had any answers, and we were at the end of our ropes. Feeling trapped, defeated and deflated, we both stepped out of his room and just a few steps outside of the main entrance of the unit so that none of the nurses could see us. Then we collapsed to the floor, and with our heads in our hands and tears streaming down our faces, we cried almost as hard as we did the day that we got his diagnosis just three months earlier. Little did I know that I needed the words that Elijah would use to comfort himself less than three years later: "Daddy won't let you fall!" All throughout the Bible, God reminds His children that He's in control no matter what our circumstances are. And more importantly, we can trust Him to hold us through those circumstances. During those daily trips to X-ray, Elijah became fully convinced that his dad would NOT let him fall off that table. He was so convinced that he used that promise--the very words that I first proclaimed to him--to prepare himself for what was coming. He was still scared, he still cried most days, but he was willing to go through it because he knew that his dad made a promise to him. When I think about the promises that God makes to us, His children, I can't help but to utter the same reminder to myself: "Daddy won't let you fall." On this side of Heaven, we're going to experience some pretty uncomfortable--and sometimes downright scary--things, but God's promise to us saved by His grace is this--He will not let us fall.

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:38-39

Meltdown on Aisle 4

Almost daily God shows me something about my character through the actions of my 22-month-old son. The tantrum he threw at the dinner table today is a perfect example, but I won't go into details about that one. Let's just say that we'll be discovering discarded chunks of green beans for quite some time.

The story that I actually want to share starts with a pink baby doll stroller (thankfully, I don't have many stories that start like that). This stroller is Elijah's favorite toy to play with at his Aunt G's house in Virginia. Almost immediately upon arriving for a visit, he begins the search for that miniature stroller and after locating it, you don't see him without it for the duration of the stay. He pushes it through the house. He pushes it outside in the driveway. He pushes it through the mulch and over Aunt G's flowers. He never stops pushing that stroller. And when it's time leave, it's us that's pushing it by asking him to leave that stroller behind. After a recent visit to Virginia, we had the bright idea of buying Elijah something that he could push around the house. He has a little lion with wheels, but it's a crossover--serving as something you push and something you ride--so it's confusing to him and definitely a far cry from that pink stroller. So we knew we needed to step up our game to trump ol' pinky. Sarah had the wonderful idea of a toy shopping cart. Elijah had seen her use a real one plenty of times, it would be the perfect height for him, and the basket would facilitate his newfound desire to hoard things such as his stuffed animals and our remote controls.

After a quick search, we found one on sale and were on our way home with the new purchase in no time. So excited to see his reaction, I went to work assembling it as soon as we got back to the house. Either my excitement was contagious, or Elijah could tell that the big box meant something big was headed his way. He barely let me remove all of the contents before he started grabbing parts of the stroller and asking his infamous question, "Wuzzat?" Sadly, I couldn't answer most of the "wuzzats?" because I had not yet found the instructions. It didn't matter because he was quickly drawn to the largest item that I pulled out of the box--the cart's frame, which thankfully was in one big piece instead of 10 smaller pieces! Before I could answer the "wuzzat" for that piece, my ambitious toddler was halfway across the living room pushing the large, plastic frame as fast as he could go. It was upside down and sliding across the floor, collecting every bit of toy debris in its path. Since the frame played a critical role in step one of the assembly, I quickly chased him down to retrieve the piece. I was not prepared for the response I got. Complete meltdown. My son went straight to the floor, rolling around and sobbing like a French soccer player. Somewhere between horrified and amused, I sensed the urgency to get this cart assembled ASAP. When the sobbing spell was over, Elijah immediately ran back over to the assembly line and tried to pull the frame out of my hands again. I didn't let go. Floor. More rolling. Even more sobbing. Fifteen minutes later, I had the cart together, and, having recovered from meltdown numero dos, Elijah was pushing that cart through the house like it was his job.

As Sarah and I watched him thoroughly enjoy his new toy, God saw a perfect opportunity to reveal a similarity in my own character to what I just witnessed with my son. So many times in my life, God will be building something awesome before my very eyes, and I'll recognize that it's for me and that it's going to be good. But my impatience consistently gets the best of me, and I'll grab it from His hands and take off running--with only a semi-functioning piece of the bigger plan. Sure, the piece I have will slide when I push it, but that's not how it's intended to work; instead the portion that I'm running with becomes more work for me because I don't have it facing the right way, I'm pushing the wrong end and collecting unwanted debris every step of the way. When God steps in and pulls the pieces back out of my hands, He will inevitably be greeted with a meltdown of cosmic proportions, and yes, I too have been known to sob like a French soccer player. All too often I lose sight of the fact that God ALWAYS sees the bigger picture and the finished product, while I only see the pieces most appealing to me and within my grasp. Too unwilling to wait and see what perfect gift He's building, I take whatever piece I can get my hands on, and I run with it.

Just as Sarah and I knew that toy shopping cart would bring Elijah such joy, God wants to introduce things in our lives that will do the same. And often, He'll build it before our eyes, not to tease us or tantalize us through every step of the building process but rather to get us to trust in His timing and develop patience, perseverance and even joy in the waiting and watching.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

The BlueTruth

I was on my way back to the office from my semi-daily lunch run to Bojangl...I mean Subway...the other day when a commotion in the parking garage caught my eye. A well-respected leader from my organization was standing outside of his car pacing back and forth, making rather erratic movements (imagine the drunkest guy at a wedding trying to do the Electric Slide and the Macarena at the same time). Conflicted by my desires to help him, restrain him and pretend like I didn't see him all at the same time, I kept going thinking that he would instead see me and stop. He didn't. I got to the door and took one more glance back in hopes that the combination of the 110-degree day and the aroma of the cajun chicken sandwich I was carrying was causing me to hallucinate. It was then that I realized this individual wasn't in fact having a breakdown, he was just having a conversation...on the phone...using that wonderful piece of technology we know as Bluetooth.


I've drawn a line in the sand when it comes to technology, and that line is the miniature device that we can place in our ears enabling us to talk on the phone completely hands-free. This device also enables us to make innocent bystanders feel very uncomfortable as we carry on our phone conversations in public places. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a store or standing in line at Bojangl...Subway...and have attempted to interact with someone who wasn't talking to me. Hear me on this, I'm one who takes social etiquette very seriously, and I'm proud of my ability to detect clues that tell me when something is or isn't socially acceptable (my wife will more than likely disagree with that statement). But how am I supposed to pick up on a clue that I can't see? When I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with someone looking at diapers in Target, and they say something like, "So what are you doing later today?", I'm naturally going to respond with something like, "Put all of these diapers on my son at one time to see if it can be done." Oh, but wait, they weren't even talking to me, and now I've put myself out there to look like the weirdo. Sure, I have my moments of weirdness, but they have a piece of metal attached to the side of their head wirelessly transmitting a signal to the phone in their pocket, and I'm supposed to recognize what's going on while avoiding eye contact and risking an awkward situation in the diaper aisle? Well, Bluetooth, you just made the situation awkward because now I have to rescue the situation by whispering "sorry" and pretending like I'm ashamed of myself for not respecting the technology. We didn't have this problem back when mobile phones were tethered to bags that plugged into the cigarette lighters of cars. For my younger readers, yes this was once a reality--cars had cigarette lighters and mobile phones were for the elite...mainly because the service plans cost $200/month for 15 minutes of talk time. But back then, if I was addressed in the diaper aisle it was because someone wanted to share a conversation with me or, more than likely, was trying to get me to sell Amway.


Maybe my line in the sand is unreasonable and it's time to rethink it. I vowed that I would never relinquish my VCR for a DVD player, but after a visit to Blockbuster one day back in 2002, I realized how much of a social outcast I had become. After winding my through the rows and rows of DVDs, I found the 10 VHS tapes they still had on the shelf. They were pretty much all movies that I owned, except for one that I believe to have escaped from the naughty room of Roy's Video Warehouse two doors down. I received my very first DVD player a short time later. I'm wondering if it's time to redraw my line in the sand of cell technology and face the BlueTruth of Bluetooth. 

A New Look at Tree Hugging

I'm the self-proclaimed king of ridiculous analogies. I usually start with a harmless little metaphor, and then I stretch the heck out of it, often until it becomes unrecognizable as a cohesive thought and eventually just falls apart, leaving me scrambling to remember why I went down that path to begin with. This post is NOT going to go like that. Oh, who am I kidding? It probably will. Just consider yourself warned.


Over the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to believe or trust in God with your head and not your heart. And yep, you probably guessed it, I've come up with one cheesy analogy after another to express those thoughts. The one that I keep going back to in my mind has to do with gravity. Ok, I'll be honest, I Googled gravity, and I didn't understand anything I read, so I'll just sum up gravity as the force that keeps us from floating into the atmosphere (And with that summary, I'm pretty sure I just offended my 11th grade physics teacher and the descendants of Sir Isaac Newton. Awesome.).


So, what's the difference between believing in gravity and trusting in gravity? Here comes the analogy. Imagine walking through your neighborhood one day and seeing your neighbor in his front yard holding on to a tree. I'm not talking about one arm slung around a branch here; he's down on the ground with his arms and legs wrapped around the tree, holding on for dear life. Intrigued by the sight of this, you walk into his yard and ask him why he's hugging the tree. Here's how that conversation goes:


You (if you don't like your neighbor): "What's up, weirdo?"
You (if you do like your neighbor): "What's up?"


Your neighbor (if he doesn't like you): "Get out of my yard."
Your neighbor (if he does like you): "Please get out of my yard."
Your neighbor (if he likes you; me being serious this time): "Hey neighbor! Nice day, huh?"


You: "Are you tied to that tree?"
Neighbor: "No, I'm holding on so that I don't float away."
You: "Are you full of helium?"
Neighbor: "No, that's ridiculous."
You: "I'm not holding on, and I'm not floating away. Yay gravity!"
Neighbor: "Don't take this the wrong way, but that's just your opinion."
You: "It's not an opinion, it's the truth."
Neighbor: "Well, it might be true for you, but it's not for me."
You: "Do you not believe in gravity?"
Neighbor: "Sure, I believe that there is something called gravity, I learned about it in school, and for the most part it's proven to be real, but I don't think we can know everything there is to know about it--just what we've been told."
You: "Haven't you been told that it will keep you from floating away?"
Neighbor: "Yes, and I believe that, but I'm still not letting go of this tree."
You: "Then you don't really believe that about gravity, because if you did, you would let go and trust it to do what you believe it will do."
Neighbor: "Get out of my yard."


Recently, I had a conversation with someone very close to me. She had made a big mistake and felt like God could never forgive her. However, she truly believes that God exists, that He loves the world and sent His Son to die for our sins. But when it came to her situation, she feels that she has messed up so badly, God couldn't possibly offer His forgiveness. I took that opportunity to share a little bit about my life, and how I related to God for the first 23 years. I shared how I believed all kinds of things about Him in my head but none of those things were real in my heart. Just like me, she was struggling with the same disconnect. It was no different than a person who believes in the existence and principles of gravity but who refuses to let go of a tree in fear that he'll float away. I explained that there is a big difference in believing in things with your head and allowing them to transform your heart. And I went on to share that God placed His punishment for every sin--past, present and future--on His Son, Jesus, and that when Jesus died on the cross, the debt of all mankind was paid in full. When we confess our sins and ask for His help in turning away from our sinful life, and ask for forgiveness and a new life in Jesus, we can have assurance that that God hears us, forgives us and makes us a new creation by His grace through faith. You can read more about that in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 and Ephesians 2:1-10.


I see the same analogy working for those who've become new creations but still have trouble trusting God and taking Him at His word. We're still clinging to trees, but we're doing it as children who struggle to believe that their Father is everything He says He is. He says that He'll provide for our needs, but we cling to the tree until we're absolutely sure that we'll be able to provide for our own needs. He says that hard times and tough circumstances will come our way but to not lose heart because He's with us every every step of the way. But we remain wrapped around the tree during the storm, unwilling to endure a little wind and rain as we run to a more secure and permanent shelter. He says that letting go and following Him wherever He leads us is the most important thing we can do in this life, but we cling to the safety and security we have found from years of holding on to the same tree. Each day, the Holy Spirit prompts us to let go, get up and move forward in trust, obedience and worship. We can do it, we just have to let go of the tree. You can read more about that in Luke 9:23 and Philippians 3:7-14.


Whether you're still questioning what it means to truly trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior, or you received Him long ago and have trouble following Him daily, ask the Lord to help you let go of your doubts and fears and instead walk confidently in the things that you've always believed to be true but have a hard time trusting in your heart.

Rescued from Religion

I'll never forget, it was the night before Easter of 2008. My wife was working feverishly in the kitchen preparing to host our first Easter dinner the next day. I, possessing not a drop of culinary talent, was supporting her from the other side of the counter--a safe distance away from all things breakable, burnable and prematurely eatable. Staring blankly into space, which is often what I do the closer it gets to midnight, I was hit with a thought that I've not forgotten since that very night. It was the realization that six years earlier, I had been rescued from the very religion that I thought would save me. This gave me a perspective on the first 24 years of my life that I never had before. 


From as early as I can remember, I was told that there was a God, so I believed it. I was told that He had a son named Jesus, so I believed it. I was told that His son died on the cross for my sins, so I believed it. I was told that the Bible was my instruction manual for living, so I believed it. But I had no idea how any of that actually applied to daily life, other than the fact that I was guaranteed a spot in Heaven when I died if and only if I agreed to all the above. So, I proudly carried the title of Christian with me until the day came when I realized I had no idea what it meant to truly believe in God. That day was September 11, 2001. A year prior, I had turned down a job that would've had me working in the Pentagon when America was attacked. Instead, I was safely watching the unforgettable scenes on TV six hours away. It was at that very moment I realized that God only existed in my head and not my heart. I had no idea what it meant to need Jesus as a Savior, even though I could tell you that He did in fact save me from my sins. There was a disconnect, and I didn't know what to do about it. So, I said this to God, "If You're real, show me what You're all about." Over the next year, He did. With every passing day, He opened my eyes to see my need for salvation; He opened my ears to hear His voice all around me, and He opened my heart to receive the love, grace, mercy and forgiveness that He offers to all those willing to ask for it. And what I came to realize on the night before Easter six years later was that He had rescued me from religion and saved me with a relationship.