I saw Jesus at a track meet today

Today I went and watched my daughter Haley compete in a track meet at East Coweta High School. All of the elementary schools in our area got to compete at the High School in Track and Field events. Haley ran in the obstacle course, the 50 meter dash and the 400 meter relay. I absolutely loved watching her compete. This was the first time she has ever done anything like this before and I thought she did great. Her group came in second in the obstacle course for her age group. The 50 meter dash didn't go so well for her. She got a little out of sync because of a false start and started off on the wrong foot, literally. She had the wrong foot out front and it made for an awkward start. That slowed her down out the gate and made it too hard to catch up. She was so upset when she was finished and it broke my heart. She did however rebound in the 400 meter relay. She ran the second leg of the race and was able to hold her own. I was really impressed that she actually looks like a runner. She has a very lean frame and runs with long strides. She's not graced with magnificent speed but she did great for being a Bryant. But with all that being said, her accomplishments on the track weren't the best part of her today. As the events were taking place the kids that were waiting to compete sat in the stands in a big group of purple t-shirts cheering and yelling for the other kids on the track and on the field. During the girls 400 meter there were three girls from Haley's school running, each in different heats. The first girl came in second place and the second girl won her heat. The third girl, Delaney, however did not fare so well. She started strong but appeared to either get hurt about half way or got a cramp in her side. All of the other girls in her heat finished several seconds ahead and poor Delaney was almost at a complete stop with 50 meters left. The little girl was so far behind that all the cheering for all the girls had stopped because it looked like everyone was done. But little Delaney was still trying to muster the strength to finish. Then Jesus showed up. Out of the quiet crowd I hear Haley stand up and yell, "Hey everyone, stand up and cheer for Delaney! Get up and cheer for Delaney!" At her prompting the whole crowd of kids from Canongate Elementary got up and yelled for the lone runner on the track. She finished to an uproar despite being dead last and grimacing in pain. I was so proud of my little girl for what she did. I know it wasn't much, but to know that she was pulling for her friend no matter what the outcome made me tear up in the stands. That is what Jesus would have done and what He does in all of our lives. He cheers for us when we are tired, hurting and coming in last place. But there He is, always supporting, always cheering and always loving us no matter what our position in life is. I'm thankful that His spirit lives in my daughter's heart and I'm thankful I have a relationship with Him that lets me see Him on a daily basis, even if it is at a track meet.

Get Up!

I was crazy enough to register to run in the Peachtree this year. Not real sure what I was thinking. I guess I've always wanted to say that I've done it and with the thoughts of my mortality kind of thrust in my face lately, I figured there was no time like the present. It's not that I mind running (or I guess jogging is a better term), it's that I do it from the comfort of my own home on a treadmill, with a built-in fan and ESPN on the TV in front of me. And I usually only trudge along for 2 miles at a time, two or three times a week. But now I have this event looming in the future. 6.2 miles of hot, humid, crowded and hilly terrain. And someone will actually keep up with how long it takes me. And I'm sure people will ask me as well. So with this in mind, I have been preparing myself for a more advanced running workout. I have been trying to increase my distance just to get my stamina up. But an odd thing started happening to me last week. All of my joints started to ache. And I don't mean a little. I mean A LOT. It started with my knees, both of them. Next my hands and fingers got really sore and stiff. They were swollen and I had trouble getting my wedding ring on and off my finger. Then the pain moved to my shoulder sockets and my hips. What the hell was happening to me? I felt as if I had aged thirty years in one week. Then the paranoia set in. Was this a complication from the cancer? Was it really spreading to all of my bones just like they said it could? Was I having a reaction to the thyroid medicine I was taking? Was it the barometric pressure from the oncoming storm moving across the country? I woke up every morning like I had just had my butt whipped and I was so tired. I wasn't resting well because all of my joints were killing me and I tossed and turned all night. The LAST thing I wanted to do in the mornings was get up at 5:00 am and get on that stupid treadmill. Then Friday morning when the alarm had gone off half a dozen times I finally told myself, "GET UP!!!" And I did. And I managed to get 2 miles in on the treadmill before I had to get ready for work. And It hurt. But I realized that if I continue to talk myself out of running and I keep making excuses to not get up, that I'll just make it a habit of not getting up and pretty soon I would just give up. And then the Peachtree would be upon me and I would not have trained and I would probably just not go and waste a perfectly good opportunity to accomplish a goal of mine that I've had for a long time. And what a flippin' waste that would be. So as I drove to work later that day with my knees and hips and shoulders and fingers aching like I was a hundred years old, I got to thinking about God again. Which is something I've been doing a lot more lately. My relationship with God is so very much like what I have been going through lately. We all have this date with destiny where we go and meet our maker and we stand before Him. And along the way God begs us to talk to Him, to know Him, to walk with Him, to pray to Him, and to be in a relationship with Him. And throughout my life, it has seemed that every time I sign up to get ready to get close to Him, something gets in the way. The aches and pains of life get in the way and make me tired and sore and lazy. I get frustrated with missed opportunities, mad about things that didn't go my way and scared about sicknesses that come out of nowhere. And all of these things are tools of the devil that he uses to keep us from that sweet, sweet relationship that we strive to have with God and His son Jesus. And I realized that instead of yelling at myself to "GET UP!" that I actually have to tell my self to "GET DOWN!" Get down on my knees and lay all my worries, fears, and failures at the feet of my God. Tell God what He already knows about me but what He so desperately wants to hear from me personally. It's kind of like what my kids eat at school for lunch each day. I ask them everyday what they had for lunch. Why? I don't care at all what they ate. And for that matter, I could just as easily look on the monthly school lunch calendar that is posted in our kitchen and see what they ate that day. But there is something so sweet to hear that my little boy chose to eat Rib-a-que, as he calls it, and to laugh with him and hear Haley say how gross it is. And I tell Britton that I love it too, and that I would have picked Rib-a-que to eat if I were there. And we talk and share a moment about absolutely nothing important in life. And I love it. God is the same way. He wants me to get down on my knees and tell him about the most mundane aspects of my life. But He also wants to hear the things that are really on my mind and are bothering me. I need to tell Him that I'm worried that the cancer has spread all over my body, even though I know it's not true. I need to tell him that I need His gift of wisdom at work and that I'm afraid of failing the people that depend on me. I need to tell Him I am thankful for all of the wonderful people in my life that are praying for me and my family and that their encouragement has meant so much to me. I need to tell Him that I simply need Him. So, as the Peachtree quickly approaches I keep running. And I keep telling myself to "Get up." And as life continues to come at me with all its surprises, I keep praying. And I keep telling myself when things are scary, or strange or even good, to "Get down" and talk to God.

Waiting To Be A Hero

If you didn't know, I am the coach of Charlie Brown's baseball team. Some of you will understand that and some won't. Because of a lack of time and energy, I won't begin ranting about the trials and tribulations of coaching my son's T Ball team. However, last Monday night it did give me an opportunity to get in touch with God on a different level. My son Britton is playing on a 5 and 6 year old T Ball team as a 4 year old. Not because I thought he was that good or anything, it's because I wanted him to play on a team where there were winners and more importantly, losers. His age group is set up where everyone bats every inning, they only play 2 innings and they don't keep score. I thought Britton needed a little dose of reality. It looks like I'm the one that has reality beat up side my head twice a week as I watch Charlie Brown take the mound and Linus run out to the field with his blanket. Anyway, as coach I have the opportunity to put the kids in different positions on the field. Sometimes according to their skill level, sometimes not. The other night I put Britton at second base. His skill level and attention span is more suited for deep left field but he was at second base non the less. I realized that I wanted my son to have a chance to fail. I wanted Britton to be given a chance to play in a glamour position. I had the power to put him where ever I wanted. I could have put him in deep left where he would be safe but then I realized that I wanted Britton to be a hero. I wanted to give him a task that was much bigger than he was so that he could be in a position to be a hero. I knew that he probably wouldn't be able to stop anything hit to him. And if he did he probably wouldn't be too accurate with a throw to first base. But what if he did? How awesome would that have been? Not only for him and his self-confidence, but also for me as his dad. That's when God whispered again. I had the realization that maybe God has put me in a position that is much bigger than I am. He has given me something that I can't fix on my own. He has put me in a position in life where I am relying on Him for strength and guidance and hope. God has put me at second base to see if I can field what comes my way. And He is right there by my side pulling for me every second to make the play and be the hero.

Fighting False Hope

So I get this weird call from the oncologist at Emory on Friday morning. He calls to see if I had heard from anybody else at Emory and to tell me that the tumor board met that morning to discuss my case. He said that everyone still feels that surgery to remove the lymph nodes is the proper course of action and that I should be hearing from the surgeon at Emory soon. He also says that I will have to have some more tests done in the way of an MRI or a CAT scan on my lymph nodes since it appears that the ultrasound was not very conclusive. They want to make sure that there is in fact cancer cells that have spread to the lymph nodes. I thought that was strange so I asked him if the cancer wasn't found in the lymph nodes, then what could be showing up on the body scans. He told me that sometimes that parathyroids take up the radioactive iodine even though there are no cancer cells present. This would give a reading of something there that really wasn't. After hearing that he began to sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. I conveniently forgot that the blood work still showed that there are still active cancer cells in my body and that there is still a very real chance and a high probability that I will have surgery again soon. But for just a few moments I had hope. The first thing I wanted to do was call Lori and tell her what he said. I had to preface the conversation with things like, "There is a slight possibility," and "He didn't actually say this, but...." And then my own self doubt began to set in. Surely there was no way that the cancer hadn't actually spread, that would be way too easy and way too amazing and way too awesome. So I kind of pushed all that to the back of my mind and tried to forget I had heard anything at all. I really didn't want to set myself up for disappointment or a let down. I had to remain logical about this whole thing and stay grounded. That's been the story of my life. Logical and grounded. Don't take risks. Never give anybody a reason to ever say, " I told you so." But this notion of being safe has been gnawing at me for a while now. It started earlier last week when I had a bid that I had to turn in on Tuesday to Fayette County for an intersection improvement near where Lori grew up. I was pretty aggressive on the bid and was cutting money out left and right before I had to turn the thing in. That is so not like me. I usually scare myself to death thinking I am going to screw the thing up and leave way too much money on the table and make myself look like a fool in front of the other bidders. I usually end up adding money at the last minute to cover myself just in case. You know, don't give someone a reason to say, "I told you so." But this time it was different. I had a different mind set. Every since this whole cancer thing my attitude has been more of, "How bad can it be? At least if I get a job for next to nothing, we will actually have a job to work on instead of wondering what could have been." And then there was the ride on the way to turn in the bid. I remember hearing something on the radio about taking great risks in life lead to great failures but also great rewards. I remember thinking to myself, "Not me, if I stay right in the middle, I'll have no great failures." And then the epiphany. I'll never have any great rewards. I have a deep down, all encompassing, fear of failure. Screw the huge payoffs as long as I don't actually fail. So this trip to Fayetteville to turn in a bid started a lot of internal debate and self-reflection. So I go to the bid opening and there are only three companies there. And of coarse I get the job and I have left a ton of money on the table. And I want to throw up in my mouth and tell the people there that I was just kidding and can I please have my stuff back now I really didn't mean it. But then I got to thinking. Hey you know what? I just got us some work that we really needed. I am pretty sure that I did my best and really, how bad can it be? Where in the world am I going with all of this? I realized that the best lessons in life for me have come when something usually went really wrong. I think back to all of my favorite stories that me and my football buddies like to tell. They don't come from days when things were easy and boring and nothing happened. They came from when times were tough and hard and not fun and now we look back and laugh and embellish and love every minute of it. Well now that can happen in my everyday life. I need to fail. I need to fail and learn from it. I need to fail and learn from it and tell stories to my friends about my failure. I need to fail and learn from it and tell stories to my friends about my failure and most of all laugh about it. So that brings me back to my present situation. I have decided to hope against all hope. I have decided to put aside the notion of false hope and just have hope. I have decided to pray that the whole thing has been a mistake and that there is no cancer in my lymph nodes. I have decided to hold on to the the possibility that there could be no reason for another surgery and that I can have my name taken off the church bulletin and the place mat on Wednesday nights. So I tell people that there might not be anything there and I risk the possibility that I'll be wrong. And people might say, "poor guy, he had such hope." Well, I have decided, it is time to see if I am going to fail at this. Because either I fail and learn something and grow in my faith, or I am right and the stupid thing could be gone and I'll be telling everyone how awesome life is. I mean really, how bad can it by?

At the car wash

So I went to the doctor AGAIN this past week. This time I saw a doctor at Emory that specializes in thyroid cancer. I'll keep it short and simple, he said that everything will be fine, that what I have can be treated, that some of the the things that have been done to me so far may not have been done the best way, and that I will probably have to have surgery again to remove the lymph nodes in my neck. So, with all that being said, I've been in kind of a crappy mood this week. Not that anything has changed or is going wrong, I've just been in a funk. Maybe because work has been busy, maybe because I've been tired and maybe just because. But then along came Sunday. I've really become a fan of Sundays. It's a chance for me to go to church and feel the warmth of God's love and the community of believers that wrap their arms around me to comfort me. I realized today that on the way home that church has become something like a car was to me. Ever since all this stuff, I find myself getting very emotional during worship time and the music in our contemporary service seems to really get to me. But the worst is communion. Each week I find myself praying to God and wiping away tears as the emotion pours out of my soul. And those tears are what washes away all the gunk and grime on my spiritual car. We are like cars. We all need fuel to run each day. We all need a tune up every once in a while. And we all get covered by dirt, dust and pollen. But just because our car is dirty, it still runs pretty much the same. But there's just something about getting your car washed that feels good. Everyone knows that getting it washed does nothing to make the engine run any better. Getting it washed doesn't make the alignment any straighter. Getting it washed doesn't fix that little chip in the windshield from the rock that hit it on the interstate last month. But there is just something about a clean car that seems to just feel good. It makes you happy and at peace with your car. You want to roll the windows down and just cruise around the neighborhood. Church does that for my soul. Church does not perform surgery. Church does not administer radiation treatments. Church does not do ultrasounds or CAT scans. But going to church and letting the tears fall to the floor in front of me while the communion trays are being passed around the pews, washes away the craps that builds up on my spiritual car. And I think we all need a good car wash every once in a while.

I Love It When God Whispers

Okay, so on Friday I got to leave work early for Good Friday and the start of Spring Break. I was on my way home when my cell phone rings and it's someone calling about work stuff. And naturally the conversation turned to, "Well, how are you doing? Are you feeling okay?" and the ususal stuff that people ask to check up on me. And as you remember from an earlier post I gave my standard answer, which by the way is still true, of "I'm doing fine." At this point I try and catch the person up on all the different doctor appointments and blood tests and ultrasounds and more blood tests and going to see a new oncologist and when I'll know something and all that stuff. I finally get off the phone and realize, "Damn, I'm tired of talking about all this crap!" I'm starting to forget who I've talked to, who I've updated, who I've told what. And since my wife can tell you that I can be a little verbose at times, I'm starting to think I'm just repeating myself to everyone and simply talking in circles. Pretty soon all of my stories are going to change from, "When I used to work at the movie theater......" to, "Well my next oncology/endocrinology appointment will be....." Anyway, to get to my point, I just got tired of talking about it all and started to get frustrated a little. And I guess it all comes back to the fact that I actually forget that I am "sick"and I go on like nothing ever happpened until I get one of those calls that brings reality crashing back to my little world. But, I soon forgot again as the family and I packed up and headed for a weekend at Callaway Gardens. We stayed down there Friday night and then got up and spent pretty much all day Saturday in the Gardens seeing everything we could and enjoying the beautiful weather and time all to ourselves. Late Saturday afternoon we headed home and had pretty much determined that we were not going to church Sunday because we had lunch early with my family and dinner that afternoon with Lori's family. But, on the way home God whispered. I got to thinking that it would be cool to go and visit with Lori's brother at his church on Sunday morning. I knew that they would have an early service and would be done by 10:30, which would put us very close to where we were meeting my parents for lunch at 11:00. Sounded like the perfect plan. So, we got up Sunday morning and headed to church. Britton was excited to meet new friends and we were excited to share the day and the message with Lori's brother. As the service got going the music was great, the place was packed and then it was announced that there were going to be two baptisms that day. How cool was that? And then God did more than whisper to me. He pretty much got down and put is arm around me and gave me a hug. Before the first baptism the church showed a taped testimony of the guy getting baptised. In it he told a story of his life and how he had prospered and then been broken. And after being broken he came to have a very real relationship with Christ. He also told of how he had gone on a mission trip to Africa with his family and how their job was to act out and tell the African children in the village about a parable where someone propered, was broken and then was reconciled. The guy on the video said it really hit him hard having to basically tell his story over and over again to these kids. Then he said what God wanted me to hear. He said that one of the missionaries in the village told him to keep telling his story over and over again, because each time he told it he was mocking the Devil. Hearing that I was overcome with emotion and almost began to weep. It had hit me too. Everytime I tell people the amazing story of how I found out I had cancer and how things were jumbled up in the diagnosis and how my surgery and treatment went so well and how people have been praying for me and asking about me, I am slapping the Devil right in the mouth and telling him that he has no place in my heart and that he has no victory over me. He can't fill me with fear and dread and worry because I have the victory through Jesus. And with all of the awesome victories, I get to look back on all that has happened and see how God has and continues to whisper in my ear.