What A Pain!

www.painfoundation.org

Pain is something I live with every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day, week in, week out, year after year. I have a pain doctor who works with me fairly well. Others whom I've met haven't been so lucky.

What would my life be like if pain relief was as important as some of the other causes out there? I know the answer would be "Better," but what would we have to say no to as a result? I'm not sure, but in my own case, I'm pretty sure it would be worth it. Pray for me, and the millions like me, who live with chronic pain.

Of Summer, Steaks and Suffering By Comparison

It's been a tough few weeks. Physically, I have more energy, but pain, insomnia, and "fibro fog" have also been high.

Here we are at the end of June already! It seems like only a few days ago, we were sitting down with our long-time friends, Andy and Sarah and their family, to a dinner of the best steaks I can remember eating. They were that good! A slow cook over charcoal made it even better. Great googly-moogly, if you want to make me salivate this 4th of July, offer the following menu!

God Can Do the Impossible

God can do the impossible.

A woman cries over the only son she ever had, lost at the hands of a ruthless murderer. 17 Years later, she has ... well, watch this.



God can help you forgive. God can do the impossible. What you seem to think is irredeemable, unlovable, immoral, and irreconcilable, is not. Instead, it is redeemable, lovable, justifiable, and certainly reconcilable. The body and blood of Jesus is the answer. His death makes all things possible. His resurrection makes us a promise.

Instead of focusing on what I have lost from my disability, I choose to focus on what I am able to do with what He's given me today. It may not be running all over the mountains, jeeping with people and telling them about the love of God. Would I rather be doing that? Sure, but that's not His purpose for me, at least not today. Today, it's sitting in this chair and sharing a story I happened across by "chance."

"It is no secret what God can do," goes the old song. Indeed, God can do the impossible.

God and Debt, Practice and Provision

One thing my wife and I have been trying to do the last eight months is pay down our credit cards and get out of consumer debt. It's one thing to use a credit card to maintain a standard of living that you can't truly afford anymore. It's quite another to be at an absolute minimum and still need things like food and heat after all the money is gone.

We were living on credit a long while before we neared our maximum and could not keep the vultures from circling. We went into foreclosure, nearly losing our house, until friends stepped forward and helped us cure our mortgage under Colorado law.

Since then, we have never been late on a mortgage payment, and hopefully we never will be again, although July looks a bit sketchy because of a downturn in our business. God knows, and he's already there at July with what we will need. I know it. I believe it. He's told us we "will not lose our house for financial reasons." He gave me a "fleece" that came true to the letter, and that's what we hung on to during the foreclosure. If I hadn't received the fleece, I would likely have listened to the folks around me and sold our home to a vulture.

God has stepped in like that from time to time, giving me what I needed to make a crucial decision. It's not my talent or abilities that saved us. It was His word to us and his children around us hearing his voice and obediently giving. Trusting His power and grace to meet us where we were was all we could do. We had no other option.


So where was I? Credit cards. God has allowed us to go into credit card debt. We've prayed and felt His leading was to do what was necessary to provide for us. That may fiddle with people's theology or their fiscal theosophy, but that's where we were. He has always told us in those times that He will deliver us from the debt. But that doesn't mean He will the next time we may run short. It's His provision, so it's His call.

Yet He's also given us enough the last eight months to not just stay out of adding to the debt, but to pay down the debt. But which cards to pay off first? Do we knock off the little ones regardless of the interest rate? Or should we pay down one of the larger ones first? If so, do we pick one with a low rate or a high rate? We don't get any particular direction, spiritually, so we set out to find the smartest way. The answer was a little surprising.

I want to do what brings God the most glory with every aspect of my life, despite--and often through--my frailties. It's not about me, or my finances, or my family's future, really. It's about Him being willing to meet us in our need  and acting to put us in a position that only his Son really deserves. He's powerful and wonderful and glorious in His work. We get what we don't deserve, and His providence is more than enough for what we need. Praise His name!


 

Fox, Elway and Bowlen, Listen Up: Keep Tim Tebow

AP Photo

I am thrilled to see home-educated Tim Tebow continues to be a light. He is one example of a properly sheltered child now thriving as an adult in a hostile environment. I pray for him, because the NFL is not without it's temptations, and all of mankind is very frail when it comes to resisting them.

There are rumors--and that's usually the case--that the Broncos could trade Tebow. I'm not sure I could continue to be a Bronco fan--even after 35 years!--if they traded him. I would be that disenfranchised with the organization. Lockout or no lockout, Tebow is a leader. Tebow is the future and he will change the nature of the game if he's given enough flexibility. Denver needs this guy. They really do.

Is football eternal? I know that if we have nothing better to do in heaven, there's been enough saints in the game football will be an awesome game. I'll be a great lineman or linebacker for a team. It is battle and strategy. It is conquest and struggle. Those are things that God has placed in this man's heart, as he has in others. If there is not a battle to be fought against the dragon, football would be an excellent way to express God's gifts inside us. I love Him and what He has made inside me.

Salvation from God through the blood of the Lamb is the message that Tim's life is devoted to spreading. From his position, if he makes God his refuge, he can't lose. The Broncos and the NFL are not eternal, but the people hearing Tebow's message will live forever if they put their faith in the Gospel.



PS: Here's a great part of that long CBS article I linked above:

"When you go to the Pro Bowl, those guys are typically not only the greatest players but the ones that work the hardest. But Tim is a little different, from what I've heard," said John Lynch, a future Hall of Fame safety who invited Tebow and Miller to address the crowd at his annual foundation luncheon, which honors Denver-area youth who excel academically, in sports and the community.

"He's my neighbor so I see him," Lynch continued. "He's out on a mountain bike going by and it looks like he never has a down moment. We were having dinner one night at some folks' house and the lady was a great tennis player. Next thing you know they break into a ping-pong match. Tim's sweating. And she beat him the first game. He was going to stay until he won. I mean, he would not leave."

That's not to say Lynch, an analyst for FOX Sports these days, doesn't recognize the "serious legitimate questions" about Tebow's ability to smooth over his mechanical flaws on the field and break free of the spread-offense tendencies the former Heisman Trophy winner learned in college.

"There are a lot of things he has to prove," Lynch admitted. "But there's an aura. He's got that aura, for whatever that's worth. And that means something to me."

It means something to me too. Go Broncos! Go Tebow!
 

Grace

What I posted yesterday was missing something. Sin is sin. It never stops being what it is. Yet what I just told a friend is something I need to say here. I told her,

Remember too that your Daddy's view of things is the only view that matters. What some would count gain, He calls loss and what is by all other accounts a loss is great gain.

Living Pro-life, Living Proof

I am pro-life. I have been since age 6. I will be pro-life whenever I die, if I do. I am among the first children born in the era of the federalized SCOTUS pseudo-law, "Roe v. Wade."

That is ideology. I have very scientific and moral reasons for this belief. I also have a very scriptural foundation to believe that abortion and euthanasia are wrong and those who practice it, practice evil. It is what I believe to the core of my being. That is my ideology.

When it comes to walking that ideology out, it means my family and I raise funds for our local pregnancy ministry every Spring. We even show up to some meetings for donors. I write our representatives in congress. I even write our newspaper editor. We are pro-life.

But we've never been forced to make a decision like Craig and Jessica Council. Their story is intense, gut-wrenching and all-too-real.

They are pro-life, and like a doctor said, they lived every bit of it.

Living Pro-Life Living Proof graphic (c) Walden's Wits 2011

Video of the Northern Lights

I've always wanted to go see the northern lights (Aurora Borealis). White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad might have a special someday. Or maybe I could form an expedition to go find the Rio Grande's lost Mikado locomotives not seen since WWII. Maybe I should set the intermediate goal of recovering my mobility and energy from Arthritis and Fibromyalgia. Baby steps, right?

Until then, this video will serve as inspiration.



Isn't that just the coolest? I think I know how they did most of the shots too. Such amazing camera work!

Air Chamber Versus Foam Mattress

I have sleep issues, this we know. An article at HopeKeepers asked which alternative bed (air chamber-sleep number versus foam) would be best for people who are chronically ill. Here are the comments I posted ...

I have had both an air chamber bed and a foam bed. Both of mine failed for the reasons specified (leaks and shape, respectively). It can be a real bummer when you've invested so much into both. The foam mattress reeked of chemicals for a few weeks, which was horrible for my Fibromyalgia sensitized-nose!

I have arthritis in my upper and lower back. The air chamber bed had interlaced chambers so that it didn't create the "hammock" effect on my back. This was the best support for my lower back and I did not "toss and turn" all night with Fibro pressure points like I do with my foam bed. I miss my air chamber, especially because it also used a memory foam pad on top. Nonetheless, the problem remains that there's no way to patch them well enough to keep them inflated, and the warranty from a company that no longer exists isn't worth much anymore, anyway.

I am waiting for technology to catch up with my needs on this. Springs and water are too hard. Air is to leaky. Foam is too "even" and un-adjustable. Maybe a floatation tank? (in my dreams!)

I'll let you know if I have any other thoughts, but I need to work on my other posts. I have many posts for WW that I've begun, but few have made it to the publish-able point. Ah, the life of a writer with chronic fatigue!

Logic Applied To Glowing Monkeys

I am not a scientist. I do not earn money for working in research. Yet even I can spot that there's something logically wrong with this article, given to me by a friend.

The issue is within only four sentences, which, oddly enough, are all together. Here they are:

Three monkeys were successfully altered in this way, but only ANDi survived.
The jellyfish gene was used, Schatten said, because it is known to be harmless and because it is easily detectable.
ANDi appears normal so far - he does not glow the way a jellyfish does. But the two other monkeys who got the gene did exhibit florescence.

Okay. The first sentence says three monkeys were genetically altered before conception, with two dying and one named ANDi surviving. The logic starts fine there, but the next sentence throws a curve. It says that a gene from a jellyfish was used because it is harmless and detectable. Harmless? Two of three died, although we don't know if it was the gene. Yet, the third and fourth sentences point in that direction pretty conclusively. It says ANDi doesn't glow like the other two did.

If the gene was detectable by making the monkeys glow, and ANDi doesn't glow, under the conditions set by the scientists, it should mean that the gene didn't take with ANDi and he's normal. Further, if the gene did take with the other two, and they died, wouldn't that point in the direction of the cause of their death? Regardless, if a drug killed two-thirds of its patients, I don't think the FDA would classify that as harmless.

Taking a step back from the internal logic of the article, I have a problem with the research described--but especially if it's pursued and embraced by the same illogical thinking that's in the article. History shows that eugenics were all the rage in the first half of the twentieth century, but Nazi Germany's attempts at producing the master race raised the moral and ethical questions needed. Was it right to sterilize, imprison, or kill a human being because they were somehow undesirable? Was it acceptable to breed humans the same way as animals to reduce some characteristics while enhancing other characteristics? What of the societal implications? Wouldn't genetic modification create two classes of humanity, regular, dull, dim-witted, scrawny, four-eyed freaks and new, improved, genius-level, brawny, clear-sighted humans? Many such questions still apply to the genetic research happening today.

Will we, as a society, someday be forced to live a Gattaca-like existence instead of the life we choose? Would there even be room in such a world for the disabled, the wounded, or the born imperfect? Man will always have a choice, but mankind will also be forced live with the consequences of the choices made. I know that eliminating genetic weaknesses toward disease feels right, but all the years we could buy--even the world itself--will seem hollow if the price is our conscience.