Day 3 - Tuesday March 4
1) Every day write down 3 good things that happened that day for which you are grateful.
A. Recovery from knee replacement surgery is ahead of schedule on all measuring points - this is Day 1 of post surgery.
B.Today my daughter brought me yet again another get well quickly card from the students at MAK. Awesome and unexpected where blessing comes from. But come they do.C.Constant and never ending mentioning of God, in all circumstances, here in the hospital. It is as if they all know that this is the point of my greatest distance from the Lord. My church has abandoned me, and don't seem to care; my secular students are lining up with awesome physical support, and I am on mega-drugs - if I need some help in my spirituality, this would be the day. And poof, the helping hands of God are everywhere.
2) Journal about one positive blessing. One of the three, and explain why that good thing is better than the bad things that happened.
The bad thing in my life right now, to compare the good to, is that I am on massive pain killers, and they are not working. Every time the machine that is designed to increase circulation in my legs goes off, my entire leg "cramps" in sympathetic pain, and no amount of drug therapy cuts through the pain. At times, today, I forgot my name, they told me. TBI and pain drugs - and some real pain, combine for my private hell.
The counter point, the blessing of magnitude great enough to make the negative fade away is Point C from above, the constant and never ending presence of the Lord my God in conversation and stories this day. For example, we, my hospital roommate and I, have many points of commonality, one of them being a strong faith in God. Another point of contact we have in common is/was a love for Ireland, thought his love is based on having been born in Ireland and mine is based on having visited it. The real deal maker was, however, his story of how his faith in God was tested and strengthened. As it turns out, 6 years ago his adult son died of an unexpected sudden disease. I have know many families that have had to live through, or have tried to survive the death of one of the children in their family. It rarely goes well. There is no greater loss or nightmare a parent can have than the loss of a child. He still feels the pain of separation, and as you would suspect, even if you did not believe in God. His faith helped him overcome the loss. However; he did NOT lose his faith, his family or his wife. The loving hand of his Lord and the hands of his church stepped into his life, and to this day, he notices the blessings from God in the smallest of things. The loss of child is the largest of things, and it opened his eyes to blessing of all sizes, even as small as a mustard seed. At the same time his story was teaching me about the power of God, it was also teaching me about humility.
3) Meditate and detach from multi-tasking, by focusing on scripture~ read it, research it, think about how it might impact your life.
The counter point, the blessing of magnitude great enough to make the negative fade away is Point C from above, the constant and never ending presence of the Lord my God in conversation and stories this day. For example, we, my hospital roommate and I, have many points of commonality, one of them being a strong faith in God. Another point of contact we have in common is/was a love for Ireland, thought his love is based on having been born in Ireland and mine is based on having visited it. The real deal maker was, however, his story of how his faith in God was tested and strengthened. As it turns out, 6 years ago his adult son died of an unexpected sudden disease. I have know many families that have had to live through, or have tried to survive the death of one of the children in their family. It rarely goes well. There is no greater loss or nightmare a parent can have than the loss of a child. He still feels the pain of separation, and as you would suspect, even if you did not believe in God. His faith helped him overcome the loss. However; he did NOT lose his faith, his family or his wife. The loving hand of his Lord and the hands of his church stepped into his life, and to this day, he notices the blessings from God in the smallest of things. The loss of child is the largest of things, and it opened his eyes to blessing of all sizes, even as small as a mustard seed. At the same time his story was teaching me about the power of God, it was also teaching me about humility.
3) Meditate and detach from multi-tasking, by focusing on scripture~ read it, research it, think about how it might impact your life.
Today it was much harder to read anything. The pain is so large that at times, right in the middle of reading, I pass out because there is a sudden loss of pain, only to be jarred awake by pain's sudden return.
Non-the-less, I got to read 1/4 of Luke. Luke was not an Apostle though most scholars agree that he was an Evangelist and the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. He may or many not have been an eye witness to Jesus's life, but it is clear from context that he was a direct witness to the acts of the apostles. Scholars point out that even though Luke states that the gospel's purpose is to give the reader a solid historical record, the record he provides is more typical of histories of that time period than of our own, where history implies accurate dating and no addition to the script. So, this book, as is true of most of the writings in the bible is, to modern standards, a mix of accurate history and story telling art. That does not imply that the stories are make believe, but rather an acknowledgement that historical writings of antiquity were more interested in the passing on of the message whole and intact than they were with micro details in the narrative.
Non-the-less, I got to read 1/4 of Luke. Luke was not an Apostle though most scholars agree that he was an Evangelist and the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. He may or many not have been an eye witness to Jesus's life, but it is clear from context that he was a direct witness to the acts of the apostles. Scholars point out that even though Luke states that the gospel's purpose is to give the reader a solid historical record, the record he provides is more typical of histories of that time period than of our own, where history implies accurate dating and no addition to the script. So, this book, as is true of most of the writings in the bible is, to modern standards, a mix of accurate history and story telling art. That does not imply that the stories are make believe, but rather an acknowledgement that historical writings of antiquity were more interested in the passing on of the message whole and intact than they were with micro details in the narrative.
4) One random act of kindness a week. You can do more. (Try one a day)
I made it a point to get out of the way while walking on the walker in the hospital hallways, to allow faster people, or even older people who needed the boost, to walk past me. Pretty cool to watch their reactions when they figured out that I was "pulling over," for them.
I made it a point to get out of the way while walking on the walker in the hospital hallways, to allow faster people, or even older people who needed the boost, to walk past me. Pretty cool to watch their reactions when they figured out that I was "pulling over," for them.
