Un-NERVing...

Instead of writing everyone individually, I thought I would just write an update here about our new journey with Larissa.

Nathan and I took our sweetie back to Dr. Coates today who wanted to do some further testing and have a colleague check her over as well.

She was, of course, amazingly co-operative and did a great job.

After all the testing and attempts to take a clear picture of her eye, the Doctor's words: "We're basically stumped on this one."

Dr. Coates said he's had several colleagues look at her scans and photographs and no one quite knows what is going on.

Typically, when it's a situation of a 'lazy eye' that isn't helped, the brain shuts down the eye that isn't working well and utilizes the good eye. It's pretty "smart thinking" on behalf of the brain! Lol

So, at first it looked like this was a possibility for Larissa. But it's really not the case. A LONG story really short is that the retina doesn't look good, she has some peripheral vision for light but zero central vision, and her optic nerve is small. This last observation seems to be the new focus.

It's difficult to get a scan or picture of her eye where they need it to be - but the best observation we can get looks like her right eye's optic nerve is a lot smaller - about half the width of the left's. That's a significant difference. These Optometrists say that because of this, the function of her eye is compromised (makes sense).

We have also discovered that though she functions at an extremely high level, she does have a prescription in her "good eye" (the left one). So she'll get some glasses soon I think. (I love kids in glasses!) This is really no shocker, as almost all of Nate's family wears glasses.

So now, off we go to the Specialist at Ivy. He thinks he can get us in there pretty quickly, and we are still hoping this is congenital, and not symptomatic.

How grateful we are to live in a country with such capable doctors, incredible technology, and the resources from the government to afford all this. Thanks for paying your taxes :)

We continue to have hope and take every day a step at a time.

Thanks for your prayers and support! It means the world to us.

The Scariest Day Of My Life

Yesterday: a pivotal point in my life. When my worst fears were realized and I saw my litmus test to the faith I attest to.

It was supposed to be a routine check-up at the optometrist. I was even on time! We were the first appointment, arriving at 8:30am.

Up hopped Olivia, first to go bravely into the big black chair. Proudly, she followed all of the Doctor's instructions and showed him how she knew her letters. Down she came, and up hopped Larissa.

"Take this and cover your eye here and read to me the letters you see in the mirror", he said. Searching for anything, she was unsuccessful to find something to focus on.

"Larissa hunny, up here", I snapped and waved in front of the mirror.

And forever engraved in my memory she said, "Mommy, you know that I can't see out of this eye. I've told you."

Stunned. Shocked. Nauseous. Terrified. Breathless. Dizzy.

My baby can't see, at all, out of her right eye. And I didn't even know it.

I sat there doing my best to stay calm and present cool with one babe-in-arms and two others watching me from their chairs for a reaction.

Like THAT every moment and memory was more precious and valuable.
Like THAT the reality that I live with an illusion of control hit me.
Like THAT I questioned God's love and goodness. Everything I have felt Him teaching me all year flashed before my eyes. I could make myself say it, but I wasn't sure I could truly believe it. What is faith? And do I have any?

Our Optometrist, Dr. Coates, was incredible. He made her his priority and pulled in another Doctor for a second opinion and ran all the tests that hew was able. She is being referred to a specialist and we saw our family doctor today.

For now, we can rule nothing out. But from what they can see, both doctors say that their best guess is that this is something she was born with.

Dr. Coates called me at home today to let me know that he was unable to get through to the specialist today but will try again Monday morning and that Larissa remains his top priority. He said there is definately retinal disruption, but it doesn't appear to be detached, which may give her a slight bit of hope at some level of recovery of sight in her eye. I made it clear that my BEST case scenario is that she never sees anything out of that eye. We only care that nothing else is causing this.

I could already write ten blogs about what I have learned in 30 hours. Finding alone time on my computer makes it difficult to do so, but I'm hoping to share it.

I have a lot more peace today. I'm going with that!

Wisdom From Obi-wan Kenobi

"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on a certain point of view." - Obi-wan Kenobi

In the last couple of years I have been going through a major deconstructive process in my spiritual life (if that wasn't already obvious from reading my thoughts).

One major area of re-construction lately has been in the Bible - how we read it and what it is. Recent elections have highlighted for us how so many amazing, passionate, intelligent people can hold such varying degrees of opinion on what they feel would be the best way to run our country. The church and religion don't operate much differently. How can so many people feel so passionately that what they believe is right?

Now, take that a step further - as a Christian, in the Church, I look around and see so many "kinds" of Christians. There are many denominations. And within the denomination there are still many different kinds of Christians. In my church, for example, there are some who believe in infant baptism, while others don't find any purpose or "biblical evidence" for such a thing and prefer to dedicate their children. (Neither of which friends is "biblical". However, if you want my stance I'd be happy to share it with you).

Recently, someone completely attacked me for going out for Halloween because "the bible says that we should 'avoid every appearance of evil'. If that makes you defensive it's because you have a hard heart that is resisting conviction". Awesome. Attack me with the verses that you think are appropriate for winning your argument.

Is this what the bible has become to us? A law book to attack friends and neighbors with?

The problem, as far as I see it is that we have slowly, over time, placed the Bible right over top of Christ. We have become people of principle rather than people of relationship. We ask "What does the bible say? What Would Jesus Do? rather than asking "What is Jesus asking me to do in this situation?"
This causes great problems in our learning to become believers in this age.

The mistake we make in calling the bible the "word of God" is that we substitute a book for the person of the resurrected Christ. So lots of people are trying to follow principals derived from a book rather than for a book to open them to a relationship and then live inside that relationship.(And anyone who doesn't align to the way that the scripture is interpreted is out of line, a sinner, a heretic).

The book of Acts talks a lot about the Word of God spreading among the people. Was that the bible? Were they referring to little tracts? No, they weren't. They were referring to the living Christ, Jesus - he spread among them! When Hebrews 4 talks about the Word being living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword it is not talking about the bible (like I was taught my whole life to be the case). It's really the presence of Christ that divides between soul and spirit.

I am certainly not saying that I don't believe that God inspired the writers of the bible. I absolutely do. But I'm not worshiping the bible. And I'm not trying to live my life by a set of rules and principles anymore. I realize the for a really long time I've believed that the way that I have read and interpreted scripture has turned out to be very flawed and uneducated. For much of my mature Christian walk I have put following what I believed to be truth in the bible ahead of the Truth that is life in the Son. And boy, that sure changes my perspective!

"Generational Sin" and How We Read The Bible

I have often heard people talk about ‘generational sin’. This is also a topic of which whole courses are based on and offered in churches around the world. The foundational verse for this is found in the book of Exodus in the bible and says, “God will visit the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation”.

Ok. I kinda-sorta bought it for a little while. Mostly only when christians that I love spoke about it as a ‘Biblical Truth’. But I have been thinking a lot about how we read the bible, and how some of the conclusions that the church has reached are way off. This is one of those things that I am not sure I buy into anymore. Why? Because first, God was talking to Moses, or Moses says God says to him in exodus 20 that God will out the sins of the fathers on their kids. But then Ezekiel comes along and God says (ch. 18) “no, I don’t do that,”i dont visit the sins of the fathers on the children”. So what we think is true in Exodus isn’t true in Ezekiel. Now move to the New Testament. Enter Jesus. And he says, “no it’s you- the individual life, engaging God the Father.” So what do we conclude?

When people are quoting Exodus for deliverance in their life and start talking about breaking the ties of generational sin….. I don’t know. Yes, there is some wisdom perhaps to be sought from this. For instance, be careful how you raise your kids. If you lie to your children, will they be honest people? Probably not. But not as a generational curse from God.

The law says, stone the adulterer. That is a serious sin to approach in the community. But Jesus comes, as God, the law-giver… He understood God’s law to prescribe. Does he stone her? No. So did God change his mind? No.

Here is where I am going with all this: there is a revelational flow in the story of things that WERE true, of things that become LESS true and sometimes eventually UNTRUE as God continues to give us a fuller picture of who he is and his story of redemption to and with the world.

God isn’t changing, but our perception of who God is changes.

We need to stop reading the bible as a law book and reading it as a storybook.

Giving Thanks - And Sometimes Not

Yes, I am thankful. Let me just get that out there loud and clear. I am SO thankful. I have SO MUCH to be thankful for! I truly truly do. I know how blessed I am. I know to be thankful for my (albeit small) home and shelter- I've seen families living in literal dumps. I have watched marriages crumble and families ripped apart - I am so grateful for a loving, sacrificing, serving, humble, gentle, godly husband. I am healthy. I am alive. Believe me, I AM GRATEFUL and not a day goes by that I don't give thanks to the One from whom I know it all comes.

But I'm taking the risk to share this: there is a lot that I am not thankful for:

• I am not thankful that the budget is always tight.
• I am not thankful that (not including in-laws) I pretty much have no family - my mom and I that is. I hate having no family. And I hate having family that just doesn't care.
• I am not grateful for fake family - people who say we are like family, but really we aren't.
• I am not thankful that my mom is always in pain.
• I am not thankful that I have no one to help me help her.
• I am not thankful that my cottage is gone.
• I am not thankful for famine and civil unrest in much of the world.

Yes, I can make an entire list of things for which I am ungrateful.

I recognize in myself a tendency to draw to the dark side. Sometimes, the spiral happens so fast that I'm in too deep to recognize that I've even gone there. And it takes all my strength and will power to fight it out - to literally talk myself out of it.

Here's what usually happens:
1. I recognize that deep sadness and the parade of thoughts that flood my mind of all the things that I am unhappy about.
2. I recognize.
3. I tell myself there's a way out.
4. I get alone, by myself for a few minutes.
5. I often tell God EXACTLY how I'm feeling
6. I let myself feel what I'm feeling for a few minutes.
7. I start listing everything that I'm so upset about.
8. Whether I feel like it or not, I start listing the things that inevitably I start thinking about that I SHOULD be grateful for.
9. As I list, I actually become grateful.
10. As I dwell on the good, the darkness fades. LIGHT! At the end of the tunnel.

And so:

• I am thankful we have a paycheck to make a budget with.
• I am thankful for the family that I do have and that I will always put my family first while watching out for others who also have little family.
• I am so thankful for friends as good as family (if not better!).
• I'm still not grateful my mom is in pain, but grateful for the things available to help her manage.
• I am thankful that I am able to help her. I am thankful to give back to her even a fraction of all the times she has cared for me and mine, sacrificing all the way.
• I miss my cottage, but I am thankful thinking about Landon around wild animals and a lake to walk into....
• I am thankful to live in the country I do and for all the ministries, missionaries and organizations that are in those suffering that I can stand behind in prayer and support.

Thankful? Yes I am.

After all, it's all in your perspective.

Why Jesus Didn't Date

*Although I would love to, I cannot take any credit for this. It is a straight cut and paste from another blogger. I won't say who for fear you should judge me on the rest of the blog, this, however is both smart and funny. For copyright purposes, site is available upon request.

(The following conversation took place between my wife Cat and I whilst driving in our car.)

Me: Hey, so I’m thinking about doing a blog post exploring the idea of Jesus being fully man, but not having a sex drive.

Cat: Oh?

Me: Yeah. Because how can Jesus be fully man without a sex drive? And if he has a sex drive, then how can he be sinless, since Matthew 5:27-28, says, “Do not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” What man doesn’t look at women lustfully?

Cat [looking out her side window]: Oh.

Me: What?

Cat: What?

Me: Don’t you think that’s interesting? That Jesus has to be sinless, yet, by his own definition, cannot be, since being fully man means he must regularly commit adultery? If Jesus was fully man, then must have lusted. And if he lusted, he wasn’t sinless. [In slightly manic tone.] That’s kind of interesting, don’t you think?

Cat: Not really.

Me: What? Of course it’s interesting. It’s core to the whole conception of Jesus being fully man!

Cat: Look. You don’t lust after your sister, right?

Me: Ew. No.

Cat: And you don’t lust after your mom. Because your mom and your sister aren’t potential mates for you. That’s how Jesus saw all women. There are no potential mates for Jesus. Just like no sane father can lust after his daughter, Jesus couldn’t lust after any woman. To Jesus, every woman is his daughter. Literally.

Me: So there’s no psychological mechanism for his lust to kick in.

Cat: Right. Plus, it would be cruel of Jesus to have sexual relations with a woman. He’s God. Not exactly an equal relationship. And he’s knows he’s not gonna marry anyone.

Me: Right.

Cat: And that’s how Jesus can be fully man and never lust.

Me: Oh. [Long pause.] Yeah, I probably would have reached that same conclusion. [Cat silently resumes gazing out window.] I would have. Really. I would have thought of that.

Cat [pensively, still looking out window]: I wonder if I should start my own blog?

Me: No! You shouldn’t!

Recap

A few pictures from the Birtch Academy yearbook, 2010-2011. Love making memories!

Farm Trip

Clovermead Aviaries

The 5 Senses

A Bible study on God's saving Israel from slavery through Moses.
The hard boiled egg was a lesson on a hardened heart (like Pharaoh).

Creation

Some art with circles

Gratitude

This is the day that the Lord has made. We will REJOICE and be glad in it!