2009 In Review

Well, it's been a rather light year for me on the blog, but I wanted to go through 2009 and just hit the highlights. This will allow me to bring the year into focus, and also to briefly touch on a few events that, while important, for one reason or another never really made it into the blog. So, here we go, month by month.

January - 2009 was in many ways a year of awakening for me spiritually, one in which God really led me into a more personal, intimate relationship with Him, as opposed to one that was just based on what I knew about Him and what I did for Him. There were many significant events related to this throughout the year, the first one being a leadership retreat that I was on over the second weekend of the year. This also started a recurring pattern through the year of me taking many posts, and many more days than really necessary, to tell a particular story. This story can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The retreat ended on January 11th, and I only took until February 8th to finish blogging about it! In the interim, for the second year I became a "Partner In Hope" with St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital via the BOB 94.9 Radioathon, and for the second year in a row, I won one of the big incentive prizes - a guitar autographed by Brad Paisley. We should only be a few weeks away from the 2010 Radioathon - I wonder what they've picked out for me this year :)

February/March - I didn't blog about much in these months, except the occasional musing and the day when my Brad Paisley guitar arrived. In March, there was of course, my traditional pilgrimage with my Dad to Clearwater, Florida for Phillies spring training, made more exciting than previous years due to the Phillies standing as reigning World Series champions.

April - The month began with a quick roller coaster ride in terms of my sports world. I was able to attend the game where the Phillies were presented with their 2008 World Series rings, which has to go down as one of the best moments in my "career" as a sports fan. Unfortunately, the euphoria of that moment had hardly faded when, a few days later, legendary Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Somewhere in this month I also celebrated birthday #29.

May - May was highlighted by my heating/cooling system breaking down and taking 2 weeks and 3 technician visits to get repaired. I also discovered some "vintage" grape juice in a cabinet in my kitchen (and by the way, I still haven't gotten rid of it). Not to mention that early in the month, Messiah's softball team became the 3rd program to win a national championship, the school's 9th championship ever, all since the fall of 2000. For a refresher on May, you can go here.

June - What was unquestionably the most pivotal event of my year occured right in the middle of the year, and that was my family trip out to the West Coast - first to Seattle to visit my cousin, and then on to Northern California to visit my uncle and aunt and their family, and to attempt to climb Half Dome in Yosemite. From the plane ride out to the attempt up Half Dome and back again, it was a major event in my life, one that took me 9 posts over more than a month to blog about. Read about it here, here, and here.

July/August - Apparently I spent July and August blogging about the Half Dome trip, and not much else :) Actually, there was a lot going on during this time, however, much of it was of a more personal nature. Some will be covered in later posting, some, not so much. Most significant was that at the end of August, CrossWalk Community was closed after almost 4 years of ministry.

September - Spurred on by my desire to one day successfully climb Half Dome, I buckled down and began a regular workout routine, which coupled with some earlier and subsequent initiatives accidentally morphed into a full-fledged emphasis on health and fitness. Also, over Labor Day weekend, I made another trek to South Bend, Indiana to visit my dear friends, the Ritters.

October - The Phillies had another wild October ride, but fell disappointingly short of repeating as World Series champions, losing the Series to the Yankees in 6 mes. In one of my prouder moments as a fan, I did not join the parade of fellow Phillies fans who became loud advocates for a salary cap in baseball the day after the Series ended. Yeah, tell me THAT's not sour grapes. A summer spent wrestling with God over His plan and hand in the life of my friend Lynn, who is in the advanced stages of ALS, culminated with some realizations, some revelations, and even a bit of clarity, and led to me blogging the entire story of my interaction with Lynn's situation over the past two years. Those posts can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

November - My workout routine began to morph from daily elliptical workouts towards actual running. More on this later. The Thanksgiving holiday came, finding me with a really nasty cold, and also leading to the discover that my dog can actually behave around other people now. That report is here, and here.

December - I began a full running training program, leading to a rather nasty spill that resulted in some scrapes and scratches and a bruised ego, but no long-term damage. Overall, I've stuck with a regular work out routine for 4 months now, which is about 3 months longer that I've ever stayed with one before. That, coupled with my other health-related changes, has left me about 20 pounds lighter (still falling, though at a much slower rate), and on the basis of yesterday's 2 mile run time, in the best shape I've ever been in. This is both a testament to how well this workout routine has gone, and an indictment on my lack of commitment to fitness in year's past, even going back to high school when I was a soccer player. Predictably, the Messiah men's and women's soccer teams both win national championships, the 7th for the men, 3rd for the women, and the 3rd time in both Messiah and NCAA history that they've both won the championship in the same season. All in all, that makes 11 championships for Messiah in the last decade. Equally predictably, the field hockey team made the national title game, and lost for 7th time in 7 tries. Maybe next year...

So, that's 2009 in a nutshell. It was a great year on many, many, fronts - and it has me tremendously excited about what is to come in 2010. Right now, a few things are known. There will, of course, be another trip to Clearwater in March. After a year off, I expect to lead another team to Thailand for about 10 days late in the summer. Assuming I continue to enjoy and stick with the running through winter, I anticipate starting to run some 5k races come spring. Those are just a few things, and of course there are many other things ahead that I could never anticipate, much like many of the things above were to me on December 31, 2008.

So, with all that said, blessings and prayers to everyone for an awesome 2010!

So, here we are at the end of another year.

Another one bites the dust

And by "another one", I mean me. And by "dust", I mean "asphalt".

That's right, I've been a bit gimpy the last couple days because, well, I'm a klutz. Or at least, I was on Tuesday morning.

You may remember a while back I blogged on my new fitness kick. Well, that commitment has largely remained intact, and after a few months, I became bored of running on the elliptical day after day. There was also the fact that I have a cheap elliptical that's already underwent some modification to keep it together, and has variable resistance that long since stopped working - meaning my only option to increase workout intensity is to go faster. As I've gotten in better shape, I've had to go faster to keep the same level of work for my heart, and I began to fear I was getting to the point where it was just going to fly apart some morning, with me on it.

So, despite the fact it was already mid-November and we were about to head into the dead of winter, I decided that I was going to start running, using the elliptical as a lighter exercise on non-running days. I got started right before Thanksgiving while there was still some decent whether, and then as the weather got cold, I procured some appropriate cold weather gear and kept at it.

And really, it's been going well. It started out kind of rough, because I had zero clue about how to train other than just go out and running as hard as I thought I could for whatever distance I was running, so I always ended up completely wiped at the end of a run, and often played myself out before I got to the goal distance. But I did some research, got an understanding of where I was at with my fitness level and a decent training plan, and I felt like I was really going to get somewhere over the last week.

Which brings me to Tuesday morning. I was doing a workout where I would go really hard for about a quarter-mile, then walk/job back, then repeat. I was going for 3 reps. Bear in mind that I still exercise first thing in the morning, so I started out sometime just before 6 am. In central PA in early December, it's still pretty dark at that time. However, I'm in a populated area, and there's plenty of available light to run by - but you can't necessarily see every detail.

There's been a lot of newer construction in the area that I run in, and a couple of the roads have just been put in within the last year or so - so there's some areas where the sections of the asphalt come together that the road isn't especially even. My course takes me through one of those areas. What's probably worse is that it's near the end of the course, about the time I reach and look down to check my watch for my time. On my last rep, I was checking my time, took a shorter, more choppy stride than normal, and felt my right foot catch one of the seams in the pavement. I'm not sure I would have had a chance of staying upright under any circumstances, but with my right hand on my left wrist, I had absolutely no chance, and I pitched over forward to the asphalt at full running speed - knees first.

Obviously it hurt, but I didn't immediately sense anything serious had happened, so I started to collect myself and get up. As mad as I was at myself about what had just happened, there was one comfort. As I said, I had started before 6, it was about 6:10 am at this point and still plenty dark, so I was thinking to myself "At least no one saw that...". But then, as I started to stand up, I heard a terrible sound: "Are you okay?" You've got to be kidding me! There was a guy out walking, and I had gone down within about 20 feet of him. Being now mortally embarrassed in addition to the physical pain, I quickly responded "Yeah, I'm okay." Let's be honest here, I had no clue yet if I was okay. "Okay" at this point, was defined as being able to stand up. "Are you sure?" There was an edge in my voice this time "Sir, I'm fine." Then, thinking about it for a second, I quickly threw out a much softer "But thank you!" Seriously, what was I doing refusing potential help? But that was what I had done.

As it turns out, I was, largely, okay. I was able to get up and walk about halfway home, at which point I felt okay enough to jog the rest of the way. My knees were, obviously, very sore - but that was about the extent of it. When I got back to the house, I was able to more thoroughly examine myself and discover that the damage was limited to two bloodied and sore knees. I was probably very fortunate it was winter, because I was pretty much completely covered up, which probably saved me further damage to my knees, and any damage at all to my hands and arms. I didn't even tear my running tights, which was perhaps the thing that surprised me most. In reality, the worst injury was probably to my pride.

Anyhow, I've recovered pretty well. Yesterday was a lost day for running anyhow because we had had snow overnight and it was pouring rain in morning - but I was recovered enough to do a good hard session on the elliptical, and I was back out on the road this morning - still a bit sore but not really limited in any way. Tomorrow is a planned rest day, so hopefully by Saturday I'll be all but 100% again.

Thanksgiving Report - Part 2

Wow, only took me a week to get back to this :)

Anyhow, so Thursday was, of course, time for the traditional Thanksgiving feast. We always gather with my Dad's side of the family at my Pap's farmhouse for this, and this year was no exception. I think all told we had about 25 people this year, ranging in ages from 93 (my great aunt) down to toddler. It's quite an event when we all get crammed around the various tables in the house. Dinner is pretty much the standard classics (well, that, plus oyster stuffing, which I assume is NOT a standard for most families), and dinner is all well and good, but for me, it's all about getting to dessert.

You see, my grandma was ridiculous when it came to desserts, and especially pies. There would likely be pies around virtually anytime we would be there for dinner, but around the holidays, she'd outdo herself. And they were really good. Grandma passed away during my junior year of college, and I miss her greatly, but luckily in this regard, she passed her gift onto her daughters and at least one of her granddaughters (my sister). So, we've never been lacking for desserts, and this year was no exception. Of the top of my head, this year we had pumpkin, cherry, apple, black raspberry (my favorite), and coconut cream pies available, as well as our family's traditional coconut cake. It's always a good thing that we don't just go for dinner and then leave - Thanksgiving dinner gets to be much more of a marathon than a sprint. Along with the standard picking through the leftover turkey, and sampling through the various pies that couldn't be taken in with the original meal, there's also the big box of Kay and Ray's potato chips, and much Pepsi to be consumed throughout the rest of the afternoon and early evening!

Anyhow, after Thanksgiving day is over, it's on to the rest of the weekend, which I always stay with my folks for. The real revelation of this Thanksgiving was related to my dog, Chaser, who comes along for the trip whenever I'm with the folks for a couple days.

Chaser is (by best guess, since he came from the shelter and came into the shelter as a stray) about 4 years old, and a mix between a yellow labrador and a terrier. For those who have met Chaser, you know that he isn't really very social. Actually, that's inaccurate - he's actually so social as to be anti-social. Really, the issue hasn't been his behavior itself, but rather his size. When a little dog, such as my sister's pug, is all excited to see you and scurrying around jumping up at and on you, it might be annoying, but it's not really that difficult to deal with. Chaser, on the hand, is all of 50 pounds, so he makes an impact! He traditionally just gets so excited when there are different people around - more specifically when I'm around and different people around - he's always been good when I've had people take care of him.

Anyhow, I bring him along because I have to when I come home, but his presence has always complicated my visits. He stays down in the basement, which is finished and very comfortable, a perfect place for hanging out. Unfortunately, traditionally he's made it very difficult for the family to come down and hang out, because he just wouldn't calm down. Because he was so on edge, I was never comfortable leaving him uncrated down there unattended, and I didn't want him to be crated for the whole vacation, so I would often spend more time than I wanted to down there with him by myself.

I had had some hints in recent months that he had started to mellow some socially, so I was hopeful this trip might be a bit different, and man, was it ever. He still gave my folks a standard exuberant greeting anytime they came down, but once they got settled in, he did as well, just being very playful and social, but not nearly as jumpy and obnoxious. He would often even, get this, lay down and relax! It was crazy. We had gone from one extra person in the room being too much for him, to a Friday night where my mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law (and their pug) were all down there with him, and he was just great. I'm sure they all liked Chaser up to this point, but this time I think we were all able to actual enjoy having him around, in the way I enjoy having him around when its just me and him. It really made the time at home so much better, and more relaxing, since I didn't have to neglect my dog in order to spend time with the folks.

So, all in all, after the rocky start, it was a great holiday weekend with the family. Of course, since I was rendered pretty much sedentary while I was recovering from my cold, and had the traditional Thanksgiving gorging along with plenty of food the rest of the weekend, I was 2.5 pounds heavier when I got home. Totally worth it! :)

The Thanksgiving Report - Part 1

So, the story of my Thanksgiving starts last Monday, when I woke up with something of a "tickle" in my throat. That's precisely how you do NOT want to start a short, holiday week, but it is the hand I was dealt. As I got up and began to get ready for my day, it was confirmed, I definitely had a raw throat that was the result of sinus drainage. I do have allergies, but this seemed like pretty much the wrong time of year for those, so I figured I was probably on the verge of a cold.

This was confirmed when I woke up Tuesday morning, so I cancelled a planned early morning 2 mile run. However, I really didn't feel THAT bad. I felt worse when I got to work, and took some medicine in the morning. By the afternoon, everything had dropped down out of my head into my nose, and I was sounding terrible, but actually feeling a bit better. I was encouraged by this - as a general rule, the worse I sound the better I feel when I'm dealing with a cold. I don't know if that's a universal rule, but it pretty much works for me. I didn't have a fever, and so in the evening I was feeling well enough to attend my first Thanksgiving dinner of the week - with the young adults at my church. I have to say, very high quality meal, although the dessert portion of the event did not measure up to the "real" Thanksiving dinner on Thursay (that's not, however, an insult to the Tuesday night dessert, just wait) As expected, I was feeling a little bit worse off after being out and socializing, but still not too bad when I got home. I didn't take any cold medicine to go to bed.

That was my first in a series of mistakes. I had a miserable first part of the night until I gave in and drank some NyQuill at about 1:30 AM. Morning, of course, came too soon, and I was feeling worse than I had felt the night before. After batting around what I wanted to do in my head, I called in sick to work. I was meeting with my pastor in the morning, so I was going to be late anyhow, and thought I'd probably need to leave early since I was planning on heading home that night and hadn't done any packing yet, so that made the decision a little easier.

After meeting with my pastor (he came to me), I began the remaining series of mistakes - all of which, like the first one, fell into the category of me just not taking my illness seriously enough. I had been convinced since Tuesday afternoon that I was on the downside, and perhaps I would have been - had I taken better care of myself. When I'm seriously fighting something, I'm almost obsessive about making sure I take in plenty of fluids, and I had been so all day on Tuesday. Wednesday, however, was a different story, and after some OJ with breakfast, I really didn't drink anything for the rest of the morning and early afternoon.

Nor did I do a I particularly good job of resting. I tried to get some packing done as I felt like it, and spent a lot of time watching TV in the basement, with a space heater running right at me to make up for the sometimes drafty nature of that room. Not the best move when sick, apparently. Whatever the combination of factors that led me to it, by early afternoon, as I thought I would make the push to pack the car and drive home, I was pretty much laid out, with a fever now pushing 101. I called my Mom and told her I would likely not be home yet that evening. After that, I did what I should have done about 6 hours earlier - drank down a couple bottles of water, took a shot of NyQuill, and climbed into bed for a long nap.

I awoke several hours later, feeling much better, though still sick, and feeling really stupid for having not taken care of myself better the previous night and earlier that day. I was also much more optimistic than I had been earlier about whether I would be able to make the trip home the next morning. At that point, if I had had to, I probably could have made the drive that night, and I figured given a good night's sleep, I was only likely to feel better first thing in the morning, even if that would fade.

And I was right, I did feel even better in the morning, though I was hacking and coughing and sounded even worse, which falls right in line with the principle I laid out earlier. I loaded up the car and Chaser and I made the drive to the folks.

When all that's left is to believe

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If you've been a regular visitor to my blog, you might know of my recent commitment to fitness. One of the results of that was a long period of time when I would take my dog for long (30-45 minute walks on most evenings). That pattern has slowed in recent weeks, due to a combination of diminished evening light, and the accompanying diminished warmth, but while that was going on, I often found myself with lots of time to my thoughts, and obviously, while I was walking through everything I described, my thoughts often turned to Lynn while I was on these walks.

One day, and I don't exactly remember when in all of this it was, but it's not really important, as I was thinking about Lynn and processing everything again, the hook of a song came into my head. It was a song that I know I hadn't heard in at least 7 or 8 years, quite likely closer to 10. And I'd be willing to bet that most of you have never heard the song, because as best as I can tell it never made its way onto the radio. It was an album cut off a CD by a guy named Clay Crosse. I'm pretty sure the only reason I ever heard it was because I own the CD. The chorus of the song goes like so:

When all that's left is to believe
I give my doubts and fears to You
And fall down on my knees
I may not have the answers now
But You give me what I need
So Father I will cling to You
When all that's left is to believe

There I was again, fighting back tears. There may have been times in my life when a song or lyric spoke as directly to my heart as this one did in this moment, but there certainly haven't been any where one spoke more directly to me.

When you boil everything I've shared over the last number of posts down - when you strip away all the nuances and complexities of circumstance, when you look through everything that has or hasn't happened since September 10, 2007, the simple fact of the matter is that I've been left with a choice. It's the choice Abraham faced when God promised him a son, and then later faced when God asked him to sacrifice that very son; the choice that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego faced before the fiery furnace; the choice that Daniel faced before the lion's den; the choice that Stephen faced before the angry mob; the choice we read about time and time again Hebrews 11 - the very same choice we all face in any crisis of faith - the choice to believe, or not to believe.

Over the last two years, anything else that myself, or anyone who cares about Lynn, could cling to for hope has been stripped away, and all that is left is our Father - His Word, His promises. Do I believe that God spoke to me 2 years ago? Do I believe (or better yet, am I "fully persuded") that He is able to do what He promised? The answer to both those questions for me is "Yes." And so I cling to my Father, because there's nothing else left to do.

You know, the doctor's visit where Lynn was given 3 to 6 months to live was in mid-August. If you do the math, you'll quickly understand that we are moving into the early part of that range. When I was with him this past Saturday, he told me how fragile he felt - that one big coughing or gagging spell could do him in, that this was really coming into the final few weeks. That paints a very bleak picture. His response to that was "My healing is right around the corner." And you know what, sitting here today, I can tell you that I believe that too.

Are we fools for such belief? To be honest, I've stopped caring about the answer to that question. The Scripture is full of people who looked awfully foolish for believing God - right up until the point where He stepped in and fulfilled his promise. I acknowledge my imperfect ability to comprehend God, my bias in the situation, and the accompanying fact that I could have read this all wrong, but that's not what I believe, and I choose to cling to what I do believe until circumstances compel me to do otherwise. That time has not yet come.

Not that any of this makes it easy. My eyes were wet yet again as I pulled away from Lynn's house on Saturday - they've been wet at various times as I've been writing over the last many days, and they heading that direction right now. The physical reality hasn't changed, and the picture I can see with my eyes gets worse day by day. But I stand in the spirit of those 3 Hebrew captives I mentioned earlier as they were before the fiery furnace in saying that I know the God I serve is able to deliver Lynn from this disease, and I believe that He will, and yet whether he does or doesn't, He is still God, and there is no one else worthy of my worship.

So that's it, the full story, and perhaps now you understand why I'm sharing it now, even as things look their bleakest. This is where I've been, and I'm driving this stake in the ground to say that, come what may, this is what I believe, and I'm not ashamed of it, at least not anymore.

A new perspective

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This summer was a big one for me in terms of my walk with God. Regular readers of this blog (all 3 of you) might remember my tale of my attempted trek up Half Dome in Yosemite at the end of June. That trip sparked a period in my life where a lot of spiritual matters across a variety of fronts - although I think it was all pretty well connected, and at some point maybe I'll attempt to piece it all together in something coherent. Today is not that day, however, and so I stick to the front I've been dealing with - my friend Lynn's condition.

As stated, I was struggling. To be quite honest, I was probably back to square one, in a place where I had lost hope and was resigning myself to what I had become convinced was the inevitable. There was only one problem with that - the whole thing about believing God had spoken to me telling me something different. So I re-evaulated those events of 2 years ago over and over again. At first, I believed I was just going back over things to re-affirm my belief in them, but later on it became clear that I was really trying to find a way to convince myself it hadn't happened, or that it hadn't meant what I thought it meant. I figured if I could do that, I could let all of this go and deal with what was ahead.

There was only one problem - I couldn't do it. No matter how many ways I looked at that night of September 10th, 2007, and the weeks that had followed, I couldn't deny what had happened. I'm not sure I can describe what it's like to be in that place - having somehow managed to lose hope that something was going to happen, while being firmly convinced that God had, in fact, told me that it WAS going to happen. Yeah, seriously, figure that one out. Somehow, that's where I was at.


In order to get there, I'm pretty sure you have to have trust issues with God, and the fact that I did was something else I was learning throughout the summer. I was basically feeling like God had told me something while fully intending to do something different. Not that I would have admitted that to anyone else (or even myself) at the time, but its where I was at. Is it any wonder I was feeling like I was hitting a wall in my relationship with God at about this time?


Anyhow, September rolled around, and it had been a couple months since I'd last seen Lynn. In the interim, I'd heard via their newsletter that the doctors believed that he had about 3-6 months to live based on the way his breathing ability was being diminished. Let's just say that didn't help me anyhow. Lynn sent me a personal e-mail in mid-September, and I realized again just how long it had been since I had seen him, so despite my discomfort, we began discussing getting together, and I wound up making plans to see him on the first Saturday in October.


A few days before this visit, my Dad was up here for a visit, and in the course of our conversations, I confessed to him that I was having a hard time finding peace with Lynn's situation, and asked for prayer. As we talked about this, I articulated a lot of what I just shared for the first time. At one point, Dad asked me point blank "Are you mad at God?"


At the time, I said I didn't know, but the next two mornings, I basically spent my morning times with God yelling at him about this. "How could You let this go on so long?" "Where have You been in all of this?" "Why did You tell me You were going to heal him if You weren't?" "Why didn't You just leave me out of all this - it would have been easier." And then, though I don't know that I knew it at the time, I got down to the heart of the matter: "God, I feel like I've been made a fool for believing this for so long." All of it things that I had been feeling for so long, but hadn't been willing to allow myself to say, even to myself, let alone God. Remember that thing I said previously about how bad it is to keep feelings bottled up just because you don't think God would like them? Second time I dealt with that on this journey in a major way.

As I vented on and on, I didn't sense God speaking to me, in terms of giving me some great answer to my specific questions. And to be honest, I didn't expect Him to. I'm only now fully reading through Job for the first, but I've known for a long time how that story ends, and that I was asking questions of God to which I wasn't really entitled an answer. What I did sense was an acceptance, kind of an "Okay, Scott, now that you're being honest with me, we can deal with this" As I took off my mask, the lines of communication were open again.

So the next day, Dad and I made our visit to Lynn. I said before how Lynn makes it difficult to be discouraged when you are with him, because his own faith remains so steadfast, and this particular visit was probably the best personal experience I have had to confirm that. There he was, confined to his recliner, using the movements of his head to type out phrases on his computer, and yet as convinced as that day over 2 years ago that healing was coming. He shared with us a story about how God had spoken to him on the very day that he had gotten the report from the doctor that he had 3-6 months to live. My own struggles with what was going on weren't gone, but here was the other side of the story, the side that was so easy for me to forget - and that I desperately needed to hear. I was seeing God's hand in this again, in a way that had been obscurred for so long. It was so evident that God was with Lynn in the midst of all this, even if at the moment, it didn't look the way I wanted it to.

There was something else that happened that day that was pivotal in what God was doing in my heart, beyond my specific response to Lynn's illness. I saw in Lynn what Paul spoke of Abraham in Romans 4 - beliveing in hope against all hope, facing the fact that his body was as good as dead, without weakening in his faith, without wavering through unbelief regarding the promise of God, being strengthened in his faith and giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He has promised. I saw Lynn, even with his body on verge of complete failure, as someone who was more alive than I, in my near perfect health, had ever been. It was humbling, to say the least, and it made me think on all of this in a new way.

In the days that followed, I found myself saying to God: "Now, this isn't a request, but I believe if I had to through what Lynn has to get to where he is with You, it would be worth it. And so if walking through this alongside Lynn in the way You've chosen me to do is part of what you need to do to make me into the person You designed me to be, and to bring me into a a deeper relationship with You, then I'm okay with that too." It's probably the most realistic picture I've ever had of what's really being said in Romans 8:28.

But make no mistake, none of this means that I've given up on Lynn's healing. And I think I've got one last post in me to talk about that.

Consumed by doubts

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So, over two years have passed since the first part of this story took place. I'm not going to spend a lot of time walking through the whole journey of those two years, but I will give you some of the highlights.

As previously mentioned, Lynn and family had been scheduled to head back to Thailand on September 12th, 2007, 2 days after our team meeting. That was obviously postponed, and over the next few weeks/months, Lynn underwent more thorough testing that confirmed the initial belief of the doctors that he had ALS. There actually isn't (or at least wasn't then) a test that conclusively diagnoses ALS, basically they test for everything else that could cause the symptoms in question, and if they don't find anything, ALS is diagnosed.

Not too long after getting the diagnosis, Lynn began making plans to return to Thailand. At the time, his symptoms were essentially isolated to his face, weakening the muscles of his jaw, mouth, etc and making his speech somewhat slurred. The family returned to Thailand in February of 2008, hopefully that Lynn's healing would come in short order. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. His condition continued to deteriorate, and at the end of September (right about the time the Phillies were finishing up another exciting regular season finish) word came back that they would be returning to the States in early November.

All the while, I was still processing and dealing with this as best I could, and it wasn't easy. First of all, I didn't really know what to do with the kind of promise I believed that God had made. I mean, seriously, what would you do with it? It was exciting and hopeful, but yet healing hadn't come right away. If you are regulars to my blog, you might remember that I once wrote about going a number of months (until I went back to Thailand with a team from McBIC in June of '08) before I would allow myself to grieve for what my friend was suffering through. I had convinced myself that expressing that pain would be showing a lack of faith in what God had promised. Can I tell you a lesson that I've had to learn a few different times through the years, and in fact, multiple times as I've witnessed what's happened with Lynn? Keeping thoughts, feelings, etc bottled up because you don't think they are "right" in God's eyes is about the worst thing you can ever do. Just because I didn't express the feelings didn't make them go away, and I certainly wasn't successfully hiding them from God - I was just keeping them inside, letting them tear me up without dealing with them. The fact that I was "trying" to keep them from God certainly didn't help that relationship. And in this case, as God later showed me when I allowed Him to, there was nothing wrong with the feelings in the first place. It hurt to see what my friend was suffering through, whether I believed healing was ultimately coming or not.

The real problem I was having, however, as this moved along, was my own ability to trust God. You see, it was really easy to believe that God could heal Lynn when the only thing that appeared wrong with him was some slurred speech. But when I went to join the welcoming party at the Harrisburg airport at their November return, when I saw Lynn being wheeled in on a wheelchair, looking much lighter and more frail, it suddenly became a different matter altogether in my head, and in my heart. When I realized I could hardly understand him at all anymore, the mountain seemed just that much higher. When I went to a prayer gathering for him a few nights after he came back, and saw that he had to be helped to walk back to the room, an ugly word started to play in my head, and in my heart: "Why?"

I thought I was at peace with God on the "why" question, that we had come to terms and I had seen His hand at work in this process when I was in Thailand. It "made sense" to me, but that was no longer the case. It didn't make any sense to me at all why, if God really was going to bring healing, that He continued to wait and allow my friend to suffer, to allow his friends and family to suffer watching him. I mean, hadn't Lynn been through enough? Hadn't he learned enough? Hadn't those of us around him learned enough? What possible reason could God have for continuing to delay? And as the "why" continued to go unanswered, the doubts played at my heart, subtley at first, but continued to build.

There was an all-night prayer time in March that we all believed God had asked for, that afterwards Lynn and others believed there had been a break, and that healing was completed, it was just a matter of seeing it come to pass. But after some immediate initial hopeful signs, things just continued to get worse. There was time at a healing service in March, where we pleaded and pleaded with God, and nothing. I remember checking myself at that point, wondering if continuing to implore God to do NOW what He had already said was done was demonstrating a lack of faith, but not having the first clue about what else to do.

At this point, it got really difficult for me to see Lynn, so I didn't. And it was pretty easy to avoid seeing him without really "trying" to avoid it. He was an hour away, the only times I really had a good opportunity to see him were at these Friday night prayer gatherings, which suddenly I could always find a good reason not to go to.

And so, it was over 3 months until the next time I saw him, at an open house when the family moved in July. I hadn't heard anything positive about his condition, and so I knew that aside from that, all that time was only going to mean he was in much worse shape. I had heard through the grapevine that he was in a wheelchair fulltime now. As I spent time with God that morning, knowing (and yet not really knowing) what I was getting ready for, I remember God asking me the question of the moment: "Do you still trust me on this? Do you trust that I have not been silent, or absent in this, and that what you see as a delay has all been part of my perfect plan?" My honest answer: "I don't think I do, but I want to."

When I got the open house, his condition was as bad as I had imagined, perhaps worse. He was in a motorized wheel chair, and he had to control it by pushing his nose against a joystick, as his hands just didn't have the function. He could barely speak at all - he had a computer that he could type on by using the motion of a dot on his glasses like a mouse, but that wasn't working that day, so communication was incredibly difficult. The most difficult thing for me to watch was when he wanted to hold his nearly year old daughter and we had to move his arms away, set her down in his lap, and then wrap his arms around her, because he couldn't do any of that on his own.

Now, I will say (and I'll elaborate on this more later) that even in the midst of all this, I was still okay when I was with Lynn. His spirit and faith throughout this have been remarkable, and he makes it really difficult to be discouraged when you are spending time with him. (Of course, it also sometimes served to make me feel guilty for my own doubts, but that was my problem, not his.) However, once I left that afternoon to begin the drive home, the physical reality of what I had witnessed began to overwhelm me, and I was fighting off tears the drive home, at times less successfully than others. This was a Sunday, so I had to go to CrossWalk in the evening. As we gathered for prayer with the leaders before the service, I felt the tears coming again and knew that I was going to lose the battle to fight them off at some point, so after the prayer I pulled my pastor aside and we went into a different room. When he asked me what was up, it was pretty much all I could do to get out "I saw Lynn Myers today after not seeing him for 3 months" before it all came loose and I wept bitterly on his shoulder. I just couldn't deal with this anymore, and whatever "brave" face I had had left to put on was gone.

And so, I went back into my pattern of finding "good" reasons not to make the trip down, and it was almost another 3 months before I saw him again. Fortunately for me, God had some work to do in my heart before that time came.

Hope restored

So, I got distracted for a few days, had my momentum broken, and it's taken me over a week to get back to this story. Anyone surprised by this? If you are, you haven't really been paying attention recently...

Anyhow, if you're a Phillies fan, a baseball fan, or probably even a sports fan in general, you generally know how this part of the story ends. The story of how the baseball season ended in Philadelphia in 2007 is not exactly a secret, but here's how I walked through it.

In the immediate aftermath of that Monday night, as I was still going over in mind if what I thought had happened had REALLY happened, the Phillies proceeded to lose their next two games in impressive fashion, to the tune of being outscored 20-2. Let's just say that didn't really help my skepticism. At the end of play on September 12th, they were 7 games behind the Mets division lead with 17 games to play, which made that avenue to the playoffs seem pretty much done with. They were much closer in the wild card, but there were several teams in the mix, and let's just say that the Phillies weren't exactly inspiring confidence. So, the thought that it had been God speaking to me in the car a couple nights prior moved further into the back of my brain.

But baseball is a funny game, and things can change pretty quickly. They came back and won their next 6 games, including a 3 game sweep of the Mets, and suddenly the odds seemed more manageable, while still pretty long. Even as the doubter in me kept telling me that this whole thing was nuts, and that it probably wasn't going to come true anyhow, I remember clinging to it, hoping that it really was true. As a classic example, the 5th game in this 6th game win streak was against the Cardinals, and the Phillies came as close as you can to blowing an 11-0 lead, holding on to win 13-11. I remember being upstairs in my bedroom, following the game on my computer, and praying. It was as close as I'll ever actually come to praying for a particular outcome of a sports event, but that wasn't what I was doing. I wanted so badly for what I thought I had heard from God to be the truth.

As stated, they pulled out that game, and then the following, but a 3-3 stretch in the next games left them 2 out in the division and 1 out in the wild card with 5 games to play. Very possible, but they were going to need to play very well. Getting the division seemed out of the question, because the Mets were playing 2 very bad teams in their last 5 games - if they just went 3-2, the best the Phillies could do was tie them. But crazily enough, the Phillies won their next 2, and the Mets lost two games to the woeful Nationals, and when the Nationals came to Philly for the last 3 games of the season, the Phillies and Mets were tied for first place, the first day all year that the Phillies had been in first place.

Oddly enough, I had tickets to the first game of that final series, the last Friday game of the regular season. I'd had them for months - I had gotten tickets to 6 games in a package at the beginning of the season, one game each month, and had chosen this particular game hoping to catch a game in the pennant race, and man, had I gotten it right.

From the pure perspective of a fan, this was easily the best experience I've ever had a pro sporting event. The house was packed, the fans were absolutely electric, and absolutely everything went right for the Phillies that night. Cole Hamels was masterful, throwing 8 shutout innings with 13 strikeouts as the Phillies dominated the game 6-0. As an added bonus, the Marlins had jumped ahead of the Mets early, and we were tracking that game on the out of town scoreboard all night as well. It ended after the Phillies game, and so I was sitting in my car with the postgame show on the radio, and the announcement of the final score led to a massive wave of honking car horns, rally towels being waved out windows, etc. For the record, the car horn thing wasn't the best situation when you already had people trying to navigate out of a crowded parking lot and some horn honking going on with that, but to the best of my knowledge, there were no accidents.

From the perspective of this journey I was on, this was the night that I finally fully embraced what I believed that God had said to me 18 days earlier. As I took everything in, even as the Phillies fan in me was going over all the things that could go wrong over the next 2 days, I found myself overwhelmed with the sense that I knew this was going to happen, and the trip home down the Turnpike was almost its own worship service.

The following day, my folks came up to my house to watch the game with me, hoping for the possibility of seeing the Phillies clinch the division. Unfortunately, that possibility had already gone out the window before the Phillies even took the field, since the Mets had won their game (in grand fashion, in fact, by the score of 13-0). They still had a chance, however, to ensure no worse than a tie for the division, which would force a 1 game playoff against the Mets. In true Phillie fashion (it can never be simple or easy), they played their worst game in the recent stretch, lost to the Nationals, and feel back into a first place tie. As frustrated as I was with the result of that game, and as much as the Phillies fan in me was screaming "here we go again", I remember saying several times to my folks: "They're going to do it." It wasn't bravado, it wasn't me trying to talk myself into it, it was just a very flat statement of faith at that point. Admittedly, there was probably less confidence assigned to it than there might have been 18 hours before, but I believed it, nonetheless. I was resigned to the strong possibility that it would require a 1 game playoff, but I believed it would happen.

The next day, I watched as the Mets, who started their game a bit earlier in the Phillies, gave up 7 first inning runs to the same lowly Marlins team they had throttled the day before. (Like I said before, baseball is funny) Realizing that that would likely mean the Phillies could close out the deal today, I hung on every pitch in their game. They jumped out to an early lead, and the final outcome was never in doubt. The Mets game went final during the last inning, and as the Phillies recorded the final out and the celebration began, I was completely overcome with emotion. Now, understand, I'm a bigtime sports fan, and I've been known to have emotional reactions to this sort of thing before - but this was different. This was not simply the joy of watching my favorite baseball team end a 13 year playoff drought. I was overcome with the fulfillment of what I believed God had spoken to me a few weeks earlier, and what I believed that meant about my friend. The Phillies had come back from 7 games down with 17 games to play, the biggest September comeback in MLB history - a baseball "miracle" as it were.

Now, as I finish off this part of the story, let me make one thing clear - I don't believe, and never have, that God was out there manipulating baseball games for my benefit, or that he had some sort of direct hand in the Phillies winning the division back in 2007. I do, however, believe that God sees these things coming - and that he had used this particular event to speak to me right where I was at, and in an arena where he was sure to have my attention. Needless to say, the hopelessness I had felt at that September 10th meeting was now a distant memory.

I wish I could say that the reason I'm sharing this now, just over 2 years later, is because Lynn has been healed. Sadly, that is not yet the case. But it's not over yet either, and so I'll get into "the rest of the story" as I continue on.

Was that you, God?

So, I hopped in the car and started the drive home. As would be expected, I turned on the radio to listen to the Phillies game. They were playing the Colorado Rockies on this particular evening. As I mentioned in my last post, I was a bit frustrated with and rather pessimistic about the 2007 Phillies at this point. I don't remember all the particulars anymore, but I do remember that the Phillies were losing the game when I turned it on.

I don't recall how long I had listened or what exactly happened, but I was frustrated enough (my general mood given the meeting I had just come from probably wasn't helping) to turn the game off. As I was continuing to drive up the road, grumbling about the Phillies in my head (and quite possibly aloud), just knowing this was going to be another year when they fell short, the words "Don't lose hope" suddenly came into my head. It's really hard to describe what was going on here, but it just completely felt like something that was coming from outside of my own thoughts and musings, like someone else was entering the conversation. Was this God speaking to me?

You have to understand something here - up until about the last year, I had very minimal confidence in my ability to hear from God, at least on my own. On the rare occasions where I was willing to believe God was speaking to me, I would invariably preface it with "I'm not really someone who hears from God" or some variation on that theme. So, for me to quickly tag something as a potential word from God, especially in what was a very "non-spiritual" context, it had to have grabbed my attention pretty significantly.

One thing I immediately understood - if this was, in fact, a word from God, He wasn't just talking to me about the Phillies. I mean, maybe God is a big baseball fan, but I was pretty sure if He was giving me a message, the real point was about the other subject of the evening - Lynn. I believed He was telling me not to lose hope for Lynn, and that the Phillies were his way of confirming it.

Perhaps now you might understand one of the reasons why I've kept this under my hat to a large degree? To this day, it still seems a bit out there, even to me, and I lived it. Needless to say, I was skeptical. Along with my general skepticism about my ability to hear from God, there was the simple matter that I've always, and continue to be to this day, very cautious when I feel like I hear something from God that is what I know I really want - because it's not particularly easy to be objective in these cases. I mean, let's evaluate what I felt like I was hearing from God here - that my good friend was going to be healed from a fatal disease, and that my favorite baseball team was going to finally make the playoffs. There's not much question that's something I could dream up. And let's be realistic, the Phillies were right in the wild card hunt - as much as my past memories told me otherwise, making the playoffs was still a pretty strong possibility.

Still not really knowing what to think, I turned the radio back on and listened as the Phillies came back and won that particular game. As I got home, I determined to file the events of the evening away, taking a "wait and see" approach. I mean, after all, in a few weeks I would know if the Phillies made the playoffs or not, and if they didn't, there wasn't much more to be considered.

Some context

In my last post I told you to remember the fact that Lynn and I were both Phillies fans, because it would be important later. Well, in order to put this part of the story in proper context, I have to give provide a mini-history of the Phillies themselves. It's something else to be writing this out only hours before the Phillies open up the World Series against the Yankees, seeking to win their second straight championship.

The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team is one of the oldest professional sports teams in the US, with a history that goes back well over 100 years. They've been around for a long time, and for most of that history, they've been, well, pretty bad. Earlier that summer, the Phillies had suffered their 10,000th loss as a franchise. Actually, I missed being at that game by one night because they won when I was there. When the Pittsburgh Pirates finished off their 17th consecutive losing season in 2009, they set a major league record, wiping the Phillies record of 16 from the books. People make a big deal these days about how the Cubs have gone 101 years without winning a World Series, they made a big deal about how the Red Sox went 86 years in between championships. The Phillies had a similar run at the beginning of their history, going 77 years before winning their first, and as of the summer of 2007, their only, championship.

That happened in 1980, when I was about 6 months old. They made it back to the World Series in 1983 before losing to the Orioles, but by the time I was old enough to start being a fan, they were pretty much back into their historic pattern of ugliness. In fact, from the time I can remember following them through 2000, every season, with one notable exception, ended with more Phillies losses than wins. The exception, 1993, was glorious, right up until the point when it ended in the World Series, with Joe Carter's series ending home run off of Mitch Williams in Game 6.

In 2001, there was a shift. The Phillies went from being terrible every year, to being good, but not quite good enough, year in, and year out. Every year between 2001 and 2006 (with the exception of 2002, when they only won 80), the team won at least 85 games, and in most of those years they finished agonizingly close to a playoff spot, just missing out in the final days of the season. I'm honestly not sure what was harder on me as a fan - when they were just terrible, or when they were always getting my hopes up only to dash them.

2007 was shaping up to be another one of those "good, but not good enough" years, and early September had been particularly frustrating. The team had won 4 straight from the archrival Mets at the end of August to close within a very manageable 2 games behind in the division. However, by September 10th, the day of our meeting, they had managed to give all 4 of the games that they had picked up back with a rough stretch of play that had corresponded with a Mets hot streak. They were only a couple games back in the wild card, but I just wasn't very impressed in general, and while I refused to give up completely, I was resigning myself to yet another season that would end in a frustrating near-miss, with no postseason for the 14th straight year.

So, anyhow, that's what was going on with the Phillies as our meeting broke up that night and I said my goodbyes. As I was about to walk out to my car, Lynn suggested I could go in the house and see if that night's game was on TV. I declined, as I needed to get started on the hour drive home, and I could listen to the game on the radio in the car. As I declined, I threw out an offhand comment, paralleling our Phillies to the word of the evening: "Yeah, speaking of not losing hope..." Lynn and I both chuckled about it knowingly, and I headed out to my car.

A loss of hope...

And so, after yet another lengthy hiatus, I am back. And I have a story to tell. I make no promises about how long it will take me to tell it, because I know that only gets me in trouble...

Much of this story happened over 2 years ago, and much of it I have never shared with more than a handful of people who are particularly close to me, or particularly close to the situation. This is for reasons that are my own, and which may become clear as I go along. I choose to share it more publically now, for reasons which are also my own, and which also may become clear as I go along. Have I piqued your curiosity yet?

Anyhow, I have written at various times over the last few years on this blog about my dear friend Lynn, who spent several years serving God in Thailand, and whose team I went on trips to support in 2007 and 2008. I've also mentioned that he is currently suffering from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, a degenerative nuerological disease in which, simply put, the brain gradually loses the ability to communicate with the rest of the body. There is no medical cure for ALS, and as such, it is fatal.

It was in late summer of 2007, while Lynn and his family were back in the US on home ministry, when I first heard the term "ALS" in connection with Lynn. The diagnosis wasn't official at this point, but it was what the doctors were strongly suspecting. I got an e-mail that Lynn sent out to some of his core support team with this news in it one day while I still was at work, and it was all I could do not to burst into tears in the middle of my office. I was stunned, especially since I didn't even know Lynn had been having the health difficulties that had led him to see the doctors in the first place. Needless to say, it was very difficult to finish off the day at work, but I got through it.

Oddly enough, I was going to be seeing Lynn in a few days. In the way of background, one commonality that Lynn and I share as friends is our love of the Phillies. We came by it in different ways - Lynn's entire family on his Dad's side are Phillies fans, stemming back to Lynn's paternal grandmother. (That's right, I said grandmother.) I, on the other hand, am first generation. My parents are both Phillies fans, but they got it from me, not the other way around. I'm not particularly sure why I'm a Phillies fan. I just always remember loving baseball, and that the Phillies were the first team I encountered. Anyhow, having gotten that little piece of information out the way (remember it, it will be important later), Lynn and I had planned a couple months before to attend that Friday night's Phillies game together. We had 5 1/2 or so hours in the car ahead of us, and one of the topics had obviously already been set.

I remember that car ride like it was yesterday. I spent much of the trip down uncomfortably babbling on about the many thoughts that had been running through my head over the few days between the news and the game. Much of my ramblings centered around my theology of healing - that God can and does heal, but doesn't always, and how whether Lynn lived or died I believed God would work good in it and bring glory to Himself, and advance His kingdom in Thailand. There was other stuff, but it was pretty much all variations on that theme. I kept running my mouth to the point where later in the car ride Lynn called me out for it, and let me know that I needed to work on my listening skills. Tough love, but he was right. Listening isn't always my best skill to begin with, and it can get really bad when I get uncomfortable.

I was uncomfortable because, the truth of the matter was this - I had basically conceded Lynn's life. Despite my belief in God's power to heal, when I had seen those letters "ALS", I had already made the determination, whether I would have admitted it to myself or not, that Lynn was going to die from this illness and whatever work God was going to do in this situation wasn't going to include healing. Why? I'm still not 100% sure to this day, but it will probably make more sense as I get further along. The simple fact of the matter was that I was fixated on the physical reality that was right in front of me, and defining God's work on the basis that this diagnosis, which was absolutely real, was the final word, and something that God was going to have to work within the boundaries of. Even though my "head" view of God allowed for a miraculous healing, my "heart" view of things had already ruled it out.

A little over 3 weeks later, on September 10th, I was gathered with Lynn, his wife Amy, and the rest of their core support team at Lynn's parents' house (where they were staying while on home ministry) for a team meeting. This was to have been our last meeting before Lynn and Amy returned to Thailand on September 12th, a return that was now on indefinite delay due to the medical situation. Obviously, there was only one subject on everyone's hearts.

As we gathered, Lynn began to share how God had given him the word that his sickness was not unto death, as in the story of Lazarus in John 11. Obviously, given where my heart was at, this was rather difficult for me to accept, and I approached it with requisite skepticism. "Of course that's what he heard, that's what he wanted to hear." and other variations on that theme were playing in my mind. I was hoping against hope that he was right, but really not believing that he was, for the most part.

As he continued to share, he spoke about the kind of people he wanted to have around him and supporting him in this time - people that wouldn't lose hope. Do you think that didn't drill right into my heart? I had completely lost hope and given Lynn up for dead from the minute I got that e-mail. Heck, the diagnosis wasn't even final yet - but that hadn't stopped me. I remember tearing up, wishing I could feel differently, but not finding it my heart to do so.

We ended the formal part of the meeting by gathering around Lynn and Amy and praying for them. As we prayed, my heart was moved and I prayed aloud, confessing that I had lost hope, and also claiming a willingness to trust Lynn, to trust in what he believed God was saying to him. And you know what, as I prayed that, I felt a release, and I believed that I could do it, that I could trust in what God was saying to Lynn. And maybe I could have, maybe that would have been enough (probably not). However, because of the events that followed, starting immediately after that meeting, I never really had a chance to find out.

Favre-palooza

Well, since the whole of the national sports media has been "All Favre, all the time" since Brett Favre's game winning touchdown pass in yesterday's Vikings/49er game, I thought I would join the parade. And so, allow me to share my personal favorite Brett Favre moment.

It was the 2003 NFC Divisional playoff game between Favre's Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles. A very exciting game had led to overtime. The Eagles won the toss and elected to receive, but after a 3 and out, the ball, and thus, the game, was in Brett Favre's hand. On the first play of the series, Favre dropped back, looked down the field, and gave the ball a mighty heave. It soared majestically down the field, until it came down, into the waiting arms of... Eagles safety Brian Dawkins - with no Packer within 20 yards of him and the ball. Dawkins ran the ball back 35 yards to the Packer 35, the Eagles drove 20 more yards and then kicked the game winning field goal to advance to the NFC title game.

If you remember that game, or are aware of my affinity for Philadelphia sports teams, you probably saw that coming. I bring it up for two reasons: First, because it really is a fun memory, and second, because I've been wondering for the last 24 hours plus when exactly it was that the media at large lost all sense of perspective on Favre.

Now, I am not a Favre-hater. In fact, there was a period in Favre's career where I would probably have ranked him as one of my favorite players that didn't play for my favorite team. I get why people liked him. He was an immense talent, had a seemingly very "every man", down to earth demeanor, and he played the game with passion and with a gunslinger's mentality that everyone who has dreamed of NFL glory while playing in a pick up game in the backyard can relate to. He was an excellent quarterback, one of the absolute best in the game in his prime, and enjoyed a good deal of success. He merited attention.

At some point, however, this thing got way out of control. I'd love to blame the president of the media's Favre fanboy club, John Madden, but he was only the most obvious culprit. At some point Favre almost became bigger than the game, and his flaws as a player (which certainly existed) were routinely whitewashed while his successes were overemphasized. The story I started with is a perfect example - in addition to making a lot of incredibly positive game-changing plays, it wasn't that uncommon for him to hurt his team's chances with an unnecessary risk or poor decision. That was the downside of having his talent and his mentality - he always believed he could make a throw. There's a reason he's the NFL's all-time leader in touchdown passes, and also interceptions. He did cutdown on the latter in his prime, but not at all entirely.

At this point in his career, and after all the years of "will he/won't he" around his retirement status, Favre is still being assigned a place in the game, that, in my opinion, he doesn't deserve and never really did. The man was great, in all but the strictest definitions of the term, but let's not get crazy. He played a substantial portion of his career alongside 3 quarterbacks who I wouldn't hestitate to rank ahead of him in the NFL pantheonon of greatness in Elway, Brady, and Peyton Manning, and alongside several others (Young, Aikman quickly come to mind) who certainly are in the same neighborhood as he. At present, he has to show for his efforts exactly one Super Bowl win, ranking him alongside such lumanaries of the game as Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson, and one loss to Elway. He also has, alongside those, a few catastrophic meltdowns like the one I opened this thread with that sent his teams to the golf course.

And yet, one game-winning TD pass, in the 3rd game of the season, and it's wall to wall Brett-mania on ESPN. Almost completely lost in the euphoria has been the fact that Favre's pass would have been for naught had the less than Pro Bowl caliber wideout Greg Lewis not made one of the better catches you'll ever see in the very back of the end zone. In fact (and I chastise people all the time for building arguments around "if" statements that really can't be proven wrong, so I apologize for this), I'm guessing that if all but 2 other active quarterbacks (Brady and P. Manning being the other) had thrown the ball, the headlines would have been talking about a game-winning catch, rather than a game winning pass. However, as a point of support, when referencing the end of last year's Super Bowl, do people more often refer to Ben Roethlisberger's winning pass, or Santonio Holmes' winning catch?

Anyhow, I wish Brett Favre the best, and he has been excellent this season by any reasonable measure. I just wish that the media would allow us all to appreciate Favre for what he is and was, without the need to hyperbolize and hero worship.

It was an accident, I swear

So, something happened to me recently - something that I very much did not plan on. In fact, as the title suggests, I would go so far as to say it happened by accident. After years and years of avoiding it like the plague, I woke up and realized that I, in fact, am leading an all-around healthy lifestyle. How could this possibly happen "by accident", you ask? Well, let me break it down for you, in chronological order of the several, mostly unconnected events.

#1 - Dramatically cutting back on soda consumption: I had, over the last several months, gotten to the point where I was consuming far more soda than I would prefer. It was easy for me to think this was not the case, because I rarely buy and keep a supply of soda at home. The issue was the trips to the vending machine at work. I was pretty much always having a soda with lunch, and quite often would have another at some point in the day. One day in early August, a co-worker made a point of saying how she could always count on seeing a Mt. Dew at my desk when she came by (she was not meaning anything by it, she's apparently the same way). That was a "Wow" moment, for one thing. Also, the vending machines at my work aren't exactly value price, and while a dollar or two every day doesn't seem like much, it adds up and I was looking at ways to save money. Also about this same time, I noticed the existance of G2 powder packets for use in a bottle of water. I've gone all water at work several times before, but I always slip up because I just need some flavor. G2 has enough flavor to keep me from running to the vending machine, has considerably less sugar, and actually has some positive health value to it, and at about 35 cents for a 500 ml bottle as opposed to 75 cents for a 12 ounce can of soda, the price is right. So, pretty quickly, I dropped from 1 or 2 sodas a day to 1, maybe 2 a week.

#2 - Actually cooking for myself more, less fast food, frozen pizza and Hot Pockets: The thing about this one is, I like to cook, and I like to eat actual cooking even more :) Ever since I've been on my own, I've gone in and out of spells where I am doing a lot of cooking. Around the same time as I cut down on soda, I decided it was time to get serious about cooking again. This was also aided by the end of church softball season, which is an all-consuming sort of thing over the summer (or at least it has been, but I don't intend for it to be again) which gave me a more regular, relaxed schedule. Cooking for myself really isn't that much of a time/effort thing. I have a (now increasing number) of recipes that I really like and that are fairly minimal in their preparation, and since it's just me, I typically only have to actually cook once every 4 days or so. It's funny, when I was a kid living at home, and my mom was doing the cooking leftovers were a drag. Now, given the alternative, having leftovers of a nice recipe for dinner is something of a treat. This one was also a cost saver as well.

#3 - Regular morning exercise - You'll recall my Half Dome story - how I talked about how out of shape I was, how I didn't make it to the top, and how I have designs on going back someday and making it all the way. Now, I personally believe that, even in the condition that I was in, knowing what I know now and actually having the internal desire to complete the hike, I could go back and make it to the top. However, I have no designs on leaving that assumption to chance. So, even though I have no formal plans at this point to head back up Half Dome any time soon, the edict was out there to get in better shape. There was also a cost issue here - I was reaching the limits of the waistlines on some of my pants, and really didn't want to lay out the cash for bigger replacements :) Anyhow, I have an elliptical and had tried to get into an exercise routine right after I got home from California, but I was doing it in the evenings and with softball, it was just difficult to get into any kind of plan. So, a few weeks after softball ended, I was trying to figure out how I was going to stay with an exercise routine. I had had a similar problem with spending daily time with God a few months ago. My solution: Get up early and do it first thing in the morning. That had worked really well, so, I bit the bullet and decided to get up an additional 30 minutes early each morning and hop on the elliptical. This had an unintended side benefit: making me much more awake and alert for my time with God! Ever since the move to the morning, I had struggled with nodding off from time to time. Not an issue after 30 minutes on the elliptical!

#4 - Better hydration, more balanced diet: Okay, the first 3 were pretty much unconnected, but this one was pretty much a case of, well, I've come this far, might as well go all the way. The hydration thing came first - I was already drinking the G2 at work, and of course I wanted to make sure I was drinking with my morning workouts. So, getting into a much better routine of taking in water during the evening just seemed to follow. And, while I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to do anything with my diet to lose weight once I started exercising, there was this sense "I'm getting up at 5:00 am to do this exercise thing, why would I want to completely work against myself when I'm eating". Now, let's be clear - I'm not "on a diet". There's nothing that I've cut out or won't eat now. I'm not counting calories, carbs, etc. Rather than trying to cut out "bad" things, my focus as been on eating more "good" things THAT I LIKE - having the morning OJ, packing carrots and fruit with my lunches, taking a granola/fiber bar along for a snack at work (heading off another vending machine expense), eating apples (honeycrisp apples MIGHT be the greatest snack ever), having more fruits and vegetables with my meals at home. So, while the intent hasn't necessarily been to eat less, cut down on calories, I'm pretty sure I have (I've been snacking less due to fuller meals), and I'm certainly eating better.

#5 - Evening walks - This was another one that kind of followed from everything else, and also from the fact that I have a dog that certainly isn't hurt by taking long walks. I wanted to get in some extra, low intensity activity in the evenings, I'd been thinking for a while that I should be walking Chaser more, and there you go. I've been trying to get at least a 15 minute walk in with Chaser for the last couple weeks, longer when there's no threat of rain.

So there it is - that's how I started living healthy "by accident". Now, I could obviously fall out of this all tomorrow, but I've been at most of this for several weeks now, and quite honestly, am really enjoying it. The end results: Losing weight (about 4 pounds since I started tracking about 2 weeks ago, and likely an additional pound or two between when I started exercising and when I started tracking), seeing my overall, day to day energy level rise dramatically (especially in situations where I'm going on less sleep than I'd prefer), and being able to play an hour and a half of flag football on Sunday afternoon without dying of exhaustion :) I can deal with that!

Reaching the top, sort of... (also, post #300!)

So, for the 300th post in the history of this blog, I shall finish out the ascending portion of my Half Dome story. I'm pleased it worked out that way, as I thought I was going to get to 300 on like the 2nd post, but then I discovered that there were a few old "draft" posts that never were posted that were included in the count that I was getting on the log in page. (And I actually started and had most of this post written almost 2 weeks ago, but a flaky internet connection prevented me from finishing and somehow it took me this long to get back to it)

So, I personally wasn't at all ready (or even that interested) in continuing up the trail to Half Dome, but I was convinced that God wanted me to continue, there really wasn't much getting around that fact, and so I started again, along with my uncle. As I started, things weren't a whole different than they had been when I had sat down before the 2 miles to go sign. I felt very weak, I was getting winded very quickly, etc, etc. And the trail was pretty steep at this point as well. I took it a very little bit at a time, stopping for a minute or two break at virtually every spot that looked convenient. I noticed that my pace would still keep me putting some distance between myself and my uncle, so I would find a place to sit, wait for him to catch up, sit with him for a bit, and then take off ahead of him.

Eventually I found I was able to go further at a time, and my routine formalized to this - I'd get some good distance between my uncle and myself, sit down, and then take off again shortly after he arrived. I repeated this several times, and then at one of the points where I sat down, I realized I had gotten far enough away that I couldn't see him behind me. I waited for a bit, intending to continue my routine. However, at some point, he must have taken a more extended break, because he didn't come for a while, and I was feeling ready to go on, so I did, basically committing to go as far as I could get on my own. At this point in the hike, I was still basically in the woods, I had really no concept of what exactly was up ahead, or what I would encounter - but eventually I came out into a more open part of the trail and headed up unto and to the left.

As I crested this hill, things flattened out somewhat, and I realized I was coming out of the woods and onto a plateau, where all of sudden I could look out over the valley and see the likes of this:

The tears were back behind my sunglasses, but for very different reasons this time. This wasn't the true end of the trail, but it was something very much worth climbing to see, and something I would have totally missed out on, had I let my own instincts prevail and given up in the middle of the woods. I stopped and paused for a few moments, and then started to head onward. There was actually an additional rise up ahead, and as I started towards it, I saw my Mom and Dad coming back down it. They met me and turned with me to head back over the rise, encouraging me that it opened up even more just ahead, and it did.

I actually think both of those pictures were probably taken from the second location, but I have to provide some sense of building the story. Anyhow, Mom and Dad also led me to the view that caused them to end their ascent:

The famous "Heartbreak Hill. You can't really see from the picture, but to us, it looked like there were people literally going straight up the lower part of that rockface, where there were still trees. In actually, this was not the case, but they were ascending stone stairs of the same ilk that we had ascended on our trek alongside Vernal Falls. And, though we couldn't see this view from there, we knew that after you got through all that, this awaited:

The last several hundred feet to the top of Half Dome takes you straight up the rock face, with just the assistance of the cables you see here. It's really hard to totally get a feel for how steep the climb is from pictures, but Tim's report was, at least in stretches, it was definitely in excess of a 45 degree climb. As I looked at the whole view, I knew, as my parents had, that getting up it was just not in the cards today, and this was where my ascent would end as well. However, as opposed to the last time I had thought my ascent over, I was very much at peace at this time. I had pressed on well beyond where everything in me had wanted to give up, and I was very much sensing I had made it as far as I was supposed to get on this day.

However, a funny thing happened while I was standing there, looking up at the summit. Remember how I said (I think several times) that part of my problem from the beginning was that I didn't really want to climb Half Dome, that I was just doing it because that's what we were doing, and that there was nothing internal pushing me to reach the top? Well, all that was changing with the end of the trail staring me in the face, albeit about 1000 feet or so up. I now WANTED to get to the top of Half Dome. In fact, as we stood/sat there, I almost got to the point of starting of again on a couple occasions, but wisdom prevailed. (I learned once we started down just how wise that was. By this time, the groin injury I had sustained going up the waterfalls was so aggravated, that any time I had to actually "step" up, it was absolutely excrutiating. I was generally okay to walk up or downhill, but it probably would have taken me all of 5 steps up Heartbreak Hill to come wincing back down) However, I told myself right then and there that where I was was fine for that day, but that I would come back someday and get to the top - and I intend to do just that.

But, like I said, this was it for that trip, so after some rest, I was ready to head back down the trail.

A crisis of the will

2 more miles?! Really? As tiny and unremarkable as that little sign was, it somehow managed to sap every last bit of fight from me. I don't think anyone else in the group was particularly thrilled to see it either. We all sat down around the edge of this open area for a break (an extended one this time), but when I personally sat down, it felt like I was doing so without any intention to get back up - at least not to continue forward. Before that sign, I was still holding out some hope of making it to the end of the hike. But with 2 miles to go, the way I was feeling now, my mind could not conceive of any possible way I could make it all the way and then still have enough to make the final ascent. If I couldn't make it all the way, then what was the point of continuing to put myself through this - especially since I never really had that much desire to do this in the first place. I mean, quiting a mile further up the trail was still quiting, right?

So there I sat, feeling pretty much completely defeated, and with nothing in my body or mind wanting to go forward. I sulked while I ate and drank - not liking the idea of being the first (and maybe only, even though the folks were openly talking about not being able to make it) one to pack it in, but not thinking my pride was worth continuing, especially since I was only postponing the inevitable. After several minutes, my folks decided to go on, but my uncle was planning to rest longer. As my parents left, it was decided that I would wait behind, and if I wanted to continue when my uncle moved on, I would, if not, I wouldn't. In my mind, I was pretty sure what was going to happen, and it was apparently pretty obvious to my parents as well.

There was only one problem - that understanding that I had had since the plane ride on the beginning of the trip that I had an appointment with God somewhere on this hike, and if it had come and gone, I had certainly been unaware. So, God and I had a bit of a chat, that I think went something like this, though in my head, not out loud :):

Me: So God, this was it, right? I'm done now, and I'll understand later where we met - or maybe we'll meet on the way down?
God: You need to go higher.
Me: Are you kidding me? I'm beaten - done. There's no way I can make it all the way, so why would I put myself through this more?
God: I want you to go higher - and I'm telling you you can go higher.
Me: Why? What could possibly be worth continuing this? Tell me where I'm supposed to go.
God: I want you to go higher - isn't that enough for you?

And that's pretty much where the conversation ended. It was obvious I wasn't going to hear what I wanted to hear, so I was left to wrestle internally with what God was asking of me. There was nothing that came from me that wanted to continue - nothing. I felt tears welling up under my sunglasses as I fought - still not sure of what I was going to do when the moment of decision came.

A few minutes later (much, much too soon by my thinking) - my uncle looked over at me and said: "Are you ready?" The answer (the real answer, not what I said), was no - I was not ready. But, my decision was made, I was going to get up anyhow, and so I did - closing my pack back up and preparing to go higher.

A momentary break, and then a turn for the worse

Shortly after passing by the Nevada Falls, the trail really flattens out for a while. There's an initial stretch past the falls that is pretty bumpy and rocky, and in fact you actually go down somewhat for a bit (again, exceedingly frustrating when you know you weren't anywhere near done going up), but overall, this is about a mile or so of the flatest stretch on the trail (at least the part of the trail that I covered). It's very peaceful, you walk by the river that feeds the falls, it's just overall a nice breather after all the climbing. One thing that is a negative about it, or at least was for us, is that it's much more open and out in the sun than most of the trail. I never really got a read on how hot it actually was up there - but it was in the high 90s down on the valley floor the other days we were in the area, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't terribly far from that range where we were hiking most of the time. Now, in that part of the world, it's very, very dry, so without the humidity, the heat is easy to escape when you are shaded, but it does really beat down on you when you're out in it.

This whole segment of the trail is also in the shadow of Half Dome - and by this time we could already see a few people on the cables heading up from the lower dome to the very top, looking like ants on the side of the big rock. We did sit down for a while near the river, and at this point I was still feeling alright, although the toll of all the climbing over the last couple hours was definitely setting in. After getting up from our rest, we made rather quick work of the flatter part of the trail and then turned up into the forest to begin ascending again.

This, unfortunately, is where the story of my ascent takes an unhappy turn. Shortly after we (at this point we was my Mom, Dad, uncle and I - Tim and Megan had pushed on ahead) had headed up into the forest, it was noted that we had missed the last "real" (and I use that term VERY loosely) bathroom on the trail. The reason we had missed it was because it wasn't actually "on" the trail, but was rather at a backpack campsite that was just off to the right of the trail before it made the turn back up into the woods. So, we went back. I'm not sure I particularly remember why I did, cause I didn't really have to go and I really didn't have worries in the event that I wound up needing to go in the woods. But back we went. I suck at estimating distances, but I'm going to guess we went back about a quarter mile or so.

I am not sure totally sure what it was, but after doing that, everything turned in the wrong direction for me. I think my parents would say the same thing. I became much more fatigued, both physically and mentally, and everything became much more of a struggle. Thinking back on what went wrong, it was probably a combination of things:

#1 - I had been very focused on keeping myself hydrated, but I don't think I paid enough attention to how much food I was taking in.

#2 - The lack of sleep from the night before was finally setting in to some degree

#3 - That trek back to the bathroom had been back in that open section that let the sun beat down, and probably didn't help.

#4 - We were getting higher, and the altitude wasn't exactly helpful

#5 - I think going back threw some psychological switch, along with all of the above.

We were climbing again, but it wasn't that bad compared to where we had come from, and yet I was really struggling now. The stops were coming more frequently, and being less helpful. For the first time, I was really doubting whether I was going to be able to do this, and the bigger problem, which I alluded to earlier, was that I had never really WANTED to do this, so it was hard to convince myself that continuing to do this to myself was going to be worth it. I kept going, thinking to myself that, while I knew it would get a lot steeper at the very end, it would probably be okay until then. Of course, then Mom asked my uncle if it got much steeper before the very end, and he said, yeah, right up around there. Great!

And it did get steeper (by the way, you'll notice I've not been posting many pictures in this part of the story - that in itself is evidence to what we were going through, because the photographers definitely weren't in the same mindset that they were earlier), and at this point I think we were all openly questioning whether we could make it - and I was questioning whether it was even worth it to try. I didn't really want to give up, especially not this soon. So, with my original dreams of the trail not getting much steeper until the very end dashed, I consoled myself by looking at the time, thinking about when we had left (I'm thinking we'd been on the trail almost 5 hours by this time), going on my rough estimates of what kind of time we should have been making, and thinking, "It can't be much further". I'm thinking, it's 8 miles to the summit, on flat ground I could do that in 2, 2 1/2 hours, so, double that for the climb, maybe minus a bit. My math led me to believe, without asking of course, that we were within the last mile of the hike.

Then of course, we came out into an open area, where I saw this:

WHAT?!

Scaling the falls

So, like I said, the first segment of the trip was really just a warmup, and the adventure didn't fully begin until we crossed over the bridge and made our turn up the Mist trail.

I need to be clear about something - I didn't go into this hike with any illusions about my capabilities. I knew going in I wasn't in peak physical condition, or anywhere close to it. One thing I was banking on, however, was the fact that I've always had pretty good endurance relative to my overall conditioning - which is to say that when I'm being smart about it, I can usually find a good solid pace that I can maintain for a long time. That was my intended tactic for the hike. The only problem is that setting a consistent pace is REALLY hard to do when the terrain keeps changing on you. As I recall, when we initially made the turn up onto the Mist trail, the hike was basically just a somewhat steeper version of what we had been doing previously. However, as we continued to trek toward the top of the lower (Vernal) falls, we encountered this:

And then this:

Followed by these:

And then... well, you get the picture. All of which provides appropriate context for this picture:

It wasn't all bad, however, as we got to do much of this in full view of this, which was the destination for this leg of the hike:

By now, perhaps you better understand my earlier comment about why you wouldn't come DOWN via the Mist trail unless you had a death wish. Those were very steep stone steps, many sections of which were quite slick due to the mist coming off of the falls. Going up them was difficult, and in fact exceeding such, but coming down them would have been absolutely treacherous. Somewhere on these steps I pulled a groin muscle - which is more significant later in the story. For this part of the climb, it was just an annoyance. But anyhow, we all finally reached the top of Vernal Falls, and took the bridge over the river to begin our ascent to the upper (Nevada) falls.

My recollection is that overall, the hike to Nevada Falls was not quite as steep and strenuous as the steps to Vernal. However, there were a few sections that left me wishing for the steps:

Really though, most of it wasn't that bad, and even that wasn't quite as treacherous as it might seem from the picture. It does, however, represent another reason not to descend via this trail. I remember being pretty pleased with how I was doing physically at this point. Don't get me wrong, it was hard, and overall, the hike was kicking my butt. We'd go for a while, I'd get tired, and the altitude left me pretty winded much of the time, but we were taking plenty of breaks, and usually just a minute or two would leave me feeling fine to go on for a while. I was feeling pretty optimistic about my chances of making it to the top.

Eventually, we made it to the top of the Nevada Falls - and the next restroom -, where we left the falls behind and made the transition to the next part of the hike.