Soiled Saints

Moment of clarity one:  Nothing shakes you like a forced ambulance ride in which you are wide awake.

Sunday, April 20:  When I was loaded into the ambulance, I tried to understand what was going on in my body.  For some reason, my heart wasn’t beating like it should.  And I admit:  I was a tad scared.    But I wasn’t showing it.  To everyone I looked cool, calm and collected.  Well….not cool.  And not calm.  I’ve never been in an ambulence before, so you can imagine my attentiveness to everything.

What’s this?

What’s that?

The paramedics who rode with me….are very much the poorer for doing so.  “Sir, that’s this.”  “This is that.”  One paramedic was unique.  I don’t remember her name (Jennifer is my best guess), but I’ll NEVER forget what she said…on the 2.78 miles to the hospital.

She took one look at my vitals and said:  “Oh man…you’re SO getting a pacemaker!!”

How does one respond to news both this disruptive in content AND delivery……….

How about:  “Oh man..you SO need to get a date.”

Or:  “Oh Man, you SO failed the “bedside manner classes” in nursing school.

Or:  “Oh man you SO need a personality transplant so people won’t wish to kill you upon sight!

Or…well…you can see the depravity running through my brain.

We got to the hospital.  They didn’t know where to take me.  “2nd or 3rd floor?”  “I don’t know.” 

I chimed in:  I don’t know either.

They laughed.

I didn’t.

They finally wheeled me into my floor and room.  I was in ImCU.  Not ICU.  ImCU stands for “Inter-Mediate Care.” 

Dang it.  I wasn’t even good enough to make the full-blown Intensive Care.  I was simply Intermediate. 

2nd string.

The “B” Team.

Mandy had gone home to grab stuff.  The nurses hooked me up to every monitor they knew how….and a few that they didn’t.  My heart rate/beat/blood pressure/breating….all monitored. 

I was Darth Pastor.

And….I was alone.

Just me, the room, my fears, and God.

No wife.

No friends.

No sly remarks to deflect the fact that I was more scared than Simon Cowell in the middle of 10,000 David Archeletta fans AFTER the Idol season finale.

Just me, God, fears….and crying.  I cried intensely.  I was so scared, then got mad because I was scared….after all I tell people to trust God for a living right? 

Right.  And in the middle of trusting God….one can admit that he’s scared. 

But I couldn’t show fear in front of people Right?

Wrong.  But being prideful prevented that…for a while.

Moment of clarity two:  You can fool everyone into thinking that your heart (physical/spiritual) is fine.  You can fool yourself into clouding over the problem by thinking “it’ll get better.” But deep down…you know.  And deeper down:  God knows.  You’re not fooling Him.

More to come.

Jason

I have had a very strange development in my life recently, that caused me to have what I call a “moment of clarity.”  In my life, and I suspect the lives of many, we experience so much so fast, that things can become rather blurry. 

I also believe that there are points in our lives where we get to push the life-pause button and receive clarity from God. 

Thursday April 17 was the start of a journey that i’m not sure I’m ready to take.  It’s a journey that I don’t have a choice in however.  I woke up that day noticing my heart beating freakishly slow for me.  I know, I know, only ar (anal retentive) people like my would know my resting heart rate and the like.  But when your heart noticeably downshifts and you can feel it…you think about it. 

My heart was slowly beating a pounding rhythm.  “Stress” I thought.  After all, I had a truancy case with a student I care about that day, and a youth conference that our church was hosting that weekend.  “It will all be over soon.” 

How wrong I was. 

Friday and Saturday brought more of the same, despite my attempts at kick-starting my heart rate.  I ran up the stairs Sat. afternoon to nearly keel over from lack of oxygen to my brain.  Now, not to toot my own horn, but I dropped about 80 lbs on a stairmaster.  I don’t know a whole lot o’things…but stairs I do.

That’s when I realized something was really wrong.  Yet when I was up front, or talking with people, I felt fine. 

So like a typical fool…err…male….or ma-ool (Pronounced mule) I continued to ignore it.

Sunday night, after a few of our senior-aged folks told me to “get that checked out,” not realizing that I would rather try to back-mask Britney Spears records and watch Lindsay Lohan movies than go to the doctor.  I’d rather do anything, even attend an Ashley Simpson concert that would last until the end of the age. (why all the hatin’ on those three women?  I don’t hate them.  I just don’t see their talents I guess) 

But I went.  I chose to go to an urgent care 24 hour clinic….the Jiffy Lube of hospitals.  You can get oil changes, fluids topped off, even brake jobs….but no major body work.  They took my vitals, did the e.k.g. stuff, and decided to give me a drug called Atrophine, which is supposed to get your heart beat up.  By this point, I was beating about 39-42 beats a minute, which apparently is low.  The drug was supposed to work within three seconds.

3……..2………….1………..

and?

Nothing.  My heart beat remained the same.  And that’s when they gave me the great news…..I’m going to the hospital. 

Moment of clarity one:  Nothing shakes you like a forced ambulance ride in which you are wide awake.

More to come.

Jason

Howdy online universe!

Like the world needs another blog? 

Probably not.  But if there’s something worthwhile that I can contribute to this ongoing blog-o-sphere, then I’d like to give it a crack.

One of my best friends in the whole world has been hounding me for month…err…weeks about getting rolling with the blog thing.  After much weeping and gnashing of keyboards…..here I am.

Who am I and why should you care?  That’s a topic for another day and time.  Suffice to say, I hope to do a few things with this technology that scrambles mortal’s brains:

-Be a resource for people who seriously want the world to be different.

-Be a sounding board for advocacy of the following idea:  that the only way to a different world is through changed people. 

-Be a sounding board for advocacy of the following idea:  the only way to a changed people is through Jesus Christ.

John Piper has said the following, and I can’t agree more:  God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.

So to me:  The only way the world will be made right is through people becoming captured, embraced, and enthralled with Jesus.

Let the fun begin!

Jason