DNGILB: Trust me, I'm a doctor.

The last time I was this sick was in the 1990's. it gave me increased sympathy and empathy for my dear wife who endured so much or the last 4 years. Bless her heart. My illness also highlighted my difficulty trusting my care to other physicians. I am quick to admit my lack of specialty when things fall outside of my expertise, but on issues I do know about I have a hard time trusting others. The situation also made me hate how cumbersome the medical institution is. I probably should have had a test... But it would have taken literally all day to get a C.diff checked and results back. And since I was going downhill quickly and didn't want to end up getting so ill that I needed admission... which i believe would have happened... So, I treated myself. We had some antibiotics leftover for C.diff and I took them. No lab tests. Just my clinical judgement based on the course of my illness. I had a quick and dramatic response. Thank goodness for Flagyl, because I was going downhill

During hard times one finds it easy to cry out to God. During really hard times one finds it difficult to believe God loves them and is good. Maybe the purpose of the really hard times isn't to get us to simply cry out to God... maybe the point is to get us to have a deeper understanding that God is good and how he loves us. He is not some senile old grandfather who just wants everyone to have a good time. He is a father who wants his children to grow and learn how to have faith and persevere under the trials of life. So they can be successful and victorious against a real enemy who wants to destroy them. Learning that the pain was allowed for our good is a tough lesson... it is the lesson of the really hard times.   Eventually, the really hard times ease up. Do we continue to cry out to God and spend time pursuing him, or do we fall to pursuits of leasure? The enemy never takes a day off... His goal is to destroy us. When things seem easy, it may be that we are simply

It was two days ago that I and a few friends reached the summit of Mt of the Holy Cross. (14,005 ft)  Since then, I can't stop thinking about it. Physically, the toughest thing I've ever done. Sure, we could have done an easy 14'er... but what sense of accomplishment would we experience if we didn't push it? We pushed it. Hind sight, I think we bit off a huge chunk for our lack of experience. Safety wasn't the issue. We did all the right stuff. But personally, I could have planned better. How I packed. How I trained. (You can't eat beef jerky when breathing 30+ times a minute with a pulse of 150.) We trekked 11 miles. We climbed 5,627 vertical feet. We actually set out to do the Half Moon trail ascent and the Halo Ridge descent. The planned route was about 13 miles and included reaching summit on four 13'ers after Mt. of the Holy Cross.  (We discussed our plans with some Colorado natives on the way up. "Wow! Don't mess with them Oklahoma boys!&quo

Not many super notable things have happened recently that I felt compelled to share via blog. That being said, many things are happening. Just of small or moderate notability. Overall, life has been a bit of a grind. Wife's health struggles have been a bit more challenging lately. However, with that being said, we did make it to Kauai and really enjoyed many days together. The overall theme for the past four weeks in my heart has been learning to praise God even in the storm. God spoke to me on this nearly a year ago. The Casting Crown's song "Praise You In This Storm" says it all. If you don't know it, listen to it. I had a moment in which I felt totally heavy and depressed... But I knew the truth, God wants me to praise him in my storm. So, I began praising God with my lips even when my heart felt it not. The tears flowed. My heart began to turn. Finally, my heart came in line with my words of praise. Peace came to me. The difficulty and pain was still there

A few weeks ago, a friend said, "You seem to really believe God loves you." He has seen me at moments of faith crisis in the past three years... So, coming from him, this is a pretty weighty statement. During my wife's health struggles, I had at times felt that God did not love me. I felt that he loved my wife and cared nothing for me. It felt that my dreams, desires, etc didn't matter to God... He threw me under the bus to take care of my wife. She was valuable to Him... I was expendable. Or so I felt. My friend followed up his statement with a question, "How did you come to know and FEEL that God loves you?"  I had a bit of a hard time formulating this into a cohesive thought... but it came about through the health trial that my wife and I were battling. Later, it became really clear. I know that God loves me BECAUSE he sent me into the desert... into a place of trial and testing... so that I would reach the end of my strength, and then turn to him alo