DNGILB: Trust me, I'm a doctor.

DAY 1. HEADING TO ROME. It was time to fly out for Rome. I had a mix of excitement and anxiety. Though through much prayer and truthful thinking my anxiousness was diminishing. The planning of this trip had been going on for so long, that it made the actual event seem almost unreal. "Is this really happening?" The nearly nine hour flight to Rome went by surprisingly easily. I watched a few inflight movies. Stayed surprisingly comfortable. Though I had hopes of sleeping, I didn't. Deespite the inflatable neck pillow that I purchased on Amazon. I had purchased an inflatable neck pillow so I didn't have to carry around a big bulk as we packed minimally. This is Vanessa's total luggage for the entire 18 day trip! So proud of my wife!! We were traveling with 50L backpacks. If it didn't fit... we couldn't take it. We packed about 5 outfits for the entire 18 day trip. We bought "quick dry" type clothing that we could wash and hang dry

I recently was read a message from a man who describes himself as a "free thinker" defending his position denying Christianity. He felt it was unfair to proclaim your religion is true based on faith and deny other religions based on reason and logic, which he felt was the usual case. He basically used logic and reason to deny all religion. This prompted me to think about why I believe in Jesus Christ as God incarnate and savior. I recalled grappling with my faith during the most grueling phases of my wife's illness. Why do I have faith? If one can reason away a multitude of religions based on logic, and many people reason away Christianity, then why do I continue to believe? I continue to believe based on my experience of God and his power in my life. I recalled wanting to share with a lost friend that Jesus Christ is the one true way. What could I possibly say that would persuade faith? Some people have problems in the way they think that can be addressed with logi

My wife and I had determined that her health was doing well enough that we could finally take that European vacation of which we had been dreaming. So, we started planning. But during this long planning period is when the colitis came back. Though the steroids were started and it treated the colitis well, it sort of angered her abdominal migraines a bit. So, it left me feeling quite uncertain and fearful of traveling internationally where we had less access to health care. My mind started flooding with "what if's". What if she needed to be hospitalized? What if she had a horrible abdominal migraine attack? What if the customs officials didn't like us bringing all this medicine into there country and it was confiscated? What if someone stole her medication while we were out of the room? WHAT IF?! I was overwhelmed with anxiety thinking of all of this. So much so that I thought, "Vacations are supposed to be fun. This is NOT fun. We should just cancel this trip!

It's probably a common phenomenon to think about the future and make promises to yourself. Vowing to not change in a certain way... or to not lose those aspects of yourself that you currently value as "making you unique." My memory was recently jogged as to a thought I used to have. Which was, "I hope I don't lose my love of unique cutting edge music." I wondered if the David of the year 2000 would be disappointed in the 2013 self. I do still listen to cutting edge and fringe music. Lesser known bands such as Efterklang, Under Byen, Lord Buffalo, True Widow, Big Black Delta, etc... still pique my interest and curiosity. But music used to be a bigger part of my identity. I listened to it all the time. I'd spend hours writing and recording music...  I used it to augment my perception of my day, moment, emotion, experience. While I still manage to have the occasional experiences of those beautiful moments. Most of the free time I have I seem to desire qui

My wife got an unfortunate diagnosis this week. Ulcerative colitis. This is diagnosed by a colonoscopy. She's had several. After the conscious sedation wears off, you shouldn't feel any different than before the procedure. So, five hours after the procedure when she had a temp of 101.8 and had body aches and increased abdominal pain... I immediately started thinking of worst case scenarios. I had already imagined going to the ER, notifying the surgeon of my choice to do the emergent peritoneal lavage and hemi-colectomy. All this after a very long health care stressful day. Trusting God in this setting is very difficult for me. "She's been through so much. God, you delivered her from all this bad health, why let it start all over again?" This time, I had some experience of God's faithfulness and goodness to fall back on. I believed in my head that he was good all the time, faithful all the time, will provide all the time, etc. But I still was an anxious mes

My wife's health had been getting better and better. Life seemed normal. Last colonoscopy (4 years ago), the doctor said there was no evidence for IBD (ulcerative colitis or Crohns). Unfortunately, new symptoms have developed. Symptoms very compatible with IBD. She got initiated on Asacol, hasn't made much progress. She has a colonoscopy planned soon. Did this shake our faith? Yes and no. It definitely put it to the test. The last time the IBD symptoms were there, they were profound and she was hospitalized for 2 weeks. Unable to eat. On TPN. Getting weaker every day. So, this return of symptoms has definitely the potential to provoke fear. Fear of the unknown. We are in a better place spiritually. Stronger faith. God wasn't surprised by her symptoms, he saw them coming. He already had a plan in place to take care of my wife. Just as he took care of her and helped us get through the health difficulties last time. He accomplished much good out of that painful ordeal. I p

My wife and I, yet to have our own children, perhaps had a glimpse of a future with two tween-aged daughters. The experience was much different than I had anticipated. We took Vanessa's sister with us for a California spring break. Preslie, now 12, is 18 years Vanessa's junior. She is a delightful child. Bubbly, positive, compassionate, tender, funny, and intelligent. My anticipation was that her bubbly energetic nature would supersede my capacity and leave me exhausted, wondering if I "had what it takes" to be a father one day. I believe this question remains unanswered, as the friends of our hosts had an equally charming daughter to whom Preslie took to quickly. Paris, age 14, and Preslie almost instantly became BFFs. (I try to know some of the lingo.) Though I didn't answer my original question, I received an unexpected insight. There is great joy and satisfaction in facilitating the happiness of a child. Vanessa and I provided this opportunity for Preslie