A Slower Pace

This posting is from my wife. It was on her Facebook page to her friends and is an amazing story.

My Friends,

This is so amazing I just had to share it with you. On the way home we stopped at Kroger Pharmacy to get D’s pain meds. I dropped off the prescription and wandered over to find some essentials D would need over the next few days. It’s been a long day and I was focused and Kroger was a mad house (maybe because of Easter). I could hear in the background a little boy screaming, “Mommy, she is from MY hospital” over and over. I had forgotten to take off my Kosair Children’s Hospital name tag and he spotted it.

Next I hear, “Mommy I want to talk to her”. That was followed by an “Excuse me”. I look up to see a little boy and his mom — the child an obvious cancer patient. If I had to guess he was about 4, a very tiny 4. I gave him my 100% attention. I explained that I actually didn’t work at Kosair but was very honored to meet him. He went on to explain that he loved Kosair and he was just there today for his chemo treatment. He said he really did love it but he didn’t want to have to go back for anymore treatments. He also said he had many surgeries and didn’t want anymore.

He talked a mile a minute and all with an incredibly beautiful smile. We chit chatted back and forth. His name is Dawson and I told him I would pray for him. He said “Yes please!” and then asked his mom to get him out of the cart so he could hug me. He gave me a huge hug and I thanked him for touching my life.

This is a God moment. I know we were both put in Kroger at the same time for different reasons.

Dawson touched my heart today. Please join me in praying for Dawson that God take this cancer from his little soul and heal him. I have seen today what the power of prayer did for us. God will heal this child.

I reiterate the call to pray for little Dawson. What an amazing soul!

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Today is a very important day because my son is having surgery. He is having inclusion cyst removed and while the surgery isn’t life threatening, it is surgery none-the-less.

Please keep him in your prayers today.

It reminded me of when my oldest daughter had surgery right before we moved to Kentucky.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

I spotted this sign on the way home from my wife’s Emmaus follow up meeting.

“Google can’t fulfill every search”

I’m not going to leave this message alone without saying that I believe God intentionally made a God shaped hole in our beings that can only be filled by Him. We try to fill it with knowledge, logic, sex, money, power, food, alcohol, drugs, art, hobbies, people, family, new age philosophies, and almost anything else but Him.

So if you are searching; if you feel a hole; if you have tried some or all of the above to fill that hole to no avail, why don’t you try the risen Christ who loves you more than you will ever know. He is worth more than all that Google could or ever will find. Hence the reason for the sign from God.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Below is a picture of the results of my hard work last night. We are ready for planting and I am excited for food production this year. There is just such a good feeling and satisfaction from growing your own food.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

It has been a while since I have posted about my morning commute drive in. And this morning I have reason to write — it was truly spectacular. It started off with the big orange ball right above the horizon. Except the big orange ball I am referring to is the full moon. It was suspended just above the stick treeline, its orange luminescent sphere radiating against the dark blue western sky. It was so beautiful that I had to call home to let the Mrs. in on the beauty of God’s creation this morning.

A few miles after spotting the lunar scenery I passed by two ponds that are a part of my every day commute. A wispy mist hung above the ponds and on one of them I spotted a lone white swan. Again, another beautiful example of God’s creation this morning.

And further into work as I cruised along the Gene Snyder freeway I was glowed by another ball of orange, this time to the east in the form of the rising sun. It slowly elevated so as to illuminate the day which was off to a very fine start.

I pray that you were able to stop for a moment and marvel at the beauty of God’s creation all around each one of us. If not, don’t wait until tomorrow morning. Start now.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

This church sign is in honor of my wife. She is currently on her Emmaus Walk. On my Emmaus Walk two weeks ago, she included this church sign in my letter that I received Sunday afternoon. It is very appropriate and applicable.

“A family altar can alter a family.”

So true.

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” — Joshua 24:15

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

As I stated in my post last night, this morning I had a few things on my list to do early. One is the Men’s Breakfast and Bible Study which I will be leaving for very soon. The other was prayer time in support of this weekend’s women’s Emmaus Walk. During my time of prayer, two words came to me — genuine and obedient.

Saturday is a special day in your Emmaus walk with Christ and those two words ring ring true for me in my days following my walk. I pray that today, while the women are strengthening their faith and walk in Christ, they empty out their heart and let Jesus in to clean, heal and build a temple inside them where he can reside and do His work. That is the genuine part. The obedience then comes after as Christ uses broken vessels like us to do His work here on earth. He will give us the means. He will give us the path. Our only job is to be obedient.

I pray those two words for the women this weekend. As well as for me, my family and each person reading this.

Genuine

Obedient

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

With my better half gone on her Emmaus Walk, I worked from home today and spent the afternoon and evening with the family. I was able to get some work done as well as attend a couple of conference calls. With that done, we had planned a relaxing family movie night at home. Those plans were shelved when R accepted an opportunity to serve dinner at the women’s Emmaus Walk. Of course I could not say no, so all evening plans were altered to allow for getting her to church in time for her to meet her ride. And rather than head home only to have to head back out to retrieve her, K, D and I grabbed some grub in town. And I surprised them with some fishing at a local park. It was our first fishing of the year and a bit nippy out. While we didn’t get any bites, we killed some time and had some fun.

While waiting for R to arrive back at church we played some tag in the grass. Soon enough R returned, although we were now behind schedule if we wanted to still salvage family movie night. I was ready to postpone it, especially since my wife hasn’t seen the feature of the week — The Blind Side.

However, the kids begged to see it and agreed to get their PJs on as soon as we arrived home. So R, K, D and I sat down on the couch and thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful story that unfolded in front of us. Knowing that Michael Oher is playing for the Baltimore Ravens, I knew there would be a good ending. Those are the kind of movies I like nowadays. As a side note, if you have not seen the movie, please go buy it, rent it, or stream it from Netflix. It is such a good story and one that we all can take something away from. Note to parents, there are a few parts with language — think another term for donkey and female dog as well as the medical term for a male part. Other than that and one scene in the hood where Michael gets physical, it is a good lesson family movie and I would not let any of that get in the way of featuring this at family movie night.

And because I posted a picture of Ashley Judd cheering on Kentucky Wildcat basketball (who won again, by the way), I am also going to post a picture of Sandra Bullock playing the role of Leigh Anne Tuohy. She played it convincingly and did a great job.

And now it’s off to bed because I have to get up early tomorrow for the Men’s Breakfast as well as to pray for the Emmaus women because I am on the prayer chart for 6:30am.

Also, here is the real family picture of Michael Ohr and his family.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

“Weather forecast for tomorrow:
God reigns and the Son shines”

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net