Expensive Gifts

About twenty-five years ago, I received a gift that changed my life.

From the start of our marriage, Trish and I had been in missions work. We now had two small children and had just moved to Nashville to join the Christ Church staff (all three of them!). We moved into the Elysian Fields apartments on Nolensville Road, and arranged our very sparse furniture into eight hundred square feet on the third floor. I know; I should have been thankful that I didn’t have to carry much furniture up those three floors. But my mind was elsewhere.

The church had already begun to grow and I was teaching Bible studies every week in Brentwood and Franklin. The people in those Bible studies were all considerably more affluent than any group I had previously served, and I was a bit intimidated. So I often parked my old car down the block from all the nice cars and walked to the Bible study.

I’ll confess that I once got into my car after leaving one of these beautiful homes and sat at the wheel feeling sorry for myself. I wondered out loud to God why I was raising my children on the third floor of an apartment complex while others were living in these fine homes. However, I immediately felt that the Spirit of God was displeased with me for being angry about my lack of finances. So I asked for God’s forgiveness and thanked Him for providing a warm house for my healthy children.

Some months later, after the Sunday night service, Jim Enoch approached me and asked me to sit down on the pew. “I need you to clear your schedule this week,” he said, “I am going to take you to look for a house.”

‘But Jim,” I protested, “I don’t have any money. Also, I have lived for years outside the United States; so I have no credit history.”

He pushed my protests aside with a wave of his hand. “God has spoken to a couple in our church” he replied. “They are going to pay whatever it takes to get you into a house. They told me they want you to pay the same payments you are paying now after all the transactions are finished. And they said that I am to help you chose any house you want.”

I was so taken aback by his words that I didn’t know what to say for a few minutes. I finally got out something to the effect of “No, I won’t choose this house. I might either ask for too much or settle for too little. You and this couple can find the house; we will be grateful for whatever you choose.”

That’s how we bought our first home. It was at 581 Whispering Hills, just a couple of miles from the church.

What a thrill it was the first time we drove our car into the garage – into our own garage!

That one lavish, out-of bounds generous gift, gave us a financial foundation. It allowed us to raise our children. We sent them both to good schools. Year later, we even sent ourselves back to school!

Every financial blessing in our lives since has been tied in some way to that one surprising gift.

I can also tell you this: we have lived in several houses since then. However, no house has been so precious to us or has been more appreciated.

Oh, the couple that gave us that gift. They have never mentioned it to us – not ever. Every time the gift has surfaced in conversation with them, it has been because Trish or I have reminded them of the gracious thing they did for us so long ago, and thank them for all the fruit it has produced.

I deeply appreciate that financial gift, of course. Even more importantly though, I am thankful for how that gift taught me the nature of generosity. That gift taught me what a gift can do to transform lives.

This past Sunday, as I asked everyone to think about making a lavish, out-of-bounds-kind-of-gift this year to someone or to some cause this year; I had in mind the gift that changed our lives. When I asked everyone at our church to make this the year that they would do something so spectacular and unexpected that their gift would touch people for generations – I knew what I was talking about.

I don’t know what people will do with that sermon. I don’t even know yet what I will do with that sermon. However, I do know what such a gift can accomplish. I also know by experience that people really are blessed in order to be a blessing and when they abandon themselves to generosity, great goodness flows into the world.

All three of my grandchildren live in homes that their parents own. All three are being well educated because their parents value education. All three live in safe, warm and loving environments. To a great extent, all this has happened because one couple, who at the time barely knew me, decided to make a contribution that would change our lives.

I cringe when I think that I could have squandered the opportunity. I could have so mismanaged the gift that their good intentions could have been entirely wasted. Such things often happen. We hear about them all the time and they makes us cautious about giving. So I certainly could have added one more story to prove that it doesn’t pay to try to help people. Given my level of financial knowledge, it surprises me that I didn’t do that.
Thanks to my church, who believed that teaching people how to manage money is a Biblical part of discipleship, I avoided the worst mistakes. I steadily built a financial foundation that has already proved strong enough to touch two generations. Our next step is to make our financial structure strong enough to raise the next generation to come. We are working on that!

Anyway, this blog is really a prayer of blessing. I want God to bless my benefactors. In this economically challenging time, May God remember what they did for us. May He prove to them the truth of His word, “he who gives to the poor, lendeth to the Lord.” After twenty years, the interest on the money they paid back then would be very considerable now. I think this would be a great month for the Lord to pay them back! Perhaps He will.

In the meantime, I hope to influence us all to be out-of-bounds-generous. Perhaps we do not have the ability to buy someone a house. But could we buy them a car? Pay a year’s tuition? Buy them a great suit? Buy a computer? Could we send someone’s child to a good school for a year, or pay to get their teeth fixed?

As I learned twenty some-odd years ago, the world is full of opportunities to do good. Every few days I recall how one couple made a strategic investment in my life. I have thought about it more times than I can count. When I do, I shake my head and wonder: how could anyone do something so wonderful, without attaching any strings except for the love that has continually poured from their family into ours for over a generation?

May God remember. May He repay in full. And may He teach me to be as kind and as generous as that one precious couple – our own personal Magi!

Joy

Joy To The World is probably the most famous Christmas carol, after Silent Night. Everyone knows the first line, and most Christians seem to know the rest of the first verse. Naughty little children (I never was one) have been known to change the words now and then. As humorous as those lyrics can be, I want to talk about the real ones.

Joy to the world, the Lord has come
Let earth receive her king!
Let every heart prepare him room
And Heaven and nature sing

The words speak for themselves. They are straightforward and clear.



Isaac Watts was trying to do a musical paraphrase of the 98th Psalm which begins with the line, “Oh Sing to the Lord a new song! For He has done marvelous things.” The Psalm continues to say that we should shout, compose songs, and play musical instruments to express our joy. We should do this the psalmist says because the Lord is coming to judge the earth and to heal it of all of its sicknesses. The Psalm tells us that if we will sing, shout and play our instruments in worship God that nature itself will be healed.

Isaac Watts wanted to express those thoughts in this song. He was not trying to write a Christmas Carol, necessarily. His intent was really more to teach us about the Lord’s Second Coming. But whether we are talking about the Lord’s first coming or His Second Coming, the message is the same: when God shows up, things are going to change.

We know that already, of course. We all want God to come into our lives. But our frustration is that God works in ways that we simply cannot see and sometimes we honestly wonder if he is doing anything in our lives. So how can we be sure that God is at work in our lives? How can we know that the Lord has come to us?

This carol seems to say that the chief sign that God has shown up is the presence of joy in our lives. Joy is our inner radar going off, a resonating of deep inner chords of our soul, telling us that our lives are moving toward God and toward the purposes for which He made us. This means that when we do not have joy, something in our lives is askew. It means that our lives are not moving on, moving toward God’s purpose for us. We may be good people, we may be trying to do our best, but if we do not have joy, either we have taken the wrong turn or there is some new important turn we should take. Well, maybe you have never heard it put like that but it rings true. It’s still frustrating! How do we learn how to move toward joy, and thus toward God and toward His purpose for us?

Obviously, joy does not result from the things we hear people admiring. Time and time again I have watched people whose lives were apparently miserable, perhaps living in poverty or illness of some sort, who nonetheless were full of joy. The presence or absence of joy seems to have little to do with security, fame or fortune. Those things are wonderful and I have known famous and wealthy people who were full of joy. Certainly poverty and loneliness don’t bring joy either. But joy seems to flow from one state of being and that state alone: the state in which our soul feels connected to God and to the purpose for which He created us.



If God created you to be an artist and your Father convinced you that artists can’t make a living, even if you became a very successful banker, all the complements and awards people send your way will not bring you joy. Your soul knows that it has plugged into the wrong place in life.

A friend of mine who is an intelligent, godly, hard working person experienced this a few years ago. He has repeatedly been called upon to lead others. He is responsible and healthy. But last year he decided to attend a painting class. He was embarrassed that as he began to pull the brush across the canvas that the tears were flowing down his face. Great emotion was stirring inside his being. “What was that?” He asked. “Were you sad?” I asked. “Goodness no”, he replied. “I felt incredibly happy!”

As he told me that I recalled that a few years ago my wife bought me dancing lessons for my birthday. You need to know that my church taught that dancing was evil. My wife and I have never danced. As the dance instructor showed us the steps and coached us on how to do what many of you have taken for granted, my emotions nearly overwhelmed me. I got in the car and wept like a baby. I was embarrassed and confused about that emotion. But if you were to force me to name the emotion I was feeling, I would say it was joy. Joy for being able to hold my wife and move to music, joy to know that I was free from damaging rules that inflicted needless pain and which kept me from one of the most enjoyable doors to intimacy with the person I want to love and know the most. Also I love music. My body wants to move to music. I have been suppressing that need all of my life because in the places I have lived and worked, moving ones' body to music is a sure sign of instability and flakiness. On the floor with the dance instructor and my wife, clumsily endangering all feet within reach, something in me was breaking out, reaching to become what I really am, an expressive, musical, emotional person. Being who I really am brings joy. Because by being who I really am I glorify God. By being who I am, I say with my actions – you made me well, my God. I am happy that you made me as I am.

Does God care if I dance? Yes. It is not the world’s greatest tragedy if I do not dance. I doubt that now I will ever really learn how to dance well. There are many things much more important in my life than dancing. I can live without it. But my point is that dancing was a part of what I was made to do that I have not done, and so it has gone unexpressed. The day I danced with my wife gave part of me a chance to live, and that became a moment of unexpected joy! The joy was a sign that I was moving towards being who God made me to be.

The reality of life is that we will not get to be all that we were created to be. That is what Heaven is for. But we must not needlessly restrict ourselves from being what we were created to be. Not only for happiness' sake, but because God made each of us to be something that brings life to the world. If we miss being what God created us to be, the life He wants to flow through us will be restricted. The sign that this life is beginning to flow is joy!

When God shows up there is joy. When God is near, when we have turned toward God in some way, our soul feels His presence. Our soul knows that He can heal us. It understands that He is our source of life. When our soul realizes that He is closer in some way, it leaps. It knows what our conscious mind has often forgotten to remember, that God has the power and wisdom to deliver us. He can deliver us from ourselves and from all the false moves we have made in life away from Him and away from our true selves. He is our Shepherd. He restoreth our soul.



So let every heart prepare Him room! For if we let Him in, He will begin the work of making us into what we most long to be. Heaven and nature will then sing a duet. Heaven and human nature are harmonized when the Lord comes.

The third verse of Joy to the World is probably the heart of the song, though it is the one most often omitted. Isaac Watts made the most powerful statement of the song in that verse.


No more let sin and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found

The curse to which Watts refers is the curse of sin. Christians believe that this curse has invaded every part of human, animal and natural life. Once you know that, what we call the doctrine of original sin, you will understand why Jesus came, and why he is coming again. It tells us why we say what we do during the celebration of communion: “Here then is the mystery of our faith, that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.” Why has Christ died, risen and coming again? Watts tells us. “He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

Well, where is the curse found?



The curse is in our bodies: we get sick and die.



It is in our minds: we get ill in our emotions and thoughts.



It is in our families and marriages: we get out of sorts with those we love, our ability to experience intimacy gets restricted and sometimes even destroyed.



The curse is in our eating. It’s in our sexuality. It’s in our art and science. The curse is nothing less than the erosion that eats at all the good things of life and breaks them down so that they become dysfunctional.



The result of this curse is sadness and sin. But the carol writer tells us that when the Lord comes, He brings healing: “No more let sin and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.” You already know what that means! The rose is beautiful. It smells so nice. Its velvet petals invite us to tenderly touch its softness. So we get closer and then, “OUCH!” a thorn draws the blood. In this fallen world, beauty comes with a price. But the Lord is coming and He comes to change things. He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.

I don’t know about you, but I have some thorns in my life, thorns that sometimes break the skin and draw the blood. There are things in my life that sting and bite. But then I stop the whining. I remember that I am a Christian. I recall that the Lord has come into my life and will soon come physically into the world. He intends to “make His blessings flow far as the curse is found”.

Isaac Watts urges us to keep confessing that our Lord is sovereign. He is king over all. As He works to remake our world, we should not weep and pine. We should sing.

Joy to the world the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods
Rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding Joy.

Nature itself joins in when our lives really worship God. You begin changing your surroundings the day you begin to allow God to change you and God begins to change you the moment you begin to worship Him.

I left the last verse to last because I sometimes struggle with what it proclaims.

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And Wonders of His love

Truthfully, if God rules this world, he sure rules it differently than I would rule it. He allows his enemies, those who rebel against Him to have their say and to inflict pain on others. Is this any way to rule a world?



I have discovered that when I try to govern things under my authority that way, it just seems to undermine all that I want to do. Why does God allow the injustices and miseries of the world? The answer is that God has not yet abolished evil from the world. He rules fully only in our hearts. As we really become His people by living how He taught us to live, the blessings which come on our lives as a result, transforms us. Then that transformation in us is supposed to spread through the world. That is the part that sometimes staggers me. I wonder sometimes if it could be true.

Does God reign? Despite everything, something deep inside my soul says that He does, and there are times that He makes it extremely clear that He does reign.

A few years ago, my sister and brother-in-law were driving from Juarez, just the other side of El Paso, Texas on their way to Amarillo. They had been to Juarez to visit a sick person in the hospital. On the way back they got into a terrible snowstorm. The snow got so bad that Josias couldn’t see. It was in the early morning hours and the car just wouldn’t stay on the road. They were frightened and didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, they say the lights of a vehicle in front of them. The vehicle was moving slow and they discovered that they could follow its lights and stay in the road. After a while, the vehicle put on a turn signal. Neva and Josias decided to do the same. They made the turn in the blinding snow and found that they were in the parking lot of a church. Josias stopped and looked for the vehicle in front of him. There was none. He got out. There were no tracks. He and my sister waited a couple of hours until daybreak and until the snow had lifted, safe in the house of God.


He rules the world in truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of his love. God doesn’t always avert tragedy. He doesn’t always remove pain and sorrow. But when we move toward Him, He gives grace even when we do not understand. The soul can know joy even when the way is hard...if the Lord is there.



Joy to the world!

It IS A Wonderful Life!

If you have been near me during the Christmas season, you will no doubt be aware that I love watching It's A Wondeful life. I don't watch it in March, and I don't watch it 17 times during December. I just need to watch it once a year. My children have grown weary of watching it with me, or even listening to me talk about it. This is because they are not like the good children on television who tell their daddy that bells have something to do with angels.

I like the story. Most of you know it, but for the sake of those who might be like my girs, I’ll retell it. Jimmy Stewart plays the part of a middle age man named George Bailey who owns a small time Savings and Loans company. He didn’t really want to be the owner of the loan company. In fact, he had always wanted to travel the world and do exotic things. But his father died and left him the business, and then responsibilities of various kinds kept piling up. He had a wife and kids. People depended on him. He was trapped in Bedford Falls.

As the movie unfolds, we discover that George is in financial trouble. His uncle has lost a bag of the loan company’s money. In fact, he looses it in the bank before he makes the deposit. What he does not know is that the town banker, the evil Mr. Potter, has the money. Neither George or his uncle know this. They only know that $40,000 is missing and that the government auditor is in town looking over their books.

It is this crisis which pushes George to the bridge at the edge of town. He is about to jump into the icy water below when he hears the voice of an old man yelling for help down in the water. So George jumps in the water not to end his life but to save the life of someone else. Inside the guard house he finds out that the old man's name is Clarence. To George’s great amusement, Clarence reveals that he is not an earthly man at all. He is an angel, second class. All that stands between Clarence and first class status is to finish an assignment from Heaven. Namely, Clarence must convince George of the usefulness of his life.

We know that will be difficult, because George has already said that it would have been better if he had never been born. We also know that George has been grumbling that he had great plans in life, that he had planned to make a big splash. But here he was in Bedford Falls, a boring wide place in the road. He was stuck. And now he was middle age. It was over for him. He had that certain sick feeling that some of us have known -- deep down in the pit of the soul -- that he had squandered life. He had not reached for those great dreams after all.

It is those words “it would have been better if I had never been born which gives Clarence his idea. Suddenly with a wave of his hand, the world becomes what it would have been had George Bailey never been born. As he walks into town the differences he begins to see a town that is filled not with family dwellings which he had helped provide for low income families, but rather slummy run down streets with dives and juke joints, and a sign announcing that this town’s name is Pottersville.

As George begins to comprehend this strange world in which he does not exist, he understands that Pottersville is a nasty village filled with depressed and angry people. Clarence explains to him at each bend in the road how that since Mr. Smith could not get a loan because George’s Savings and Loan doesn’t exist, he had to pay the exorbitant rent demanded by Mr. Potter and that is why he has nothing, and why he is so lacking in self respect and why he is drinking all the time. Home after home is different from what George remembered from Bedford Falls.

It is only after seeing the miseries of Potterstown that George Bailey is ready to return to his life -- to the life that God had chosen for him -- to that life which after having the opportunity to see the alternatives, George is now ready to embrace and delight in. Surrounded by his family and friends, in the middle of a town where one man really has made a great difference, George Bailey sees that it is a wonderful life.

The calling of God is first to be found in our surrounding circumstances. The Holy Scripture is not nearly as focused on individual calling as we would like to think. The Bible presents the story of God calling a people into being. Individuals found their place within that community and did what birth and training prepared them to do. Relatively few individuals were called out from that people to some dramatic, extra-ordinary ministry. And in every case, that special, earth shattering call for extra-ordinary service was for a limited task and a limited time. The main thing of life was just being responsible for the every day, do your best, things-at-hand sort of stuff.

A few years ago, Naomi Judd called me to her home. Her husband met me at the door and took me into her bedroom. She was propped up on enormous pillows and had been crying for a long time. She asked me to sit on a chair by her bed. She informed me that the doctors had said she had an incurable liver disease and that because of this she would be giving a press release later in the month announcing that she would be leaving her career. Then she wept. So did I.

Larry held her hand. I prayed. Then I picked up a guitar and sang. Then we cried again. Sometime in that evening before left, Naomi said something to me that rattled my cage. It was so simple and so true that I could not escape its force. She said, “Dan, our time on the stage is always brief.”

I thought about that sentence the next time I walked to the pulpit . I looked out over the crowd, over the faces of the people. And I knew that the pulpit was not mine. I knew that I was merely a place holder for another, and yet another. I knew that even if I stayed there until I was very old the day would come where I would die. Another pastor would come. All the people who met me week after week at the door and made kind remarks about my message, or helped me to know that it was not what they had in mind, would allow memory to fade little by little, and then they too would be gone. Twenty years later, barely a handful would recall the name of that preacher whose name used to be on all the literature.

Our time on the stage is brief.

Not only is it brief, but our time on the stage is rarely the most important thing in our lives. So I urge you to consider with George Bailey at Bedford Falls, what is the real reason for your life? What difference are you making for good or ill in the world in which birth and circumstances have placed you?

God’s words to Jeremiah are very helpful here. We can all listen to what he told Jeremiah and find strength and instruction in his words. First Jeremiah heard God say that he had been chosen before his birth to do what God wished him to do. So Jeremiah had a purpose. So do you. So do I. Nobody is an accident. God had and has purpose for every human being. Happiness in life consists in allowing that purpose to unfold, in not fighting God’s ordained plan for our lives.

God told Jeremiah not to worry about his youth. He could have said “your old age” or your lack of money, or your ugly face, or whatever else makes you excuse yourself from God’s plan. You have within you all the stuff you need to do the task God has called you to do. You may have to train. You may have to wait for experience. But you are fully capable to do all that God wants you to do. If there is some supernatural element needed, you can’t do it anyway, and God will show up in time to do his part.

God told Jeremiah not to be afraid of Man. That’s important. We all want the favor of others. But sometimes doing what God wants us to do doesn’t set well with everyone. Once you are willing to go your own way if you must, you are free from the agony of not pleasing those you would like to please.

Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth. Salt is common. You are never far from salt. Lick your palm and you will find salt. Taste a tear and you will taste salt. It doesn’t take great genius or massive talent to be the salt of the earth. Many a brilliant and talented person on this earth is adding to the decay of men’s souls. And many a dull and average nobody is giving himself to doing what is right. He is salt, and he is doing his duty.

Being George Bailey, being salt, might not feel as spectacular as impressing the world. But if you live out your calling you will impress Heaven. I urge you to live life that way. If you seek fulfillment you will never find it. Fulfillment is a byproduct felt by those who abandon themselves to the task of just doing what is right.

IF you do what is right, day after day, somewhere along the way you will no doubt find along with George Bailey that your life really does matter and that it is, after all, a wonderful life.

Don't Be A Grinch!

I have seen a lot of monuments. But never, not once did I ever see a monument of a critic!

The monuments are built and dedicated to risk takers, men and women of courage who in their field were willing to accept the jeers of the crowd while they did what they felt should be done.

This is true even of the saints. A saint is a man or woman who lives as though what he believes really matters. A military hero charges into battle, risking personal safety because the battle must be fought. He is the leader, he urges his soldiers into battle, and so he must be first in taking the risk. But a saint does the same. He says that he believes in Christ and his teachings, and thus he feels a duty to live by them, even when others say it is impractical or unreasonably radical.

There are two things which characterize the hero: courage and faith. The hero either believes that he will win, even against terrible odds, or he believes in something that is so important that he feels it is better to lose in pursuit of his goal even though it is not likely to be obtained, rather than accept ease and comfort by accepting the inevitable.

Tina Turner sang a few years ago that “We don’t need another hero” but she was dead wrong. We desperately need heroes. What we don’t need is more grinches!

We have become a nation of victims and grinches. We have lost sight of the fact that life is hard and that valuable things cost a lot of effort and uphill struggle. We have lost the knowledge that it takes a change of character to be successful in anything, and that outside forces can never destroy us without our permission. We have forgotten that the grinch is a sick person who has decided to make excuses rather than take action.

A grinch will criticize the government, but will not vote. He will say that the church is not evangelizing but does not himself work to save souls. He will say that money is being misspent but will not tithe. A grinch has nothing to offer, he is a negative force that saps the strength of productive people. A grinch grieves the Holy Spirit.

The difference between a grinch and a prophet is that the prophet offers a solution. A grinch just says, “I don’t like it”. Let me read you a passage of scripture:

Phillipians 2 (New International Version)

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
14 Do everything without complaining or arguing,

15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe


What St. Paul is saying here is, offer a solution, offer a loving critique, do what must be done, but don’t be a grinch!

Just Another Birthday

I usually write about my thoughts regarding spirituality, or at least current events. Please indulge me today as I write about something more personal. Tomorrow is my wife's birthday, and I wanted to write about her.

Trish’s and my life took a surprising turn four years ago. It happened on June 1st, just one day before our wedding anniversary. We were still glowing from the birth of our new grandchild.

The day began like any other day. Trish and I got ready for work and walked down the stairs of our desert dream house to have breakfast and then head out to our workplaces. On the way down, Trish pointed to a plaque from Vietnam that some believers had sent to us and which we had hung on the wall.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” That’s what the plaque said.

Trish’s simple gesture – pointing to that plaque – would haunt me for months.

Except for a few brief words in the early afternoon, I would not hear her speak again for nearly two weeks. I would never hear her same voice again. Just a few hours from that moment we paused to read the words on the plaque, she would slip into the valley of the shadow of death. We would both be changed forever. Life would never be the same.

After her coma came a long journey of adjustment and rehabilitation. We moved across the continent because I didn’t think I could both pastor a large church and be a caretaker of an invalid wife. I learned how to get her wheelchair into places not built to accommodate them. Trish learned to walk again.

When she finally got her drivers license back, she fired me as her caretaker. The months turned to years. A new grandbaby was born – our third. Our church in Nashville asked me to be their senior pastor. We started building a new house just before the bottom fell out of the economy. We rented our old house because it wouldn’t sell. We moved into a bungalow waiting for her new house to get finished. Thanksgiving came.

And now, on the fourth of December, Trish will have a birthday. It has taken four years for me to realize that life will not “go back to normal.”

Normal has changed.

For us, there is a new normal. It has also dawned on me that I cannot recall the birthdays she has celebrated since her coma. Its time to stop and take note: the plans the Lord had for us was to prosper us, not to harm us; His plan was to give us a hope and a future.

On this birthday, I want to wake up from my own sleep. I want to be more aware and alert so I can enjoy each and every day, whatever that day brings. And I want to celebrate the joys of walking through our new normal life together.

Happy Birthday, Trish.

Happy Normal, Uneventful birthday.

Love, Dan

Photo Credits: Vickie Riley Photography