Saturday, January 29, 2011

Radical Grace from a friend's perspective




A friend on Facebook wrote this in a reply to a post I wrote! Cracks me up! I love it!


"Radical Grace... The kind that makes real life changes? like the kind of change that could make Eskimos give up fur? or make a vegetarian barbecue hamsters? The kind that could make weight lifters take up ballet? Real life changes? YES!!! Bring it to Billings! Maybe people need to hear the real freedom forming truth! The 'healing' truth! We've been held captive to religion for too long!" ~ Marielynn Penning Shoen

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Jay Bakker



Link to video


"You may not agree with me, but at least you will
learn to love me." ~ Jay Bakker

Just some quick thoughts:

Powerful. Love covers a multitude of sin... not doctrinal statements... Those often create barriers between those Jesus reconciled and Jesus... Learning to love God and others is the core teaching of Jesus.

Your thoughts?





Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Doing the Stroke

Doing the Stroke.

First off I must state I am fine.

Last Sunday night around 8pm I stood up and realized I felt dizzy. That is rather normal for me, though this time was unsettling. I then seemed to have a sleepiness and confusion that was not normal for me. I decided to just try to get ready and get to work at 9:30pm and still was wondering if I should go to work or to the emergency room. As it turned out, I was more confused than I realized as I drove to work, walked in and had about three people tell me I did not look right. I decided I needed to go to the emergency room and thankfully, my coworkers decided to have someone give me a ride instead of let me drive myself. As we drove up to the emergency entrance I realized I was having trouble remembering things… I knew my name was Carlos, but it took me a moment to remember my last name.

There was a line, and I felt dizzy as I stood in line to be admitted. I told them I might be having a stroke and they gave me paper work. I began to fill it out yet found my handwriting was like a 6 year old! That was rather scary to realize that as hard as I tried, it was as if someone else was writing. This seemed to clear up a little after a few minutes.

They then took me into the emergency room and asked me a bunch of questions. I could not remember some things and seemed to be affected in memory and emotions… I receive a CAT scan that showed I did not have any bleeding. I was then moved to a room for monitoring and observation.

I was too scared to sleep so just sat up and watched TV most the night. I was able to read, though my attention span was about two paragraphs, so returned to TV.

I waited… I was told I could go home yet had a few more tests they wanted to do. The neurologist felt I may have experienced a TIA 



Yet, it seemed that some of the symptoms were not as straight forward for me. He decided I may need more tests and it was decided I would have an MRI. Later the speech therapist showed up and I found I could add, multiply and divide, but subtraction seemed almost impossible. While I could not remember the date she was pleased I could find a clock and calendar in the room to get the information. She then showed me flash cards with pictures on it and I knew all of them and was even able to correctly state things like “stethoscope”, however… when I looked at a picture of a hammock, I could not recall what it was. I knew what it was used for, but it took me about 10 good long seconds to recall it was called a hammock.

I was told around 3pm Monday I could go home after the MRI… and then told the MRI was going to be after 9pm. It was a long day.

I came home and have no restrictions, though they want me to do some follow up. I seem to be working fine (with the excepting of having some issue with spelling – thank God for spell check!) TES picked me up and we went over to retrieve one of our vehicles from work only to find it had a flat tire. Luckily it was not entirely flat and a gas station had an air pump (which charged us 1 freakin’ dollar!).

Today I am at home taking care of Ciana who had a fever last night. I am thinking a lot about things… God is good… I am blessed…

Thanks to all the Outlaw Preachers and others who prayed for me… I know I am well loved.