Your Relationships

The Liar and the Fire - #4752

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

My wife and I like Mexican food. Actually, I just like food, but she likes Mexican food much hotter than I do. She likes the salsa, the hot sauce - the really hot stuff. I like wimp sauce on mine actually. But not even she can handle what our friend from Mexico goes for. He doesn't just like hot sauce on his food. He likes molten lava. Even the candy he eats has chilies in it. It brings tears to our eyes, but he pops it like we do M&M's. Recently, he told me about a Mexican pepper that he had never tasted before. Some friends recommended it to him. He took a big bite out of it and really enjoyed it. It wasn't hot, it was actually mild. He enjoyed it so much, he ate some more. No fire, no burn, just a nice taste experience - until a few minutes later. Here's how he told it - "Suddenly, my mouth burst into flames!" Now, when he thinks something's hot, it's on fire, man! But there was no hint of the fire when he was biting into it. I loved what he named this particular pepper. He calls it "The Liar."

You Leave or You Lose - #4735

Friday, March 4, 2005

We just had the wonderful joy of a visit from our son, his wonderful wife and our awesome little granddaughter. She's two, but I think she has the vocabulary of a five-year-old. Besides being unexplainably beautiful (being my granddaughter, that is), she really knows how to communicate - with words, with gestures, facial expressions. We love our time with her, and she seems to love her time with us. But this isn't home. They live many miles from here. She needs to be home ultimately, sleeping in her bed, playing with her toys, being around the people she loves there, and enjoying her personal world. This is where she visits. That's where she lives. She was in the car with Mommy and Daddy, all strapped in her toddler seat and ready to pull out of the driveway to head home. But, oh how she cried! She begged me to get in. She begged me to sit down. Her crying broke a grandparent's heart. But she's home now, and she's loving being where she lives. It's just that leaving is so hard.

That Life-Changing Limp - #4732

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Our son can usually tell when the weather's about to change. His knee is his own personal "weather channel." He seems pretty young to have pain like that, but it goes back to one day on a football field in high school. When one hit tore his anterior cruciate ligament - the infamous ACL injury so many athletes dread. Since he was five, his dream had been to play football, and he did and he was good, but then the injury. I was with him in the office of a sports medicine specialist when the doctor said, "You'll never play football again." That was the day his dream died. And, as he says now as part of his life testimony, it was the day his god died. His sports dream was dead. But that began a series of events that led to a time of tearful repentance, and then the redirecting of his life goals, and ultimately to the incredible ways God is using him today among Native American young people. And lest he forget who's in charge, he's got this alarm in his knee.

Laser Living - #4721

Monday, February 14, 2005

We were nearly three thousand miles from home when my wife was hit by this agonizing attack of gallstones. The situation was so acute that we had to get her to a hospital where it was quickly determined that she would need surgery to remove the stones. From what we understood, it could take six weeks for her to be able to travel back after the operation. Back home a cure would have meant this invasive incision. But God, of course, had this planned all the time. The hospital friends directed us to just happened to have on its staff one of the premier laser surgeons in the country. He zapped those gallstones with a laser beam and they were history. My honey was good to go in two days! Last week, a friend of ours lost his glasses - for good. He had a laser procedure on his eyes, and almost immediately his vision deficiencies have been corrected, and who needs glasses! Gallstones gone, vision corrected - with the power of a laser - with the power of focused light.

The Person Behind the Words - #4706

Monday, January 24, 2005

They call it the "terrible twos" because of the new challenges a toddler presents as they hit that two-year mark and they issue their first declarations of independence. But we're not getting many "terrible" reports about our two-year-old granddaughter. If there is any terrible, it's being eclipsed by her "terrific twos." One exciting thing about two is the incredible word explosion that goes on. Our little princess knows so many words now, and she's really a talker - which is certainly a strange mutation in our family. Sometimes, she seems to know not only the words, but even some pretty important meaning behind the words. She's been known to sit down right next to her daddy as he's reading his Bible with her Bible open, as well. And she knows what that book is called. She says "Bible." But more and more now, when she picks up her Bible, she says two words that she knows go together, "Bible ... Jesus."

How to Hold Your Child - #4705

Friday, January 21, 2005

It's an old Asian parable with a lot of "right now" wisdom. A little boy had been trying for many days to capture one of the little birds that snacked in the family fields. He had tried over and over again to hide in the bushes and surprise one of those birds enough to get his hands on it. Finally, after many failed attempts, he captured his prize. And he couldn't wait to show his mommy. He wrapped his hands around that little bird and he ran all the way to his house. As soon as the little guy saw his mother, he proudly extended his cupped hands and said, "Mommy, I got a bird! He's really cute!" But his joy didn't last long. As he slowly opened his hands for his mother to see, he noticed the bird wasn't moving - or breathing. It was one heartbroken boy who cried, "Mommy, I was afraid I'd lose him. But I held him so tight, I crushed him."

Your Defiant Comeback - #4690

Friday, December 31, 2004

It was the final event of the men's gymnastics competition in the 2004 Athens Olympics. American Paul Hamm's hopes for the gold medal seemed to come crashing down as he made a lopsided landing and actually toppled into the judges' tables. That gave him a disappointing 9.137 score that virtually doomed his chances for a first place finish. After some moments of what he described as "depression," he decided to fight back - with what would have to be the best two performances of his life, just to win the bronze. Paul took a deep breath and he began to move powerfully through the air with a routine that was filled with technical challenges. It was a nearly perfect performance with a solid landing at the end. His score: 9.837. At first, he didn't know what that meant in terms of a medal. Then he heard his coach screaming, "Olympic champion!" The gold medal was his.

Premature Funerals - #4689

Thursday, December 30, 2004

The funeral plans for Matt were in the works. The Park Service had announced that Matt was one of five people who had been killed in a plane crash on a mountainside in Montana. The funeral never happened. Suddenly, Matt's bereaved parents heard the stunning news: although he had been badly injured, their son, along with one other Forest Service worker, had just been rescued alive, miles from the crash site. Rescue workers at the scene of the crash had concluded that the charred wreckage and the scattered human remains indicated that the crash had been "insurvivable," they said. But amazingly, Matt and his fellow worker hiked for 29 hours, often in subfreezing temperatures, until they reached a highway where a motorist picked them up. One news magazine called it, "A Miracle in the Snows of Montana" (Newsweek, October 4, 2004).

Parent Power - #4648

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

You never know what your kid's memories are going to be. Our son was 20 years old, he was in college, and they asked him to write about a childhood memory. That's when they're in college in these family classes and you get to pay for them analyzing you. He picked the day that he and I played wiffle ball together for the first time. He couldn't have been more than four or five years old. You know, that's that little plastic ball, it's got enough holes in it to keep it from going far, and he had this little yellow plastic bat, and I was pitching to him from a few feet away in the backyard. The first time he ever tried to hit a ball, strike one - he chopped it instead of hitting it right and he missed it. It's hard to remember all the things that daddy just told you. Right? Then I threw it again, real gently - strike two. So I stopped and I went over and I reviewed with him, you know, keep your eye on the ball, don't chop, swing evenly, and then I said one more thing that I hadn't said the first two times. I said, "Hey, son, I really believe you can hit it this time!" Next time, bam! He hit it way over daddy's head and into the neighbor's yard.

Four-Way Theft - #4638

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

As I was checking out of my hotel, my host said, "Ron, did you turn in your key?" I was sure he had been talking to my wife. See, she's the one who gets to mail all those keys back. I've been known to own a hotel key collection. You know, everybody needs a hobby - right? Some people collect stamps, some collect coins - you get the idea. It's not really my intention to walk off with hotel keys, but all too often I end up taking what I never meant to take, and I didn't even know I was taking it.

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