God's Love & Stolen Mirrors

Well, after 4 months of medical craziness I have returned to my family, my boys and the community I love.  I have been here for 2 days now and although I feel like I still have some adjustment to undergo, I am resting more and more in being where I believe God has called me to be.  I have spent lots of time hugging and loving on my beautiful wife and kids.  I have also started the process of connecting again with the boys.  It's obviously easier with the boys we've had for awhile but fun to start developing those new relationships with the boys who have just moved in.  I love our B2B community and it's so good to be home with them as well.  I'm so blessed by and thankful for this community and how they have loved and served Mandy while I've been away.  There's no way she (nor the 8 boys) would've survived if it weren't for their care and support.  I wanted to give a special shout out to Darren & Hannah Fay who stayed at our house and took good care of the boys in our absence.  They are all-stars and we love them.

I'm feeling much better from a medical standpoint.  I'm able to eat most things now and the sores in my mouth have mostly healed up.  I can't taste a whole lot but that will slowly come back.  I have chronic dry mouth that I may have to deal with for the rest of my life.  I still have 2 spots where the infection I have is draining so I have to constantly where bandages.  The docs say it should heal up over the next couple of months.  The plan for me going forward is that I'll return for doctor appts on January 11th and if the docs think I'm healed up enough after checking me out through x-rays and CT scans then they will do my follow-up surgery.  In that surgery they will hopefully accomplish a number of things: take out the metal piece that is stabilizing the bone they took out of my leg to reconstruct my jaw, trim down some of the tissue in my mouth so I look less like Jay Leno, and do some touch up cosmetic work on my face.  I've been told that they can accomplish all that through one simple (comparatively speaking) out-patient surgery.  I'm guessing if they do that surgery in January I'll be in town for at least a week or so.

Many friends have asked how I'm processing this whole medical adventure I'm on with respect to my relationship with God.   I'll share just a couple of things because God has been doing a lot.  I've had to wrestle with some things in my life that I know I need to surrender to Him, like some fears I have about my health in the future and about being alone.  I feel like I'm still working on the idea of God being sufficient for me.  I've prayed a lot over the last couple of years that God would overwhelm me with His love and that I would really know it and experience it in new ways.  He has definitely answered that one.  I can say that I have a greater sense of God's love for me and that I am more in love with Him now than when I started this process 4 months ago.  I talked in a previous post about wanting to get to a place like Paul who wrote that he had learned the secret of being content in any and every situation because he knew that he could do all things through God who gave him strength.  I can honestly say that I've grown a ton in my desire to live out Luke 9:23 and to live my life less focused on myself and more focused on Him and others.  I want to glorify Him and usher in His Kingdom even in the midst of difficult circumstances. 

I had a funny little reminder that the enemy isn't going to let up just because I've had a difficult time medically.  I'm back at home and in the battle for the hearts of the young men who God has given us and the enemy doesn't like that one bit.  While we were in church on my first full day back in Monterrey our sideview mirrors were stolen for the second time.  Of course it was frustrating but I just had to laugh.  Going through what I've been through the last several months has allowed me the perspective that troubles will come but He has overcome this world.  God is much more concerned with the state of our heart than the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  So in the midst of attack I refuse to be discouraged and will choose to trust Him, love Him, and praise Him.