As I waited for Linda to get out of surgery, I discovered through the stories of others their struggles of their own loved ones.

Psalm 9:18 New International Version (NIV)
But God will never forget the needy;the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

My wife and I arrived at the University of Minnesota medical center by 10:00 am for her first appointment in the Nuclear medicine area where they injected a blue dye and removed the port that had called her upper left chest home since the beginning of her chemotherapy- a journey that began the beginning of this year. 

As I dwell on that thought, I realize that this journey has taken us on quite a ride with the near-weekly appointments to the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Institute. All of her doctors have been caring, professional, and each in their own way exemplified the human side of medicine. 

When she was finished in the nuclear medicine area they sent us to the pre-opt surgical room where I once again got a chance to see my wife one final time before she was wheeled into surgery. The emotions of that moment were occasionally hard, but I was able to be 'strong' for the sake of my wife. I occasionally recalled memories of other occasions when our daughter 'Maria' was hospitalized on a different floor after we completed her adoption in Guatemala or the memories of seeing two of our friend's young son's when they were hospitalized for their Cystic Fibrosis.

As I waited, waited and waited, I would pray to God for God's healing to take place in that surgical room that he would be the hands the surgeons would need to successfully perform this operation.

  Once she was finished, they wheeled her to the post-operation room where she laid trying to overcome significant nausea she was experiencing from the lingering effects of the anesthesia ( she experienced this same issue many years ago in another operation when our kids were much younger). She was in this room for approximately 3 hours.

  In the meanwhile, I met her doctors for a final briefing on how the surgery went. Dr. Wei, the main doctor describe the surgery going according to the expectations that she was anticipating it would go.  She described for me the importance of draining the tube every couple of hours and used the word 'plug' when she described this procedure. 

I immediately quipped, "oh this process is akin to changing the oil in our car?' Dr. Wei smiled before saying "close', but not sure if your wife wants you to compare her body to change the oil."

 For a day of emotions, this was my attempt to find some humor. 

 Next, we met with the plastic surgeon who described his part and what he did during the course of the surgery.  He said they were going to keep her overnight just for observation.  

There were other conversations in that waiting room. I spoke with a family who was waiting for their daughter to come out her 'reconstructive' surgery', the second surgery we will be experiencing later this year. Her daughter's husband described this journey they had been on which began years ago with his wife's bone marrow transplant. His in-laws were in that waiting room and the one distraction was watching the two guys play cribbage with occasional smiles and smirks that like Mount Saint Helens, allowed the tension to escape and smiles to surface. 

This was a very busy surgery day with families waiting anxiously for any news of their loved one. There was a bag of 'mixed' emotions as I watched family streaming into this room.

When I was able to see Linda at 8:00 pm in her hospital room, she was conscious, but coming out from  the effects of her sedation and as I looked into her eyes,  I remembered the marriage vows we took, 'for better or for worse' while momentarily thanking our Lord, Jesus Christ for being part of our journey through marriage.

  I truly believe that it is the hard times in life that draw us closer as a couple. It isn't the celebratory times, but the hard and difficult times when it feels like our ship is sinking under the weight of the stress that God reveals Himself on a much deeper level to us. 

When I look around the waiting room at all of the people experiencing different health journeys, I think of  God's church with people in the sanctuary lifting their hands in praise to the almighty despite their own suffering and what a beautiful sight that must be to God in heaven.  

As I reflected on our health journey, I recalled the advice I gave our 12-year-old son in June 2007 that the best thing we can do after a tragedy is to place one foot in front of the other while trusting Jesus that He knows what to do with our pain.

God is always good even when he doesn't feel good.

God can redeem any life no matter how hopeless the person feels

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22

Tonight, my wife and I saw the movie 'Overcomer'. It is a movie about how God can take any life and bring meaning to it. This movie is about a winning basketball coach who is good at motivating his team. Despite losing the final game of the season, he told his players that next year the team that just beat them will graduate most of their players while every one of them was returning which translates into a winning season.

This was fine until the largest employer in town shut its doors which began a painful process of losing his good players as families moved away. One day, coach Harrelson was asked to coach cross country, a sport that really didn't exist in his mind. God had other plans though when a 15-year-old girl with asthma was the lone person to sign up for the cross country team. Coach Harrelson reluctantly accepted the new assignment and poured his heart into his one-person team. When he accepted this new 'less than desirable assignment, he began to see that God was about to use him in his runner's life.

How many of us lament over the job that is less than satisfying?

 In an era of social media, it is easy to get down on oneself when you see post after post about people having successful careers when you are much lower on the ladder of that success. 

This movie reminded me that no matter where you are in this life, God can use you to help others around you. 

Your life is worth living because just as Ephesians reminds us, you are "fellow-citizens built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." 

 The moment you accept Christ into your life, you become the hands and feet of Christ with a desire to help others around you. Yes, you have a part in the Kingdom of God just as Coach Harrelson helped a 15-year-old girl reunite with her gravely ill father lying in a hospital room- a room Coach Harrelson accidentally opened the wrong door. God can take any life and redeem it for good.

Tonight, my wife and I hosted two very group friends originally from Cuba and Peru. It was a cross-cultural conversation that made us better people.

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched  refuse of your teeming shore." Those words are at the base of the Statue of  Liberty- words came from a sonnet called the 'The new colossus" written Emma Lazarus in 1883.

Yesterday evening, my wife and I hosted good friends of ours that she has known since her college days. Friends we try to keep in touch with despite our busy schedules.  Rolando immigrated to the United States from Cuba. He was the last remaining family member to do so on the account that Fidel wanted all younger men to serve in the Cuban military.  When he did arrive in the United States, he joined the family in the upper midwest where his father ran a successful small business. He chose not to join this business and decided to pursue teaching by completing his college degree. It was while at college that my wife became part of a group that tutored him in the English language. He met a beautiful lady at college who was from Peru.  

For several years, we would get invited to their Christmas celebrations with their Hispanic friends. Every year those celebrations left us with smiles on our faces with a deeper connection for the Hispanic race.  

Our friend shared a story of being on vacation in Florida with his two children when  standing in knee-deep water, accidentally backing into a group of white 10-year-olds when one shouted out to them, "where the f*k did you come from?" He learned there was a white supremacist group visiting the area that day.  In his wisdom, he knew that 10-year-olds do not normally talk that way and what they learned came from their parents.  Rolando grabbed both of his kids and ran as quickly from the water away from imminent danger. He said the horror of that encounter forever soured his experiences with the ocean.

As he described that story, I was crying on the inside.  My mind drifted back to my boyhood years living in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, the home to the largest group of Jewish holocaust survivors and seeing the mistreatment of our Jewish neighbors.

'No one deserves to be treated this way', I thought. Yet, there is a cross-section of America who believes that whites are superior to all other races.  Margaret Sanger, the founder of what is now called planned parenthood laid the groundwork for this hate with her filthy trash talk about the poor. If you don't believe me then I urge you to watch this well-done documentary Marfa 21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6XfU8KVkzI that sheds a light on the evil of this organization

As the evening wound down, I once again appreciated these cross-cultural gatherings because it made me realize that despite our different skin colors we all have similar goals and aspirations in life. White Supremacy is a sin in the eyes of God and like any sin must be repented.  

As I reflect on my faith, I thank God that He sent his Son, Jesus Christ to die for all of us regardless of our cultural background.  

Jesus Christ makes racial reconciliation possible.

Let us love one another, for love comes from God...

1 John 4:7-21 New International Version (NIV)

God’s Love and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Meet the man who travels the country to help communities heal after a mass shooting. His name is Greg Zanis. He has made crosses going back to the Columbine mass shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999. Each cross he creates, he writes the name of the victim to help the families heal from their loss. He is no stranger to a horrific loss for he knows what trauma does to such a family when a loved dies this way. 

 The day of this tragedy was supposed to be a typical shopping day for the people of El Peso, but the moment the bullets started flying it became not so typical.  How does one escape from a rapid-fire machine gun? A gun that is often used in war.  

My heart goes out to the victims of the Dayton and El Peso tragedies,  Not sure what the solution is, or how we can improve this problem

Better background checks?

Elimination of gun purchases at gun shows?

Mental health evaluations before a gun could be bought?

Renewal of license every 4 years with an updated Mental health evaluation?

Diversity training so people will understand cultural differences?

Teaching young people friendship skills?

It seems that we need to lay down our political differences and reach across the aisle to find common ground so we can find a solution that will prevent another mass shooting from occurring. 

If only people will look to the cross of Jesus Christ and declare Him Lord of their lives and commit themselves to a local church, just maybe they will feel the love in the air instead of the hate.

In the midst of the recent mass shooting in El Paso I can assure you that God has not abandoned us and in fact he is a God who stays.

John 3:16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Last night I received a text from a friend. It said simply, "Pray for the people of El Paso." It didn't take much researching when I read that 20 people were dead with another 2 dozen injured when a lone shooter with an AR-47 marched through the store and mowed people down. The collateral damage goes beyond the dead but extends to layers upon layers of people who knew those who died and to those who were injured. Twenty people who were out on what should have been a normal Saturday shopping time now dead.

The entire area of El Paso and elsewhere will now be experiencing grief so profound that its symptoms may linger for many months, and perhaps years. Symptoms of grief and sorrow should never be ignored. 

If you have the following symptoms after many months, I would encourage you to seek professional counseling with someone who understands trauma. 

Intense sorrow, pain, and rumination over the loss of your loved one
Focus on little else but your loved one's death
Extreme focus on reminders of the loved one or excessive avoidance of reminders
Intense and persistent longing or pining for the deceased
Problems accepting the death
Numbness or detachment
Bitterness about your loss
Feeling that life holds no meaning or purpose
Lack of trust in others and the inability to enjoy life or think back on positive experiences with your loved one. 

You may be experiencing complicated grief: Complicated grief is like being in an ongoing, heightened state of mourning that keeps you from healing. These symptoms can keep your body in a heightened state of alert caused by the overly active cortisol stress hormone in your body. On the Mayo Clinic website, I read the following of the risks of this stress hormone:

But when stressors are always present and you constantly feel under attack, that fight-or-flight reaction stays turned on. The long-term activation of the stress-response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follow can disrupt almost all your body's processes. This puts you at increased risk of many health problems, including:

Anxiety
Depression
Digestive problems
Headaches
Heart disease
Sleep problems
Weight gain
Memory and concentration impairment

These symptoms must never be ignored and you should let your doctor know whenever you experience the death of a loved one, or witness, in this case, a mass shooting so your symptoms can be monitored.

Learning to react to stress in a healthy way

Stressful events are facts of life. And you may not be able to change your current situation. But you can take steps to manage the impact these events have on you.

You can learn to identify what stresses you and how to take care of yourself physically and emotionally in the face of stressful situations.


Stress management strategies include: ( on the Mayo website)

Eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise and plenty of sleep
Practicing relaxation techniques such as practicing deep breathing exercises, getting a massage or learning to meditate
Taking time for hobbies, such as reading a book or listening to music
Fostering healthy friendships
Having a sense of humor
Volunteering in your community
Seeking professional counseling when needed

The reward for learning to manage stress is peace of mind and perhaps a longer, healthier life. ( Mayo Clinic website) https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037

I want to add one more item that my family did after experiencing the loss of a loved one, and that was we kept believing that God is good and kept on attending our weekly worship services at the same church we attended when our loved one was alive. This wasn't easy, but necessary in terms of our long term spiritual health.

The images of this recent tragedy most of us saw on social media cannot be avoided and we must keep reminding ourselves that the majority of people in our country are law-abiding people who have the same goals as you and I.

As a Christian believer, I'm going to pray for the people of El Paso.