I Am Thankful

As Jen and I sat in church this Sunday she started to cry. It is fairly normal for either or both of us to do that - last week it was me - so we just sat there in the back against the wall and she laid her head on my shoulder.

It wasn't too long before a friend saw her and came to sit with us. She just sat on the floor with us, held Jen's hand, and cried too.

The night carter passed we had the entire pastoral team with their wives at our house. We had elders and their wives providing support in numerous ways. We had friends cleaning our house. We had friends adjusting our front door so it would close easy.

In the days following we had countless people come over to sit with us, bring food, take care of final preparations and expenses, and to bear the weight of our pain.

We had family fly in from the west coast. We had family drive up from long distances. We had my office provide meals and support. We had my employer freely offer me a week of bereavement.

We have truly had such an outpouring of love and support.

We are so blessed to count you all as friends.
I am so blessed to know you.

You are loved and appreciated like you will never know.

The results are in:

After about an hour of medical speak it all boils down to this:

Carter died from what was most likely a viral blood infection. It did present very much like E.coli but another factor makes it more likely a virus - the liver was not producing the coagulants it usually does - a supposed sign of a virus over the E.coli bacteria. The organ failures were results of that and the hypoxia - not enough oxygen to his brain. It was the low blood pressure that made him ineligible for dialysis and also that low blood pressure that eventually killed him.
Given the inputs we had Dr. Johnston said that Jen and I did exactly what she would have done in our shoes.

Well... now I know how.

In some ways it offers a small amount of closure. The way everything lined up, all the symptoms and the way some were masked, and some external factors - like how our pediatrician acted, I come to the conclusion that God simply called him home. There was no way he was going to come out of it.

It was ordained.

I love you Carter and I take some comfort knowing that God had your days numbered exactly how He wanted them to be. You will always be our little bear. Enjoy your head start buddy! You will have to show me around when I get there!

Autopsy Results

I called CHKD today and learned that the results are in. They have to schedule an appointment there at the hospital to share them with us... I am getting the feeling they won't do it over the phone. I look forward to hearing what they have to say. I hope there are conclusive results.

I may post the results here as well as give an account of what happened that day, August 17th, 2007.

We shall see.

Dear God, I don't like you.

At night is the hardest. When the TV goes off, when Jen goes to sleep, and there is nothing to take my mind off of it - all the distractions are gone - then it hits me. That is when I am forced to face it whether I have earlier that day or not.

So Saturday night rolls around and the same thing happens and the Lord calls to me.

"How long are you going to ignore me Jon? I miss you"

"OK, God, If you insist... I don't like you right now. I don't like what you did - or maybe I should say what you didn't do. I still love you, but I am mad at you right now."

It seemed like a while before I got a response from Him, "If you could have any one thing right now from me what would that be?"

Someone had told me once that God grants things to people who are in severe grief. I thought this may be my one opportunity. What do I ask for? My son back? That is so SELFISH! Carter is with my creator even now - totally unaware that I am not with him - completely lost in the face of Christ. Do I ask for answers? That is temporary and doesn't change anything - in fact it will probably only bring MORE questions. Do I ask for absolute evidence of God's existence? I already have that. He has spoken to me on at least 4 occasions in the past so that would be a wasted request b/c He could just point to that. Do I ask for evidence of His love for me? Then I hear the scripture, "He chastises those whom He loves". Yeah, that is just what I need right now, to be corrected for being mad and ignoring him and even sometimes CUSSING at him.

There could only be ONE thing that would be meaningful and lasting and not get my but kicked - at least begrudgingly...

"Lord, I ask that my heart's desires would match yours."

There is submission in that. There is PAIN in that. There is a sense of what is right in that. There is hope in that.

I have to allow this to be what it is. I have to look at it from an eternal perspective. My little boy is in Heaven right now. He is where I am going. I miss him SO badly and that is OK. I will get to see him again and spend eternity with him next to my Heavenly Father.

I don't wish this on anyone.

I am sorry Father for ignoring you. I do love you. I do like you. I don't understand - but I don't have to.

Anger

It is setting in. No matter what I do he isn't coming back. I weep as I declare my faith and confess my love for God. It is an act of submission - I have to die to my anger. I fight it. I wrestle it. I am not lifeless now as I have been. Now the intensity of the emotion escalates. This is where I get to see what I am made of.

This truly hurts!

It is more than that too. I have to be here for my family. Most of the time I can be - it is in the times I am lowest that I let them down. How do I juggle my own grief and the grief of those I love? I don't have that answer now.

My wife is so awesome. Thank you Jen. I know you are sacrificing too.

Man, this inhales violently!

I know how you feel

Mark Harris has a song called Wish You Were Here and it is about someone who has died and is in Heaven calling back to us not to cry for them because they are in the most amazing place and you will join them someday. That song really spoke to Jen and she asked me to listen to it.

It made me angry.

It is a beautiful song and the writer speaks hope and promise to the listener but it still made me angry. I feel insulted that someone who has no idea what I am going through has the audacity to tell me it is OK and I shouldn’t cry or feel bad because my child is in a better place and is waiting for me. It is not rational for me to be mad at that but for some reason I want to know the credentials of those who say, “I understand what you are going through”. I actually feel better when someone says, “I can’t imagine what you are going through right now” for some reason. If someone has been through a loss then I am able to give them credit and I can listen openly to their empathy. I can accept it then.

…

This Sunday Ken had us bow our heads and listen for God to speak to us on the topic of authentic love. As I began I was thanking God for how good He is. I remembered that this was supposed to be Him speaking to us so I stopped and cleared my mind.

He gave me a vision of a dark room with a gentle, warm spotlight focused on Carter sitting on Christ’s lap. It was crystal clear in my mind. Carter was hanging on to Jesus with his left arm and leaning out to me with his right. He had a big smile on his face and was reaching to touch index fingers with me like he would. He then leaned back into Christ and rubbed his face on Jesus’ chest. It was like he was loosing himself in the Lord. Then he looked back at me smiling and I noticed at that point there were 2 other spirit children, more transparent, sitting on Christ’s other knee looking up at Him and the vision was over. I got the impression was that those two were from the two miscarriages we had. As I sat there I cried joyfully at that gift.

I told my Heavenly Father, “Thank You.” I thought of the pain he must have felt as he lost his own Son on Calvary.

He said, “Now you know what it was like for me.”

“But you knew what was to come,” I responded… as if His foreknowledge of their reunion should have made it any less painful.

He said, “So do you.”

…

I can be such a jerk sometimes. Mark Harris was singing exactly what was to come whether he had experienced what I am going through or not. I know it is truth. I know that Heaven is waiting for me and Jesus is preparing a place for me. I welcome it. I don’t have a death wish. That is not what I mean. I don’t fear dying and when it is my time I welcome it – I know exactly where I am going. But there is much to live for.

Paul writes in Philippians Chapter 1,

“21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.”

I love this letter. Can you see him debating? He knows what is to come and it is SO much more beautiful than the present yet he desires to stay and work to bring more along with him.

I so look forward to Heaven. But I want it to be crowded up there :D so I have some work to do.

Thank you, Father. Your perspective is ALWAYS perfect.
I love you.

Dot People

I had lunch with Mike Hale today. I love that man. I love his family. Mike asked me how I was doing and so I let him have it as raw as it is. In the last few days I have been thinking about how God interacts with us. I saw an active God in the Old Testament but a passive God in the New Testament. I saw examples of how God rescued those laboring in His service in the Old Testament like S,M&A in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the lion’s den. I saw God who did not intervene in the New Testament when Stephen was stoned, when John was beheaded, when Paul was tortured and then killed. I saw a God who spoke plainly to his prophets in the Old Testament but one who allowed the Spirit to loosely council the writers in the New Testament. Right, wrong, or indifferent that was how I felt and I came to a realization… is this a God I want to serve?

...

Before I got into computers I was in sales. I went to a handful of conferences on how to be a better salesman and at one particular seminar (I think it was John Hopkins) I was impressed with this exercise (don’t ask me to remember how this relates to sales).

Take a blank sheet of white paper and take a pen or pencil and make a dot somewhere on the page. What do you see? Show it to your spouse, friends, kids, and ask them all the same question. Unless they have seen this before I am willing to bet that they say, “I see a little dot.”

They all miss the rest of the page.

Yes, there is a little dot but there is also a lot of white space left on that page.

I think it is an exercise in optimism.

...

I read today that UNICEF reports that in 1960 it was not uncommon in 3rd world countries to have 3 out of ever 10 infants die and that in one country, Mali, it was 5 out of every 10. In 2002, while there was improvement, they report that it was not uncommon for those same countries to suffer 1 in 10 infant mortalities and even up to almost 3 in 10 in some locations.

In some countries 3 out of every 10 children die before the age of 1 year… even today.

...

Everything I have has been given to me by God. I have beautiful children, a loving wife, a secure job, a far more than adequate home and an AMAZING church family. There are BILLIONS of people who cannot say the same. Just because I have been sheltered doesn’t mean that tragedy doesn’t exist today. I was looking at the dot. My 15 month old son is dead and that is a pretty big dot but in the context of the page of eternity, it is not even a spec. Carter is where I am going and I shall see him again. That too is a blessing that not everyone will enjoy.

Our God is a God worth serving. In a BIG way! I am SO blessed.

I choose not to be a dot person.

What about you?

lets go back for a second

to my comment about the idea that it is errant to think that Christians or even those in His service are immune to tragedy.

So I have tossed my core beliefs aside. I have to go back to what I know for sure and not what I believe. I have to get a new set of Lego's if you will to build my faith with.

So WHAT can I say IS true about God and my faith? What was promised... and not just in general b/c the Israelites got promises that I don't get (ok... here is a light into Jon's mind - I have some dispensationalist in me)

(I call my spiritual building blocks legos)

Lego 1: The promised Holy Spirit is the garuntee of our salvation.
Lego 2: When we tithe God pours out material blessings on us.

It's all I got right now, but it's a start.