3.22.13-The day my life changed in a gigantic way.

Our life can change so suddenly.  I got up on March 22, 2013 set to go to church and try to encourage folks there as they always had done for me for the 30 years I served there as their minister.  Things were fairly normal until about 1.30pm.

About 8am we had a meeting to make some plans and pray together.

About 9am we ended the meeting and some of our group began to plan for their Bible class assignments and some moved to work on some praise songs for the morning.

9.30am Anthony Bush started teaching our Bible class for the older adults.

10.30am We had a great worship of Jesus.

11.30am We had a pot luck luncheon.  Might have been a special meal to support our ladies ministry for their retreat.  I’m not exactly sure.  What I do remember was that a sister had some flowers she wanted to give us. 

 

1.10 pmI took a couple of sets of flowers to deliver to some special neighbors.  It was snowing which is fairly common in Denver in March.  I drove up to the neighbors near our home and gave some flowers to the Sullivan family who had lost a son in the Aurora Theater shooting and then drove in the drive way making sure to drive steady and carefully into the garage in our smaller car which fit into the left side of our garage.  

 I took out one set of flowers across the street to our neighbors who had not been able to go to church because of the light snow falling. Then I walked toward their home across the street where my neighbor, Jerry, was shoveling snow.  I got to the middle of the driveway walking down in the path my car tires had gone which had been pressed into ice.  I didn’t have on snow boots but my new balance sneakers.  Then something happened which began and major change in my life at age 66.  I slipped down and landed in such a way I didn’t think I was hurt.  I tried to get up and I couldn’t get my left lower leg to cooperate.   

My wife was nearby and Jerry, my neighbor, came over to try to help me up, but it was not to be.  I crawled up into my garage out of the snow.  I told my wife something is wrong with my left leg.  I have no control of it. I told her to call 911.  She did and soon the sirens could be heard.  They put me on a gurney and took me to an ER.

It was strange that I had no pain at all.

As we sat in the ER examination room when we waited on the doctor to come Sheila looked at me and said, “Is this the precipitating event?”  We had planned since I turned 66 to move into a situation where we could be watched over closely by our son, Jeff, who had offered to help us in our retirement years.  I said, “Yes, I think so.”

The nurse came and the ER doc and they surmised that my “femor muscle” had popped loose from my knee cap.  I had a stiff brace placed on my leg.  In a few days some surgery and in a few challenging  months we had made the move to North Richland Hills.  My life timing and “work” changed in an instant.

We never know what a day contains.  Our life can change in a instant.  I moved from being an older minister helping a beloved congregation and helping to train younger ministers to a “slow go” volunteer minister in North Richland Hills in an instant.

What have I learned in five years?

Life as you know it is temporary.

Live each day fully.

Go with the flow and try to learn from what is going on.

Remember that God is in control.

Cry out to God for help and receive and appreciate the help He sends.

He sent Jeff, our son to come and help with the transition.  Our daughter, Amy,  was busy in Atlanta raising our grandsons and working hard, but supporting my phone. 

He sent Reniece Jones a neighbor and friend to help on a day that Sheila and I were both down.

He sent Ben Cross, a friend, to carry me to the doctor when Sheila was down.

He sent the leaders from our church to say to us after thirty years of being the minister there, “What do you want to do and how can we help you?”  We said we thought it was time for our big change.  They reluctantly agreed with our opinion and that of our kids, Jeff and Amy.

 We made plans and had a scheduled down shifting in our work and a wonderful brother from church bought our house to make that a lot simpler.  We found  marvelous realtor, Debra Biggers, to hlep us find the right house. 

Sheila worked hard to wrap up all the boxes and we had a garage sale and gave away some things. 

 On May, 19, 2013 we bought our home in NRH.  

 On July 16, 2013 we moved in.  

We have enjoyed our five years of our life here. 

We have enjoyed more time together as a couple.

We go to our GP, Doc. Every six months he does blood work and says that generally we are well. Sometimes he has the hope to ask me to try to drop some weight.  We see specialists as needed.

We have generally gone to the health club together each week for our rehab and made many new friends there.

We had had more freedom to visit and support our kids and grandkids. 

Time with siblings.

Time with cousins and the church where I grew up at Oak Ridge.

Time with high school friends from Fannindel High School at reunions.

Time with friends from all over Texas whom we have known from college days until now.

Time with men’s groups over coffee.

Time with our church, The Hills Church, North Richland Hills. 

Time visiting with our friends in Colorado.

Both of us have volunteer ministry projects following Jesus’ in our own way.  As most of you know my thing Scripture study, prayer and meditation and writing.  Much is writing my family history and devotional pieces on my blog and social media.  It mostly a written record for me and my family and friends.  Most items there just my view of things.   

 I am a substitute teacher at my church. 

I have volunteered to help support and encourage in men’s ministry in my town with friends from several different churches in a variety of settings.  We are also in a couples community group in Fort Worth and have come to love the people in this group.

On this day I am reminded to be thankful for all the people who have blessed this phase of our lives.

3.22.13 and day of life-change for us.  

I am reminded to live each day fully and thank God for all the blessings

I think of a couple of passages from the Bible.

Matthew 6.

³⁴ “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will ^[v]care for itself. ^[w]Each day has enough trouble of its own.

2 Corinthians

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The Temporal and Eternal

5 For we know that if ^[f]the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, ³ inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. ⁴ For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a ^[g]pledge.

⁶ Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— ⁷ for we walk by faith, not by ^[h]sight— ⁸ we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. ⁹ Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. ¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for ^[i]his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Thanks for reading.

Larry Wishard

3.22.18