Here We Go Again

In a lot of ways it seams like just yesterday that we left University Hospitals after spending 5+ weeks in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU), yet here we are again getting ready to pack up and make the five hour trip back down to Cleveland to check back in and do it all over again.

Many of you asked if I'd be keeping this blog again this time. It amazed me how many people followed this blog the last time we were there. In fact in the couple of months surrounding our time in the hospital more than 11,500 people read this blog. Now Tina and I don't have anywhere close to that many friends and family so I have no idea who those people were, but what I do know is that many people told me afterward how much God used this blog in their lives. As Tina and I reflect back on our time in Cleveland and recognize that from a medical perspective our stay wasn't very successful, we also recognize that some of the most significant successes in our lives can't be measured on a human scale. We were obedient to God's leading in our lives and although it didn't turn out how we would have liked, and the days, months, and years following have been difficult as a result of unsuccessful treatment, we realize that God used us in significant ways in the lives of many people. The hospital staff, friends, family, coworkers, our own kids, some of you who read this blog, and even in our own marriage, God's goodness was put on display. I believe that in a some small way God was made more famous through this experience even though from a human perspective it was not successful - or as my 13-year-old would say - it was an epic fail.

We have no idea how this trip will go. We don't know if it will result in a successful treatment of Tina's seizures or if it will end the same way it did last time. What we do know is that God holds all the cards, and that he loves us. How much more can I ask for, that the Creator of the universe, the one who through his power sustains the very existence of the universe, also knows my name - he knows me personally - and this blows my mind - he loves me. Really? The all-powerful God of the universe loves me? How could I ever improve on that? Yet, as I am often reminded, although he is all-powerful, and totally loving, at the same time he isn't safe. You see, God's ways are not my ways, and what I see as an "epic fail" God sees as complete success. What I see as too difficult, God sees as blessing me because he is building into my life the character that I need - his paths are beyond tracing out.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgements, and his paths beyond tracing out!

Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?

Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?

For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.

- Romans 11:33-36

The last time I themed this blog after Romans chapter 11 by calling it "untraceable paths." I considered naming it something else this time around, but as I read through Romans 11:33-36 I recognized that we are very much in the same place as we were before. We don't understand all that God is up to in our lives, we do not see where this path is headed - it is untraceable - but we trust him with our very lives and it is our deep desire that through this he would receive the glory forever!


***I don't know if anyone is interested, but I have left all of the blog posts from the last time we were in Cleveland up and they can be accessed through the "archive" section on the left side of the blog.