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ICU

November 15, 2011 by Mark King 4 Comments

ICU smells funny.
I have spent a little over a week watching my father lie in a bed. There are cables and tubes everywhere. Sometimes I worry that my size 13 shoes are going to hook around my dad’s catheter, loosely attached to the bottom of his bed, and tear it out; sending two liters of stale pee gushing too the floor. This week I have a done a lot of worrying, a lot of waiting, a lot of trying not to acknowledge my worries and fears, a lot of getting upset with nurses that don’t seem to be moving quickly enough, a lot of being annoyed with doctors that never come by and a lot of thinking about my family. My life this week seems summed up best by the following list:
  1. Go to hospital and wait. Try to use phone to look at comics for sale on ebay.
  2. Wait some more and greet all of dads co-workers and church friends. This involves me  trying to be nice as someone else offers to pray and I have to hold their hand.
  3. Wait for answers that never come quickly enough.
  4. Go find fast-food.
  5. Go back to hospital and wait. Try to stream net-flix which is blocked by the free wifi at the hospital. Hulu works but as usual, nothing good is on.
  6. Go home and dream about hospitals and funerals.
  7. Repeat

As I am trying to process what it means to see my father in a hospital, I keep coming back to three thoughts.

1. Lists are stupid. I don’t ever want to live my life going by a list.
2. My greatest fears are steeped in loosing people I love.
3. Waiting makes you think.

I know that these three thoughts seem random and overly simple, but they keep running around over and over and over and over and over in my mind. I think they tie together and might be a piece of what God is trying to show me this year.
Let’s go backwards:

3. Waiting makes you think.
I have had a lot of time to wait. I am naturally not good at waiting. Just ask my wife how I am with Christmas presents. November 25th is just as good as December 25th. I have tried to distract myself in every way possible while waiting on my dad. I go do the the meal runs for my sister and mom. I roam around the hospital and ride the elevator. I download applications on my phone and then delete them. I even played a game with myself where I would try to find a different bathroom every time I needed to go. Hospitals have a million bathrooms and none of them are clean. The point is that despite my high propensity to find joy in distraction, there was just too much waiting. Eventually I had to think.  My thoughts, which I had been really trying to avoid led me straight to where I knew they would go. My worries and fears.
Some of my fears are stupid and some I won’t even give voice to because they might overwhelm my entire being.

2. My greatest fears are steeped in loosing people I love.
This week I feared that I might loose my dad. This week I feared that I might have to spend another week or two in the ICU looking at him hooked up to tubes, watching him move from looks of extreme pain and discomfort to looks of raw fear and confusion born from heavy sedation and a ventilator. This week I feared that might not have been the best son I could be. This week I feared that I would see my mother, who is the strongest woman I know, break down.

This is where the blessing comes in. It is in the fears and worries that are wrapped around my heart and brain that I was reminded of how much I love my family. The love I have for my wife and parents and sibling, is a love that is deep and real, the thought of separation from that love is one of my greatest fears. I think that sort of love must be the love that Jesus talks about when he sums up the second greatest commandment:

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

As I think about it, that same love, that I first experienced from my parents, I can now not only reflect back to them, but also to my wife and some friends. My father and mother where the first two people on this planet to love me in a truly second commandment way. No wonder the thought of being disconnected from that is so scary. It’s also amazing to think that through their love and the love of God I learned how to love others.

1. Lists are stupid. I don’t ever want to live my life going by a list.
This waiting that led to thinking about my fears leads me to my last thought. Lists are dumb. I want to stop thinking about life in terms of lists and focus instead on thinking about my life in terms of who I care about. Do I get to spend today being loved by God and loving him? That’s a great day. Do I get to love my wife today? Count that as a highly productive day. If I truly believe that the two most important things are the love of God and loving others then my true focus and measuring rod of success for a day should be did I get to receive and give love today?

I want my life to be surrounded by what I truly care about.

If I, when lying in a hospital, wake up to find money, security, a completed check list, a well organized calender full of finished meetings and neatly crossed off successful programs but have not love, I have missed the greatest gift both my earthly and heavenly fathers have given me.

 

Jelayne, love, Mark Study 2011/2012, Roy King

Wow.

September 7, 2011 by Mark King 0 Comments

Take the time to watch this great message by Robertson McQuilkin. Man that guy in the beginning of the video looks familiar.

http://www.mcquilkinlibrary.com/

love, random thoughts, Stuff My Dad Sends Me

Where Did You Go? (part three)

July 14, 2011 by Mark King 0 Comments

If you have been following along in this now three part conversation, I have asked the question, “Why does it seem as though Church takes a back seat in so many peoples lives?”

We have answered this question with a few different ideas:

1. People are busy. The demand on parents to keep the whole family involved competes with life. (part one)

2. Church isn’t essential to many people. Whatever it is that we are supposed to be receiving from church, isn’t as present as it needs to be. (part two)

3. The scripture surrounding the early believers painted a community that was interdependent on one another. (part two)

So….

What do we take away?

I want to present two ideas.

1. We have a poor understanding of the purpose of church.

2. We have a poor understanding of the two biggest commandments.

I think the church is supposed to reflect the kingdom of God. lets look at some scripture that describes how the kingdom of God functions.

Luke 13:18-19- Jesus is speaking…

 18 He said therefore, ”What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?19It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”

Luke 13:29-30- Jesus is speaking….

29And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. 30And behold,  some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Romans 14:17

17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking butof righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5:16-24

 16But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with itspassions and desires.

Luke 17:20- Jesus is speaking…

 20Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed

John 14:20-21- Jesus is speaking…

20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Ephesians 2:19-20

19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,

It seems to me, that the deepest purpose of the church, is to be God’s kingdom on earth. It isn’t complete or perfect yet, but it is here and made up entirely of God’s people. We are supposed to be active citizens in God’s Kingdom, not visitors or regular attenders. God’s kingdom isn’t about choirs or youth pastors or sermons or buildings. It’s about people worshiping God, the Supreme Ruler, the I Am, the Savior, the King of Kings.

And how does the King ask us to live? What command does this King give his people?

“Love me with everything you have, all the time and love people with such deep intensity that they see My Son in you.”

Church should be us coming together daily, to learn how to love God and receive His love. It should be the deepest of communities that strives to pour itself out to one another and to the world.

It should be our home. It should be our family. It should be our obsession.

I challenge you, the next time you take communion, to remember that we are waiting with great anticipation for God’s Kingdom to be completed.  When we take communion we are supposed to remember that one day, we will break bread and drink from the cup with Jesus. And while we wait, God has tasked us with living as though the kingdom of God really is inside of our hearts and minds. He has tasked us with modeling a kingdom life to those who are not yet citizens.

Bring church back to the forefront of your life. Come meet everyone at church. Learn how to love and serve each of them. Then go out and invite others to join the kingdom of God.

Because we know in the end, all other kingdoms pass away . ” For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; the I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.”

Abide, John 15, Kingdom of God, love, Where Did You Go?
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