Exactly two years ago . . .

Exactly two years ago . . . 

I was on this same flight number, same airline, same destination, same route and when I landed in Atlanta my son Jake called me and told me that I was too late, mom had already passed away.  Not unexpected, not a surprise, but life-changing nevertheless. Another part of the fabric of life was ripped and can never be the same. A pillar in my life was destroyed and removed.

There is no way I would be sitting here and wishing her back with us in the same condition she found herself at the end, but God I miss her. I miss her laugh, her wisdom and her mercy. No one has those in the same qualities that she did. My life would be so much less if not for her. I may have come farther than any man before me in the history of the world, because of the influence of my mom in my life. I miss you girl . . . 

Powerless at foot drop

Powerless at foot drop

There is a point where you can experience the terrifying vulnerability of having your body fail you for no damn good reason. This powerlessness is awful. I wasn't even doing anything remotely dangerous or exotic or life-threatening (and I regularly do all three of those). No this came from sitting on a hard chair, for 3.5 hours, with my legs crossed. Yeah you can reread that sentence and wonder if I made a mistake or did not proof read my blog, but no, you would be mistaken. According to my nurse/neurologist, I effectively did nerve damage to my peroneal nerve by sitting on a rock hard chair for 3.5 hours with my legs crossed. This nerve damage results in a condition known as Foot Drop. Yes I damaged myself by being in a meeting!

Powerless. Because I sit on hard chairs all the time. I have almost no control over the chairs in my life when I am on the road traveling 100 days per year. I have been crossing my legs Euro-style for decades. Ok ok this was a pretty long meeting, but it wasn't THAT long! And I get up out of that chair and find out immediately that my left ankle and foot will not work properly. It's like they have gone to sleep without the whole tinglely thing. They will not articulate properly, they won't climb stairs properly, I am dragging my left foot like a cripple. Powerless.

Three weeks have passed since this first happened, and I am making tiny incremental progress each day toward normal functional foot and ankle. But I don't even have control over that process. There is no pill to take, there is no exercise to do, there is no decision that can be made to make things better. I am a terrible patient.

There is a special kind of trusting Jesus that is required when faced with powerlessness. And then over this three week period I realized that there is no special kind of trusting Jesus at all. We trust Jesus period, when we realize our powerlessness in any area of life. And frankly I am far more powerless in far more areas of my life, than I had ever considered before. It's ok to trust Jesus. It's foolish to trust your own abilities, because they can just stop working at any time with no notice. Jesus doesn't operate that way.

Careful to not let it touch your lips

Careful to not let it touch your lips

There are some wonderfully hot things in Asia, and some that you might need to be extra careful with as you experiment with them. The "pic-nam-blough " can be particularly deadly. And then I have found there is one level even above that, which I don't have an official Thai word for, but I privately call it thermonuclear.

I had that for breakfast recently with my fish and rice. There were so many peppers in there I could not see where the fish started and where the peppers ended. It was wonderful, unless you let it touch your lips. If you do that, expect 10-20 minutes of numb useless nerve endings that have been rendered unresponsive by the thousands of Scoville heat units assaulting them. I learned that I had better eat my pie first if I actually want to taste it. Then again I often eat my pie first, and last. Regardless, enjoy all the spicyness of what life has to offer, but be careful with the lips. 

Totally awesome change-the-world tech

Totally awesome change the world tech

I have accomplished more in 40 minutes on this airplane, than I did in the last 10 days combined. And I only used 4% of available battery power to do it. You gotta love tech like that. I could have pulled the laptop, but that goes through battery like a fire through gasoline. The iPad Pro, oh dude! All day working on this thing. The only limitation here is my imagination - and ok, that is actually pretty limited, but the tech isn't holding me back.

So I have jumped on four blogs on the first leg of my journey. That is huge, because the last three weeks I haven't had a single second to write a thing, and when I am too busy to write, then I am too busy period. What that really means is that I am too busy to think, and that has far deadlier ramifications. When I am not thinking first and foremost, then I am responding, and that generally leads to paths I had rather not travel. Not only that, responding to everything is just a tiny step above being a consumer, the bottom dregs of a life not worth living.

Instead, to be the designer of your life. It requires boldness and risk and that difficult "no" to everyone else's agendas. Stop living their lives. Start living yours. The tech is available. You are here now. Do it!