This is where it all got real. I was wheeled into an operating room, a place I had never been before and hoped that I’d never go.

I was scared.

Surgery meant that this cancer thing was real and when I woke up that I would have things in my body that were not there before. These things were meant to help me but at the time I did not see it that way.

The surgery was to implant a mediport and a feeding tube. The mediport was what they would use to give me chemo. The feeding tube was so that I could eat since the chemo and radiation would probably make it even harder to do.

Did I mention I was scared?

I was terrified. I am not trying to be too dramatic but this was a huge deal to me.

 This was absolutely huge.

I was in that hospital bed being wheeled into the operating room but everything in me wanted to get up, rip the IV out of my arm, and run without looking back. I have no idea why the thought of surgery scared my so much but it did.

Thank God for anesthesia because the knocked me out just as I got into the room for the procedure.

When I Woke Up

The surgery went without a hitch and I actually felt pretty good that day. They gave me some pain medication and that helped. I felt so good the next morning I actually did laundry. Unfortunately the good feeling did not last as later that day I started to wean myself off the pain meds and began to feel the reality of the surgery.

I wasn’t able to lay down flat on my back due to combination of the locations of the feeding tube and the mediport. This lasted a few days and then I was finally able to sleep better. The combination of the pain meds and lack of sleep made that a pretty difficult week.

God and I Have a Talk

During this time I tried listening to a lot of preaching messages since my body and my spirit were not doing so well.

Up until this time I had not really spent quality time with God to address how I felt about the cancer situation and to get His perspective. I wasn’t running from him or giving Him the cold shoulder but I wasn’t engaging with Him either.

That all changed after “The Message”.

The message was from Pastor Peter Haas of Substance Church in Roseville, MN. I had listened to him on a pretty regular basis since he had spoke once at our church. He is a young guy and I always felt that I connected with his messages.

This particular message was called Mourning into Dancing.

The message was more of a testimony then anything given by his mother-in-law. In that message she shared her story of her husband’s battle with depression, eventual suicide, and how God helped her through it. It is a very emotional message as you can imagine.

The message can be listened to and downloaded here:

Mourning into Dancing – Peter Haas – Substance Church 

The part that spoke to me the most is the part where she described how she was angry at God but felt bad about being angry at Him. After a while she expressed this to God and felt like He told her that her anger could not hurt Him. He was bigger then her anger.

See, I was mad at God.

How could He allow this to happen to me? Why didn’t He protect me? Didn’t He Love me?

All these things had been inside of me since the day I was told I had cancer. I was angry but I did not know how to interact with God about it. This message helped me to do it.

I sat there that day in my bed angry, in pain, and in tears telling God exactly how I felt about Him, my life, and the cancer. I cried. I wept.

“Why won’t You heal me? You are able. You are all-powerful. I am a dad and I would never allow my son to go through this if I had the power to heal him.” I told God.

I felt God say “I will heal you through the doctor”.

That was not good enough for me.

“Why would You want me to go through this terrible man-made treatment when You could just say a word and I would be healed.” I asked.

“Because when I heal you I don’t just want to heal your body, I want to heal your heart and soul as well” I felt God say.

I stopped. This meant something to me as my mind went to the past when I was in a men’s Christian rehab home. I had gone to the home after getting in trouble and had nowhere else to go. While I was in there I saw guys come, go, and then come back again, sometimes multiple times. Each time they came back they were ten times worse then they were before.

After seeing this time and time again I made a pledge to God. I promised that I would stay there as long as I needed so I could learn what I needed so I would never have to come back again. I stayed there 6 months. That was 15 years ago and I have never been back. I learned the lesson that God had for me there.

There were lessons to be learned in this situation.

The only way I was going to learn those lessons and not find myself in this place again was to go through this treatment the way that God wanted me to. No shortcuts, no skipping steps. Every doctor’s visit, every treatment, every procedure was there for a reason.

I told God I would do things His way because I knew that when I was done I would not need to go through this again. I was OK with that, I was good.

Disclaimer

Now I want to be clear about something. I am in no way saying that God brought this situation into my life so that He could teach me a lesson. He only brings good things into a person’s life as the bible says:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. – James 1:17

and

Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. – Matthew 4:23

God is a God of healing, not of sickness and disease.

He does help to turn those things that have happened to us into good things if we let Him.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. – Romans 8:28

I believe that God did not create this situation in my life but He did take advantage of it to bring my out better then I was before.

Next Post in this Series: Treatment – The First Week – Coming Soon!

So here I was. Newly diagnosed with cancer, no health insurance, and only 3 weeks into my new job.

The Job

The first thing that needed to happen was that I needed to let my boss know that I had cancer. He was very sympathetic and offered to do anything that was possible through the company. He even looked into health insurance for me but there was just no way to get it enacted to where it would cover the cancer (the cancer was now a preexisting condition). I told him that I would have several doctor’s appointments over the next few weeks and some sort of treatment and he asked that I would just keep him and the rest of our team informed.

The Charity Program

The second item on the list was to go to the cancer center that we had been referred to in order to apply for their charity program since we did not have insurance. Basically we listed all of our assets and they would tell us at what level of charity that we qualified for if any. Thankfully we did qualify for charity even though I was working at the time. I am very thankful that they took us when no one else would.

The PET/CT Scan

The next item was to meet the new doctor and figure out what treatment I needed. The first visit was the worst. I mean I knew I had cancer but being in that little room with him talking about the general procedure just made it all the more real. Basically there would be some sort of chemotherapy and possibly radiation with surgery at the end. Before we could narrow down exactly what I needed he needed to stage the cancer via a PET/CT scan. He must of seen the look of shock and dispare on my face because at the end of his explanation he reached out to me and said “Hey, don’t worry, this is just a bump in the road.” It felt more like a pot hole as opposed to a bump at the time but I appreciated the jesture.

So now I needed a PET/CT scan. The PET/CT scan would measure the activity of the cancer in my body and show if it had spread. The only problem was that the cancer facility that I was now with did not have a PET/CT machine and referred me to another medical facility to get it done. Unfortunately this other facility was not apart of the same medical group and so the charity program did not cover the scan. After talking with the folks there we found out that the scan would cost us $7,000 and that at least 20% of that would need to be paid up front. They did offer the scan at $4,000 if we wanted to pay the whole amount up front.

At this time I had only been working for around 4 weeks and so we did not have $1,400 or let alone $4,000 sitting around. After trying to figure out what to do we sold our van for $4,000 and paid for the scan up front. Just another bump in the road.

The Treatment Plan is Laid Out

A few days after the PET/CT scan we met back with the doctor and he gave us the results. The cancer had not spread to anywhere else. This was good news.

The plan was to hit the cancer hard with 6 weeks of radiation 5 days a week. I would also receive chemotherapy for 6 days the first and last week of the radiation. I would need to be in the hospital for the rounds of chemo because they would be given to me 16 hours a day for 5 days and 8 hours the last day. After that we would do surgery to remove the part of the esophagus and part of the stomach that had the cancer. The radiation and chemo would shrink the tumor so that they would not have to remove any more then necessary. The plan was that I would start treatment in the next couple of weeks.

Before I started treatment though I would need to have a couple of things done. Mainly I needed to have a mediport and a feeding tube put in. The mediport was so the chemo could be administered and the feeding tube was so that I could eat while going through chemo and radiation. As if I wasn’t scared of the cancer enough the sound of both of these things completely freaked me out.

God Where Are You?

Looking back at this period time this was one of the most difficult. It was filled with doctor’s appointments that seemed to get worse and worse every time we went. I had never had anything physically wrong with me ever before. Now I have a deadly disease and was going to have tubes put in me, terrible medicines, radiation, and also a major surgery. I was in utter shock.

It was around this time that we started to reach out to folks that we new were christians to pray for us. I remember feeling so weak, so overwhelmed at this time, that I felt that I could not continue on by myself. We emailed and called everyone we knew from every church that we had been apart of. Everyone was so gracious in their responses and it helped to know that others were standing with us. I really believe it was the prayers of others that really helped us early in this journey and helped us make it through.

God was there. Heaven was bombarded with prayers on our behalf. Every time we came from the doctor we were sad and depressed. We would take the rest of the day to process what was said and attempt to look on the bright side. I believe we were able to see the bright side because of people’s prayers and God helping us to look at things from His perspective. As big and scary as the treatment plan was, God was bigger.

Next Post in this Series: My First Surgery

That’s a strange and scary ministry to be a part of you may think.

Yes, for most folks it is absolutely terrifying to go inside the walls of a jail or prison. How do you think the inmates feel?

So why would I want to do that?

Well, because I was one of those guys in there. In fact it was 14 years ago that I gave my life to God in a chapel service in jail.

The History

I had a couple of wild years in my teens where breaking the law seemed like the thing to do. I obviously wasn’t very good at it because I got caught, a few times. It was the third time that I realized that if didn’t change that I would be spending a lot of time behind bars.

I didn’t know it at the time but God was setting me up for a divine intervention that would change my life.

The God Encounter

One night I was in my dorm with a hundred or so guys and they called for a chapel service. I really wanted out of the dorm so I went. While I was there I listened to the guys talking, kind of, until I all of a sudden had this overwhelming feeling come upon me. The only way that I can describe it was that I felt like the worst person in the world. In my mind I could see all the wrong things I had done in my life all the way down to little lies I told my mom when I was a kid. I didn’t know it at the time but it as the presence of God coming near me.

Since I was in jail I did all that I could do to fight back the tears that wanted to overtake my being. Shortly after that the service ended and we headed back to our dorms where I followed one of the guys that had been in the service back to his bunk. I asked what this feeling was that I was having because I did not understand it. I honestly do not remember what he said or told me but I do remember praying with him and accept Jesus into my heart. He gave me a New Testament bible and I went back to my bunk.

The Impact that had on My Life

It has been 14 years since I gave my life to God in that Jail.

To say that the people who volunteered their time to minister to me is an understatement. Up until that time, at the age of 19 years old, I thought that my life was over. It was giving my life to God and learning about Him that gave me hope and helped me to change into the person that I am today – A husband of 10 years, a father of 3, a man who serves God.

Now it’s Time for Me to Give Back

In the last 14 years God has done some amazing things in my life and I am happy to say that I live a lifestyle that is totally opposite then the one that got me into jail. Jail is one of the most hopeless places in the world. Life is happening on the outside but is standing still for you. That is how I felt. I lost everything when I was in there.

I want to let guys know that there is hope in Jesus.

When I am done with this training on Saturday then I will need to go to a prayer training session at my church. From there I should be clear to go and minister in any jail or prison in Texas. It will be really different to be on the other side of the fence for once.

Pray for me that I can impact men’s lives that the way that mine was impacted.

Lonely road picture by Greenery via flickr.

As if being told that you have cancer is not bad enough there was another battle brewing in the midst. We did not have health insurance. I’d like to say that the reason for this was that we were independently wealthy and we had no need of such insurance. The reason was actually the opposite.

I was diagnosed with cancer in September of 2009. Back in January of that year I was laid off of my job of 3 years due to the recession. I was offered Cobra through as apart of my severance package but at nearly $1000/month that was not an option especially with being out of work. Besides, my wife had recently started working and she would qualify for benefits soon after that.

A month or two after I was laid off my wife did receive her benefits so we were once again covered. Unfortunately about a month after she started receiving benefits she was also laid off. Now we were both unemployed and uninsured. My wife applied for Medicaid for us and the kids. The kids were approved but we were denied. At least the kids had insurance.

Cobra to the Rescue, or Not

Shortly after her lay off we actually got some good news in the mail. The president had signed into law that they would extend the qualification period of Cobra insurance and also pay for 66% of the premiums for families. This brought our out-of-pocket cost down to around $350/month. While this would be tight with both of us being unemployed it would be worth it. We filled out the paperwork and sent it in the mail.

A week or so later we got a bill from Cobra for $1000. I thought for sure that this must be a mistake until I looked closer. Cobra was charging us for the three months that we did not have insurance. In the letter it stated that we needed to pay this bill to get up-to-date and then we would be insured. My wife and I were still not employed and did not have $1000 to pay for coverage that we never used in those months. I tossed the letter in the trash. We still did not have insurance.

I Finally Get a Job

After 8 months of being unemployed I finally secured a full time job. It even paid slightly more then I was making at my previous job. The only catch was that I was hired on a temp to hire status. This meant that I would work without benefits for three months and then if all went well I would become a regular full-time employee with benefits. It seemed like a small technicality at the time so I excepted it.

It was 3 weeks into the new job that I went to the doctor and ended up in the hospital with the cancer diagnosis.

At the Hospital

It was at the hospital that we began to realize that not having insurance was going to be an issue. While the hospital took us in and treated me for my anemia and the Oncologist diagnosed the cancer it was treatment of the cancer that became the issue. Unfortunately the doctor and his practice would not treat me without insurance. They tried to to get me qualified for Medicaid and a local county insurance benefit but we were denied for both because I was working and made too much money.

The doctor was nice enough to write us a referral to another cancer center in the area that would take us without insurance.

Where was God in All of This?

In all honesty it is and was really hard for me to see where God was during this time. I was in the initial shock of being diagnosed and having the lack of insurance thrown on top of it did not help. I know initially I thought that it would be better if I was dead then have to fight this without insurance as I actually had a pretty good life insurance policy. Those thoughts faded quickly as we understood that even without insurance there were options available for us.

I know that in those first few days in the hospital that God was with my wife. I do not recall ever seeing her waiver during that time. She did not see cancer as a death sentence, she saw it as something that we were going to need to deal with. She saw the lack of insurance as the same thing, just another item that we were going to have to put effort in to. God was with her giving her strength which in return gave me strength.

They always say that hindsight is 20/20 and I have to say that I see what God was doing at that time in regard to the insurance and even the treatment. I would be a terrible writer though if I gave the ending up right now. Continue reading to find out what God’s plan was and how he did it.

Next Post in this Series: The Treatment Plan

This morning I woke up and had the oppertunity to spend some time with God. While I was with Him I felt him tell me that it was easier then I thought. While that made me feel a little better I wasn’t convinced because I still did not know exactly what I was going to do.

After that I checked my email and read the daily message sent to me by Joel Osteen. The title of the email was "The Great I Am" and started off with the scripture:

"God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you’ " - Exodus 3:14

The email went of to talk about how big God is and how He is on our side. It explained that God is saying "I am everything you need. I am your strength. I am your wisdom. I am your protection. I am your provider. I am your way maker. I am your problem solver."

He backed this up with the scripture:

"Though I am surrounded by troubles, You will bring me safely through. Your fist is clenched against my enemies. Your power will save me." – Psalm 138:7

God is our problem solver no matter how big or small.

It does not matter whether we are battling cancer, debt, or how to figure out a smaller issue for a project at work – God is there to help us out.

So I start today optimistic that I will be able to solve this issue for my project and that it will be easier then I thought it would be yesterday. This is all because I have the creator of the universe on my side and He is willing to help me out if I ask him.

Update 2/2/10

I did start that day out with the right attitude and I was able to get the task done that I needed to get with relative ease. It is amazing how things work out so much better when you have God helping you out. All the glory to Him!

“The biopsy came back positive, you have cancer of the esophagus” the doctor said as I sat in the hospital bed. The words were unreal. Here is was, 34 years old, with cancer. I had never had anything wrong with me in my life and here I was with word cancer now permanently attached to my life. How did this happen? Was I going to die? Those and a million other questions started to flood my mind.

How it All Started

This whole event started several months back when while eating. While attempting to swallow I felt like the food I was chewing got stuck in my throat. I didn’t think very much of it at the time. I mean who hasn’t eaten a little too quick and had the same thing happen to them? Unfortunately as time went on this happened more frequently.

Most normal people would go to the doctor when things like this happen to them but I didn’t. The first reason for this was that I am not the type that went to the doctor unless I felt like I was dying. The second was that in some weird way I had learned to live with the little catch in my throat and could swallow most of the time without choking. The third reason was that we did not have health insurance at the time and I didn’t think it was all that serious of an issue. I remember telling my wife if I needed health insurance God would make sure I had it.

After a few months of having this issue I got a job where the health insurance would kick in after three months. Perfect I thought, I’ll just wait it out and then go to the doctor. Three weeks into the new job my stomach started bothering me as well. Uh oh I thought, maybe this is a little more serious, I thought that I might have an ulcer. I finally broke down and went to the doctor.

The Doctor’s Visit

At the doctor’s office I proceeded to explain my symptoms to the doctor until I noticed that she didn’t seem to be listening to me. “You look really pale” she said and explained that she wanted to do a quick blood test. A prick of my finger and 10 minutes later she came in and apologetically told me that I was extremely anemic and that I needed to be admitted to the hospital. How could this be I though? I had never been in the hospital in my life. It would be the first of many trips unfortunately.

About an hour later I walked into one of my local hospitals with my wife and was admitted. There they took more blood for testing and discovered that my hemoglobin’s were less then half of what they should be and ordered 4 units of blood to bring me back to where I should be. It was the first night that I had ever spent in the hospital.

The next day they performed an upper GI endoscopy to look down my throat to see why I was loosing blood. Initially they thought I had an ulcer but found a tumor instead. They took a biopsy of it to see if it was cancer. It was.

Where was God?

At this point you may be asking where was God in all of this? I mean this is a Christian blog and the idea of these posts is to share my experience with God. Well truth be told, I wasn’t that close to God when all this happened. I mean I wasn’t what some would call “backslidden” but I wasn’t spending the time with Him that I could have been. The thing is though that even though I wasn’t spending the time with him that I think I should have, looking back, I can see how he was working in the situation.

One way I saw him work was through my doctor. Something prompted her to take that extra look at me and identify the anemia. That alone was life threatening but it is also how the cancer was discovered. It is possible that if she would not taken that extra step that the cancer would not have been discovered until much later.

Another way I feel that He was there is in how everything played out. With being as anemic as I was I could have passed out somewhere in public and ended up in the emergency room. I was fortunate that I got to walk myself into the hospital as opposed to being transported there in an ambulance.

Yet another way that I feel that He was there in the first days was through His peace. Being told that you have cancer is one of the worst things that I think anyone can be told. Yet as bad as it was deep down inside I had peace and I knew God was there. I will admit that I did my fair share of crying in the hospital. I was scared. But when I called to Him he comforted me. I didn’t have all the answers or even know what was going to happen but I knew He was there with me.

I am sure that there were other ways that He intervened during those first few days of my diagnoses that I am not aware of. I guess the point is that even though I knew that I was not necessarily the “model Christian” that did not matter to Him. When I needed Him I called for Him and He was there.

The Bible says:

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18

and

… I will never leave you nor forsake you. – Joshua 1:5

I really feel that both of these scriptures were fulfilled in my life in those early days.

Next Post in this Series: Another Battle – No Health Insurance

The Bible says:

…He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. – Matthew 5:45

The truth of it is that we live in a fallen world and while I believe serving God has its benefits, Christians still can experience their fair share of challenges and disappointments in life. Shoot, if giving your life to God guaranteed that you would have no more trouble in life everyone would serve Him. While serving God does not keep us free from trouble He can turn bad situations ultimately into good ones.

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. – Genesis 50:20

My Situation

My situation was being diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer at age 34 and it has been one of the scariest situations I have ever been in. The fear that comes along with a report like that ranges from “Am I going to die?” to “My God, what is the treatment going to be like and am I going to die anyway?”. Those are just the natural fears that anyone would have in that situation.

As a Christian you can add “Why did God allow this to happen to me?” and “What if I try to believe God for healing and He doesn’t do it?”. So I would say that as a Christian this situation can even be a little more difficult. I would say the current fear that I am dealing with is “what are non-Christians (and some Christians even) going to think about my perspective on God and Cancer?”. Regardless of this fear I will push though it just like I did all the other fears that I mentioned. Why? Because I have people depending on me to push through just like people expected me to push through on the other fears.

With the other fears I my wife and kids were depending on me to fight the disease so I would live and be the husband and father that I should be. I did not get married and have kids so they could live life without me. In the same way I write about my experience as a Christian dealing with cancer so that others can hear my store and be encouraged. God worked some mighty miracles (yes, I used that word) in my life in this situation.

There are things that happened to me that cannot be explained any other way. Some may say “It was just chance, coincidence”. OK, you can believe that if you like and stake your life on chance and coincidence. For me there were specific things that I asked for from God that happened in ways that cannot be explained. That is where I pin my hope and it is working for me.

The Disclaimer

Let me be clear with my intentions here. I am not going into this subject to try and convert anyone to my religion or way of thinking. I respect people’s beliefs even of I do not agree with them. I say that because I have friends and family who do not believe the way I do I think I usually a pretty good job at not stepping over “the line”. If they ask me I will share but as soon as the line is there again I respect it. The way I see it is if you are reading this you are interested. Nobody is making you read it, you can stop at any time. Again, my intention here is to share my experience in the hope that it is encouraging to others. In my fight it was hearing other people’s stories that helped me in my toughest times.

Whew! Glad that part is over. Moving on…

So, How is this Going to Work?

The idea is that I am going to share my overall experience and how I feel God was involved along the way. The interesting part is that this story is not completely over. I believe the outcome is looking good so that is encouraging but I am still human and not perfect.

Anyway I have outlined some posts below that I am intending on writing and when I am done with all of them I am pondering putting them into a free eBook so people can download them all in one shot. I am hoping that it can be encouraging to others in their fights that may be similar.

Here are the posts/chapters:

• Having Cancer as a Christian
• The Diagnoses – Esophageal Cancer
• Another Battle – No Health Insurance
• The Treatment Plan
• My First Surgery
• Treatment – The First Week
• Treatment – Lots of Radiation
• Treatment – The Last Week
• Recovery – The First Week
• Division in the Camp
• Another Trip to the Hospital
• Well Hello, We Now Have Insurance
• The Second Opinion and What Victory Tastes Like
• Nipping Anemia in the Bud
• Checking Things Out via a PET and EDG

I will probably use this initial post as the forward of the book. I also will probably setup a page that has these posts/chapters and then link to each one individually that way it can be easier to read. Also note that the posts are probably going to be what I would call drafts. I will spell and grammar check the best I can but will probably go over them one more time before putting them into the eBook.

Many Thanks

I want to thank those around me that helped my family and I during this time.

My first thanks goes to my wife who stood by my side the entire time. As encouraging as everyone else was she is the one that was there by my side everyday. Although what I went through was hard I believe she had it just as bad if not worse. I thank God for her being in my life everyday.

I thank those that stepped up and helped financially during my time of treatment and recovery. We did not ask but you saw the need and helped out. As difficult as this situation was you eased it through your contributions. I am eternally grateful for you giving hearts.

To the family and friends that prayed and gave encouraging words – thank you. At times we felt all alone in this situation but when we did you would step out and encourage us.

To the organizations and businesses that contributed to our well being. Whether it was counseling, financial, or through encouraging words your help made a difference. Thank you.

To anyone and everyone else that I may not have realized your contributed. You are not forgotten even if you are not know. God knows and I believe that you will be rewarded for you efforts.

Last but definitely not least. I thank God. I don’t thank Him for cancer but what I learned through this situation. I was stretched, poked, and prodded through this. You allowed me to see Your love manifest in my life directly through you and through others. You showed me that you are always there for me and that you do care. You didn’t always allow me to get what I wanted when I wanted it but I know you had a good reason each time. I am thankful for how our relationship grew through this time. I thank you for restoring hope and vision to my life and for showing me what is really important. I thank You for loving me and healing me. My life is Yours today and forevermore.

Next Post in this Series: The Diagnoses – Esophageal Cancer

I thought I was ready but it just wasn’t time.

The service that I sat in was the first and only service that I did anything in regard to the media ministry. I am not exactly sure why things did not work out, but I think there were still some areas in my life that God still needed to work on. It was kind of weird not being involved but I think you need to learn how to receive as a Christian and walk the walk before you can minster. So that is what I did. During that time my wife and I attended a couple of small groups so we still had fellowship and got to know people in the church. We are still involved with the small groups today.

Over the last six months due to some personal circumstances I saw the need to spend more time with God personally and began to do so. During that time I read the book Caught Between A Dream and A Job and am currently reading The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? In both of these books they talk about how God has a plan for your life and how you were created for a purpose. I believe both of these things and set out to see what it is that God has to do for me here on earth.

There are a couple of ways that I am seeking God in order to find out my purpose.

The first is that I am trying to spend time with Him daily and work on the areas that He shows me to work on. The bible says that if I draw close to Him that He will draw close to me. I figure the closer that I am to Him the more likely I am going to get a glimpse of what He has created me for.

The second thing that I am doing is opening myself to be used by Him at church. Before it was difficult with the kids and having to sit through services by myself and/or have my wife be by herself. This time around the church is a little more flexible in that you can tell them when you are available to work. My wife and I chose the same schedule for availability for Wednesdays every other week. We may be working in different ministries but we will still be able to be in service together in the weeks that we are not working. That works much better for us.

I also requested information on another ministry that is outside of regular services times. I will have to see what the commitment for that one is before I can say whether I can be involved in it.

I think things are different this time around because I do not feel compelled to get involved out of habit. I am getting involved because I desire to. I want to do my part no matter how small to make my church a better place so that hopefully others can get closer to God. We will see how it goes.

The Last Financial Crisis

Before tackling the current financial crisis let’s look at the one that just happened seven short years ago. Back in 2001 it was the golden age of the internet. Billion dollar valuations of companies grew on trees and we were all going to be millionaires by 25 and retire billionaires by 30. It was a time of extravagance and money flowed freely.

During this time I was a couple of year into my Christianity and was newly married. I had gotten it into my head that God wanted to bless me and thought that these blessing were flowing through credit. I had gone wild and bought anything and everything that they would let me buy on credit including a house. Three weeks after buying the house I was laid off from my job due to the economy. I hadn’t even made the first payment on the house.

For the next 2 years my wife and I struggled along as she worked full time and I tried to start/run a business in the technology field. After 2 years we were stripped of just about everything (including the house) and found ourselves renting from her dad once again. I struggled another couple of years with the business until we started having kids. A couple of events happened and I found myself hitting rock bottom.

The Turning Point

The turning point for me was when I got into a business financial dispute with a really good friend that cost me our friendship. I remember sitting in my car with my wife looking at her knowing that if I didn’t change things that I could very well lose her next. It was at that point that I decided to quit the business and go get a job and try to take care of my family the way that a real man of God should.

Since that time my wife and I have been extremely blessed. I believe that choosing to make my family’s needs a priority as opposed to mine allowed God to come into our situation and allowed His blessing and provision to flow. We are more blessed today then we every have been in order lives.

(You can read my perspective on Christian priorities in my post – Priorities as a Christian)

The 2008 and Beyond Financial Crisis

Today’s financial crisis isn’t much different then the one that happened seven years ago. There was money flowing and people were looking to get rich quick and retire young. This time around though it was real estate that was the catalyst for what we are facing. The only difference this time around is that the housing sector is far larger then the technology sector and therefore is and will impact far more people. I do not remember any government bailouts for technology companies seven years ago but we have already had one for the Financial sector and now the auto industry is asking for one as well.

Last time there were several factors that I personally contributed to that allowed the financial downturn to affect me. I had far more debt then I should of. I also had switched jobs not long before getting laid off to a newly created position that was easily expendable (so I found out later). The position I transferred from was one of the few positions that actually remained when all was said and done and hindsight shows me that God was trying to protect me from what was coming. In the last financial crisis I contributed a lot to my anguish and I know and understand that now.

This time around I feel that I am in the right place with God and in the job that He wants me to be in. We have a little debt (still more then I would want) that is easily manageable. I have been tempted at times to fly the coop at my job but have stuck it out and am glad that I did. This time around I should be in a much better place to ride this storm out.

So why do I still get scared as if I am going to lose it all?

Who’s in Control?

I get scared at times because I listen to the news a little too much. I hear the unemployment reports and hear of people getting laid off. At first I was really into the watching and reading the news as it was happening and was finding myself getting more and more depressed. I was easily losing my temper around my wife and kids and had little motivation to do anything. I was down trodden because I felt like I was not in control and my destiny was uncertain. I felt like at any moment I could get that call into my boss’s office to be told that today would be my last day. It was terrible.

Things got to the point that my wife noticed and we started talking about it. She looked at me in unbelief as I quoted her statistics of layoffs and other end of the world jargon that the news channels and internet had been spewing for weeks. Her look of unbelief was not at the actual information that I was saying but at the fact that it was coming out of me. She was pretty quick to remind me that whatever you feed grows and whatever you starve dies. She told me that it was pretty evident that I had been listen to the news more then God.

Her wake up call was the equivalent of getting a smack on the face.

For the previous weeks we had not been to church hardly at all and I had been consumed with all of the bad news floating around. The next day I downloaded several podcasts from various ministers that I know have good Word. I spent the next week listening to them during the day at work and by the end of the week things were looking much better from my perspective.

See, the world is going to tell you that this thing is going to hit you and take you down with it. If you listen to it you are giving the world control of your life and there is a very good possibility that it will do exactly that. But if you stop listening to what the world has to say and listen to God, you will find out that He has a plan ready and waiting for you and is eager to share it with you. His plan is that this financial crisis will have a minimum impact on you. In fact it is His will for you to prosper during this time so you can help other through it. What we have to do though is to make a conscious decision of who we are going to listen to – the world or God.

Fighting the Good Fight

After having the conversation with my wife I made the decision to make God’s Word the authority in my life. At first I was consumed with the Word and I was taken out of depression and was actually a pretty happy camper. Bad news would come but would go as quickly as it came. In my mind even if I got called into the office to be laid off I knew that it would be apart of God’s plan and therefore had nothing to fear. Things were going great.

After that first week I tapered off in listening without realizing it. By the end of the second week I was starting to slip back into listening to the news and into being depressed. Over the weekend I realized what was happening and hit the Word again that following Monday. Since then I have been pretty consistent with listening to the Word and have been doing pretty good.

Another thing that I noticed is that even when I am in the Word if I get really tired then I become more vulnerable. When overly tired I struggle a little more in fighting back the news of world. I now realize that as I continue to take in the Word that I need to make a conscious effort to catch up on my rest as well. The devil always looks for the weak or tired to go after so we need to makes sure we stay up on both.

Conclusion

Bad things are going to come an go. The Bible says that it rains on the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). I believe that God always has a plan to cushion the blow though. You may have been living it up and now this financial crisis has or is about to catch up with you. You may have done everything right and did not get caught up in what was happening but still are now effected. Either way God has a plan to bring you out. Sometimes it is hard to understand or except that but He is our father, our dad.

Jeremiah 29:11 says:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

The thing that always helps me in situations like this is to think of how I would be if my son was in the same situation.

If my son came to me and said “Dad, I played the real estate game and messed up, can you help me and my family out?” how would I react? Would I say “Well, that’s too bad, I hope you figure something out.”. No, I would help him. He might get a lecture from me but I am not going to leave my son and his family out in the cold because he made a mistake. I would do everything in my power to take care of him and help him get on his feet.

There is nothing that I would not do for my son.

I believe that God is the same way. There is nothing that He would not do for us. We just need to come to him. When we come to Him He will reassures us that He is in control and that he is going to take care of us (Deu 31:6). Anytime I get scared or concerned about something that has come my way there He is to let me us that everything it going to be alright. He is such a good dad.

Jobs come and go, houses, cars, etc the same. But God is always there, constant, never changing. He loves us and is more then willing to take us in and take care of us and our families. We just need to give Him the chance.

Please let me know if you find and problems with it.