Father Time

So here we all are enjoying a lovely (and much needed) Thanksgiving break. But after break, the end of the semester is oh so close, and with that my senior year will be halfway done!

Yea holy smokes! It's a crazy thought in that I'll be finishing up my undergraduate education in just 6 months. Talking to friends, we all agree how fast time has gone by and how we can still think back to freshmen year and reminisce as if it was only yesterday. 

Since that time, three years ago, I've seen three classes graduate taking away friends and mentors from here to the real world, made countless memories with friends and colleagues, toiled for numerous hours on engineering homework, endured yard after yard in swimming pools, and learned lessons that helped shape who I am today.

Now as much as I love hearing people ask me "What are you gonna do when you graduate? What are your plans?" <insert sarcasm>, I very much have to remind myself not to look forward to what's going to happen. Banking on plans for the future, only prepares you for disappointment. Not that one shouldn't prepare for the future, but keep the result in the Lord's hands. Only He knows what's going to happen in your life, and by trusting Him it'll all work out. I'll admit it's hard. I struggle with this realization all the time, but I write about it to encourage the ones around me (and hopefully clear up that I fully know how hypocritical I am).

As the sands of time keep falling, keep in mind what I just mentioned.

Best of wishes to all of your futures.

And remember "Everything is gonna be alright" :-) 

Silence Is Golden?

So last week for a bit I was recovering my voice.

You probably would ask how in the world I lost my voice. Was it excess talking, yelling, me getting sick?
However when I first lost it, I felt just great and so basically I've told people that my voice just straight up and left me.

Well the lack of a voice has kept things quite interesting. While the only way to regain my voice meant not using it for periods of time. Therefore resorting to miming/charades which kept things oh so amusing.

I'm sure all of you have heard how you never know how much you need something until you lose it. Well the same goes for one's voice and well for me it stunk quite a bit. Granted I wasn't able to converse freely with people, it just limited most everyday actions revolving around talking (which we all do and happens all the time).

Now though unfortunate for myself, it proved hard for others when I was trying to tell people things. Some people were quite adept in interpreting my charading and reading my lips, while others were just completely awful it and a translator would've been most beneficial.

With my lack of speech it made me wonder why all of a sudden this would happen to me? What lesson am I supposed to glean from this experience? As one of my friends suggested perhaps God is trying to tell me something. So thinking about that I began to debate what I needed to get out of this situation. Thinking to myself I began to wonder am I becoming a person who just talks and talks and doesn't listen at all? I'd like to think that I have not but I can't really judge myself. But besides what I've come to take from this is that the Lord once again trying to enforce that He is in control and that He is always there. Just like in 1 Kings 19:11-12 when God appears to Elijah

¹¹ Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; ¹² and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. 

I felt that the Lord was reminding me of this and how easily distracted I become by my daily life. So once again a shift in my life is needed.

Well think thats it for this post. Hopefully I get around to a better posting schedule soon :-)

The Repercussions Of My Fall

Well today marks the 9 week mark from my little accident in mid July.

Lets break this down. 9 weeks = 63 days = 1512 hours = 90720 minutes.
To think I had to lay there for 15 minutes til I got someone's attention. That's nothing to all the time that has passed since!

Now if you've seen me in the past few weeks, many of you probably can't even tell that I dislocated my hip. All that is thanks to the grace of God. Ever since getting medically and physically cleared on August 31st I've been "slowly" getting back into the swing of my active lifestyle.

Yet there are many things that have come to be from my little spill. The most noticeable to me is the loss of leg muscle and flexibility. Then in the earlier weeks my movement was drastically limited but as time has progressed  movement has increased thankfully. Time has been my biggest ally at the moment since with each passing day my physical ailments lessen and my return to top form draws nearer.

However overall the physical repercussions are nothing compared to the things that affected me mentally and spiritually.

Patience. Now that is one of the major things I really struggled with during my idleness. The want to just quickly bounce back and be running around was eating away at me. However I knew for the best that I'd have to just take things slow which was just oh so awful. Yet I began to notice that my patience indeed become better with waiting, perhaps with people my patience wasn't getting better but that's a different story.

Humility. For years I've struggled with this but then with my accident God just happened to bring this all back to me. I was taken aback on how much the Lord takes care of me and how no matter what I do can I truly plan my life out. It is all thanks to Him that I'm still alive and writing this as well as healing in such a
quick fashion.

Mentally with this I've become stronger I want to say. Though at the same time I've been weakened. It'll be awhile that mental blocks will be passed, however determination and grit have become strengthened. My drive to achieve has increased and my wish to impact people in the most loving way has become another goal for me.

I began to realize that I was a living example of God's extended grace and love in how I'm here still on earth. Obviously I have a purpose to fulfill and am anxious to fulfill whatever for the Lord. I don't know what He has in store for me but I'm a prime example of a small miracle with only a dislocated hip and banged up rotator cuff.

There are probably more things that I could go on about, but the best way to probably find out about that would to just talk to me or ask. Who knows what else I'll learn from all this.
For in every situation a lesson is learned.

Depicting The Wreckage

As promised in my earlier post, here are the pictures of my bike and helmet which are in decent condition all things considering, and my cell phone which wasn't as fortunate.

My Brother's Last Youth Group Before College

So last night was my brother, Michael's, last New Life youth group before heading off to Gordon College. Little early but he's leaving to complete their mandatory outdoor education credit.

However I was able to leave the house and go. While there the worship service was something that I had missed for the past few weeks. Usually the worship is something that we all just go through the motions of, but last night to me it really hit a chord. The one song that my brother led was just what I needed to hear.

The Lord does indeed make ALL things work together for my good!

Here's the song and I hope it speaks to you as well.

What Happened July 18, 2011

Oh the fated day on which my life became that much more precious to me.

I started off that week as any other week starts: with a Monday. This Monday was no different from the ones this summer. Woke up, went to coach swim practice for two hours and then came back home to lounge and escape the heat of the day. Around 3 or 4 pm I got the urge to go for a swim but at that same moment I got a call from one of my buddies, Kyle, asking if I wanted to go on a bike ride. Seeing no harm in working out my legs, I agreed and we set out at around 5 pm. Kyle took me up towards Gambrill State Park, we trudged an awful uphill and yes though I was winded afterwards for not having gone cycling for a good while I still managed. Taking a short break, we overlooked the city of Frederick and even with the humidity it still looked beautiful. Then we took off and went towards the downhill portion of this 30 mile ride. We took a left onto Coxey Brown Road and from there began to fly. I looked down at my speedometer early on and was already at 40 mph without even pedaling. Sidenote here little did I know but I had already lost Kyle on the downhill since for once in my life on a bike ride I was not the lightest cyclist. Then suddenly I was picking up even more speed and got trapped in a wind tunnel of sorts. Safe to assume I was going 50 mph by now, therefore being "stuck" I could no longer turn very well and so when a slight right turn, all I could do was go straight. With that I went off the road into the ditch area, first few thorns and rocks weren't a problem and then lo and behold I'm in the air. I have successfully flipped my bike and am in the midst of a full flip. I landed on my left side on some rocks and thorns and it was here I dislocated my hip/femur. Lying there on the side of the road, I was for the most part "safe". My helmet was still intact but my bike yea not so much. The seat had flown off the bike with me and was right next to me in the thorns and rocks [I'll put some pictures up of the bike and what not soon enough].  I ripped my helmet off and realized that I couldn't move my left leg at all and it hurt oh so much. Seeing my dire predicament, I lay there and when hearing a car in the distance got my helmet ready to throw into the road. Unfortunately the helmet only made it to the shoulder and went unnoticed. Next I opened up my satchel on my seat of the bike, in there were two Nature Valley bars. Heard another car coming and managed to throw one bar full across the road but being so small it went unnoticed as well. With my last bar I threw at the third car and yelled at the top of my lungs. Thankfully the driver had his window down and heard me. Getting out he helped move my legs out of the thorns and flagged another car down which in turn called 911. By this time Kyle had made it back up the hill, realizing that I had to be somewhere up the hill rather than down it. I was then rushed to Frederick Memorial Hospital via ambulance and there they diagnosed me in that all I had done was dislocate my hip and not broken any bones. They then attempted to pop my hip back in and after two attempts saw that it was not possible. So they transferred to University of Maryland Shock Trauma. Here they told me the same thing that the Frederick hospital had told me. They were going to attempt one more time to pop my hip back in but if unsuccessful were going to undergo surgery on it. Going under once more (this time on hardcore drugs) they saw that they couldnt pop it in successfully and went to surgery. They cleared the blood and pieces of cartilage in the hip socket and re-put my femur into place. Well there you have the story on what went down on that fateful day.

Now reflecting I can see that God was working His amazing hand in all of this. Yes I did get injured, but thankfully I broke no bones and even more so I'm still alive! This is proof enough that He has plans for my future. He provided the support I needed from friends and family through all this. Provided the roadside assistance to help find me quickly. And right now is providing His healing hand to my injury.

I have now become living (and scarred) proof of God's grace. A miracle of sorts some would call it.

No matter what people may say now but,...

God is good... ALL the time!

Current Circumstance

If you're in contact with me right now, you know I'm in a world of hurt. 

All I ask for right now is prayer, love, and support.

If you don't know what's happened to me just inquire and I'll tell you. 

Til then thanks in advance to all of you :-)