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Expanding the horizons, expanding the ministry…..

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Amanda and I were talking about the ministry and this blog tonight. I had originally started it for more serious and expressive ideas, yet the stroke seemed to get in the way. She wrote for me a few times, in much more depth than I either had the desire or ability to do at this point, but people seemed to respond to it positively. It reminded us of two things prior in my ministry. The first was the “Love God with Joy” daily devotion line that you could call from your telephone. I wrote it and recorded it each day, and it was widely used. And the other was Amanda and my Daily Devotions that we would email out every night for the next day. The telephone devotions ended after a year or so, though I cannot remember why (there WAS a reason). And the Daily Devotions ended after a computer failure erased our entire database. It was devastating. The database was hard to keep up though, and there were almost ALWAYS problems, in that people’s emails would sometimes be down, or reject them. With a large mailing we were also often depicted by systems as SPAM, and when people didn’t get them, or when they wanted to comment, they would often write and getting back to everyone was very time intensive.
With that, Amanda and I have decided to resurrect a Daily Devotion connected like this one to our website. I will still post daily here, but our Daily Devotion will be a bit more in depth, and be a bit more Scriptural and………devotional. (I have quite the way with words.) We hope to launch it within the next few days and I will announce it here and on www.IndianaAnglican.com too. Our hope is that you will enjoy and be blessed by both.
Anyway, my intention was not to make this an infomercial, but rather tell you what we were thinking and where we intend to go. We are excited about the possibility. Though it was often time consuming for us both, it was something we both enjoyed and enjoyed doing together. Look for it soon!
Thanks for checking in my friends, and God Bless!
Fr. Tom+
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Of deep fog and the need for a clear voice…….

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I am sorry to report that this weekend I went into a real fog, and though I was able to work, I did not feel as if I was really connecting with people. As I sat down to write tonight, I found another incedible block…..fortuantely Amanda offered to write another for me. It follows….thanks Amanda!!!

Tom+

From Amanda:

I am reading a great book called Intercessory Prayer by Dutch Sheets. I decided to read it because I don’t think I really understand the power of prayer, and I certainly don’t fully understand the concept of intercessory prayer. I am only on page 75, but it has been fantastic and very thought-provoking for me. There was a story the author shared about a friend who was powerful in prayer, but was unable to intercede on behalf of his gravely ill son with his prayers alone. So he called and asked for help from friends with intercessory prayer for his son. After his son was healed, he asked the Lord why he needed help in overcoming the illness, why his prayers alone were not enough. The answer he received from the Lord was “Sometimes the covenant of the Lord is released to you through others coming to your aid.” (I don’t do justice to the story here, so you should read it for yourself on pages 68-70.)

I am a very fast reader, but for some reason I stopped at this point and actually put the book down (very unusual for me!). I was astounded at the lesson I had learned. For so long, I have been fearful or embarrassed of intercessory prayer, even the prayer we offer at our church after communion. I have noticed that very few people take advantage of the spiritual warfare that is available for them at church. I can’t help but wonder why?
Is it because others are also afraid? Or do they just not understand their need and the power that it can provide?

I don’t know all of the reasons, and if you are someone who is also not participating in intercessory prayer, I encourage you to find out your reasons why. For me, I always feel my needs or request are so small compared to what others may need, that I never want to “hoard” all the prayer time for my little problems! But here is the news…..our needs, no matter the nature, are never too big or small to bring before the Lord. And many times, the prayers of others may be needed for the Lord to work in our lives. All I can say is that the first time I ever leaned on the intercessors at church, my son was not sleeping at all during the night for about a week. They prayed for Ben and I after communion, and Sunday night, he slept the entire night. I know it sounds cheesy, but it is a true story.

I have decided to move past my insecurities about intercessory prayer and confront them head-on…after all, there is no way to get comfortable with it until you try! I encourage you to create your own experiences of intercessory prayer. Pray with others, ask other to pray for you and for those your know are hurting and may not be able to ask for themselves. Take your troubles to the Cross, and lay them at His feet with the aid of other’s that have been given the spiritual gift of intercessory prayer from the Lord Himself. It’s certainly worth a try! God bless!

Amanda

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Okay, morning MUST BE a relative term……..

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What a goofball I am! I really thought I had accomplished so much today, and yet as I sat down tonight to type this, thinking I could complete it and go to bed early, I read the promise yesterday (of an apparent lunatic) saying he would be up early and write in the morning! What would possess him to say those things???? Probably just the same flawed gene that is responsible in my life for the lines, “sure mom, I cleaned my room,” “if we just get a puppy I will ALWAYS take care of him,” “don’t worry about those cookies, I will just have one,” and of course the famous, “I promise I’ll do it tomorrow” which is of course just a comprehensive excuse that not only gets one out of a lot of responsibilites, but which also implies a very noble intention…..a great distraction for those of us with forgetful minds!

Anyway, sorry to dissapoint you, but this post will be the only one I will ,or even can, offer today. I and my memory appear to be about as reliable as Brittany Spears in a Mother of the Year Contest.

So for tonight, I am out on the porch with the door to the house open, and the cat coming in and out, which is not just her job, but her prerogative. My body is adjusting back to the long day I had yesterday, and hopefully by morning it will be back on track. Our regular clergy meeting tomorrow will be in Muncie where our new assistant priest is moving. We will meet there at 10am (now I just heard 9am!!) to unload his furniture into the house he is going to live in. He will head back to Ohio for his final weekend at his Church there and before leaving to join our staff on August 1st. He (Father Sean) is a great guy, and we love him to death, but tonight my prayers will be for his furniture to be light!!!!

On a disconnected note, let me say, I hope you are enjoying this blog. I have to confess, it has not turned out the way I intended….anywhere near what I intended in fact! I really did think it would be more theological (which in priest’s terms means smarty-pants stuff, but in the regular world means “dull”) but I suppose it is what it is. I NEEDED to write to help myself recover from the stroke, and in truth all that I have written has been helpful. But here’s the confession…..it has also pointed out a piece that I will need to share with my doctors in September if things have not changed. I have indeed lost a big important thinking part of my brain.

But before you fret, or even panic, please remember I process most of my life through my faith. I believe this not to be a tragedy as much as a call to a new direction. Time will tell, and we will see….but I KNOW I will be a priest until the day that I die. I just think how and what I am doing is beginning to change. Please pray for me. For more than anything else right now, I both want and NEED the Lord to intervene to let me know that moving furniture tomorrow to be a bad idea.

But I am not holding my breath.

Nite my friends, and God Bless!

Fr. Tom+

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Forgetting that which I thought I would remember……ouch!

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One of the up-sides of having a stroke is that when you forget things, people seem to give you a lot of room for your mistake. Take this blog for instance…..yesterday I just plum forgot! Could it have been the stroke? Sure. Is it really likely that it was my stroke? Well, probably not.

Of course as a Christian, I suppose I could make the excuse that it was Sunday and the Sabbath. Fine and good, had I not already worked most of the day…..plus it would have been a lie (you don’t take 75% Sabbaths)!

I will admit that I sat down early last night and did attempt to get some thoughts together, which never did come, but at least I tried. Was that failed attempt the stroke? Maybe, but without constant CT scans, doctors and therapists to tell me if it was or not, who’s to know? It probably really doesn’t matter. What mind I have is going to be there with or without excuses! I can no more replace it than I can my arm!

Anyway, Amanda reminded me about the blog tonight as I got home from Nashville and an Alpha Course preview at around 10pm, and she did so in a “I seem to need to be reminding you in a worrisome way.” That’s a sure and certain sign that she thinks it’s a stroke-thing. As for me, I appreciate her concern and gentle nudge…..it is welcome sympathy. I will not let it go to waste. If forgetfulness and confusion get me gentle reminders, maybe a few more forgetful episodes will relieve me from loading the dishwasher and mowing the lawn.

It’s worth a try…….but I won’t hold my hopes too high. After all, I am not crazy….I’ve just had a stroke.

Nite my friends and I am sorry to have forgotten to come back to my typing last night!

God bless. forgetting

Tom+

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The one that almost got away………..

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In my endless attempt to order my life, sometimes things just get away. I try my best to remember everything, and now to do so without the aid of countless lists……but occasionally things just evade me. This blog was my Saturday’s big escape. And although it is dated for the 12th, I actually had to write it on the 13th when I woke up. As I went to bed, it was nagging me, “I am missing something,” I thought. Sure enough, when I went to check it this morning, there it was, or better yet said, there it wasn’t.

You might find it odd that I check it each morning, and if you were here with me, you might find plenty of things to be odd. But when you damage your brain, your mind seeks out paths around the damage and new ways to do things you may have done for years. Getting through each day accomplishing all that I do is something I have done my entire 35 years of life (my ability to tell how old I am is still damaged and I am not going to work on it), but one of the ways I manage each day is through a lot of routine.

Last night however, a lot of new things came into play. We are in a different facility for St. Patrick’s on Sunday and all the extras about that worried me. I did bulletins, picked music, got my vestments ready, went over to take care of our friends’ dogs, went to the store, and then sat down right at the laptop and tried to figure out what I was missing! Isn’t that a hoot??? It was typing on the thing I had my hands on, yet it never came to me! Thank God I am not a surgeon!! My insurance would be pretty high!

No worries though, I was up early enough and I figured it out. Puddy and I came out onto the porch and I typed while she protected our house from both bird and bug. The sunrise was spectacular and I am thankful for the opportunity. God is good, and I know that is one thing I will never forget. I hope none of us ever do. But even in the times that we may mess up a bit, or miss, like I did this blog here which was waiting for me, He is always there to provide another chance!

Thank God….oh yeah, I guess that’s what it’s all about anyway!

God bless! Get up and go meet me at Church!

Tom+