I apologize in advance for the length this RMC may take. I have received a lot of special information that I can not ignore and feel compelled to pass on to you.

Let me start with the best news: Gavin Davis’ tumor is benign. Thank you for your prayers. I need to go through with the sequence of events over the weekend but will return to Gavin and Katy at the end, so please persevere.

This weekend at Choices I was a “roving” TA. I helped Thelma, Don and generally popped in and out and did what was asked of me. This was the second month I had not taken a small group and I noticed more of a difference this time. My comments to people seemed to have been more pointed than in past trainings, and in many ways a lot “meaner” and as one trainee said “gruff”. I have no human explanation for the transition as the last thing in life I would ever want to be labeled as is mean or gruff.

It seems I was particularly hard on two young men, both fathers. One in a stable family relationship and the other just divorced. Of course on Saturday they saw me with new eyes, but both asked why I said what I had said. I said truthfully I did not know why I said what I had said since I had only known them for such a short time. I just know that what I had said, since confirmed by them, hit home to each in its own way. As I told each of them what I thought of them now, I told them that now I saw only the commitment and the strength in them that was not there before. And I knew that whatever I had said had turned into a positive.

As I talked to the young divorced father I told him of my divorce. I told him how I had committed and had stayed committed to being in my children’s life. And how the time he will spend with his son, as it has been with my children, will be precious. It will be a gift. So we did the Choices thing, hugged and looked around for other people to hug, and then I headed home.

The drive home is an easy 25 minutes of cruise control up the Bush Tollway. My mind continued to work about the things I had seen and done over the 4 days of Choices.

For some reason a story from the past with my daughter Sarah popped into my mind.

Sarah was about 2 ½ years old and her best friend Lacy lived across the street. We were friends too and were invited to a 4^th of July pool party.

We had a great time with the kids and Sarah, always being a “can do” kind of girl, was working hard at swimming and jumping in the pool. Many times she would try taking off on her own but Dad was way to fast for her and would always reel her in.

Later in the afternoon we got everyone out of the pool. Wrapped up the kids in towels and stopped to say our good-byes about 10-12 feet from the side of the pool. We were saying our thank-you’s for the great day and making a lot of adult noise.

Somewhere over the din I heard Lacy’s little 2 year old voice say:

“Sarah’s under the water.”

Somehow I heard her voice and was immediately impressed that what she said was true.

I don’t remember turning.

I don’t remember running.

I do remember flying through the air jumping into the pool.

I landed immediately next to Sarah and pulled her out from under the water. She was fine.

I am not a hero, just an ordinary Dad who had let his guard down with almost deadly consequences.

This day I am especially humbled to think about how precious each moment with my children is.

And, I am particularly thankful that God allowed me to hear the warning, know exactly what it meant, allowed me no hesitation to react and save my life. For I would have surely died inside if anything had happened to Sarah.

On Sunday at Choices I get to work in the Givers 2 room, doing whatever and hearing people understand what they are meant to do in life. It’s always a Wow.

Dorothy Folk has been doing Givers 2 for quite a while and is just wonderful. So it is always a pleasure to get to spend some time with her. So she was telling me about her niece Meggan who has been in the hospital a couple of weeks trying to give her baby time to grow in the womb. It is her first child and obviously there have been complications. She is due January 18^th so the baby is wanting to come to out a little too early, so she is staying in bed trying to slow down the process.

Dorothy was saying that the Doctors think if the baby was delivered now it would have about a 90% chance of surviving, but that each day in the womb is like 4 days in an incubator, so the longer the baby can stay inside the better.

So I said: “Each day is precious.”

“Each day is precious.”

Today I sent out Rocky Mountain Climbing #18 about Spiritual Retreats. I asked for people to tell me about their spiritual retreats. I got some great responses back. Later in the day I got the wonderful email from Jeff Caldwell telling us he had received a call from Katy Davis about the status of Gavin’s tumor as being benign, oh what a feeling! Thanks Jeff!

Shortly thereafter I received a received a comment from Katy about her spiritual retreat, I think it is without a doubt one of the most powerful statements about God I have ever read:

“my last spiritual retreat was earlier today… when the phone call came… I listened with appreciation…. set the phone down hugged my son Gavin and then entered a small hallway that leads to the rest of the house….. my feet fell out from under me and I just fell to my knees thanking the lord Jesus….. thanking him for never taking his hands off my family…. thanking him for letting me live my life as a testament to him who sent me…. letting me dance in his light… lifting me up when I am weak…. embracing me when I am strong… and when I am weak…… Durk… I will dance the dance… for him who sent me…. and today I am one thankful woman….words just dont even seem to explain how appreciative I am. Blessed be his name…..
love to you… and to RMC I so look forward to the wisdom!
Katy”

I am choking up on the beauty of her words as I read them again.

As for wisdom, I believe the Holy Spirit crafted this response that I then sent to Katy:

“Your journey has been hard. Your gift will be great. Love, Durk”

My Love to all of you this precious moment.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Children, RMC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.