on the road again

Vacation has been nice but I decided to cut it short and get back to my regular dialysis unit.  I left Ocean City tonight after dinner expecting to drive to Glen Burnie and be home by 11:00 or so.  Best laid plans...

Now I'm sitting on the side of Rt 50 in Salisbury out of gas.  Not really out but out enough the truck won't run.  

The old truck has 2 tanks and as I was driving along I saw the rear tank getting empty so I switched to the front tank.  However, the front tank slept through the process and won't pick up although I know there's at least 5 gallons of gas there.  So here I sit, switching tanks, priming the pumps and getting nothing running.  Fortunately  I have friends in the area so I start going down the list.  The 2nd call picked up and agreed to bring me gas so I shouldn't be all that long.  Dialysis starts at 6:00 in the morning.

Being part of the family of God is a wonderful thing.  When you're in need you can call on the Lord and even call on his children and He provides the answer.  I look forward to updating you in the morning with the rest of the story.

Just not worth it

It's VACATION TIME!!  Yee Haa!!

But you never get to vacation from dialysis.  So I'm in the chair in another town with attendants that only see me once a year.  They all recognize me and I recognize them.  It's a little reunion.  "Are you here all week?"  "How's your wife?"  But pleasant intentions only carry you so far.

In June I wrote about a bad dialysis experience titled "4 needles".  Dialysis normally involves the use of 2 needles and if there's a problem they may use a third.  That day they had used FOUR  I thought it was a once in a lifetime experience not to be repeated or exceeded but then came vacation.

The attendant was capable and straight forward, not afraid of hurting me, deliberate.  Just what I like.  I thought "it's going to be a good day".  But in spite of her ability she infiltrated me.  1st replacement needle was a dry hole.  2nd replacement needle was another dry hole.  The third replacement needle struck oil but ended up with another infiltration.  Finally, 3 attendants and a total of 6 needles, the machine was purring, jiffy lube-ing my blood through the filter.  All of this took an hour which gets tacked onto my time that's already 4.5 hours.  

SO, half hour to the clinic, 6 hours in the clinic, half hour back to the condo.  The first day of vacation and I have nothing to show for it.  Makes me wonder why I go to the bother?  I guess the treatment I receive at the condo will help heal a bad day.  Between my granddaughters climbing all over me and rocking my grandson to sleep I'll get back on the horse and ride the vacation carousel for another day.  Still, it will weigh heavily when, next year, it's time to start making the arrangements for vacation dialysis.

What if ...

What if I could see what HE sees?  How would I be different?  Is there anything He expects of me that I can deny Him?  The short answer, in the human, is yes.  But the Apostle Paul found the secret to going all out.  He learned that God doesn't expect anything beyond what we are able and equipped to do.

Ephesians 3:7-8  (The Message)  This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.

I can't imagine the list of "options" that God would list me with if He were to offer me like an auto or item of hardware.  But I know that if I'm a wrench He won't try to use me like a hammer until He has satisfied Himself that my transformation into a hammer is complete.  All I have to do is learn to say "swing away" Lord.

Remember when you vote this year

2 Cor. 10:3-6  The world is unprincipled. It's dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn't fight fair. But we don't live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.