The first time I wanted to quit

I've had a secret project that Kendra and I have been working on for the last six months or more. It's been off and on, but since Thanksgiving it's really been a focus and time consumer for me.

We're writing a book.

There I said it. I haven't wanted to publicize what I have been up to. I feel I need to share it now though. I'm very excited about it. I never in a million years thought I could possibly author a book. Yet here I am working through chapter after chapter. My fondest memory of English class were the School House Rock videos, after that not much was pleasant. Sure I like to read but I hate to write. Sort of ironic that now my profession as a marketing director involves writing and my hobby as a blogger and now potential author all are anchored in the written word.

We had many people approach us and encourage us to write and honestly I blew them off. I didn't think I was qualified or willing for that matter to pursue that type of project. However a marketing director for a substantial sports and literary agency contacted us after reading our blog and strongly encouraged me that I need to think about getting published.

Wow. This was a different level. No offense to my friends, but moms love ugly babies, why wouldn't you love my writing? So we began exploring, reading, and attending writing conferences trying to learn so much about this strange new literary world.

After starting a project and writing a couple chapters, we sent it to the agency and they showed it around and got back with us that there was real potential,,, but the writing wasn't strong enough.

Big shocker, I know. It really didn't offend me. I was so intimidated by this process and the time it was taking and just not knowing what I didn't know that I was open to answers. They asked us what about a writer to work with you, co-author the book.

Honestly I really didn't mind. It wasn't about me, it was about our story. So if someone else could help me tell this story that might help it get published, and in front of more people, that God might affect their lives, I was willing.

So through the power of the Holy Spirit we found an incredible seasoned Christian author with whom we instantly developed a bond and a trust with. He came up from Florida to visit us and get to know us. Now he is full steam ahead working on our project.

How it works is I give him notes with scriptures, stories, analogies, etc. Then I verbally record my thoughts for about forty five minutes to seventy five minutes. He takes all this and writes a first draft. We then have extensive back and forth. Kendra and I have final say on everything, and we still do a lot of writing and re-writing with him.

The first chapter is focused on godliness. Again, as I sat on the couch knowing that I really needed to verbally explain my notes to Larry, I started to feel very anxious. Ever since we met Larry and really started digging into the project weird things have been happening.

The time I have to work on this is evenings and weekends. Over the last month and a half to two months most nights and weekends I start feeling very "spacey" and weak. I have difficulty being motivated and focusing. I will feel totally alert during the day and then something changes at night. I have really been fighting itchiness as well. Again, it follows the same pattern. Worse at night and on weekends. Almost unbearable. During the day it's much more manageable.

As I talked to Larry, he too had been experiencing physical difficulties as he began working on our project. It wasn't until after I began working on Chapter one that it hit me. I'm under attack from the evil one. We're under attack. He does not want to see this book come to fruition and is working hard to keep both of us from being able to dedicate ourselves to it.

So back to the night I tried to do my first recording. I was anxious and starting to get overwhelmed when one of the verses I wanted to use suddenly was nowhere to be found. I used every internet Bible search and it literally was ripped from every version, translation, and commentary in the Bible. Just the evening before I had found it and now I couldn't find it anywhere.

My steam was rising, I don't do well with things that I know should be one way or something should be some place and it's not. I get angry, irritable, snappy, and worse. That night Kendra was saintly catching many of the bullets of my anger. As I realized I'm supposed to spend the next hour talking about godliness and here I am blowing up over not finding a Bible verse, I kind of lost it.

I wanted to quit. It was so hard. Not just not finding the verse, but the whole thing. I didn't think this would be easy, but I had no idea it would be this hard. All my inadequacies rose to the surface again, my physical symptoms attacked again, and I felt like it was all a huge waste of time.

My angel of a wife kept encouraging me, praying for me, and supporting me. She let me vent, spout off, and I finally came back and apologized.

I knew what I had to do. After praying that the next hour would be spirit led. I knew I just had to start. It would be awkward and clunky. It would be scattered and random. But I just had to start. So I started rambling into the recorder and before too long something special happened.

My mind snapped into clarity and I began getting louder and louder and I talked about godliness into this microphone. I started thinking of more verses that I didn't write down before, more analogies came to mind, and I was getting really excited (not a good problem for someone battling sleep deprivation to get really excited at 10:30 at night).

I was being obedient and God was supplying for me. He was supplying my physical, mental, and spiritual needs. What I wanted to quit, God was supernaturally empowering me to fulfill.

There is a long long ways to go with this book. Even once we write it it may never get published. I'm not concerned about any of that right now. I just want to be obedient and I definitely feel called to finish this project. It's something special and so dear to my heart.

Letters to my Son: What I want to tell him in case I never can

It is a topical discussion of the areas of Colton's life he'll need to learn about to be a godly man. These are the things I planned on teaching him over the next 20 plus years. I pray that someday I get to read this book to him, but if I don't and he's the only one that reads it, it will be worth it.

Please pray for me and Kendra and Larry. We do feel that Satan does not want us to complete this project. There are many things that could side track it or derail it. Pray for our physical and mental ability to spend the time necessary. Pray that the thoughts and leadings of the Holy Spirit are what would become the ink on paper, and not anything that points to Ryan selfishly or out of pride. It's so important to me that this book says what it needs to say, and I don't fully know what that is right now. I do know where God guides He provides. So I'll keep following this Guide and see what He provides me.

Trust, Obey, Be Joyful.

Another season has arrived since Ryan's diagnosis.

Green leaves, red leaves, no leaves, little leaves, green leaves, red leaves, and now no leaves again.

And here I am, still learning the same lessons over and over again.  I think that I am probably causing my Heavenly Father to facepalm several times a month - "Will this girl ever learn?"

And the answer is, no, probably not.  Even though we (Christians) continue to grow and stretch and become mature in our faith and more Christlike, I think we all have moments where we backslide or forget who is boss.  At least, I hope other people experience moments like that - anyone?  Anyone?

It seems like lately, the Lord has breathed three words into my ear.

"Kendra, my dear daughter...TRUST.  OBEY.  JOY."

And I'd like to tell you more about what I'm learning from Him.

Trust

Essentially, our relationship with our Lord boils down to a trust issue.  When we first become a Christian (side note: that was exactly 12 years ago today for me!  Happy anniversary, Jesus.  I love you), we trusted our hearts and our souls to Him.  And from that moment on, the trajectory of our relationship with God is directly proportional to our level of trust in Him.  After all, how can you have a relationship with someone that you cannot trust?

God's sovereign will is often in conflict with our human selfishness.  Anytime that He has other plans for us that would not be our choice, we are faced with the choice of whether to trust Him or to try to wrest back some semblance of control and live selfishly.  But until we take the plunge and simply make the choice (because that's all it is - a choice) to trust Him, our relationship will be stagnant and our attempts to mature in our faith will shortcircuit.  In no way can we be content in our circumstances until we simply trust.  And then choose to trust again.  And keep trusting.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 3-5

Obey

Out of the decision to trust, we are called to obey.  When I read the Bible, I don't see that the faith of the saints was one of passivity, but rather one where they almost constantly pursued advancing the kingdom of God.  I don't think that God intended for us to rest back on our laurels and enjoy the comforts of eternal security.  Personally, I think that comfort is a dangerous, dangerous place for us to be.  Comfort breeds complacency.  And complacency lets us believe the lie that we are only called to faith - but recall that faith without works is dead.

As Ryan and I have attempted to learn what it means to live in radical obedience, we've been pretty shocked at some of the stuff that He has suggested we do.  Sometimes it has been stuff that I haven't personally liked or agreed with or understood.  However, that is another exercise to trust.  Trust and obedience are intricately intertwined, and we cannot do one without the other.

Joy

Even though I don't like what God has placed in my life, even though He has asked me to do some tough stuff that I didn't want to do, I still have had to learn to live my life with joy in spite of that.  Consider that Paul tells us:

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1: 2-4

I have learned that joy is not an emotion and not akin to happiness.  Joy is a lifestyle.  Joy is being thankful for what we have, and it is a submission to the Lord's will.  It is an acknowledgement that despite pain sometimes entering our lives, despite disagreeing with the nature of the task at hand, that God's plan for our lives is always good and always best.  When I choose to live my life with joy, my attitude is one of thankfulness and peace, not bitterness and discontent.


It is a far cry from being able to write a blog about the three themes in my life, and actually living them.  Every moment that I think I've arrived, the Holy Spirit seems to shine a giant spotlight on another area of my life that needs polishing and cleaning up.  I am a total work in progress, but grateful that the Lord considers me an object worthy of his cleaning rags.

How is chemo like a leaky washing machine?

Sometimes I whine. Not often, but when I do it comes in droves.
When I whine, it's almost always about something small or insignificant. For some reason I tend to handle the major issues in life in stride. It's the more trivial things that can trip me up.

This new chemo has evoked some whining...

I broke out with a "rash" that bears a startling resemblance to pretty bad acne all over my face and neck and head. It's not real pretty and its getting uncomfortable. My scalp itches but is painful to the touch, so you can't scratch it. My face is dry, cracking, and painful to the touch.

Add on top of that I've been pretty exhausted this week, for insurance reasons I'm unable to do my treatments from Muskegon and must make the trip to Chicago again tonight! All this adds up to me having a bad attitude this week.

I know, it's pretty weak to be upset about all this, when I really feel decent. No puking, no diarrhea, no pain, nothing severe, just inconveniences.

A couple years ago my washing machine started leaking. I discovered it because the carpet was wet all the way into the hallway. We're not talking about a little drip; it was dumping the entire load of water onto the floor. We almost floated out of our house. There was water in the crawlspace, in and under the carpet... it was everywhere!

I looked, probed, and problem solved. I pulled the dryer out of the bathroom and set it up outside on the porch and no leak! I ripped open the carpet, dug holes in the wall wondering if it was a leaky pipe. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't find the source of the water. Meanwhile we weren't doing a lot of laundry.

At my wit's end, I finally called the repair man. As he pulled off the shell and opened up the machine, we looked and watched and still couldn't find the leak. That made me feel better that a professional was struggling as much as I was until we discovered the problem...

Somehow in my diligence I overlooked the drain hose. It had not been pushed far enough into the drain pipe in the wall and so when the machine drained it's tub, the water basically went straight onto the floor!

How could I have overlooked such a simple solution? How could I not see the obvious? Why did I have to pay the repairman to come out and make me feel stupid?

I was looking at the wrong thing. I was focused on the actual machine and the pipes in the wall. I never thought about the connection of the drain hose to the pipes. That was too simple, too small to go wrong.  My focus was on the wrong thing.

When a crisis hits, our first reaction is often to pray. We reach out to our compassionate and merciful father as a child does. The need is great, and we don't think we can get through it so we cry out for help.

What about when we stub our toe? Why do the little things often trip us up when we can respond so well to the big things? We're focused on the wrong thing. My attitude problem this week didn't come because of acne and fatigue. It came because I was focused on my circumstances and not on my creator.

Proverbs three gives me a convicting commandment, I'm told to submit to God in "all your ways".

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

I wish sometimes I could slide on the small stuff. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. "All" leaves no cracked doors for me to sneak out of obedience.

As you go about your day, make sure you've got the right perspective. If you find yourself irritated with your circumstances, maybe you need to look in the mirror before you look outward.

A Fathers' Day message on obedience!

This past Sunday, I had the awesome privilege of preaching at Reed City Church of the Nazarene. What a wonderful community of believers who have blessed Kendra and I beyond words. It was an incredible experience to celebrate Fathers' Day with them.

Here is the video of my message. I pray you are encouraged as well.

Sermon 6-17-2012 - Special Guest Ryan Prudhomme from RCCNAZ on Vimeo.

No superhero side effects from radiation yet :(

"How was the first week of radiation?"

I think that I got asked that at least 20 times this morning at church. Which leads me to believe, some of you out in blog land might be wondering the same thing.

The short answer...it could've been better and it could've been worse.

I started receiving treatment on Wednesday due to a scheduling error. Treatment takes about 10-15 minutes each day. It's the equivalent of getting an x-ray. Very noninvasive, quick, and easy. Then I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my day.

Actually I have quite a bit to do. I usually do my personal quiet time before or after treatment, depending on what time zone I'm still operating in. Then I am able to keep up with about 70-80% of my work duties from the hotel. Sometime I'll take a picture of my desk. It includes a hotel bed with files scattered all over a lap top on one side, a phone on the other, and me in the middle.

When I'm not working on camp stuff Kendra and I are really trying to use this time to make progress on writing a book. This is a grueling process because you may not believe this, but I hate to write. :)

There's a certain amount of time taken up from walking back and forth to the hospital, not feeling well, or working out in the gym at the hotel.

So surprise, surprise: I manage to stay pretty busy.

However, this week was a little tougher than I expected. Physically the side effects of nausea, fatigue, and funkiness seemed to hit in the afternoons then dissipate later. This left me foggy, irritable, and overall a little out of it. The symptoms were more than I expected and less than the doctors described.

Being away from Kendra and Colton was tough. We have "Facetime" on our phones so we can do a video conference. This was great and allowed me to see and talk to Colton as he doesn't do a regular phone yet. However after the first day of this, he ran around constantly grabbing Kendra's phone yelling "daddy, daddy, daddy". He gets pretty upset when we hang up or he is told he can't call me right away.

This is a constant reminder to Kendra that I'm not around. Even if she is busy enough to forget, or focused on something else, Colton reminds her right away. It was tougher to be away from them than I expected. I didn't think it would be fun, but we've spent time away and it's not a big deal. However I think the gravity of our circumstances, coupled with not feeling well and loneliness made it more difficult.

So tomorrow I head back to start week two. Kendra and I are hopeful and excited that this treatment might lead to cancer shrinking or being killed, and possibly even hearing that beautiful word, "remission".

Throughout all of this, it's easy to wonder why God has allowed certain steps to take place. Why did we wait to do radiation until after a year, why does it take nine weeks, why were there the ups and downs we experienced during chemo?

Sometimes it doesn't make a lot of sense in the moment. I spoke with a farmer today who has lost 90% of his crop in the last two weeks. His wife and I talked about how looking forward it doesn't always make sense, but looking backward it's obvious God has been faithful to guide and protect us.

Instead of wondering why about our circumstances, maybe we need to start asking God "what"?

What would you have me to do while I'm here? Who would you like me to serve? What would you like me to learn? How can I honor you?

When we stop doubting God's perfect will, He'll call us to be obedient.

Where God guides, he provides.

Please pray for my family this week. Pray for peace, energy, healing, and most importantly that we would be obedient to where God is leading us!

And don't worry, I'll let you guys know if I start experiencing side effects such as the ability to fly, shoot webs from my hands, or xray vision. :)

Do your circumstances define your faith? Or does faith define circumstances?

Last Sunday I had the privilege of speaking at Olivet Evangelical Free Church in Muskegon. What a warm and inviting community they have.

I shared our story and the lessons in radical obedience that God is teaching us.

Listen to it here!

http://ia601207.us.archive.org/14/items/LivingInHighDefinition/RyanPrudhomme.mp3

Living a life in obedience

Here is the audio from the awesome opportunity for Kendra and I to speak at Bridge Bible Church a couple Sundays ago.

God is teaching us a lot about absolute obedience right now. I hope this may bless you.

http://bridgebiblechurch.org/index.php?nid=88493&s=gl&media_id=520307&showMedia=a

Starbucks, Jacob, and Rachel

This afternoon around 3:15 p.m., I stopped at the Grand Haven Starbucks for the second time today and ordered another grande Blonde roast with one creamer and two Splendas.  Now, lest you think that I'm a freewheeling spender, I was gifted a Starbucks mug for Christmas (from one of my students!) that allows me to go to Starbucks the entire month of January and fill it up with brewed coffee for NOTHING.  I didn't even know that such a thing existed.  Now, since I am a quarter Dutch and it's January 30th, you'd bet your sweet bippy that I'm going to get every last drop out of that mug.  I've got quite a reputation around the GH Starbucks for being the blonde that likes Blonde roast and Splenda.  I totally get their marketing strategy though.  They sell those mugs so that people can give them as Christmas gifts, and people like me who normally brew their own coffee at home to save money get totally HOOKED on expensive coffee and become regular customers.  Yeah, I'm onto you Starbucks...and guess what, your evil scheme totally worked.

So what does this have to do with Jacob and Rachel?  Absolutely nothing, except that I'm awake at 11 p.m., no thanks to my Starbucks addiction... and I likely will be awake for quite some time...so why not blog about a topic that's in my head?

So, God taught me an important truth about attitude through the story of Jacob and Rachel as I read it recently.  While I can't relate to bigamous relationships, manual labor, or really anything about their culture, I can relate to certain parts of their story and namely, their attitudes.

Here is a link to Genesis 29, which tells their story.  As you read it, notice a couple of things.  First of all, Uncle Laban was in the sheep business.  I don't know how much you have been able to experience sheep, but my best friend growing up had sheep for a couple of years.  Sometimes I'd be at her house, and she would have to do something regarding the care of these animals and I would tag along to their pen with her.  I remember very little about sheep except that they are stupid, that they excreted really foul-smelling stuff, that they were messy and difficult, and and that hers were named Salt and Pepper.  Helping my best friend occasionally feed her sheep (or chase one if it got out of its pen) is really all I ever want to do with them.  So I find it very remarkable and frankly - depressing - that Jacob agreed to work for seven years in a disgusting job to marry the woman that he loved.  However, he put his nose the grindstone and kept a positive attitude during those seven long years (v. 20).  I like that about him.

Contrast that with the woman he married, Rachel.  As lovely as Rachel was on the outside, if you look closely at her character, she has a lot of problems.  Rachel suffered from a condition that I can relate with, the "I want what I can't have" syndrome.  The biggest object of her desire was to have a child.  It wasn't enough to be Jacob's beloved and preferred wife, but she possessed an all-consuming desire to have a child and went to great lengths to procure one.

However, even when she finally had a natural son, she wanted more.  And her greed didn't stop there. If you keep reading in Genesis, she took her father's terephim so that her husband would be the principal among Laban's male heirs.  She was continually discontent in her circumstances, always looking for the greenest grass.  Contrast that attitude with the humility that her husband showed to his deceitful uncle and to his tricky wife, and I'd say that you have a pretty huge divide in their character at this point in their lives.

Sometimes lately I have felt like Rachel.  I have to check my attitude to make sure that I'm not allowing discontent to breed itself within me, and I will tell you that it is hard.  Keeping an attitude of thankfulness is not an easy thing when I feel like my life and my dreams have been ripped away from me.  It's so easy for me to become jealous of others like Rachel was jealous of her sister Leah, and to forget the blessings that God has given me in abundance.

I think that Jacob is the one that I'd rather emulate.  He treated his difficult wife very well, which is an admirable thing in and of itself.  His attitude was good in the midst of his hard labor. Yes, he chose to endure his hard labor for Rachel's sake, and I didn't choose my situation.  But rather than complain about the sheep droppings in my life, I too could focus more on my Beloved (and I'm talking about my Heavenly father here, not just Ryan!) and minimize my self-centeredness.  My attitude in the midst of this journey is positively correlational to the amount of time I spend praying for God's will to be done in my life.  Being like Rachel and continually looking to what's around the corner or how I can squeeze out of a situation that I don't like only leads to discontent, anger, and a loathsome attitude.

So today, after I have had a really long, hard day of feeling sorry for myself, I choose to act more like Jacob and put my nose back to the grindstone.  I'm not sure how long we'll be on this journey, but no matter how long it is, my complaints and pity parties would be better left by the wayside.  After all, positive attitudes sound much more melodious than negative ones.


P.S. Shout out to my grandpa-in-law for the bippy comment!

My biggest regret

I recently had the chance to write a guest post for a friend and fellow camping professional. Kevin has an incredible blog that you should follow on leadership.

Read my post here to learn why obedience prevents regret.

http://followingtolead.com/following/obedience-eliminates-regret/

Get outside your comfort zone!!!

I'm not the most public person. I don't mind being up in front of lots of people, so long as we can talk about what I want to talk about. What I don't want to do is share my thoughts, feelings, and insecurities about myself. I don't want to be vulnerable and let people inside my walls. I would much rather keep other people at arms length.

This is pretty much the opposite of what my life has been the last couple months. Why do I do it? Why are Kendra and I choosing to walk through this journey in such a public matter? The answer is we're hoping and praying that by us sharing what God is doing in our lives we might encourage, inspire, challenge, or lead to Christ someone else.

Just because the outcomes are desirable, doesn't make the process easier. Recently we had an article published about us in the local paper. This is the second article the paper ran on us, the first one was after I spoke at a large Christian concert this summer. Something about what I said connected with the photographer and reporter and they approached the editor to do a follow up feature article.

Greg, the photographer asked if he could follow Kendra and I around for a couple of weeks. He wanted to document our lives. The boring stuff, the cancer stuff, the exciting stuff, and the high definition stuff. I didn't know how I felt about it at first. I knew it would be awkward to have a camera follow me to work, to treatment, at home, and other places. More so I knew this article would be read by 10's of thousands.

Why did I agree to it? Because the benefits outweighed the deficits. Yes it was uncomfortable, but if just one person drew closer to God because they read this article it would be worth it.

Too often we let our comfort determine our behavior. If it is hard or makes me feel awkward we tend to shy away from it. Or maybe we judge how well our faith is going by how comfortable we are. Do we have money in the bank? Nice clothes? Are we all healthy? Then things must be going well.

Unfortunately God doesn't promise that things will be easy, actually He promises that things will be tough, difficult, and that there will be trials. If we never get outside our comfort zone, I don't know if we can be completely obedient to what God is calling us to do. Abraham had to leave his home land, then sacrifice his son. David had to fight a giant. Moses had to go before Pharaoh. Paul was beaten, shipwrecked, and imprisoned. Every one of those people chose obedience over comfort.

What area's of our lives do we need to get outside our comfort zone? It's too easy to never do anything that makes us nervous. Do you need to have a conversation with someone about your faith? Do you need to serve those who don't like you? Do you need to minister to someone who is dirty and difficult to love? Only you know what God is calling you to do.

I can promise you as you're obedient, God will bless. I have been overwhelmed time and time again by the people who approach me to tell me that this blog, or a speech I gave, or a video they saw blessed and inspired them.