Luke’s Notebook

When weight-lifting, one of the more common exercises we tend to focus on bench-pressing.  It’s a real good workout for the chest muscles and the upper body as a whole.

With bench-pressing heavy weights, it is always a good idea to have a spotter who will be ready to help you lift the barbell in case you aren’t able to push it up on your own.  It sure beats the alternative of being pinned on the bench under a heavy weight.

Sometimes, I will get a little too ambitious, and try to lift something that I have no real chance of putting up.  Before long, I chirp “Help.”  I might not even get the weight up five or 10 percent of the way.

There are other times, though, when I am so — so close – to pushing the weight up, yet I need assistance to get me over the top.  I might be 95 percent of the way there, yet I just don’t have it in me to close the deal.

Those second times end up being the most frustrating, because I was extremely close to having done it all on my own, without help from anyone.  It’s sad to have to get help at that point, because I am just inches from accomplishing it on my own.

While this is a good approach when it comes to weight-lifting, often I find myself starting to use the same way of thinking when it comes to my sin and God’s mercy.

It’s easy to assume that I’m just inches away from perfection.  If only I could be a little more disciplined, a little more patient, a little gentler.  Patch a couple of occasional holes, and we’re good to go.  I’d be totally perfect, and wouldn’t need help from anybody!

But what I fail to realize is that, even on my absolute best day, I am STILL falling well short of God’s standard.  I’m never even CLOSE to where I should be.

It’s not that I’m just an inch away from getting that weight back on the bar; instead, the weight is an inch away from squashing me completely.

Isaiah 64:6:

“And all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”

Even on a record day for me, it’s still pitiful compared to what God has required of me.  It’s like trying to leap across a canyon.  I may jump five feet on one day, eight on a better day, but either way I’m not landing anywhere near that other edge.

So this could be discouraging, to realize that I’m actually much, much worse than I thought.  But it actually is very freeing for me, because it forces me to cling to Jesus for everything.  I realize that I just have absolutely no chance without His help.  I’m not even close on my own.  Without the blood of Jesus covering my sins, I’m toast, even on my very best days.

While perfection still is and still should be the goal, remembering this does help me deal with all my imperfections.  This doesn’t cause me to want to relax the standard at all.  Instead, I am so thankful for all that I have been forgiven of and the great mercy I’m experiencing every day, and I just want to show my gratitude by striving to please God more and more.

This also reinforces just how patient God is with me.  He doesn’t constantly remind me, “Hey, Luke, now just remember:  You are a wretch, and don’t you forget it!”  No… instead, He is always reminding me how much He likes me.  He’s almost saying, “Relax.  You weren’t ever even close.  But I still love you anyway!”  It helps me not beat myself up too much whenever my human tendencies or weaknesses start to show.

This, obviously, is no Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card or an excuse to sin.  I still want to do all I can to be obedient in every way.  But it is very reassuring to know that, on my own, I never even had a chance to begin with.  It’s mercy, it has always been mercy, and that’s my only hope in the future, is more mercy.

Our 2009 family trip began on Sunday, October 11.  The entire family, minus Paul and John, hit the road and started driving north around noon.  The destination was a rental house near Iron River, Michigan.  We had about 600 miles to drive in the day.

We took a brief drive through downtown Chicago, which was about the halfway mark.  We stopped by Wrigley Field, which was pretty special!  Along the way, we also stopped at a few lighthouses.  In the early-morning hours of Monday the 12th, we arrived at the house in Michigan.

This was the first time any of us had been to the Upper Peninsula, and it was very interesting!  A very scenic area, and not much in the way of big cities.

I spent many hours at the McDonald’s in Iron River, as we happened to be in the midst of transferring FamTeam to a new server.  The Internet service was extremely sketchy at the house, and McDonald’s was one of the nearest places that had wireless Internet, so it became the go-to spot.  I would have rather have taken care of all of the FamTeam stuff back home, but the timing just worked out to where it had to be taken care of while we were on the road.  Thankfully, the FamTeam switchover went pretty well.  Honestly, I was amazed at how smoothly it all went.  What a relief it was to have all that taken care of!

On one day trip, we drove to the northern shore and spent some time on the beach of Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan.  We had a gorgeous sunny day, and we had a good time moseying up and down the shore.  We also spent another day visiting a waterfall, and yet another day trip visiting the scenic Porcupine Mountains.

Paul and John rejoined the family early Saturday, October 17th.  They had spent the week back home in order to take care of some work, and they had hit the road at the end of the work day on Friday and drove through the night.  They had actually stopped at Six Flags Chicago for about an hour during their drive up, and were able to ride a few roller coasters before getting back on the road.

October 17 was a very special day, because it ended up being the only day in which the entire family was together, because Mark and I would soon head back home in order to take care of things back home for the second week of the trip.

On that Saturday that John and Paul had arrived, all 16 of us drove northeast to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  We didn’t get to stay there very long, as it was a seven- or eight-hour round trip.  We did, however, get to view a few very pretty lookout points, and John and I had a chance to run down a mile-long trail that led to the beach.  It was a tiring run, as we were hurrying there and back in order to not keep the family waiting too long.  We were out of breath quite a few times during the sprints, it was a worthwhile trip!

Saturday night, Mark and I spent our final hours with the family before driving back home early Sunday morning.

And that’s… where we stop for now. The drive home was quite fun!  That will be covered in Part #2.  For now, though… this concludes Week Number One of the 2009 family trip!

Colossians 3:15:

“And be thankful.”

Where can I start?

God has given me so much to be thankful for that it’s almost embarrassing when I start to think about everything.  First, I am forgiven.  Jesus has taken my sin; God sees me as pure.  God loves me.  And He likes me.  God is providing and leading, day by day.  I’m so thankful that He is trustworthy.  Unfailing — unable to fail.  Just amazing!

On top of that, I have this family.  I mean, how in the world could I have ever earned this?  It’s not fair.  I don’t deserve it.  But I am so grateful that I somehow find myself in the middle of it.

I have a two-pronged plan.  One, to THANK God for the blessings, the provisions, the mercy, the guidance — everything that He has done and that He continues to do.  Secondly, I’m praying that God would help me not lose this thankful heart.  It is so easy to take things for granted.  I do it way too often.  If I could only be wise enough to see everything around me, and really appreciate the countless things that I tend to overlook most of the time.  I really should be constantly overwhelmed in realizing just how good I have it.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

This evening, I went to the YMCA for the first time in quite a while.  I must have been away for about two months, perhaps even longer.  Of course, we just returned from our long family trip (which I still am hoping to write about, by the by), so obviously it wasn’t that easy to work out over the past several weeks.

Anyway, tonight I managed to drag myself to the YMCA.  It was a pretty typical situation for me in deciding to go:  First, I consider going.  Then, I think, “Ehh… well, I do have some work to do…”  Finally — thankfully — I decide to just throw myself in the car, and go.  And, as usual, I left the Y thrilled that I made myself actually go and work out.

It’s funny how that works.  You would think that I would realize by now that the workouts are worth the discomfort, and thus always be excited to go exercise.  You’d think!  But I guess I’m just not that smart, or my memory isn’t that good.  Either way, it doesn’t reflect real well on me, I suppose.

Tonight was sort of the official kickoff to my off-season workout program.  There is no official regimen that I have, other than to try to work out a lot — burn calories and lift weights.  Immediately, I hope to drop a couple of these fresh vacation pounds before they have a chance to get too comfortable, but my long-term goal is to just to get a little stronger, a little faster, a little leaner.  Seems like a good plan.

It’s always exciting to start something new like this.  I have five months before the 2010 softball season begins, and I know that that is a lot of time, and if I really make the most of the opportunities, I can improve quite a bit by next April!

Unfortunately… tonight, I hit a snag.  In weight-lifting, I started to feel the familiar pain in my left arm.  It’s the same pain that I was having throughout most of the 2008 softball season and pretty much all of 2009.  I am nearly positive it is a result of throwing the ball.  I must have injured it initially in early 2008, and it just never fully healed.  There would be good days and bad days, but it seemed like the pain wasn’t going away.

I can’t say that I was anticipating this, but now that I think about it, it shouldn’t really surprise me.   A few months ago, when I was last working out, I was having similar issues.  And even in the recent weeks, in throwing a baseball, softball, or football, I would often feel the pain return.

To be honest, I am pretty disappointed.  The arm pain itself isn’t really that bad, but it is  enough to limit me when lifting weights.  Also, it is discouraging to have the same problem that I had back in 2008, with no real improvement.

To be fair, I don’t know that I have ever given the arm a real rest for any long period of time.  I mean, when I think about it, I went from playing softball three nights of week all through the spring, summer, and fall of 2008, to working out pretty heavily and playing volleyball over the winter months of 2008.  In 2009, I continued to play volleyball and work out until softball began, and then I was playing four or five softball games a week until the fall.  Even on this trip, being away from home for a few weeks, I couldn’t resist the urge to break out my glove or throw a football around.

I would be pretty thrilled if I learned that my arm would completely heal itself if I would just let it rest completely for a while.  It would be hard to abstain from lifting weights or playing volleyball, but I think it would be a worthy sacrifice in order to let the arm recover.

The problem is, I don’t think that would work.  But, perhaps I just never gave the arm a long-enough break to recover fully.

I think I will break down and have a doctor look at the situation.  The pain hasn’t ever been bad enough or disabling enough to really warrant anything like that.  I mean, I have still been able to play ball, and still have been able to work out.  There has been pain, but it would always go away eventually.

The thing I want to avoid, if possible, is entering 2010 with the exact same problem.  I would like to finally know just what is going on, and what is needed to resolve this.

I feel kind of silly writing a long post all about something as trivial as a little arm pain, especially when it’s the type of pain that can be avoided if I simply wouldn’t do certain things.  But this type of stuff means a lot to me, and I would have a hard time sitting out softball games or missing the chance to exercise.

Offhand, it does seem like the smartest thing to do would be to see a specialist, who can help me determine just what exactly is going on.  Once that mystery is uncovered, things will probably make a lot more sense.  Right now, it is just frustrating to have this intermittent pain on my inner elbow, yet not knowing exactly what it is.  Is something torn?  Strained?  Does it need rest?  Physical therapy?  Surgery?

If you would, please keep me in your prayers in regards to this situation.  I just need wisdom on what to do.   I want to be humble enough to just wait things out for a while, if that’s the best medicine.  At the same time, though, I don’t want to be too passive if I am supposed to be proactively doing stuff to rehabilitate the arm.  I’m just not smart enough to figure it out on my own!

Thanks for the prayers.  I really appreciate them!  God is so loving and has such perfect precision with everything that He does.  I know that, whatever is going on here and whatever is going to happen, that He is not going to be surprised, and He has a perfect plan here!

Wow.

This has been a special, special trip!

So much happened.  So many great memories.  Some crazy moments, and some relaxing moments.  Waking up at 5:30 AM one day, 11:30 AM the next.  Work, fun.  Work, fun.

This will take a long time to absorb!  I don’t even know where to start with recounting the trip.  I would like to do that, though.  Maybe I can just do it in bite-sized chunks, instead of trying to take care of everything in one long entry.

I will try to get to that soon.  For now, I am still just taking things in, and settling in here at home.  I’m finally unpacked, which is nice!  I’d been mostly living out of my big suitcase since early October.  It’s good to use the closet again.

Anyway, stay tuned!