Reb Rev's Blog

This past Monday, I ran 3.5 miles. It felt pretty good, as opposed to the past couple of weeks, when I felt sluggish.

IMMEDIATELY, after I finished running, I felt a pressure in my chest that was unfamiliar. It wasn’t terrible, but it was uncomfortable.

It eased off, then returned, then eased off again. A co-worker said I looked pale, but my blood pressure and pulse were good.

I went to my family physician and he did an EKG, I was having a heart attack. I was taken by ambulance to one hospital, transferred to a helicopter and taken to the new Heart Center at Pitt Memorial Hospital.

They put a stent in and I was in my room in Cardiac ICU around 9 pm. I thank God for the prayers of friends, family, church family and as my future daughter-in-law put it “random people” she asked to pray for me.

I feel great, the prognosis is wonderful and I gathered a few sermon illustrations along the way. I came home today and I will post more a little later. For now, it is time for a rest J

Monday evening, I had the amazing and awesome privilege of going to Camp Lejeune to pick up the son of a very dear friend as he returned from a 7 month deployment with the 26^th Marine Expeditionary Unit. I was in the Corps from 1978-1982 and being aboard the base brought back a lot of memories – some good, some funny, some sad, some bad.

But, as I waited for Daniel, I got to spend time with a few of his friends. I met one young Marine wife – without a doubt the toughest job in the Marine Corps.

The Marine Corps has a proud tradition of leadership, service commitment and faithfulness to duty and to one another. That tradition is still firmly in place – and the Marine Corps of tomorrow is in good hands.

I was blessed to see meet these young men and spend time with them. I pray for them and their families and from one old Marine to all of you – Semper Fi.

I love the outdoors. Not just cause I’m a “manly man” (which I am J But, mainly because I see God’s hand at work all around me. I grew up in South Florida and I loved going to the beach during a thunderstorm just to watch the waves and the lightning. I’ve watched the slivers of light explode across the sky in a glorious sunrise over the ocean with my son as we were fishing first thing in the morning. I’ve watched the sunset from the side of a mountain with my lovely bride (of 27 years next week). And, every time, I am struck by God’s grace in giving us such reminders of Who He is.

This song is by a group called Ten Shekel Shirt and the song is “Ocean.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AAUTlQyxtQ

The pictures here are beautiful, but they are of a particular family’s vacations to Hawaii. Even if you ignore the pics, listen to the words.

Another of my favorite songs right now is Free to Be Me by Francesca Battistelli.

The thing the song says to me is basically an admission of being “damaged goods” but God loves us anyway.

We can pretend to be better than we are to one another, but God knows the hurts, the sin and the stuff that goes on in all of us – yet He loves us anyway.

In fact, Jesus told a story once about a man who owed a lot of money and his debt was forgiven. Another owed just a little money and his debt was forgiven. Christ asked who would be more grateful, the man who was forgiven much or the man who was forgiven little? Of course, the answer was the man who was forgiven much. The point of the story was that when we realize just how many “dents there in our fenders” and how many “rips are in our jeans,” we’ll appreciate God’s grace even more.

I hope you enjoy the song too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YLXWANhvI

I’m not sure what it is all about just yet but I’ve signed up on Twitter – if you are on there, I’d like to follow your adventures.

My link/information/tweet/whatever-its-called is

www.twitter.com/rebrev

See ya there!

As you may have heard, there apparently isn’t enough for the President to focus on, so he took a break to work out the brackets for ESPN for the upcoming national basketball championship.

He picked the UNC Tarheels. Now, in this all important issue of basketball Mr. President found two qualities were needed to make a championship team.

He said – “Here’s what I like about Carolina: experience and balance.”

How ironic – that’s what I was looking for in a president.

I got a note from Capital One this week. I expected it to be a “thank you” card for my part of the banks’ bail-out package. I expected it to read something like “We understand we have generally been irresponsible with our financial practices, and we appreciate the credit extension. Thank you for being a part of the American public whose elected leaders are following the same practice which got us into so much trouble, namely loaning money to people who don’t have the ability, or choose not to pay it back.”

But, it didn’t say thank you, it wasn’t an apology. It was a rate increase. We’ve paid the bill, it’s not (and hasn’t been) in arrears, it is not (and hasn’t been) over limit.

Capital One has those ads with the Viking looking warriors pillaging and marauding depicting other credit card companies. Apparently, those guys got laid off from the other credit card companies and are now part of the Capital One crew. They are getting ready to get the boot here too. The Capital One card is coming out of MY wallet. One more reason to be debt free.

As far as I know, I don’t know anyone at First Baptist Church Maryville, Illinois. But, my heart goes out to them and my prayers go out for them.

It is always painful to lose a loved one. It is especially painful to lose a loved one to violence. I pray for the family of the shooter. They, no doubt, are experiencing a great deal of pain right now as well.

As you remember these folks in your own prayers, please pray also your pastor and his family.

In His Grace,

I love winter – for a while. It seems it has been extraordinarily cold this year, probably due to global warming 😉

At any rate, I’m ready for spring. I thank God for the lessons about His love we see in the spring.

I usually get a real bad case of spring fever each year. I’m looking forward to it again this year.

Here is a great song about the change of seasons by Nicole Nordeman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dwpdZdvCl8

By the way, at least for the time being, I’d like this song played at my funeral – think about it . . .

Goals are a good thing to have. They should be realistic and they should be attainable, but they should also be a challenge. There was a time in my life when a goal of saving $1 out of every paycheck was a reasonable, yet challenging goal. Now, thank God, that isn’t very challenging.

So, from time to time we need to reevaluate our goals and revise them if necessary.

I’m doing that with my running goals. You ready, here for all the world to see – (accountability is a big factor is staying on course toward a goal).

The 5K in April in under 40 min.

A 10K in May http://www.runforthewarriors.org/clejeuner4w.html

A 10 mile run by my birthday in September.

The Myrtle Beach ½ Marathon (13.1 miles) next February http://www.mbmarathon.com/events/halffc22.htm

I’ll keep you posted – I do not foresee having to revise the last one to the full marathon J But, then you never know . . .