NEW BLOG PLATFORM IS UP!

Hello everyone.  I want to thank you all again for your support of the blog.  As I mentioned last week, I have taken the blog to a self-hosted site due to increase traffic and blog comments. I now have the new site up and running, and have posted the first post on the new site entitled "The Blessing Choice".  This is my last post to this page.

If you have been following this blog and have enjoyed it I ask that you head over to the new site, and enter your e-mail under the "Subscribe for Updates" tab on the right hand side.  It will send you an email and then you can just click to confirm to start receiving your posts to your email.  If you have any issues, please let me know and I will be happy to help.

CLICK HERE to head to the new site.  The new URL is http://www.dandywalkerranger.com.

Thank you again for your support!

Seizure Day

Mikayla taking a nap in her chair after a long week!

"It's time to seize your day." - Graham Honeycutt

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Mikayla had a seizure day at First Steps (her day care) this week, and they had to call ambulance to take her to the hospital.  Unfortunately, I was away on a work trip leaving Heather to handle most of the hospital duties.  Mikayla continues to teach me a great deal about life.  First and foremost, she teaches me to live in the present.  I can be a bit of a dreamer, and always thinking about new and exciting future possibilities.  Sometimes to the point where it becomes overwhelming and I procrastinate.  I see all of the possibilities, and I get paralyzed because I don't know where to start.  I simply don't have that luxury with Mikayla.  She requires love and attention in the present moment.  She requires nothing more from me than who I am, what I have to give, and to be present with her.  Whatever future plans I have for her or myself, honestly, don't mean a damn thing.  It can all change in an instant, and it often does. 

Since she was born, I have seen her affect people's lives by being who she is.  I can't tell you how many family and friends have grown to love this little girl and continue to follow her story.  It is humbling for me just to be a witness.  Then I read a line from a book I was reading entitled How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination by Sally Hogshead.  She says: "The greatest value you can add is to become more of yourself."  I read it, and I had one of those AH HA moments.  Mikayla affects lives by being who she is.  She doesn't provide any services or give anything of monetary value to anyone.  Her greatest value is that she is loving.  She has never met a stranger, and is a happy and loving child.  Her greatest value is that she hasn't been changed by this world.  All she knows is how to be herself, and fight through whatever challenges she has with a loving soul.

I may have the superior cognitive abilities, but I wonder if she is the one who knows more about what life is all about.  So my challenge to you is you never know when you will have a seizure day, so its time to seize your day.  Carpe Diem.  Live in the present, because your greatest value lies in being yourself.  As complicated as we try to make it, it really is just as simple as that.

So what do you think?  Is it really that simple?  I'd love for you to leave your comments.  Also, if you found this helpful or inspiring would you please share it?  There are links below to share on Facebook or Twitter.

NOTE:  I wanted to thank all of you for continuing to read this blog.  I have received so many positive comments, and have also received feedback that due to increased traffic that some of you are having difficulties reading the page or commenting in the comment section.  I wanted to let all of you know that I am working on a self-hosted site to allow for greater customization and increased traffic.  The site is currently under-construction, and I will send all of you more information as I get it up and running in the near future.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading and your comments.  They mean more to me than you could possibly know. - Graham

 

You WOULD Like Me When I'm Angry!

Mikayla with me after her surgery to repair her shunt

     Mikayla has had a rough few weeks, as she has been in and out of sickness.  Heather and I suspected that there may be a deeper cause, but when we would take her to the doctor she would get better in a couple days and act fine again.  Finally, on Thursday early morning we took her to the ER because she was vomiting and just generally very uncomfortable.  We trusted our gut, and said something is wrong with our child.  It turns out that her shunt (apparatus that drains fluid from her brain to her adomen) had been malfunctioning and she needed surgery to repair it.
     That morning before we went to the hospital I just felt so helpless.  I think of all the difficult things about having a child with special needs, it is the helplessness that hurts me the most.  I have no way to cure what ails her, to comfort her when things so awry, or to help her keep any type of normalcy in her life.  My helplessness turned to anger that morning before we took her to the ER.  I held her in my arms as she was writing in pain, and I just told God...straight up with no holds barred:  "God, I know you can cure my daughter!  Why don't you do just do SOMETHING...ANYTHING?!"  All of a sudden, for just the briefest of moments, she stopped and got silent and opened her beautiful blue eyes and looked straight at me.  It was a moment I can't truly describe, because her gaze shot through me like a frozen arrow had just been shot in my chest.  I was stunned.  Somehow, I just knew in that moment that Jesus Christ was looking straight at me through the eyes of Mikayla.
     As soon as the gaze came, it was gone again and Heather and I rushed to pack up all her items for the hospital.  You may think that I was just a delirious parent, who was just making things up in a high stress state.  I don't really blame you, because sometimes I can't believe it happened either.  All I can tell you is I know what I saw, and more importantly I know what I felt. 
   As I have been unpacking this experience over the past few days, I was reminded of a book I read recently called The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd.  In his book Dodd explains that there are 8 feelings we experience.  Those feelings are hurt, sadness, loneliness, fear, anger, shame, guilt, and gladness.  If you are like me and almost everybody else, you look at those 8 feelings and only see one positive one - gladness.  Dodd explains in his book that all these feelings are good feelings that have benefits, and were given to us by God.  However, each of these feelings if not fully dealt with can lead to a toxic impairment in our lives.  I won't give you the whole list of benefits or impairments, but for the feeling of anger the benefit is: "Helps us to tell the truth, dares to hope and arouses willingness in desire."  If you are curious about the others, I highly recommend the book.
   I got angry with God, and I believe that was his way of telling me that was okay.  It was okay, because it was a genuine expression to him in relationship.  I had been trying to suppress my anger from God, because I felt like it wasn't proper or justified.  In fact, I have done that in many areas of my life.  I was confusing anger with rage.  They are not the same thing.  As Dodd says: "Authentic anger is a caring feeling, telling us that something matters."  Mikayla matters to me and I care for her deeply.  I get angry, and that is a genuine expression of my love.

 SO TELL ME AND LET ME HEAR IT!!!  What are you angry about in your life, that you just haven't been willing to admit?

What is the Meaning of Happiness?

What is the meaning of happiness?  We all want to be happy, and many of us spend a lifetime pursuing it.  It is even so foundational to our nation that the "pursuit of happiness" is literally written in our constitution.  But I have been wondering what does it mean to be truly happy.  Of course I know what happiness feels like, but I am trying to look deeper into the meaning of happiness.

I started the journey on a book recommendation to read Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.  Frankl was a survivor of the Holocaust, and the book is his amazing story and his search for meaning in the most desperate of places, in the Nazi Concentration Camps.  When Heather and I recently visited Germany we visited the Dachau concentration camp to see exactly where Frankl had been for the majority of his imprisonment.  In his book Frankl says: "Suffering is an eradicable part of life, even as fate and death.  Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.  The way in which man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult of circumstances - to add deeper meaning to his life."  Here is a man who suffered greatly and saw the worst of things, and he found meaning in his suffering.  I can relate to what Frankl is saying here.  If you have read my blog posts, you know that I have also found great meaning in raising a child with special needs (Please note: I am not comparing any of my suffering to that of a concentration camp).  I think the reason that suffering adds meaning is because it forces us to ask the question - WHY?  Most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, spend most of our time asking - WHAT?  What do I need to do or accomplish today on my to-do list?  If we have a stimulating day we might even get to the HOW?, especially if we have a stimulating job.  We don't often make as much time for the most important question of all - Why?  In times of suffering we ask the Why questions, and add deeper meaning to our lives.  So if in times of suffering we find deeper meaning, then what is the meaning of happiness?

Happiness for me does not come in its pursuit.  Happiness for me comes in discovering meaning.  Happiness comes not by me pursuing it, but by starting each and every day by taking my Why questions to God.  I take my Why questions to God, so he can reveal to me my How and my What.  The only issue you will discover in that process, is that God is not always interested in your happiness.  He is interested in your meaning, and your existence.  There is a time and place for everything on this earth as Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 reminds us:

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.  

A time to be born, and a time to die; 

a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.  

A time to kill, and time to heal;

 a time to tear down, and a time to build.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;

a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

If there truly is a time for everything, then I believe happiness is about accepting where we are in the journey.  Some times will feel better than others, but there wouldn't be joy without the pain...and none of it would be worth it without LOVE.  For as Frankl also says in his book: "love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.  Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."

Crazy Little Thing Called SELF-Love

  

Mikayla in her new seater/stroller

  Mikayla was sick this past week, and one morning I went into her room to rock her while she wasn't feeling well.  She immediately got real quiet, and I just looked into her beautiful baby blue eyes as she looked at me.  It was very early in the morning, and everything so was quiet and peaceful.  Everything felt right in the world as I held her, and just continued to rock back and forth...back and forth...back and forth.  In the midst of the quiet, I felt this immense feeling of joy, peace, and LOVE rush through me.  It was a tidal wave of emotions, and I just let it overwhelm me.  I am not exactly sure how long it lasted, but I felt as if God gave me a short glimpse of the beauty he sees and just how much he loves us and how much he wants us to love others and ourselves.
     As soon as it came, it was gone again but not without leaving an indelible mark.  As it left, I heard a whisper say: Love God, Love Others, and Love Yourself.  This is a phrase a close friend of mine, recently shared a story with me about.  He shared a story of when he went to a monastery and asked the Benedictine monk what he should ponder during his silent retreat.  The monk answered: "Love God, Love Others, and Love Yourself.  These three truth are inextricably linked, and they can't be separated.  You can't have one without the other.  Go...ponder this."
   If you are like me then you say in your head: Love God - CHECK, Love Others - well..uhh...CHECK most of the time, Loving myself - Really?  Do we even have to go there?   Loving myself is not an inherently easy thing for me to do, but I was struck by the monk's response to my friend and just how true it is.  If I am truly to love God and love others, I must love myself as well.  Here are a few things I have learned about self-love.  Now, this is not to say I am good at this, or that I don't stumble...but nevertheless here is what I learned in the school of hard love knocks.

Things I Have Learned About this Crazy Thing Called Self-Love:

     1.  Loving yourself is a choice you must make to be part of the inseparable equation of love I mentioned above.  Love God, Love Others, and Love Yourself.  It is not easy, and it is not something that happens naturally.  You must make the choice to consciously love yourself.  In order to love my baby girl, wife, family, and friends more deeply I must make this choice over and over again.  I make this choice the same way I must make the choice to love God and others at times.

     2.  Self-love is about acceptance.  My brother-in-law gave me a book to read recently called Radical Acceptance.  Acceptance is an especially difficult part of the human condition.  We are always searching for something more or something better.  This can lead us to great heights, but it can also rob us of our joy.  Here is my favorite quote from the book (of what I have read so far): "There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire and imperfect and messy life.  With even a glimmer of that possibility, joy rushes in."

    3.  Loving yourself doesn't mean you always have to like yourself.  I have plenty of times I don't like myself, or I am angry at myself for something I did.  I have to forgive myself, in the same way I have to forgive others to move on with my life.

    4.  This is one I learned from Jon Acuff in his new book.  Don't fall prey to the mind-trick of 1 insult + 1,000 compliments = 1 insult.  When we tend to hear compliments we tend to brush them off and forget about them, but when we hear insults we tend to stew on them and sometimes even let it consume us and change our mood.  An insult is different than constructive criticism, and is just downright mean.  It is not life-giving in any form.  When hearing an insult, give yourself enough tough self-love to move past the insult and listen even more intently to the compliments.

   5.  Loving yourself means being yourself.  Perhaps this seems obvious, but its not always to me.  I can change my personality and mask my true self in certain situations.  I may not let "people feel the weight of who I am, and let them deal with it" because I am afraid they might not like who I am.  However, when I am not myself...I DON'T LIKE WHO I AM!  Take it from me, that is much worse.  People are typically more perceptive than we give them credit for, and they can almost always tell if you are being genuine or not.  Also, if you are hanging around the wrong people they will see your weakness and exploit it.

    6.  Finally, be prepared to enter into your wounds and your fears to find your self-love.  This is most often where our self-love hides, and the place we most need to face in order to love God, others, and ourselves more deeply.

Some of you may have more revelations about self-love than I just shared, and if so feel free to leave me a comment, e-mail or tell me on Facebook.  I would love to hear from you.  Just no insults please...there is only room for compliments or constructive criticism here!

My Song for "Mikayla" on Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day.  I wrote a song to my daughter Mikayla on Father's Day.  Click the video above to see the video of the song.  The lyrics are written below.

Mikayla
Verse One
I hold you skin to skin
And I know that you're my kin
I'll never let you go
You have disabled my soul
You may have special needs
But you never bite the hand that feeds

Chorus
Oh Mikayla my baby girl
My daughter and precious pearl
Mikayla, my beauty queen
Here in my secret world I hold unseen

Verse Two
I'm singing you to sleep
Where my love runs so deep
I wanna take all your pain
Because I'll never be the same
The beauty that you share
It strips your daddy's heart to the bare

REPEAT CHORUS

Verse Three
I'm not a perfect man
But I feel as if I can
Have her untouched by this world
And whose prescence is unfurled
I'll hold her when she cries
And tell her not to believe those lies...those lies...those lies

Bridge
So you came to us from above
Showed me what it means to love
A lonely man I'll never be
You gave my heart the eyes to see
To connect with greater than myself
I tore all my books off the shelf
The only one left was a Bible in my hand
And a prayer to help me understand
Why did you make my daughter this way?
The only thing that I have left to say
My soul is touched and I have peace
And I feel my apprehension...RELEASE....Release....Release 

Final Chorus
Mikayla, you're my baby girl
You're my daughter and precious pearl
 Mikayla, you're my beauty queen
Here in my secret world I hold unseen

END...

I am Humbled...

Mommy and Mikayla matching colors in cute outfits

I have been doing some writing lately with my good friend Larry.  We have been writing on a number of topics relating to the soul.  One of these topics was humility.  I combed back through experiences in my life when I have been humbled.  I found many things I am not particularly proud of, but there was one experience from early in my life that stood out.  It was the first time I remember being truly humbled.  I have no real expectations with this post, but all I can say is I just feel compelled to share it.  Perhaps this is just my time to make amends, and my daughter is the one who gave me the courage to share it.

Here is an excerpt of what I wrote:

... It is important to note that God convicts and makes us feel guilt to draw us closer to him, but he doesn’t condemn us and pronounce guilt upon us.  Condemnation does not come from God for those who are after his heart.  He convicts us like any good parent does their child, in order to discipline us and make us better.

I still remember the first time I felt God truly convict me.  I was in the fourth grade, and our teacher called a special meeting and we all sat on the floor in a circle. She explained to us that it had been brought to her attention someone in our class had made an insensitive joke about a girl in the class who had some mild disabilities and had trouble walking.  The young girl immediately burst into tears, and we all watched as she publicly shared her hurt for at least 5 minutes.  That 5 minutes felt like a forever to me, because I was the insensitive jerk who made that comment.  I felt so convicted that day I had ringing in my ears.  I still can’t think of that moment today without feeling shame and guilt.  I saw how much pain I had inflicted on that beautiful girl, and I so wished I could have taken it back. I still wonder why the teacher chose such a public forum to expose my failings, but it worked and I was deeply humbled.  Who knew all these years later, I would have my own beautiful daughter with special needs who has physical disabilities and needs my love and protection?

Real humility comes from recognizing our own brokenness that we can’t fix on our own...

I was broken that day, and hopefully I came back as a better person for that girl, myself, my family, and now for my daughter Mikayla.