To all who have offered prayers, encouragement, food, or fun treats – thank you.  My recovery from my surgery has gone quite well.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I can honestly say that I did not anticipate a recovery this quickly.  I came home from the surgery center on Friday (1/29) and spent that day asleep in bed.  Saturday I woke up and moved to the couch in the living room and spent the next three days on the couch.  By Monday I wasn’t feeling hardly any pain (except when I would cough or sneeze) and I decided I would take myself off my pain meds by Tuesday.  Tuesday I was back in the office, and by Wednesday night I was just about back to my old self.  This past Sunday (2/7), a week after surgery, I was leading worship at church.  Today I have my follow up consultation with the surgeon to talk about where to go from here.  I praise God for his faithfulness in my healing.  I know that some don’t get the same kind of recovery I’ve had, and so I thank God for giving me this quick recovery.

This past Sunday, Taylor and I had the privilege of going to lunch with a couple who is engaged to be married.  They are absolutely wonderful people, and I’m so excited to know them.  Taylor and I feel incredibly blessed to have found each other.  I know that my life is better because she is in it, and I’m pretty sure she feels the same about me.  She not only takes care of me, and keeps me fed, but she shows me what a life of service in the name of Christ looks like.  She serves me, like I believe Christ served while he walked this earth.  I believe that the love and forgiveness that she shows me is the way that God loves and forgives me.  She shows me how to be Jesus to others.  I believe that that’s what marriage is all about.

It’s interesting when you read the Bible, that God institutes marriage on the earth way before he instituted his church.  Once God was done creating the world, he created man and woman.  He brought them together and stood between them to present them to each other.  Sounds like a wedding ceremony doesn’t it?  Then the two became one and they walked with God.  Marriage was never intended to be anything but two people walking with God daily.

I get so sad when I see couples put each other down publicly, or treat each other with condescension just to get a laugh.  I get tired of hearing things like, “Marriage gets worse before it gets better…” or “The first years of marriage are the hardest…because you fight a lot.”  I know that marriage is hard – I’m married.  However, in my marriage, I’ve never had a yelling match to get my point across because my wife listens to my side of the argument too.  I’ve never blamed my wife when things don’t work out because we are a team, and she bends over backwards for me.  Yes, I’ve had to swallow my pride and admit I was wrong from time-to-time, but the beauty of it is that my wife is forgiving.  My wife would love for me to “just know” what needs to be done, but she doesn’t expect that of me.  She tells me when the dishes need to be done, and laundry needs to be folded, or I’ve spent too much time at work – and I listen to her and honor her requests.  We serve each other.  We love each other.  We forgive each other, and we honor each other.

I believe there is a theology to marriage.  I mean, God instituted marriage so you can’t talk about marriage and not believe there is a theology to it.  Colossians 3 verses 18 and 19 say, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” Ephesians 5 says these things about how husbands and wives should treat each other, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”  “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy…”  “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” These verses are so insightful to what God intends marriage to be.  Men and women communicate on very different levels.  Men, tend to share love with other men by showing respect to each other.  If you think of a group of guys playing basketball, you say things like, “Great shot!”  “Awesome pass!”  “Don’t worry about that mistake, just keep trying.”  “Good hustle.”  Men show love by showing respect to each other.  Women on the other hand, show love through intimate relationship.  Think of a Bunko group, or a group of girls shopping at the mall, there is a lot of face-to-face conversation, sitting close, eye contact, and sharing of emotions.  They don’t say, “Wow, what a great bunko!” or “Wow, you paid for that skirt like a champ!” because they don’t share love in that way.

Are you ready for this?  This is the beauty of God and his design.  He calls us to share love to our spouses in ways that are counter-intuitive to our ways of communicating love.  He calls women to show love to their spouse by respecting and affirming them.  He calls men to show love to their spouses by emoting with them, and showing love in a face-to-face, talk about feelings kind of way.  These are the exact opposite of how we know how to communicate love.  Why is that?  Because God wants us to be completely and totally concerned with the other persons needs, and put their needs above our own.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Kind of like the way all Christians should act towards each other, right?  Philippians 2:4-5 says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interest, but also to the interest of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” That passage of course goes on to pinpoint that Jesus’ attitude was that of a humble servant, and not one of trying to get his way.  We as Christians are all called to treat other people with humility and service.  Why would it be any different in marriage?

Marriage is a theological institution and it should be viewed as a ministry, where you have the opportunity to serve someone selflessly 24:7 in the name of Christ.

Thanks for reading.

The surgery was a great success!  The doctor said that it was a text book surgery.  I’m at home now resting.  At the moment I’m laid out on the couch watching CMT Top 20 Countdown…which I know for some of you sounds awful, but I like country music – so it’s not so bad.

This was actually a new experience for me.  Believe it or not, this was the first surgery I’ve had in my coherent life.  The last surgery I had I was two months old.  Ironically, that surgery was for a hernia as well.  We learned yesterday from the doctor that the hernia that I had this time was the same one that I’d had when I was a baby.

Anyways, I say all of that to say that coming out from the anesthesia was a first for me.  People had told me that it would be a strange experience, but I had no idea it was going to be like that.  The nurse anesthetist came in and gave me the “cocktail” and as he wheeled me to the O.R. he asked me how I was feeling.  I remember saying, “A little woozy.”  I remember going into the O.R. and thinking it was cold.  That’s about it.  The next thing I remember was trashing around in my bed, not able to open my eyes, and several voices saying, “Calm down, Lance.”  “Lance, be still.”  “Tell us what you need, Lance.”

It was the most unusual/frightening/confusing experience of my life.  My brain was telling me that I needed to be still, because if I would just be still and calm down, then the pain wouldn’t be as bad.  However, all I could do was thrash around in my bed saying, “Pain.”  It seemed like that lasted for a few minutes until the nurse could get some morphine in me.  Once I got that I’m pretty sure I just passed out for a couple of hours before finally waking up.

Now I’m home and on the road to recovery.  The worst part is that I can’t play basketball for 4-6 weeks!  That’s awful!  Playing basketball is my primary source of exercise.  I play at least twice a week, sometimes three.  Hopefully it will go by quickly. 

Well, I know I’m not the best blogger out there but I guess when you have something that you want bathed in prayer you use all modes of communication.

Tomorrow morning (January 29^th) I’ll be having a laparoscopic surgery to repair a hernia in my lower abdomen.  I have to be at the surgery center at 7:00am tomorrow morning.  If you would please lift me up in prayer tomorrow morning, I would greatly appreciate it!

About a year ago, I noticed this spot on my lower abdomen that was slightly more – what’s the right word – bulged (?) than the other side of my abdomen.  When I say slightly more I mean the next time I looked for it I couldn’t see it.  I told Taylor about it and she of course asked me if I was in pain.  I wasn’t – and I haven’t been since.  About 3 months ago I went to the doctor to start taking allergy shots, and while I was there I had him look at it because I was getting worried it was a mass in abdomen and not a hernia.

He took one look at it and said, “Oh yeah, that’s a hernia.  That’s probably not the news you wanted to hear?”  I was actually quite relieved because I was afraid it was a tumor of some kind.  Then the doctor said, “Well, here’s the deal.  You could probably live the rest of your life with this hernia, and it wouldn’t bother you one bit.  However, there is a chance that the intestine would push on through the abdominal wall and then get pinched off and you’d be in serious pain, and in lots of trouble.  Now, given the nature of your job, I’m going to recommend you have surgery so that that doesn’t happen when you’re either on top of a mountain, or in Mexico on a mission trip and there is not clean health care anywhere to be found.”

I looked right at him and said, “Where do I sign?”

Fortunately for me this is a simple procedure that this surgeon has done hundreds (possibly even thousands) of times.  It will be a quick procedure and I should be back to myself in a couple of weeks.  Most people that I’ve talked to that have had this surgery say they were back to their old self in just a few days.  Bonny (our office manager) told me that her teenage son had one and wanted to go to a friend’s house just a few hours after the surgery.  So I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine.

Please keep me in your prayers.  I’ll post again soon and let everyone know how it went.  Thanks in advance for your prayers.

Well, NCYM is over…and now the journey begins.  First of all let me say that I absolutely LOVED my time at NCYM.  I very much enjoyed the speakers, and the worship, and the classes…but most of all I enjoyed being around all of my friends.  It was such a blessing to be refreshed and encouraged in ministry by other ministers.  I am looking forward to youth ministry in 2010 and beyond.

At the moment (9:45 AM) I am sitting in the airport at a laptop station catching up on emails, and waiting for a flight I may never get on.  I elected to travel standby for this trip (since my mom works for Southwest…it seemed like a good economical choice) but I’m learning that I will never again travel standby unless I am totally content to wait. 

My journey to St. Louis was over 13 hours long (I’m pretty sure I could’ve driven it in 13 hours).  I left my house at 7:00 AM on Monday morning and arrived to the hotel in St. Louis at 7:50 PM.  I arrived at Love Field in Dallas at 8:00 AM to catch the 8:50 flight to St. Louis.  It was booked solid.  So I walked down the hall to the next gate for a flight that was leaving at 9:50.  It too was booked solid.  I tried my luck on one more flight (the 10:50)…it too was booked solid.

I finally opted to fly to Oklahoma City and wait for a flight from there to St. Louis.  So I flew (at 1:00 PM) to Oklahoma City.  I sat in the airport for 4 hours waiting for my flight to St. Louis. 

The good news there is that I downloaded this new app on my iphone called ESPN Radio.  It allowed me to listen to the 103.3 ESPN radio (the Dallas Sports Talk station) in the Oklahoma airport.  I sat for four hours listening to the GAC (Galloway And Company) Show in its entirety before I boarded the plane for St. Louis.

I say all of that to say….this day is already showing signs that it’s going to be the same way…which means it’s very probable that I’m going to miss the National Championship game.

So, say a prayer for me today….not that I get home quickly, but that I reflect his glory while my patience is being tested.  Although, I wont be upset if you pray for a speedy trip home too.  

Be blessed.

Yeah, yeah….I know what you’re thinking.  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to post.  Life has been somewhat crazy.  I apologize for not keeping up with my blog.  This post will be short.

I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Saint Louis, MO.  I am at a youth ministry conference called NCYM (National Conference on Youth Ministry).  I have loved every minute of it too!  I’ve had the privilege of sitting at the feet of great teachers, being surrounded by old friends, and encouraged by mentors.  These few days that I’ve had at NCYM have been a tremendous blessing.  Praise God for the faithful work he’s done in me, my ministry, my marriage, and my church family.  I feel incredibly blessed to be able to call myself a child of the Most High King.  I feel humbled to know that I am carrying the banner of love for His sake, not mine.  I admit that I’m not perfect, but I cling to that which is perfect, so that His power would be shown in my weakness.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of this ministry.  I am truly blessed.  I pray that you would continue to shower your blessings down on me, my wife, and my church family.  I pray that you would open our eyes to see the people who need us.  Help us to be molded more into the image of Christ with every breath that we take. -Amen

Have a blessed day!

Well, life has been kind of a roller coaster lately.  The last time I posted it was the day after an AWESOME Sunday morning where we sent our wonderful Hispanic minister to Fort Worth with blessing and praise!  We spent that Sunday morning worshipping in two languages and it was beautiful.  Life has been busy, busy since then.  It almost seems like a short eternity ago since we had that Sunday.  I’ll try to fill you in on the highlights.

Sunday, September 20^th was a great day in my life.  I’ll start by talking about how my wife is the coolest wife ever!  This Sunday marked the first of three Christmas gifts I’d been given from the previous Christmas.  Sunday, September 20^th was the grand opening the Boss Hog Bowl (New Dallas Cowboys Stadium) in Arlington, and I had a ticket!  My lovely wife got tickets for me, and I was able to attend the opening game of the inaugural season in the new Cowboys stadium.  The place is immaculate, simply immaculate.  It’s unlike any other sporting venue I’ve ever seen.  Sadly, the Cowboys lost that game to the New York Giants 33-31, but it was still an awesome experience to be there.  Pretty much I have the coolest wife ever.  I also attended the 2^nd game of the season on (Monday night September 28^th) when the Cowboys played the Carolina Panthers.  They won that game.  I still have one more game left, and it’s currently scheduled for Sunday December 13^th against the San Diego Chargers.  Hopefully they’ll win that game as well.

Speaking of the Boss Hog Bowl, our small group from church also toured the stadium.  It was awesome.  Our tour guide was an architect that helped design the whole place.  Check out my wife’s blog to look at pictures from that day.

Our youth group took on a new project.  We are currently trying to raise $4,800 to dig a well for a community of people in India.  We are accepting donations of any amount at https://championsforindia.org/legacyyouth but $7.77 is enough of a donation to give one person clean water for the next 30 years.  I plan to write another blog dedicated to just that project with statistics and information.  Check back for more info on that.

Our junior high group had a retreat the weekend of October 16^th & 17^th.  It was on the theme of being called by God.  We studied different characters from the Bible that God called to do difficult things.  Our main verse came from Isaiah 43:1 where God says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.”  We talked about how God calls us, by name, to a deeper relationship with Him.  We talk about how God calls us to be Jesus in this world, and the implications of what it means to be Jesus.  We went to Buffalo Ridge Ranch in Whitney, Texas (the camp was formerly Iron Springs Christian Camp) and spent just one night there.  We woke up Saturday morning in silence (which was quite a challenge for middle schoolers) but we spent that morning in silence as we prepared for the morning, and spent the morning reading scripture and praying.  We spent several times during the day in class time, but we also took a break to go to the swing and spent some time swinging.  It was a fun retreat!

Well that pretty well sums up the major events of the last (almost) 2 months.  Hopefully it won’t be two months until I post again.

Thanks for reading.

This past Sunday was a phenomenal Sunday!  We were blessed to have Manuel Calderon give us the vision of the Siempre Familia Iglesia de Cristo.  Manuel has served at Legacy for a short while as our Hispanic outreach minister.  He and his family are awesome, and we are incredibly blessed to have them.  The elders at Legacy have charged Manuel this past Sunday to be a local missionary for the Fort Worth Hispanic community.  The Calderons and a team of Hispanic missionaries are working to make an eternal difference on the Hispanic community living in the Fort Worth area.

We had the privilege of worshiping with the members from the Siempre Familia Iglesia de Cristo this past Sunday.  In fact, we had a bilingual worship service!  It was so awesome to gather around the table and hear the scriptures being read in Spanish.  It was moving to hear the prayers being lifted up in both Spanish and English to the same God – our God!  It was awesome to hear 1000 people singing in both Spanish and English.  It was especially awesome for me because I was leading the singing that morning.  I was blessed to be able to lead alongside Javier Leon (one of the missionaries for the Siempre Familia Iglesia de Cristo).

If you were here Sunday morning you know how awesome of a day it was.  It was a realization of the greater body that is the Lord’s Church.  I think as humans we often forget that the body of Christ spreads beyond whatever language we speak, or whatever skin tone we have.  The Lord’s body is world-wide and is made up of every people, nation, tribe, and tongue.  What a blessing it was to be reminded of the reconciling power of Christ’s blood, that all languages and people were created and are loved by the same God.

We also started our morning with a baptism.  Annika Burns, one of our sweet 7^th grade young ladies, was baptized this past Sunday morning.  She is a sweet young lady with an even sweeter heart.

We also witnessed the baby blessing of Caden Jake McCormick.  Collin and Marisa McCormick left Legacy right at a year ago to work in Germany, and have lived there for the past year.  While they were over there they were blessed with a baby boy.  Collin, Marisa and Caden were at church on Sunday and we were able to bless them.

I must say that I’m an awful blogger.  For those of you who check my blog on a regular basis, you know what’s coming.  I’m sorry.  I don’t mean to be a lazy blogger, I just don’t know what to say when I sit down to do it.  I’m trying to work on that skill, so bear with me.

Well, today I am at home because our dog Buddy is having what I believe to be back spasms.  When he walks he does so with a limp, and he keeps his back legs lower than the rest of his legs.  It started last night when Taylor got home from church.  She called me in a panic because Buddy was crying and couldn’t get comfortable.  We gave him some baby aspirin last night and put him in his bed and he laid perfectly still and went right to sleep.  This morning he seemed to be doing ok, but was still limping.  We gave him another aspirin and I stayed home to take care of him.  I took him outside to go to the bathroom and he seemed to do fine (he hiked his leg and all) but when we came back inside he tried to lay down and cried in every position he tried to lay in.  So I put him in his bed and called the vet.  We have an appointment at one.  Hopefully he’ll be better soon.

Last night I taught the youth group class.  Normally I lead singing and Jason does the lessons, but we reversed the roles last night.  In three weeks, we are going to kick off a mission project, and we wanted to get the kids pumps primed.  We are going to be partner with an organization called, “Champions for India” and we’re going to bring a fresh water pump to a community of people in India that do not have fresh water.  I’ll post more about that later.

Anyways, last night we talked about seeing the harvest that is in front of us.  I put several of those optical illusion pictures up on the screen and asked the teens what they saw.  Was it an old lady or a young lady?  Two young couples or two old couples?  People talking or pillars?  You get the idea.  I talked about how in all these pictures there are actually two things to see, but that you have to train your eyes to see both of them.  Then I put up a picture of a pile of trash.  When I asked the kids what they saw they said, “trash.”  I said, “You’re right!  But to someone else, like the homeless, this pile of trash is actually home.”  We looked at several pictures of teenagers that, on the outside at least, looked like they had it together.  At a first glance they were just everyday teenagers, but then we looked deeper and saw the hurt they were experiencing.  We learned of the struggle to smoke pot and drink.  We learned of the problems of being in a sexually abusive relationship.  We learned of the hurt of parents getting a divorce in the midst of being the all-state quarterback. 

Jesus asked Simon a profound question in the middle of Simons dinner party that was being disrupted by a prostitute.  This prostitute had come in and was making a scene during this party by weeping over Jesus feet, and wiping his feet with her hair.  Everyone in the room was offended except Jesus.  Jesus then turned to Simon and said, “Simon, do you see this woman?” 

What?!?  Do I see this woman?  I can only imagine that Simon was thinking, “Of COURSE I see this woman Jesus!  Who doesn’t see this woman?”

But that’s not what Jesus was asking. 

Jesus was asking Simon, “Do you see this woman?”  Jesus wanted to know if Simon saw this woman like Jesus saw her.  There was a tremendous opportunity for Simon and he was more concerned about his own life, his own party, his own agenda…to notice the lost soul standing right in front of him.

When Jesus was sending out the seventy-two in Luke chapter 10 he said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”

Do you see the harvest?  Do you see the harvest?  Do you notice those who are around you that are searching desperately for truth because their lives are in total chaos.  Do you see the hurt and the marginalized?  Do you see the harvest ready to be reaped or do you just see people who probably wouldn’t care anyways?

 Open your eyes and see the harvest.

We are here and in full swing at camp Cornerstone.  Last night we had the joy of listening to Bean and Bailey perform.  They were quite funny.  Gary Southerland (our speaker for the week) has been bringing us powerful messages about being authentic in our relationship with God.  Every time I see our kids they have smiles on their faces and seem to be having a blast.  I’ll be sure to post pictures soon.

Thanks for the prayers.  Our teens are making new friends, connecting with old friends, and growing closer to each other as well as to God.  It’s a blessing to watch.  Keep them up!  We are feeling their effects.

I’ll post some pictures tonight.

Have a blessed day!

Lance

Well we are through the first morning and we are uber excited about our groups and the classes. So far the teens have been assigned to groups and are still in the “getting to know you” phase of camp. Gary Southerland from Jacksonville, Florida is our speaker. He is doing a great job. Keep praying for us.

I’ll post pictures soon!

God Bless.

Lance Parrish
Sent from my iPhone