Hi folks.  Just a quick note to let you know that I’m still alive and kicking.  

This summer has been busy.  Since my last post, my family moved into a new house (Yeah, a house, not an apartment.  Woohoo!), my son had a minor surgery, and we’ve said goodbye to a number of friends who have moved away due to deployments and other things.

For the past three weeks I’ve been serving as a solo pastor at church, while Pastor Mike and family has been in Germany.  I’ll be finishing a month-long sermon series on the person and work of Jesus next weekend.

I’ll probably fall off the face of the planet again for the next few weeks, but I anticipate making some personal changes in the next few weeks that will allow my blogging actively to increase again shortly.  We’ll see.

Blessings!

Moriah Mae Flack. Born Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 8:05 a.m. Measuring 8 lbs 1 oz, and 21 inches long. Woohoo!

Recently, a new friend has been sharing with me some of the issues that come in dealing with her diabetes.

My son, Elijah, is sick with an inner-ear infection that required my wife, Diana, to make an ER visit on Sunday during church.

Diana herself is 25-weeks pregnant, and saw her obstetrician yesterday; this pregnancy that has had a number of issues that have made us nervous.

I’m just getting over an upper respiratory infection that required me to get myself to an urgent care clinic on Saturday.

All of this medical-related stuff has prompted me to be thinking about health and wellness quite a bit lately, and I have come to a few conclusions.

First, health is really important. Obviously this isn’t a true surprise to anyone reading this, but relatively few of us truly live our lives in a way that highlights being healthy as one of our core intents. Our lack of commitment to live active lifestyles betrays our knowledge of the simple things it takes to be healthy in general. In America, we have a higher average lifespan than ever, but our quality of life (distinct from our quality of lifestyle) is lower, in a sense. We aren’t dying due to many of the things that used to kill us; now we just suffer through chronic conditions. Most of these conditions are things that can be prevented by proper diet and exercise, but that seems to be too much for many people to bother with. As Christians, we recognize that our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. Just like many churches who focus far too much on growing their facility, many of us have undertaken a “building expansion project” on our temples. In America, where food and processed “food products” are abundant, we’ve forgotten that what we consider a basic meal would have been considered gluttony by a first century believer. Beyond that, portions that we should still consider gluttony today are common. It’s a sad state of affairs when a national restaurant chain, launches an advertising campaign touting a special new menu with “smaller portion entrees.” We truly live in a land of excess.

Second, I am more interested in my health than ever before. I think that having kid(s) has made me realize that I’m not a kid myself anymore, and thus, I’m responsible for my health. It isn’t just that I need to take care of myself because no-one else is going to, but also because, God forbid, if something were to happen to me it would be incredibly hard on Diana, Elijah, and our little girl on-the-way. The reality that I care about my own health more now than in years past is shown in the fact that I went to the urgent care immediately upon finding myself sick. In the past, I’d try to “man-up” and just suffer through it, which is a stupid-yet-common way men deal with illness. I also find myself, through work at the hospital and articles on the Internet, reading a fair amount of material relating to healthcare and preventative medicine. In fact, I’m not just reading it, but I’m being convicted by it, and that leads me to my last conclusion.

Third and finally, I’m horribly unhealthy. I could say that I’m big boned, or overweight, but the reality is that I’m obese. I’ve struggled with weight since, as a kid, I quit playing hockey and baseball, and became a computer geek. Over the past few years I’ve relaxed some of my computer geek focus to become a theology geek. I love being a geek, but generally the concentration and commitment involved in earning geek cred involves sitting on one’s rear and reading lots of stuff so as to internalize it in such a way that is can be brought back up and interacted with at will. As a byproduct of that information intake process, I also often took part in a caloric intake process that included sugary drinks and high carbohydrate and fatty snacks. While I was in college I also was a cook at the college’s cafeteria, and that job helped me pack on the weight as much as anything. Since getting out of college, and moving up here, I’ve managed to pack on a few more pounds as well. Between being a new father, the ministry, the job, and a variety of other things, I’ve been keeping crazy hours and using caffeine to augment my natural abilities. I’ve told myself that because I have ADHD, and some studies have shown that caffeine helps people with ADHD that it’s no problem that I drink Jolt, Amp, and all those fun calorie-filled drinks. But in truth, I’m just addicted. It’s enough to kill a guy. Literally.

So those are my three conclusions. It’s a damning scenario I’ve managed to get myself into, and I do take responsibility for my actions (read: sins) that have gotten me this far into physical bankruptcy. I can’t continue like this. I’m convicted about it. And as Mark Driscoll has said (paraphrasing a bit) the only correct response to conviction is repentance.

It’s impossible for someone to snap their fingers and end years of bad habits and addiction in the strength of their own flesh. However, as Romans 8:13 says, I intend to yield to the Holy Spirit and in doing so, put to death the deeds of my body. I’m submitting to Christ in an area of my life that I now realize I never have before, something not just temporal (as in unhealthy food) but spiritual (as in food being an idol) as well. That said, I ask for the prayers of my friends and other readers, that I would successfully yield to God, end my food idolatry, and begin the long process of getting healthy.

Many of you who read this know that October has been designated “Pastoral Appreciation Month” by some random group of individuals. The same group of greeting card industry executives who created Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and Grandparents Day probably created it, but I digress.

October is supposed to be a thirty-one day span of time in which Christians go out of their way to bless and encourage the spiritual overseers God has given to the Church. In general I’ve always enjoyed Pastoral Appreciation Month. I’ve been fortunate to sit under the teaching of a number of respectable pastors over the years, so blessing them during this time of the year was always a delight.

Last November I was installed as a Pastor at North Country Fellowship. That means that this October it was a new paradigm: I was on the receiving side.

Many of the common gifts for Pastors include ties, pens, and Bibles. All are good gifts, but ties aren’t me at all. A number of people in the church know that I have more Bibles than the local Christian bookstore. Actually, I did get an incredibly cool engraved pen, and I love it! However, the church didn’t just stop there… They blessed not just me, but my whole family; Diana, Elijah, and our baby-on-the-way.

The church bought us a 1998 Buick LeSabre with 50,000 miles.

It. Is. Totally. Incredible.

Diana and I had been praying about how we would be able to fit two baby seats and two adults into a ‘96 Neon. We hadn’t really told anyone we were concerned, but we just weren’t sure how we were going to make it happen since we don’t have the cash to buy a new car right now.

We are so blessed…

Diana had the twenty-week ultrasound today. From what they could see everything looks good, but the baby was in a funny position. Diana will have to go back in four to six weeks.

We did find out one interesting tidbit… We’re having a girl!

Yes, despite rumors to the contrary, I’m still alive and kickin’. Barely.

Summer was awesome, actually. Diana and I moved into a new apartment, I preached a number of sermons including a series in the book of Jonah, and best of all, we found out we are expecting again! (Prayers are welcome, especially considering our history of miscarriage, and the fact that Diana is supposed to be on bed-rest right now because of some issues we’ve encountered…)

August was going to be the big posting month of the summer for me, but it didn’t happen. The server this site was housed on was hacked, my site as well as a number of other church and ministry sites were toasted. It took the web hosting company quite some time to get things going on a new server, relocated to a new data center a couple thousand miles away from the last one. I was frustrated by the wait, but that’s how things go sometimes.  I’ve tried to recreated the posts that were lost between the last backup and the day the site died; I didn’t lose much because I never post!

Maybe it’s God’s way of telling me I’m not cut out to be a blogger, but September is set to be busier than ever. I’d like to post more than I have been (I say this every six months), but I’m not going to sweat it if that doesn’t happen either, mainly because Calvin is the only one who reads this anyway, and he just started his MDiv at Gordon Conwell.

Anyway, I’m still alive, and busy working and ministering in the North Country. Post a comment if you see this and you aren’t Calvin.

A verse from the book of Job:

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (ESV)

I have certainly never endured trials comparable in intensity to those which Job endured, but I empathize with his story now more than I did a week ago.

In the midst of a painful situation that has left me broken, this verse speaks to me… and despite because of my brokenness, I’ve found that I trust God more than I did a week ago, too.

Blessed be the name of the LORD.