JANUARY 2019 EDITION

On Thursday, February 7, I am having hip replacement surgery.

You can imagine how excited I am! Actually, I am really looking forward to this, as my hip has gotten very painful in the last several weeks. It has hampered my activities and affected my sleep.  For the first time, I have felt all of my seventy-three years! This is very unlike me. I have always answered the question, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” with the response, “Probably in my thirties.” For me, age has been more about attitude than actual years lived.

Now here is the deal about my upcoming surgery. It is my second hip replacement. I had my left hip done in 2005.  I went in the hospital at 5:30 a.m. and left the next day at 10:00 a.m. The hospital staff had me up and walking right after surgery. It was a very easy surgery. I was back playing tennis very rapidly, within about six weeks. Good news! The surgery I am have this time is what I call “Laundry Surgery”, you know, “In by nine, out by five’! Wow!

The only problem with the previous surgery was that I waited too long to have it done. Being a guy, I put it off until I was literally dragging my left leg around. Ten years before an orthopedic doctor told me I should have it done! Reminiscent of the scene from “Monty Python’s Holy Grail”, I would act as if it was “a mere flesh wound.” 

I am pretty good at putting things off. In school, I would always wait until the very last minute to study for a test. I am embarrassed to say that preparation for Young Life club talks would happen the same way. I would say that I worked best under pressure! I do not recommend this way of living.

There is one thing that I would beg you not to put off.

Read what a cautionary thought C.S. Lewis has written               regarding procrastination.

“God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time, it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”

If you have not started a relationship with Christ or if you have let that relationship slide, I beg you; take care of that, please! “Friends don’t let friends die without Jesus!” I love each of you too much not to have at least passed along these thoughts.

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