Update

Scherie went through her brain freeze test today.
All went as well as it possibly could, praise God.
No clotting, plaque, stroke, or as the consent form also said: death.
The half that had surgery 30 years ago that is the problem area, has some response, but with it frozen off, she had no loss of memory, vision, thinking, etc.
So she's really not using half her brain.
I knew it. :)

She's a candidate for surgery.

Next is a meeting with the surgeon in June.

This just in...

You know, Z said that I'd get more comments if I answered the ones I get, and it's true!
I answer every comment, and my number of comments have doubled!

We get up at 4 manana and take Scherie in for her brain freeze test.
Had some prayer and word about it.
Can use more.

Hitler Comparisons

From HuffPost:

Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky said during a Sunday homily at St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria that Obama is following previous governments that "tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches."

 

"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care," the (Peoria) Journal Star and Chicago Tribune quoted Jenky as saying during the homily. "In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda – now seems intent on following a similar path."

Bishop Jenky was interviewed on a local Christian talk show yesterday and my wife brought it to my attention. So I tried to find out what she was talking about and found the above.

The Anti-Defamation League has a problem with this and so does the IRS.

Well, the ADL doesn't like comparisons to the Holocaust because they don't want it's impact watered down.

The IRS never comes down on a liberal black pastor (Jeremiah Wright?) who speaks politically or endorses libs from his pulpit.

If you've read Liberal Fascists by Jonah Goldberg (What do I mean "if"? You've certainly read it, right?) you probably saw that the National Socialist Democratic Party (Isn't that a hoot? Our national socialist democratic party calls the Repubs Nazis!) got it's rise in intimidation and "community organizing", during a national economic crisis (Weimar Germany).

The problem with comparing Obama to Hitler is that you're implying that Obama wants to conquer the world and kill the Jews.

What if we take that off the table and specify that, even though Obama is anti-Israel and pro-Arab (ala Hitler), Obama will not invade Czechoslovakia and Poland (yet removes missile defenses from them) and that he will not attempt to corral and kill the Jews (neglect his support of the abortion holocaust)?

Do his tactics and politics emulate those of Hitler? 

National Democrat Socialist. 

This from Wikipedia (of course, just prior to this description they say that the Nazi's were a far right party. Does this sound "far-right"?):

"Initially Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, though such aspects were later downplayed to gain the support of industrial owners for the Nazis, and in the 1930s focus was shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes."

I'm glad some Catholics like Jenky are waking up, after having supported Obama and Obamacare.

Now that they see how it affects their little empire.

Again:

"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care. In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda – now seems intent on following a similar path."

Lying to Congress

This man is on trial for lying to congress. 

 This man is not.

 

Neither are the two people behind him.

Funny thing is:
A Supreme Court Justice
basically called him a liar.

To his face.

In front of Congress.

Good News

I've been reading Steve Graham for years.

He's probably the first blogger I ever read.

And the best.

And I just read some good news.

Epilepsy Journal

Last Wednesday night, my wife was fixing dinner and I was on the couch with the news on TV.

She came over to the couch and sat down next to me and looked at the TV. I asked what she was interested in. She then started exhibiting the seizure she had felt coming on.
I held her and prayed for her. I talked to her to get her attention, telling her how much I love her.
I've found this to be efficacious.

After a few minutes she started to come around.
She had felt it coming on and turned off the burners, but didn't remember coming to the couch.

This was the good kind. The kind where we don't go to the hospital, which have become frequent the last few years.
With that kind, I would hold Scherie and not see her come around, but slowly slide further into the seizure, with foam and choking. I would pray and pray, calling friends to do the same. Then calling 911.

I was going to share what's going on with Scherie sooner, because a number of you have shown concern, but our son on the sub asked to be notified before I publish stuff.

Geez published a post about belief that referenced Mark 9:17:

Mark 9:17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”

When Jesus healed this young man, He did not bother to lecture the crowd on neurology.

Did Jesus cast out a demon or heal a medical condition?
I don't care.
Jesus healed him.

I'd like to have a miracle cure of Scherie, but I'll take a medical one.

Holy Thursday, Scherie got a call from U of M and Good Friday we went to see the neurologist.

An interesting aside:

I've been asking for a couple years now if surgery was a possibility to remove scar tissue from around her previous surgery of 30 years ago that I believed were causing these worse seizures. I was told that the brain doesn't scar.
I also thought that Scherie's seizures were caused by an excess electrical buildup from excitement or stress that could only be discharged by a seizure. I was told that couldn't happen.

On Friday we were told that due to the testing Scherie had gone through, they had located the scar tissue that was causing her problems. And that it can be removed.

I was asked if I had any questions, and I asked one of the top neurologists at U of M about the electrical discharge idea I had.

He looked at me quizzically, like “Where did you ever get an idea like that?”.
What he said was, “If you were 10 years younger, I'd offer you a fellowship.”, that that was one of the latest notions they were pursuing.

So they showed us the latest MRIs of Scherie's brain.
Instead of a golf ball size of brain missing, we saw that almost her entire right temporal lobe had been removed.
This would be about the size of a small fillet running horizontal behind her ear.

We believe most of her functions that resided in that lobe have migrated to her left side.
The trouble areas are at the forward and rearward parts of the removal area.
The forward part is a breeze we were told. No threat of further damage.
The rearward part approaches her occipital lobe, which controls vision.

Friday, Scherie goes in for some extensive vision testing. Everyone is amazed that she exhibits no sign of loss from what was removed already, but they want to verify that.

A week later she gets a WADA test. I don't know what it stands for either.
What they will do is insert a tube like an angiogram. Put a tube in the groin, up through arteries and deliver a phenobarbital type drug to the right hemisphere of her brain, and see how she does without it.

The hope is to see no difference as she's asked reasoning and memory questions.
They'll then do the left hemisphere.
This will give them some indication of how far they can go.

If they feel that the removal of scar tissue at the rear is too dangerous, they may only do the front and see the results after a while, reserving the chance of doing the rear later.

30-40% chance of no seizures if only the front is done.

Back to the prayer issue.

Jesus said “These only come out with much prayer...”

Obviously we're also using a scalpel.

I'm not backing off the prayer though.

The only Barak I trust to deal with Iran

A Night to Remember

Years ago, a movie came out that was called "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" based on a true story of a Titanic survivor.
My parents took us.
My mom told us that her parents just missed being on the Titanic.
I thought, sure.
My sister is into ancestry.
She found our grandparents on both the manifest for the Titanic and the Oceania, and at Ellis.
They missed their connection for the Titanic and had to cross on the Oceania.
Not much of a story, but it's all I've got.

What a country!

Does this imply he's losing?

I know there have been other jabs at Obama by Late Night comedians, but this took some work.
And "Obama" is still not recognized by spell-check.
I love it.

Stupid is as Stupid does

So the Miami Marlins manager (from Venezuela/Chavezland) says that he "loves" Fidel Castro!

That went over well with his fellow Miamians, many of whom fled Castro.

Suspended for five games.

Castro would have had him shot.

In other news today, my head did not explode.

The tension builds.

For the Joy that was set before Him

Hebrews 12:2
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

So what was the joy set before Him?
The text seems to imply that it was to sit down at the right hand of the throne.
That would be joy for me, as I see it.

But He had that before He came to earth.
Why endure the cross to get what He had?
What didn't He have that was worth the cross?

You.
And me.
Us.
His bride.

The night before He died, Jesus had a long talk with His disciples.
He tried to comfort them.
He told them He was going away, and they wanted to know where.

He said He was going to prepare a place for them.

In His Father's house there are many mansions.

Mansion is an old English term that is derived from the French word for home, or dwelling place.

Jesus was going to prepare a place for us to live.

He went to the cross to prepare that place for us, as a bridegroom would.
That dwelling place is where we are to abide.
During that conversation, He also told them that He was the vine and that they were the branches and that they were to abide in the vine.

If they were to abide in the vine, they were to dwell there.

Is it a stretch then to say that our dwelling place that he was preparing was: in the vine?

Our Father's house is His temple.

Peter 2:5
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house

We are to be living stones fitted together with the Chief Cornerstone.

We are the Temple of God.

There's a story, that when Solomon's Temple was being built, the builders saw a stone they didn't recognize and rolled it over the hill, only to discover that it was the cornerstone, and they had to go to the base of the mount and bring it back up.

The Stone that the builders rejected.

In the book of Zechariah there's a verse that says:

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

The early church had a greeting:

He has risen. 

He has risen, indeed.

A Good Friday

I posted this a couple years ago. Updated.
I want to share a cool thing with you.
If you're not a Christian, please read anyway, because it never hurts to have a little information about what those whackos around you believe.
A few people know that Psalm 22 is a description of the crucifixion of Jesus that was written hundreds of years before the event.
David saw it in a vision and it shakes him up so much that he starts out with:
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Many Christians have been taught that, as He was crucified, Jesus was crying this out out to His Father in heaven, because the Father could not bear to look on Jesus, our scapegoat.
That He was separated from the Father.
That Jesus was a curse (and the Father could not be in fellowship with Jesus because it would violate His holiness) because Jesus was carrying the penalty of the sins of the world.
Give me a break.
<< 1 Corinthians 12:3 >> Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed.
Jesus and the Father had this worked out since before the universe was created, and at the last minute The All-Powerful Ruler of More than the Universe flinches?
No.
If the Father and the Son (who with the Spirit are referred to as the "Godhead" in perfect unity) ever separated, I believe the universe would crumble.
As you read the gospels, particularly John's, you see that the Pharisees (some of them, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, were good guys, by the way) were asking Jesus for a sign that he was the Messiah. He continually answered them that when they saw Him lifted up, that would be their sign.
Here He is, lifted up in front of them. He's surrounded by "strong bulls" (prison slang for guards), and the crowd is taunting Him. It's the scene predicted in Psalm 22 .
Then He quotes the first verse.
And they know the rest.
Can you imagine the look on their face when they get it?
Do you get it?