On water stations and the value of Christ

When I was in high school I ran a 10k with my older sister and our aunt. Well, ran is a broad term here – our aunt ran the race (literally in circles around us) while my sister and I dragged ourselves from one water station to the next. For those unfamiliar with distance running, water stations are blessed little oases located in strategic spots along the race course where volunteers hand out small paper cups of water and Gatorade to passing runners. Our aunt, an experienced long distance runner, was well conditioned and focused on finishing the race. To her, the water stations were simply little stops on the way to the finish line. To us, each water station might as well have been the finish line. Whenever we, red-faced and gasping for sweet oxygen, made it to one station, every ounce of our being bore down on the task of getting to the next one.

That race seems to have been a microcosm of my life to date. Just like my sister and I focused only as far as the next water station, I find that I often look only as far forward as the next tangible milestone in my life. Just gotta graduate. Just gotta get a job. Just gotta get married. Just gotta have kids. Just gotta get a house. Just gotta, just gotta, just gotta. Things will be better once this or that is accomplished. Life will be complete. The race is finished at the next water station.

I find that I need to check myself more often than I want to admit and ask a question maybe everyone should ask: am I letting God’s gift of “real life” water stations distract me from the “real life” finish line of God himself? In Philippians 3:7-11, the apostle Paul said he considered everything to be trash compared to the value of knowing – truly knowing – Jesus Christ.

In Philippians 3:12-15 he goes on to say this: “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s eyes were on the finish line of Christ, not on the passing water stations of life. Are mine? Are yours?

Until He returns,

Lane

Home

I’m writing this as I sit in our beautiful new house. Designed and built by incredibly skilled and goodhearted professionals (not to mention the many selfless and hardworking volunteers), it was completely paid for by hundreds of donors. What was left of our house payment that wasn’t covered by the fundraiser was paid for by anonymous donors. We moved into our debt free home this past Saturday with the help of many dear friends and family. Time and writing space would fail me to attempt to acknowledge all who made this house a possibility, but suffice it to say that God has worked in the hearts of many people to supply our every need, as He promised in His Word.

July 22, 2013 – the summer after our accident – found us rolling back and forth between my rehab hospital room and the emergency room next door for various and sundry reasons. July 22, 2017 found us rolling back and forth between our little old apartment of three years and our new house of however many years the Lord allows, moving everything we own (I had no idea we had so much stuff) into our new home.

Nyra is having the time of her life running around and exploring our new abode. I think she especially likes the extra running room (our house has a lot of wide open space to make it wheelchair accessible) and the elevator I use to get to and from the basement (Nyra calls it the alligator, so we do, too). I’m looking forward to watching Nyra grow up in a little country town, where the smell of cow farms blows through the corn fields as you wave to your neighbors on the way to church.  

There’s something about Saint Johns, something about this house, that gently whispers “home.” We are immensely grateful for his place, and so relieved to finally have a place to call our own, but ultimately this is not our home.

So where is home? Some would say home is wherever you lay your head at night, while others hold to that old saying “home is where the heart is.” When Emily and I were living in hospitals together that first year after our accident, we were fond of saying that home was wherever we could be together. Still others, perhaps those more established in a certain house or neighborhood, have a specific, tangible place to point to and say “this is my home.” While there is some element of truth in all these thoughts, the ultimate truth is found in the Bible, God’s letter to us. It’s there that God tells us where home truly is.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ as the one and only way to eternal life in paradise, your true home is in heaven. This is true both now as you walk this earth, and that glorious day when you leave this world and dance into the one God made for you. If Jesus is anything less to you than God’s Son, the Savior of the world, then what you see around you right now is the closest to home you will ever be. Whether you find the message of the cross liberating, offensive or irrelevant, Jesus is who He is, and He is the only way to the home we were all created for.

Where is your true home? Your reception or rejection of Jesus as your Savior will determine that. He waits for you with open arms and an open, albeit narrow, door. 

Work Update

Last summer I wrote about looking for work. The response was immediate and I lost count of all the suggestions, references and offers. I’ve been meaning to post an update since then, but apparently my time management skills aren’t advanced enough to both work and keep this blog up to date…

 One of the opportunities presented to me was a chance to write blog articles for Smart Barn, a company that creates and provides wireless monitoring systems for the agriculture industry. The owner and staff were and have been gracious in working with me from the start despite my lack of education or experience (especially considering that my farming knowledge doesn’t exceed singing “Old MacDonald” with Nyra).

They also set me up with a freelancing website called Upwork, through which I’ve been able to find small writing jobs here and there to gain experience and build a portfolio. Thus far I haven’t been raking in the dough by any means, but I’m gaining experience like a college freshman gains weight. Experience doesn’t pay bills, I know, but I’ve learned the hard way what every young man hates to learn: there is no such thing as “fast money” for people willing to earn it honestly (Jed Clampett ain’t real, y’all).

Since I was a kid I’ve always had this dream of going out into the world every day from 9-5 to slay dragons and bring home the bacon for my wife and kids. I think that desire to provide (however exaggerated the dream) is good, right and grounded in the Word of God. But when God in His wisdom saw fit to take away my ability to work at all (much less to provide for my family), my lifelong assumption that I would always be my family’s breadwinner and bodyguard was smashed to pieces like so many other things were.
But I’m learning that, although His provision often looks different than we expect or may desire, God always provides what we need (Luke 12:22-31). For the past four years, He’s provided for us through insurance, Emily’s job(s), and the generosity of friends and strangers. We’re confident in His faithful and continued provision, whatever it looks like.

But I’m also really enjoying being able to work again.

-Lane

Thankful

As I write this on Thanksgiving Day, a number of things come to mind for which we are thankful. I’m not going to take the time to write them all out (though that’s probably a good thing to do now and again), but thought it might be good to share a couple things here.

We’re thankful to look back on the past year and see God’s provision for us. I don’t mean just with the house and the fundraiser and insurance, etc. All of that has been God providing for us, no question. But we’ve seen his provision for us in so many other ways this year as well. Emily’s job, our apartment now, a fantastic caregiving agency, a new and effective rehab facility, to name some of the more obvious things.

Mainly I wanted to write to tell you how thankful we are for you all. We’re thankful for you praying for us, supporting us, following us through these first few years of life with a disability. Thank you.

Lane

Approved

We got an email today from my case manager about the house. Know what it said? The home modifications we submitted to insurance are going to be covered 100%!

After having to wait for two months to hear back about whether or not insurance would pay for the modifications necessary for the house to accommodate my disability, we were relieved and elated to hear today they will cover all we asked them for! We had been worried because there was always a good chance they would only accept a portion of what we proposed (or flat out deny us all of it).

With this new development, not only has an enormous weight been lifted off our shoulders, but we’re one big step closer to finally having a house! The fundraiser that our dear friends put on for us is now in the second phase – check out the latest update on homeforlane.com.

Thank you so much for your faithful prayers. God has been teaching us a lot through our circumstances – the easy ones and the tough ones. He’s been teaching but we haven’t always been learning. Would you pray for our humility and contentment in whatever God gives us (or doesn’t give us)? I guess it’s hard to learn if you don’t think you need to…

Peace out,
Lane

Work

When our accident happened, I was just twenty-one years old with only a few “real” jobs under my belt: I had done plenty of work in my life, but only had three jobs that required me to fill out a tax form. Because of this, I didn’t earn enough work credits then to qualify for disability income now.
We’re so thankful for Emily’s job as a nurse, because God has provided for us through it. But we really don’t prefer that she’s our only source of income. I want to work. I miss working for us. Emily is remarkable at being a selfless wife and mother in addition to being the breadwinner, she’s just great. But that’s an awful lot to ask of anybody, especially considering that she also does the majority of my care.  For all these reasons, I’ve been looking (unsuccessfully) for work for the past couple of years.
A physical disability as severe and extensive as mine obviously limits the options for employment; I can’t do anything that requires arms, legs or lots of talking. My physical limitations wouldn’t be as much of an issue if they were offset by a marketable education. But, though I don’t feel insufficiently educated, beyond high school I only have an unaccredited Bible degree to my name.
I’m not posting this to complain, but to present my situation with honesty and humbly ask if you know of any jobs I might be qualified for. I can skillfully write, edit, and proofread; words are my thing, and I know how to handle them well. I have also been learning the basics of website design via WordPress, and am willing and able to do or learn anything else computer-or-word-related, online or offline.
I realize my list of skills isn’t very impressive, but if you have or know of any sort of work I could do, would you please contact me? My email address is lanebargeron@gmail.com, or you can send us a message on Facebook.
Love you guys.
Lane

Walkie-Talkie

Folks, our daughter walks. I use the term “walk” loosely, because she hasn’t quite figured out how to effectively use her hips yet. It’s more of an unsteady duck-footed march, endearingly hilarious to watch. There’s simply no stopping her now. She’s a tiny toddling bulldozer scooping up and trying to eat anything she can get her hands on.
Her vocabulary portfolio has also increased exponentially since I last wrote. In addition to her ever-increasing arsenal of animal sounds she says please, thank you, Pops (my dad), Papa (Emily’s dad), Daddy, Mommy, sings Jesus Loves Me (“Yeth, eeth, mee!”), and a hundred other things I won’t bore you by listing.
Speaking of speaking, Emily and I have been sobered and almost a little intimidated to see just how closely Nyra pays attention and copies us. As any parent can testify, it’s amazing and uncanny how a tiny pair of eyes and ears can put us on our best behavior whenever they’re around. Being a parent means being an example. Our girl is going to do what we do whether we like it or not. We’re so thankful that Jesus, the Ultimate Example, is also Jesus the Graceful Enabler, because it’s evident that in our own strength we couldn’t teach her anything but two-faced selfishness. For that reason we’re thankful that Jesus is our life and salvation and everlasting hope. Emily and I pray every day that Nyra will know Him as this from a young age, as we were blessed to do.
We’re finding that as we’re raising our child, God is raising us, His children. When Nyra looks me right in the eye and deliberately disobeys me, her earthly father, it’s a tiny picture of my natural bent to do the same to my heavenly Father. But likewise, the time I enjoy snuggling with her while she drinks her milk before bed reminds me that I can call God “Daddy” and find rest in Him because of what Christ accomplished on the cross.
Thank You Jesus for making me a daddy. Thank you Jesus for giving me Your Daddy.

House Update

We realized last night it’s been a long time since we’ve posted anything about our house. I’ll give a quick update: we’re building!

We always knew it’d be most ideal to build a house, but were ultimately turned off by the greater cost and the sheer logistics of it all. So for months we searched for an already-built home we’d be able to modify, but found there are few if any sufficient to meet our unique needs. Recently however, a local builder reached out to offer his services at a greatly discounted price. A group of our friends have also come together to assist us with much of the logistical side of things, also providing us with their skills and services for a fraction of what they’re worth.

Between the fundraiser, the discounts, and what Michigan no-fault auto insurance will assist us with, Emily and I are able to see this home as more of an attainable reality than ever before!

Our long search for a house has now become a search for land on which to build a house. We’re so very thankful for all the help we have received and are receiving with what we quite simply would otherwise be unable to do on our own. To God be the glory!

More than you can handle

When Emily and I got in an accident with a semi truck, it left me with a traumatic brain injury. When all of our life plans were shattered in a split second, my view of God was changed. The God I once thought I had all figured out turned out to be much bigger than I’d been giving Him credit for. He showed me the woeful insufficiency of the little box I’d made for Him. Before our accident, I was convinced God would never give me more than I could handle because He loved me. After our accident, when I became unable to control my body or talk like I used to, I’ve become convinced  that God has given me more than I can handle precisely because He loves me. God loves me – and you – enough to use hard things to push us into the best place we could possibly be: His loving embrace.
In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul said God gave him “thorn in the flesh”. He called it “a messenger from Satan sent to torment me – to keep me from exalting myself.” It’s unclear what specifically Paul was referring to, but based on the context, and what we’re told of his life in the book of Acts, it’s safe to assume he was given some sort of physical infirmity. Many scholars believe it was blindness, others speculate it may have been a speech disorder or chronic pain. We aren’t told for certain, but Paul said he pleaded with God three times to take away whatever it was. God answered with these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” God gave Paul more than he could handle to show His great, sufficient grace to Paul, and to others through Paul.

Sometimes God does give us more than we can handle, but it’s a far greater gift than any sort of physical security or tangible luxury. He gives us hard things so we can better see His grace. He gives us more than we can handle so we have no choice but to fall into the safety of His arms. The little phrase “God will never give you more than you can handle” originates from 1 Corinthians 10:13, which says that God won’t allow us to be tempted beyond what we’re able to resist. He will never put us in a situation where sin is the only option, but He will put His children in situations where His strength shines beautifully through our weakness.

What a grace it is to be given more than you can handle.

Valentine’s Day’s Eve

Alright, so I (we) really want to thank all you folks who were involved with this past Saturday’s benefit dinner. For those of y’all who hadn’t heard, between the dinner and the silent auction, over $7,000 was raised! That is tremendous, you guys. There is a list of names, the length of which I’m sure even we don’t know, full of people who contributed to that night in some way. Whether it was with coordination,  organization, donating items/services for the auction, serving food, washing dishes, babysitting or something else, you know who you are and what you did and we genuinely thank you. We didn’t expect we’d receive that much, but that’s what we were given. Man, guys. Thank you. Really seeing this house as a reality now!

More blogging to come. Stay tuned.

Lane (for my little ladies)