November 12, 2013

Ladders and Adders, Post #2

This world is full of choices. I read that the average person makes 1200  choices per day.

Push snooze once more? What to wear? Which shoes? To which radio station do I listen?

Go through the yellow light? Drink just one more glass of wine? Take this leap of faith?

Our attitude is a huge daily choice we make.

Some people may call me a Polyanna, a glass-half-full optimist. I sure strive to be. It comes naturally because my precious mom is a beautiful combination of June Cleaver and Jesus rolled up into one genteel, joyful, encouraging, Southern lady.

My mom once told me that we can choose either to be a ladder or an adder. A ladder is someone who lifts people up, encourages them, and even draws them closer to God. An adder, though, is someone with a biting personality, who, like the serpent by the same name, can drain the life out of you. Which are you?

Charlie Cole is a distinguished, brilliant, handsome man. He retired about five years ago as a dynamic banking executive leader, whose territory covered all of South Carolina. Charlie and his bride of 40+ years, Joanne, go to my church.

In June 2008, Charlie and Joanne returned from a wedding and went upstairs to their bedroom to sleep. In the middle of the night Charlie went to the bathroom and fell down the steps. His fall resulted in paralysis as a quadriplegic, confining him to a wheelchair.

Charlie was immediately airlifted to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, where he and Joanne stayed for three months. They returned to Charleston to their new life in their old world. They came home to their beautiful Sullivan’s Island home, already equipped with an elevator. For more than two years Joanne and Charlie tried to navigate fragmented healthcare resources for spinal cord injury patients. Imagine needing a specialized urologist or OB/GYN because you are paralyzed. Imagine needing a Physical and Occupational Therapist to relearn leg and arm muscles to one day, perhaps, walk and even feed yourself again.

Charlie had served since 2002 on the board of our Roper St. Francis Foundation,  Charleston’s great not-for-profit healthcare system. At the time, Roper St. Francis offered no specialized rehabilitation for spinal cord injury patients nor did the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Charlie and Joanne brought awareness to the fact that more than 10,000 spinal cord injury patients live in South Carolina and need better specialized healthcare resources for those who are paralyzed.

Working tirelessly with both Roper St. Francis and MUSC physicians and staff, the Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Roper Hospital was established in June 2011, just three years after Charlie’s injury. As of this writing, close to 200 spinal cord injury patients have been served from all of over the state, since the Center for Spinal Cord Injury is the only collaborative resource of its kind in South Carolina.

I have the pleasure of spending time with Charlie and Joanne weekly as we work together to raise at least $1.5M to endow and sustain the Center for Spinal Cord Injury. Charlie inspires me and everyone he meets. Charlie lives his life intentionally as a tall, tall ladder, not an adder, lifting everyone’s spirits. He turned his “test” into a “testimony” and is truly impacting numerous lives because of it. He brightens every room and heart into which he and his wheelchair roll.

Yes, we have a choice–

To be a victim or a victor of our circumstances.

To be bitter or better because of our circumstances.

To be a Polyanna or a Debby Downer.

To be a ladder or an adder.

The choice is yours.

Reflect:

  • Do you consider yourself to be a ladder or adder? Victim or victor? Bitter or better?
  • What language do you use to speak to yourself or others? Does it build up or tear down?

Renew:

  • “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” –1 Thessalonians 5:11
  •  “But I will sing of Your strength, in the morning I will sing of Your love; for You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.” –Psalm 59:16

Recharge:

  •  Name one different choice you plan to make this week toward being a ladder. How will you accomplish it?
  • Please let me know what you decide to do.

Resource:

November 5, 2013

Loving Your Neighbor, Post #1

Bob turned 95 years old in August. His bright, blue eyes sparkled behind his thick, smudged glasses. His black cardigan sweater was his uniform, soiled with food and drinks missed by his mouth and napkin. His mind was sharp and his sense of humor lightened every setting. His Canon camera hung round his neck always ready to capture each moment.

Bob served as the patriarch of our neighborhood cul-de-sac. Retiring from Chicago as a graphic artist, Bob and his wife Lee paid $50,000 cash in 1986 for his Charleston home to be built. His firm was instrumental in creating the Coca-Cola Santa Claus. More importantly, he created a customized watercolor card for each of us for our birthdays and designed a beautiful pen and ink Charleston scene as his Christmas card each year. He was a legend.  Bob’s wife passed away in 1993 and he never remarried. He lived alone. We as neighbors adopted him.

Both my grandfathers passed away before I was born, so Bob became my surrogate grandfather.   He has four children, three who live in Illinois and one in California. As neighbors we worked together daily to take him meals, remind him to take his medications, drive him to Wal-mart, and take him to the barber shop. My special job was to accompany him with his walker on a stroll several times a week around the cul-de-sac for some sunshine and exercise.

Recently, both Bob and the neighbors realized he was getting too frail and medically dependent to live alone. He and his children decided he would move to Illinois to live with one of the daughters. Bob took the news pretty well and just kept talking about the cold. He slowly began to gather boxes and we helped him pack his most prized possessions, like his photographic scrapbooks, chronicling almost each moment.

On August 2, the neighbors and I threw a 95th birthday and farewell party for Bob at his church along with his children and Optimist Club friends.  In all about 100 people attended. His pastor said it was the first party of its kind he had seen with the person still in the room, still there to hear the sweet accolades instead of waiting until the honored guest had passed away. Bob had no doubt he was loved. He flew to Illinois the same day the moving truck came for his belongings. He didn’t have to see the For Sale sign being put in the front yard.  Bob passed away on September 26th of pneumonia, less than two months after he moved.

My life is so much better for having loved, learned from and laughed with Bob.

Reflect:

  • Who is your Bob (neighbor)?
  • Who can you love on a little more?

Renew:

  • “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” –Mark 12:30, 31.

Recharge:

  • Name one neighbor or person you will intentionally reach out to as we approach this season of Thanksgiving. Perhaps it’s calling and taking a picnic basket to your older neighbor or a loved one in an assisted living facility. Perhaps it’s riding bicycles with some neighbors and their children. It takes just a few moments.
  • Please let me know what you decide to do.

Resource:

  • Robert “Bob” Anderson’s art legacy lives on. Please consider purchasing one of his beautiful “Charleston Orphan House” prints as a gift at the Shops of Historic Charleston Foundation, 108 Meeting Street in Charleston. (843) 724-8484.
June 9, 2013

The Refreshing Truth will Find You

Dr. David Jeremiah, Founder of Turning Point Ministries and Pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in California, tells this amazing story of how the Truth found another rebel sinner and brought her to Himself. This is a reminder of how the Holy Spirit uses Truth. Remember we cannot mess up God’s plan for our lives. How refreshing.  Be encouraged today.

“You’d be amazed how many times something as unlikely as that has happened, always beginning with the Word being preached. There is an account of a woman on her deathbed. She described how she was saved by reading a crumpled, ragged piece of wrapping paper in a package shipped from Australia. Someone had used the printed text of a sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon to wrap a package for shipment. The sermon was preached in England, printed in America, shipped to Australia, then sent back to England as wrapping paper, where the woman read it and encountered Jesus Christ. The Word traveled thousands of miles on the cheapest, most crumpled and smeared newsprint. But the truth shone brilliantly through the simplest of media, and God’s Word did not return void.” (David Jeremiah, Living With Confidence in a Chaotic World, pg. 149)

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