Bennett Blog

Monday, January 13, 2014

Making the Most of your Bible reading plan

Ah the start of a new year, even though polls show as much as 80% of those who profess to be Christians fail to read the Bible at all, for those of us who actually care to read the things that the God we claim to serve felt important enough to write down for our edification the start of a new year means the start of a new “Read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year” reading plan. These plans are nice and they really help young in the faith believers get into the habit of reading the Bible, and they can help mature in the faith believers read passages that they might tend to miss as they choose a new book to read as the finish the last one.

The drawback is to read the Bible in a single year you have to read 3 ¼ chapters every day (or three chapters for 3 days, and four chapters on the fourth day). That can end up being a huge amount to read every day (especially on the day you need to read Psalm 119!), this means the downside to such a reading plan is we fail to give the proper level attention to what we are reading.

Let me encourage anyone participating in such a reading plan this year to go one-step further. Pick a scriptural subject, any scriptural subject you are interested in at all, and write down everything the Bible has to say about that subject. After you have picked a subject, write down the inverse of that subject, or as close to the inverse as you can get. So if you want to read everything the Bible says about God’s love, also write down everything the Bible says about His wrath. If you want to write down everything about Salvation, also write down everything the Bible has to say about God’s condemnation. At the end of the year, you will be a better-rounded Christian for having read both sides of the issue.

If you are not planning to read the Bible through in a year and it has been a while since the last time you read through the Bible in a year, it is not too late to get going this year! There are plenty of online resources that will help you break down what passages to read on which day, and even apps you can download for your phone if you want that extra level of interaction.

Again, here are the steps I recommend doing:

Pick a year long reading plan
Pick a scriptural subject that really interests your or you would like to learn more about and write it down
Now think hard and also write down the exact opposite (or as close to the exact opposite as you can think of) of the subject you picked
As you read the Bible write down everything it has to say about those two subjects (I like to hand write this, but doing it in a computer program is fine, the important thing is to write it down).
If you want to go above and beyond, at the beginning of the year, write down what you expect the Bible to say about the two subjects and then at the end of the year compare what you expected the Bible to say to what it actually said.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A response to "Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle"

I've recently seen a link going around Facebook entitled "Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle" in which the author, whom I choose not to name, confronts the notion that God won't give someone more than they can handle. He starts off well enough, but then he starts to talk about spiritual stuff. He asks God 6 questions:

Why? Why not step in? Why not act? Why wouldn’t you make it right? Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath? Why everything at once? Why? - See more at: http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/#sthash.ZvrnsSFi.cfpGWPvl.dpuf

Why?
Why not step in?
Why not act?
Why wouldn’t you make it right?
Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath?
Why everything at once?
Why?

And then he swears and uses anecdotal evidence to prove that God does give people more than they can handle. Though in his defense, he does at the end use a scriptural reference. The author claims that it takes "courage" to ask these "holy" and "sacred" questions. It's a bit of stretch to call the questions holy and sacred and it's an equal stretch to say it take courage. But they are important questions because they are questions that all believers must at one point ask on their journey to spiritual maturity. So if I may be so bold, let's just call these questions what they are a sign of:

Spiritual immaturity

If the author ever reads this article I mean no offense by the previous statement. If there is anyone else reading this who feels insulted because I just implied asking these questions was something you did in your spiritual infancy, I hope you also continue reading because this is rather important.

We all start our journey as Christians here:

We all start off as infants in our Christianity as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3. That's nothing to be offended at or bristle over or be ashamed of, nor is it something for spiritually mature individuals to ridicule you for. It is, however, something to graciously accept and be aware of in all humility. It's also important to remember that just because someone has been a Christian for a long time does not mean they are no longer spiritual infants. In 1st Corinthians 3:2 (emphasis added) Paul writes,

"I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,"

Paul is saying, "Hey, by now you've been Christians long enough such that we should be off the milk and at least up to cheerios! Why am I still having to feed you milk?" So simple longevity as a Christian does not make one Spiritually mature, and if you've been a Christian for a long time and have yet to graduate to deeper theological matters, then maybe it's time to change the way you do your Bible study or move to a church that does more than shallow teaching of the scriptures because Paul exhorts those who have been in Christ to transition to solid, spiritual food.

So why am I saying these questions are a sign of Spiritual immaturity on the author's part? Well, two reasons.

First, and of lesser importance, there's the swearing.

I know swearing a strangely trendy thing for "hip" "pastors" to do, but it is also a sure fire sign of spiritual immaturity. Setting Romans 12:2 aside in which we are told "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind" which I believe is too open ended to be used as proof against swearing. We are told in James 3:9-12

"With [our tongues] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water."

We, as Christians, have been called to tame our tongues and refrain from cursing (as well as coarse/vulgar talking in Ephesians 5:4 and the instruction to abstain from even the appearance of evil in 1 Thess. 5:22). That the author, or any Christian for that matter, has yet to grasp this basic truth is a sign that they are still spiritual infants who have not yet begun to glean anything but very surface level applications when they read passages. While it is not okay that they curse, they need to immediately repent and sin no more on that matter, it is okay that they are still young in Christ and growing in maturity. It is my hope and prayer that he learns these things and grows in his spiritual walk.

(This has nothing to do with anything, but this is a fascinating article about how the brain handles swearing, basically it's not processed as language but as emotion, an interesting concept in conjunction with what God says about people ruled by their emotions)

**Important Disclaimer! With what I am about to say, I am by no means trying to trivialize the very real trials the author had gone through! Some people took pot shots at him in the comments section of his post stating that all the hardship he was facing were a result of sin in his life. If God held us accountable for all our sins in such a manner we'd all be leprous corpses! The belief that you are somehow holier than a sick person is a satanic, Pharisaical, blasphemous mindset. We know it as such because of the interaction between Christ and His Disciples in John 9:1-3

"As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."

Sickness is actually seldom portrayed in the Bible as a direct punishment from God and more often shown as the result as the tremendous weight of sin in the world (Romans 8:18 ff) or as an event to glorify God. So when I point out the implication of each of his questions, I'm not ridiculing or deeming him. I'm pointing out the reality that these are questions we ask in our spiritual infancy and providing the answers that God has given us in the Bible.

**End of disclaimer**

The second reason these questions are a sign of spiritual infancy is because they are all focused on himself.

Think about what each question implies.

Why? (are You (God) letting this happening to me)
Why not step in? (so this wouldn't happen to me)
Why not act? (So it will stop happening to me)
Why wouldn’t you make it right? (Right as defined by *me*, not You, God)
Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath? (This one is already evidently focused on himself)
Why everything at once? (If You're going to do this why can't it be on *my* schedule instead of Yours, God?)
Why? (are You (God) letting this happening to me) (again)

What do all these questions have in common as their focus?

They all about me. I am the focus of each of these questions. In fact several of them are implicitly stating that we are more aware of our needs than God or that God is somehow absent or uncaring or unaware about what is happening in his life. If God was just paying more attention then He wouldn't have allowed things to happen the way they are.

These were also all questions Job found himself asking when God stripped him of his wealth, his family, and his very health. In the end after 37 grueling chapters of man based theology and his friends telling him it was all because of some secret sin of Job's, God Himself enters the scene and says one of my favorite things in the Bible

"'Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
'Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding,Who set its measurements? Since you know.'"

We know from the beginning of Job that the actual cause of all the calamity Job faced was so that the name of God would be glorified. It is truly an amazing and powerful book when you realize that at the end of it Job never get's his questions answered.

Just like us Job was never told why God allowed his children to die and his finances to be destroyed and his health to vanish all in the span of a few minutes. And as we grow in our spiritual maturity we come to understand that the things happen to us because God is Sovereign, because God is Righteous, because God is the ultimate Authority, because It's all about God, not me. Very rarely do we get to know the exact reason for hard times in our lives.

Sadly, the author actually ends the article with the following paragraph. (Emphasis added)

Don’t hear me saying I am rejoicing because of the last couple of weeks. I am not. Not once have I danced around our house shouting, “Yeah suffering!” Instead, in the midst of pain and hurt, I am actively expecting God to do something. I don’t know what. I don’t know when. But I am expecting the God of resurrection to heal us. I am expecting God to restore us. I am expecting him to redeem this situation. I am expecting him to do this and so I will be actively looking and waiting for him to do something.

This is heartbreaking because in his spiritual infancy he doesn't realize that God already is doing something! God is not blind or unaware of his distress. Rather than his response of, "Not once have I danced around our house shouting, "Yeah Suffering!" James has a different perspective in Chapter 1 verse 2-3

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

Or in other words, instead of ultimately blaming God for not stepping in on your schedule and doing things the way you think they should be done, you say

While no one expects us to be dancing with joy in the midst of adversity, we are to have an inner peace and joy, comfort if you will, in the knowledge that trials are given to us by God for our benefit.

And that's the thing. The statement "God will not give you more than you can handle" is true, provided you understand it as a spiritually mature Christian. God will give you so much that you will despair and be broken and be brought to lowest you've ever been, but you will be able to handle it because God is the one who has allowed it to happen and it has a purpose as described in 2 Corinthians 2:8-9 (Again, emphasis added)

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

The spiritually mature response to trials is to realize that God will never give me more than I can handle in Him. Everything that He gives me is for my edification, when He takes me to the brink it is so that I will cease attempting to rely on myself in my spiritual immaturity, and instead rely wholly on Him as a mature Christian.

Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle - See more at: http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/#sthash.ZvrnsSFi.cfpGWPvl.dpuf

Monday, November 18, 2013

How Far is Too Far?

There's been a lot of talk as a result of Mark Driscoll crashing the strange fire conference and I'm not going to weigh in those matters at this late point in the game because they're not important to what I want to discuss. What I do want to talk about is a common response I saw in the midst of these discussions. A conversation would be going along about what various people thought about Driscoll's actions and the theological truths of Cessationism versus Continuationism and suddenly someone would chime in with:

"What does it matter?"

I was always taken aback by this response. I know that they weren't trying to be flippant with God's word, and it came from people who I know to be solid mature Christians, but are legitimately asking the question as long as we have the fundamentals down isn't everything else of secondary importance?

So the question that springs to my mind in the midst of all this is at what point have we perverted so much of the rest of the Gospel that we are now teaching a gospel of our own making? At what point do we, like this Justin Bieber fan

go too far? (yikes!)

The short answer is I don't have an answer. I don't think it's possible for anyone but God to weigh the inner most workings of a man's heart and go "This one has truly trusted in Me alone". That said, I think there are three points that are worth considering:

1) Secondary issues are a misnomer
2) We've been given instructions to test the validity of our own faith and the faith of others
3) It shouldn't be about how far we can get on secondary issues (see #1)

(Does this seem too long and you just want to skip to a short summary? Skip to the tl;dr section, and read the rest when you have the time.

1: Secondary issues are a misnomer

2nd Timothy 3:16-17 states that

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

We also know from Deuteronomy 4:23-25 that God jealously guards the sanctity of His divinity and Leviticus 20 verses 22,23 and 26 states

"You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine."

This does not paint the picture of a God who doesn't care about "secondary issues" We have been called to live in perfect accordance with God's commandments. We will fail, constantly and miserably fail, but we are called to strive for that perfection of holiness because everything in the scriptures are of primary importance.

Now yes, I understand that when people say "primary" what they mean is that which results in Salvation namely a proper faith in the Gospel that Christ died for our sins, was raised from the dead on the third day, and it is salvation through faith in His works alone that justifies us, that we're all one body of believers and it doesn't matter at the end of the day if you believe that the miraculous works of the Spirit have ended, or if they continue. Which is a great segue to number 2!

2: We've been given instructions to test the validity of our own faith and the faith of others.

There are two main illustrations we are given to test our own faith and the faith of those around us.

John 13:35 - "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 14:15 - “If you love me, you will keep my commandments"

The first quote by Christ is rather self explanatory someone who has truly placed their faith in Christ will love the body of believers, but it's the second one that relates to the matter at hand. Someone who has genuinely placed their faith in Christ, what people call the "primary" issue will be directly reflected by how they treat so called "secondary" issues!

Which is why it very much matters how people either misinterpret or fragrantly abuse passages to support/undermine a given position. Now I don't want to get into the meat of Cessationism and Continuationism, I think that would be a great post for another day, however it is worth noting that those who teach that the Spirit still works trough miraculous signs and wonders typically teach that one should speak in tongues because "A spirit language is the greatest gift the Holy Spirit can give a believer." (Reason #4 on this page). Now ignoring for a moment that I would say that the Holy Spirit sealing our salvation for all eternity as taught in Ephesians 1 is the greatest gift given by the Holy Spirit and also ignoring that 1 Corinthians 14:5 states that prophecy is a better gift than tongues, the problem is that 1 Corinthians 14 also gives strict guidelines for speaking in tongues such as

²⁷If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. ²⁸If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

This is very clear and direct teachings yet it is completely ignored within the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement.

Now no, I am by no means claiming that as a Christian I keep 100% of the Bible, I am still subject to the flesh and live in a fallen world. However, when confronted with such a clear cut verse that attacks something I enjoy doing, I respond with submission. Oh I will fall, sometimes I will fall so hard I'll find myself living in the old pattern of sin again, but I will strive against the temptation because I love God with all that I am and I desire to do his commandments.

Which brings me to the last thing 3: It shouldn't be about how far we can get on secondary issues (see #1)

My dad used to work in a Nuclear plant when he was in college. He tells a humourous incident in which one of his co-workers was carrying a container marked "Hazardous Waste". As he was transporting it, he accidentally stumbled and dropped the container. Can you imagine this man had just stood there? If he said to himself, "I can safely be exposed for X seconds so there's no rush"? Or if he said, "I need to be 10 feet away to be safe" so he methodically counted out 10 feet then stood there?

From what I'm told, this man, who was rather tall and gangly, resembled something more like this:

As it turned out the container was mislabelled and he was never in any danger at all, but he wasn't going to stick around to find that out!

I posted the question how far is too far? How far can I go down bad theological trails before a denomination ceases to be a part of the church and becomes a cult teaching heretical doctrines? But it shouldn't be about how far someone can go and "still be a Christian" Recognizing that God is a holy God who demands we follow His commandments, when we see a brother or sister following bad doctrine our response should never be, "Oh well, it's a secondary issue so it doesn't matter".

Sadly in modern Christianity, the passage "judge not lest you be judge" has been so badly abused and mistaught that we think you cannot hold anyone accountable for doing something wrong. In 1 Corinthians 5, however, Paul is practically yelling at them "Why are you not judging sin within the church?!"

When we see someone sinning, which includes following false doctrine, we should with all love pull them aside privately and take them to the scriptures so that they can respond to them. Of course we should allow freedom in the Spirit on areas where God has not explicitly stated what we should or should not do, but when the Bible clearly teaches something such as "don't speak in tongues without an interpreter and then limit it to 2 or 3 at a time" and we see whole congregations speaking over one another without any interpretation then we need to call them back to proper worship. If they respond with repentance then we've strengthened their walk in the Lord, if they respond with disdain then using the above passage as a litmus test we can reasonably assume that because they do not delight to keep God's commandments then they are not His followers and we should be bold enough to treat them as such. (i.e. pray for their salvation and witness to them)

tl;dr version/summary:

I don't believe that I or anyone can with all authority say "here is a line in a sand and anyone teaching more than X number of theologically false statements has created a new gospel"

I believe that saying anything in the Bible is a secondary issue is a misnomer and demeans the Holiness of God. While there are grey areas that God has given us freedom to do as the Spirit leads us to do, every theological truth is a primary part of the perfection of God that we have been called to perfectly emulate.

I believe that it is important to test our own faith and the faith of others. We won't agree on everything about the Bible and that's okay, but when we are flagrantly disobey the commands of the Bible then we need to be rebuked. Those who are in Christ will ultimately rejoice at the discipline because they love God and His commandments. Those who continually chafe or lash out against discipline should be regarded as on who is unsaved (as described in Matthew 18 on Church discipline)

I believe that it shouldn't be about how far one can safely go into bad theology before we call them out on it. 1 Corinthains 9:24-27 (emphasis added) says:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

We are to be in constant spiritual training constantly strive and checking ourselves and likewise encouraging fellow believers around us so that we can have confidence in our salvation lest we come before the throne of God and find ourselves saying "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name" only to hear

"I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness"

And I suppose that's kind of the thing. At the end of the day I believe that those who are truly in Christ will leave churches who teach an abundance of false theology because those who are truly in Christ don't desire to be far away from Him at all and that those who stay in such church do so because they cannot stand sound doctrine but desire to have their ear tickled pink.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Raging Against the Machine?

I posed this question on (inyour)Facebook the other day.

“Obama professes to be a born again believer. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that this is true, how should that affect our attitudes and actions towards him and what he does as a fellow believer? Or to pose it another way, is it possible to rage against the machine without raging against the Creator who placed the machine there?”

Unsurprisingly, I have an opinion on the matter. We first know from Romans 13:1-7 that God has divinely appointed governments and rulers for His purpose and that we are to obey them (Here are the first two verses)

“1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”

That is a fairly significant warning in verse 2. The one who resists the will of the authorities is actually resiting God! Consider the context of the people Paul was writing to in Romans, the Jewish people were dispersed from their home land with a foreign power in charge, Paul had recently gone on his mission to kill all the believers, and every time Paul turned around he was being violently attacked by the religious leaders of the day; both pagan and Jewish.

God was certainly not blind to these facts nor was He forgetful of them when He, working through Paul, penned these words for our benefit. This raises a whole host of questions worth considering such as “From a Religious perspective should the colonists rebelled?” or the question I seek to answer here, “Are we sinning when we attack Obama/Leaders in Congress?”

Long story short? It depends. See we have a unique situation in the way our government has been established. Our government revolves around the reality that “we the people” are in charge... more or less by proxy of the fact that we get to elect those who are in charge. One of the founding principals of our government is that we can call out the foibles of our leaders and indeed we are encouraged to do so! (which is a beef I have with Obama, the man believes himself to be foible-less a perfect man in all his does, but that's neither here nor there)

However, this is not some carte blanche invitation to rip into our leaders. I don't think it is appropriate to say any leader is in place as a punishment, nor do I think it's right to go around screaming hate at our leaders the way democrats did under Bush and now Republicans like Glen Beck and Mark Levin do under Obama. Scriptures give us instructions on how we are to deal with confronting someone in 1 Timothy 5:1&2

“1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, 2 older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity.”

So yes, it is appropriate for us to call out our leaders when there is hypocrisy in their statements, it is appropriate to quote what they say and discuss the what the Bible has to say about those statements, it is even appropriate for us, working within the confines of the due process of our government, to remove a corrupt politician from office. What I fail to see, however, is scriptural support for tearing into a politician with no other purpose than to make them loose face or even for two politicians to engage in a smear campaign on each other. Where's the Christ like love in that?

Monday, May 6, 2013

My LASIK Experience Part 3

The Followup

A friend of mine just messaged me wanting to know everything about my (intra)LASIK experience and I realized that I never did a follow up post. I'm 10 days shy from my 6th month anniversary of LASIK and still completely loving it. Here's the run down of my post-op experience follow by some general advice for people thinking about getting.

1) My vision is slightly better than 20/20 - It's not 20/15 or anything like that, but when I do the eye test, I can read past the 20/20 line.

2) My vision feels (but isn't) slightly worse at night time - This was an odd adjustment for me. I've always had *really* good night vision. LASIK actually increased the amount of light entering my eyes (a common side effect). At night time this has the unfortunate side affect of creating halos around light sources which gives the impression of your vision being worse. It also had made it slightly harder to read street signs at night time, but not significantly so.

3) Expect to spend another $100 in eye-drops - For the first 2 months you need to use special eye drops which don't have preservatives in them. So instead of being able to buy the cheap bottle that you stick in a pocket, you have to buy these little tubes that get about 3 uses before you need the next tube. Keeping your eyes hydrated helps it heal correctly. If you let them get dry... well you know how your contacts crinkle up when they get dry? Imagine that little flap they cut in your eye doing that. Plus it helps to keep things sterile. I went through 3 boxes of the disposable drops and two bottles (once it was no longer necessary to use the kind without preservatives) in the past 6 months. I might need an eye drop when I stay up too late every couple of weeks, but once I got past month 4 my eyes stopped feeling so dry.

4) I still forget I don't wear contacts anymore - No I don't poke my eye trying to get them out, I'll just be sitting there and go "oh yeah, this is just what my vision is now.

5) My vision has remained stable - This might be a factor of age, but my vision had remained at the same level for the past couple of years and had only slightly gotten worse the past couple of years before that. Lord willing, I will enjoy this level of eye sight until I start going far sighted with in my older years.

Overall summary: I've been thoroughly satisfied with LASIK, it was well worth the money for my particular circumstances. If my vision was only slightly bad (say -2.00 or better) I don't think it would have been worthwhile, however, it's been a long time since my vision was only -2.00 so I might be underestimating how bad it is. I also wouldn't get if my eyesight was still changing every year. Additionally, women have the further consideration that your eyesight can change during a pregnancy. It's not too common from what I hear, but it's still something to think about.

General advice to anyone getting it:

1) Shop around. Most of the LASIK docs I talked to would do a price match of a competitors provided it was an equivalent service (for example, they wouldn't give you intraLASIK for the price that a competitor was doing regular LASIK, but they would match the competitor's intraLASIK price).

2) Wait for a good sale. Almost every holiday these doctors would have some sale (Memorial Day sale, Christmas sale, thanksgiving, president's day, etc)

3) Don't get tricked by gimmicks - One place was offering lifetime touch up work to the procedure provided you came once a year and did your eye exam with him. The cost of the exam was inflated and out of network for insurance companies. You're not going to want to do LASIK twice. It's worth is once, but unless there is something majorly wrong you're a) not going to need yearly eye exams and b) not going to want to go through the hassle of preping your eyes for surgery and spending two months keeping them hydrated!

Find a place that gives a good deal and is reputable and you'll be fine.

4) Ask around... a lot. Seriously, ask friends who they went to, problems they faced, check yelp and google, and anything else you can think of. You want a good deal, but you also want to make sure you've chosen a doctor who has your back in the very miniscule chance something does go wrong.

5) Do it! I've been rather frank with any slight thing that was negative with the procedure so I can only hope you haven't gotten the wrong impression. LASIK has been non-stop amazing since the very first moment they finished the procedure. It was pricey (especially for someone like me who wants to get a $10 product for $3), but it was worth ever last cent!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Garage (Creative Writting Idea)

I had this idea for a starter for a creative writing exercise:

Ben and Kristen are newly weds who have just found their dream home. Unfortunately, it's way beyond their price range, or rather it would be if the owner hadn't come up with an interesting compromise: He'll sell them the home for a fraction of the price as long as they promise to never go into the garage for a year.

He needs to sell the home quick, but he doesn't have his next home finished yet, so he's going to store some stuff in the garage and promises to move it out within a year max. If he doesn't he says anything in the garage will become the property of Ben and Kristen. If they open the door, however, they'll immediately be responsible for the full cost of the home.

Things to consider:

1) What qualities does the home posses to make it a "dream home"? Remember it's not a mansion, just a dream home!

2) How do Ben and Kristen feel about this? Obviously they accept the deal or else there would be no story, but are they both okay with this situation? Would one of them be upset by the conditions? If only one of them is okay with it does it create tension in their first year of marriage?

3) Do they make it the full year? What are some scenarios that might arise that result in the door opening? What if the man never came back? What if he came back frequently in the middle of the night (but only went into the garage)?

4) What do they find in the garage (do you even allow the reader to find out what he kept there, is the story about what is in the garage or about Ben and Kristen's first year of marriage together and how the mysterious garage affects that first year?)

(Side note, if you make a fun story from this starter, please send me a copy/link!)

Sunday, December 16, 2012

My LASIK Experience Part 2

The Disclaimer

Warning this post contains plain talk about medical stuff. If you're the sort that get's a little green at medical talk, well you probably want to skip past "The Technicals" and "The Procedure"

The Technicals

First off, though I call it LASIK, I technically had INTRALASIK surgery. The difference being that with traditional LASIK they use a metal blade to cut a flap in your corneal epithelium (the top layer of your cornea) and with IntraLASIK they use a laser to to the cutting. The idea is that by using a laser they are able to more precisely gauge the depth of the cut to precisely cut just deep enough into your eye to only get the fast healing corneal epithelium and not nick the corneal stroma (the slower healing, middle layer of the cornea). The end result being happier eyes that heal faster (Of course, I have nothing to compare it to, so I'll have to take their word on this one).

The Lead-in

   I didn't mention it previously, but I had to wear glasses for at least 5 days prior to the initial exam and leading up to the surgery. Normally, that would be no problem, but some time ago my glasses lost a spring in one of its arms, so I spent the week with it constantly having to be repositioned and sitting lopped sided on my face.
     The day before the actual procedure, they have you blast your eyes with some steroids (Prednisone) and an antibiotic (zymax) along with some general gentle scrubbing of the eyelids to get them as healthy as possible for the actual procedure.
   Once I arrived at the Dr. Tylock's office I signed in and had a short wait in the lobby before being brought back to an exam room where they took my glasses, gave me a Valium, and had me watch a video on what to do post-op in terms of eye drops (your eyes will practically being swimming for a week with all the medicine and tear drops they have you putting in them!). The nurse came back and explained it all again after the video and made a joke about me probably not remembering this conversation. I guess most people are fairly loopy at this point from the Valium; I was not.
     In fact, through the whole thing I was *extremely* alert. I was told wonderful stories by my friends and family who had this procedure done that you'll be off in la la land just doing whatever you're told to do. For most people, this is very true. For me, and my grandma Ruby, I think we went from a 10 on the anxiety scale down to a 9.5, maybe even a 9.
     Thankfully, the hardest, and most painful, part of the procedure was the almost 2 hour wait time from this point until I actually went into surgery! As an ADHD guy it was literally a painfully boring experience. You're lead into a room where you can hear the sound of the lasers, so that when it's you're turn you're not freaked out (as someone who was completely alert, I can confidently say I didn't even notice the sound lasers during the procedure, I had other things occupying my attention), and told to sit there with your eyes closed. No TV with the news on, no radio, just waiting.
     I tried to strike up a conversation with the people around me "Anyone up for a game of eye spy?" I would ask, and there would be dead silence. "So what are y'all in here for?" I would say; more dead silence. I finally caught a guy before the Valium knocked him out and found out that he was a welder, I started to tell him that one of my father-in-laws used to be a welder, but he was out by then.
     It should be noted that my wait times were slightly inflated as they were running behind schedule, but since most people nap through the whole thing, it's not that big an issue!

The Procedure

     When it was finally my time, I was brought into a very cold room and given a nice blanket. They did one more cleaning of my eyes with what I assume was a saline solution or some iodine (I remember being asked at one point if I was allergic to it, so surely it must have been used at *some* point, but it might have been in the exam stage), and it was my turn under the laser.
      While most places, I'm told, have two separate chairs, one for the cutting of the flap to expose the corneal stroma so they can shape it with the laser, and one for the actual shaping with the laser. Dr. Tylock had a single bed which rotated you to the two different devices.
     Now remember I was fully alert at this point. They gave me some numbing drops for my eyes, and then used a spring device to hold my eye open and, I suspect, to keep my eye from moving. Then came the unnerving part. Though I couldn't feel anything but pressure, they placed something over my eye at this point that was largely uncomfortable. Yes, that's right the worse part of the actual procedure was only "largely uncomfortable." I rank routine dentist visits as worse than "largely uncomfortable"!
     At this point I'm sure my corneal epithelium was cut, but I didn't feel it, and I was largely focused on this uncomfortable pressure caused by whatever they placed over my eye so I didn't notice any sounds, but 20 seconds of this tops and they were done with my right eye and another 20 seconds and they were done with my left.
     Then the bed rotated me over to the cool laser (the one that would shape my eye) and used another spring to keep my eye open. At this point they used a little tool to gentle fold back the flap they had just made in my corneal epithelium and everything went blurry. I thought I knew what blurry was being as near sighted as I am, but this was a whole new level of blurry. Everything literally lost shape and definition. Mind you none of this was painful, but it was certainly fascinating. After this they turned on the laser for 15 seconds and you smelled something burning.
    At the dentists office, when they pull that drill out and shove it on your teeth and you smell something burning you go "wow, that's my tooth they're doing their best to set on fire" and you're right. When you smell something burning at LASIK, don't panic! It's not your eye, you're only smelling ozone created by the laser.
    Dr. Tylock then cleaned off the flap to make sure he wasn't slapping any nasty bacteria on my eye, gently laid the flap down, repeated the procedure on my other eye and that was it!

The Aftermath

     I had really bad near sighted vision (-5.75 in both eyes, it's worse than many of the people I know, but not the absolute worst I've ever heard of), so from the very moment I stood up I had a marked improvement. As in I could see. Not 20/20 level or anything but close. It was absolutely amazing. At this point Dr. Tylock took the time to make sure the flap was lying down the way it should, and answered any questions I had for him. Then it was another 30 minutes of waiting with my eyes shut to make sure everything was healing nicely and I was released to Amy's care.
     Now I have to do those tear substitute drops you buy at the store every 20 minutes for the next week and every couple of hours after to keep everything healing like it's supposed to, plus I have to do the Prednisone every 2 hours for the next 6 days (and 2 a day for the next 6 days after that), plus the Zymax 3 times a day for 4 days. So like I said earlier, you're eyes feel like they're swimming in water for a long time.
    But it's so worth it. I wake up in the middle of the night and look out through these funny little goggles I have to wear when I sleep for the first few days (they don't want you rubbing you're eyes in your sleep and messing with that flap), and I can see everything in the room (I have very good night vision). No more do I see non existent shapes or fumble for my glasses.
Of course, I have to go to the DMV in the morning and get my Driver's license changed to reflect the fact that I no longer need corrective lenses or else they'll give me a ticket, but that's a small price to pay for vision which the day after the surgery was hovering just shy of 20/15, and will get better as the swelling goes down (and my eyes stop being water logged with all these tears I have to drop in them!)
    So long story short, Lasik is extremely worthwhile, and Dr. Tylock is definitely someone I will recommend to family and friends!

As a side note, I went to the DMV this morning and was a little disappointing that they had me read such an easy line for my eye test. I had to resist the urge to say "come on, couldn't we try something a little more challenging?"