Really getting hit upside the head!

In my last post I talked about the first time God slapped me upside the head. Now I'm going to talk about the second time I got hit upside the head. In this case I truly got hit in the head. It happened a few days before Christmas 0f 2006 and at the time I was 30 years old. I was outside trying to take down the old garage door at our first house. I thought that I could do this on my own. Let's just say that when forty pounds with a metal end hit you on the head it does not turn out well.

We were at the ER in South Bend getting my head checked out when I told my wife that my heart felt like it was racing. She is a OB nurse and tried to check my pulse. She could not count as fast as my heart was beating. When the ER nurse came in we told her what was going on. It is amazing how fast people move when you say that you are having problems with your heart. To make a long story short I spent the night in the Heart & Vascular area of the hospital. I was diagnosed as having a heart condition called atrial fibrillation. It is not a life threatening issue and can be controlled through medicine. Also, it is something that normally happens in older people.

Looking back on it I believe that God was showing me two things that I needed to learn. First is that you can not always do things on your own. As I get further in my walk with Christ I have gotten to this point with the help of a lot of different people. From pastors at Nappanee Missionary Church to people within our small church and to friends and co-workers. I appreciate all of the conversations that I have had with these individuals.

The second thing that I believe God was trying to show me was that I still needed to make changes in my life. It was another year and a half before I realized that I needed to start hearing God's word again. Another change that I had to make was in my eating habits and what I was truly living for. I needed to take into consideration what effect my actions had on my wife and two kids. At this point in my life I was still not where I needed to be. I was making changes to help get me where I needed to go. There are two more times were God slapped me upside the head and I will talk about those in future post.