Two years ago, today…

IMG_1018Today is “Celebration of Life” day. Maybe not on your calendar, but on ours. Today marks the 2nd anniversary of two very special lives. Our arms were first able to hold Tanzen, and Crystal was once again able to use hers.

We celebrate life today because, no matter how thorough your birth plan, it is God who gives life.

A car accident, a birth, and a stroke were all used to point us to our great God who holds us in his hands. He knew. He planned, He protected. We cried. We feared. We didn’t understand.

9E9A2005And we still don’t. We don’t understand why this happened, and neither does the incredible staff in hospitals around Minneapolis. We don’t understand the secret paths of the heart and brain, the sprawling stream of veins and nerves. And we do not understand the secret plans of our great God. And we don’t need to.

As Jon Bloom has said, “much of the Christian life is spent trusting Jesus now and understanding him later” (Bloom, Not by Sight, loc. 1496).

But in these moments of haunting fear and feelings we were able to keenly experience the giver of all strength. In the darkness of doubt the speaker of light shone brightly. I was not sufficient for her, but we rested on the one who is.

It was not easy but the significant times rarely are.

9E9A1994And for these reasons, we celebrate life today. Our days our numbered, and until we regularly remember that, we will squander them away.

So rejoice with us! Sing with us! Thank God with us! He has given us life today, let us live in light of him.

Final Edit - Project for Pastor Seth

Faithfulness

God is a faithful God.

Psalm 40:11 says, “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!”IMG_0149

We are blessed to have the opportunity to serve a God who is completely faithful. We do not have to question or wonder if He is going to remain consistent. We can have full assurance that He will never fail us or leave us.

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I (Crystal) was blessed recently to be able to observe someone reflecting God’s faithfulness. We went down to Arizona to present the Spain ministry to several different groups of people and to stay with my Grandpa and his wife, Loretta.

My Grandpa, Lanny Barringer, has been an example of serving the Lord for many, many years.

As I have had the opportunity to hear more and more of his life story, I have realized that God has been faithful in my Grandpa’s life many times. Grandpa wanted to go back home after college and work on the family farm in Iowa, but God led him to be a pastor. God has continued to allow my Grandpa to stay faithful through many years of joy and difficulty. I am not sure if he will ever retire in the normal sense. He loves serving the Lord and is determined not to waste his life. I am so blessed to see my Grandpa’s faithfulness (and Loretta’s support and encouragement of it) as he loves God and loves others. Grandpa is imaging and reflecting an aspect of God’s character to me by remaining faithful.

I praise the Lord for my Grandpa’s example, may Seth and I remain faithful to the Lord as well.

On the passing of my Grandmother

This past summer my grandmother – Zoe Grotzke – passed from this world to her heavenly home. Here are some of my thoughts from the burial in Sheridan, MT. IMG_4234

A mountain rises from the valley floor
Towering, soaring, stretching high
From another world it seems to stand
Strange among this flattened land

Its majestic peak sits above
Frozen, jagged, biting cold
And looming over all beneath
Flitting, spinning, blown about

Forced to reckon, those who pass,
Age, strength, presence sound
Demanding attention, respect, and awe
Immense, immovable mass of rock

The secret lies in stress and pressure

Twisting, smashing, splitting crust
Creaked, and groaned, jutting upward
While silt and soil slipped away
At the writhing hands of wind and age

Above the plain it sits and watches
Hoary head a testament
To age, and strength, midst stressful tests
painful clashing, crushing throws

All who pass, and see it there
Look, consider, bow their head
For in the presence of a giant they
Sit, live, pass their days.

Vacation!

In the beginning of March our family escaped the frigid north for over a week. We landed in Cozumel Mexico and spent our time walking the shoreline and reading beneath palm trees. To say that the time was refreshing and enjoyable is akin to saying that chocolate chip cookies are ok.

It was fantastic!

We tried our best to do nothing adventurous and taxing, besides teaching Tanzen to swim. We came back refreshed and encouraged. God used the time to strengthen our bond as a family and our love for him. Sometimes we just have to get away.

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On the passing of a grandmother

We honored Rosemary Mueller’s life on November 2nd, a week after her passing. Below is a transcript of the message Seth preached at her funeral.

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“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass” (Isa 40:6-7)

Death is a strange and foreign thing. Foreign not in the sense that it is rare, but that it is unnatural. We were not created in order to die. We were created in order to live. That is why when one dies it seems as though something is wrong. One author made the observation that “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.” We desire life. We desire a life longer and fuller than what we can find on this earth.

But death is here, and we are told that it is here because of sin (Rom 5). Sin entered the world, and then came death.

The unnatural presence of death is seen even in our gathering today. We don’t come together today to honor Rosemary Mueller’s death, but her life. We look back on the life she lived and remember that:

She was generous. If she knew that someone needed something and she had it, she would give it.

She had a kind heart.

She respected your decisions even when she didn’t agree.

She was selfless, always wanting her kids to be happy. That is what she asked for at Christmas.

She was content in her circumstances.

But even in honoring her life, we still feel as though something were wrong. Is that all there is? Is there no more than this short existence and then endless darkness? Around 1000 BC, David, the great king of Israel penned these words “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!” (Pss 39:4-6). Life is short, a breath a shadow, a mere span of a hand.

While life has not changed as much from the 1st century AD as we would like to believe, death has not changed at all. Jesus stood before death and felt the hollowness of existence. He stood before the tomb of his friend Lazarus, who had died four days earlier. He heard the weeping of his close friends. He felt the loss. The book of John records “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept” (John 11:33-35).

He was not a stranger to reality. He understood death. The one who had spoken the world into existence (John 1) knew that life on this planet was short lived for every individual. He not only understood death, he felt its ugly presence deep within his soul.

But he also knew more.

Listen as Jesus stands and speaks with the sister of Lazarus. “Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world” (John 11:21-27).

Jesus, the Son of God, the promised Christ, claimed to have the power over life and death.

You see, Jesus understands death. He has felt death. But he also is greater than death. As he stands before an occupied tomb he makes a promise, “You will be empty.” Jesus promises those who believe in him that they will live again.

Now, if the story ended there we could chalk up the promises of Jesus with the other ramblings of psuedo-saviors who continue to plague our cable tv. But the story doesn’t end there. John continues, “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Jesus’ words were not empty promises, but completed threats on Death himself.

Death is foreign. It is the very fact that death is foreign that it had to be conquered. And conquered it was. Jesus Christ defeated death in his own sacrifice on the cross, and now it holds no real power for those who have placed their hopes of eternity in his hands. As was read earlier, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die’.” Life is possible, not by doing more good, or doing less bad, but by believing in Jesus Christ as your substitute for sin, as your savior.

We gather here today and remember a life. We honor a woman who has passed on, not ceased to be. But each of us here today not only looks backward, but forward. We stand in the present and consider what will come. Are you here today with only the painfulness of the felt loss, or do you have the hope of eternity in Jesus?

The Stroke from Crystal’s Point of View

Crystal spoke at Fairview Southdale’s Spine, Brain, and Stroke Conference. You can listen to her story, or read it below (If you read it, you won’t be able to hear Tanzen’s own embellishments to the story. Firefox won’t play the audio, however other browsers do).

Introduction: Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and share my story. My name is Crystal Grotzke, and today I am accompanied by my husband Seth and my daughter Tanzen.IMG_2209

Background: Just a little background to what happened before the stroke in March- Two days before my daughter Tanzen was due, Seth and I decided to go to the mall for a walk. We were involved in a minor three car accident. I had to go to the hospital for monitoring to make sure our baby was OK, and to make the story short, we had Tanzen while we were there! Things were going really well.

Stroke: We were moved up to our room where we thought we would be staying for the next couple of days, and several of my husband’s family members came to visit. About 9 hours after Tanzen was born, I suddenly got intensely dizzy. My vision went double and started spinning. Within a few minutes, I was not responding. My entire right side could not move at all. Seth called the nurse and within a short time emergency personnel were there to help. I think there were about six people working with me. I remember very little for several hours after my vision went double. I was rushed down to have a CAT scan. I remember a couple of times just barely coming to, seeing someone’s face right in mine as they were asking me a question. I thought that maybe I was answering them, but I guess my answers were not really as coherent as I thought. I didn’t remember that I had a baby or what my last name was, and in response to some of the questions I mentioned being part of a ladies’ Bible study or quoted an English grammar rule. I remember just barely able to wonder where Seth was in the room and why he was crying.

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Both my husband and his father are pastors, and they prayed with the doctors when the time came to make the decision as to whether or not TPA should be administered. Seth had a few options, most of them very scary. He could choose not to go the route of using TPA and my brain would have continued to die. He could choose to have the medical staff give me TPA and face some scary potential outcomes. I could be paralyzed because of having had an epidural. I could have serious problems bleeding since I had just given birth. Or, the TPA could stop the damage to the brain. Seth decided that we needed to try to save my brain as best as we could, so they administered TPA. Within 20 minutes or so, my toes started moving and I started being able to hear again. I couldn’t figure out why people would be so excited for my toes to move since I had no idea that I hadn’t been moving them. Over the next little while, I couldstart to move my leg, my hand and fingers, etc. I still wasvery confused and in and out. Unfortunately, I was present enough to experience all of the emergency procedures they had to do to stop the bleeding. I was frightened, thinking that I may be dying, but I was too nervous to ask Seth if I was going to do so. After all of the procedures, things were still confusing for me. It took about 12 hours after the TPA for my vision to start working properly again.

The following couple of days were filled with tests: MRI, testing to see if I had a hole in my heart, blood tests, eating and drinking tests, more blood tests, etc.

I am so thankful to God for the quick thinking and competent team work of all of the medical staff. The OB staff worked with the neurology staff to help come up with something that would work because of the abnormal situation that I was.

Encouraging and Helpful: I was so impressed with those who worked at Fairview Southdale. From the nurses and doctors that helped with the labor and delivery and afterward and the stroke and ICU, etc, etc. Many of the people were so kind. They went above what they needed to in order to take care of me, including coming in to check on me (in their street clothes!) when they weren’t working. From the nurse who would put chapstick on my lips to the one who would just stand there and take the time to listen as I cried and shared my fears and concerns. Also, they allowed my husband to stay in the room where we were all supposed to so he could get some rest, they took excellent care of my baby, loving on her and even crying over her as she wasn’t with her Mommy, and they allowed her to come down with my husband every once in a while so that I could see her.

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Stroke floor: Eventually they discharged Tanzen, but they allowed her and Seth to move up to the stroke floor where I spent one night.I had to take a test, I am sure most of you are the ones giving the test, where I had to remember words, mark shapes, etc. I guess I did reallywell on the test, with the exception of having to put markings on a circle to make it into a clock and then put that it was ten to eleven. Well, I have always been weak in the area of telling time, so I failed that portion of the test and we had to convince the nurse that it wasn’t that the stroke that had damaged that part of my brain, I had always been bad at telling time.

After:

FEAR. I was so scared the first night that I was alone. I was super dizzy when I closed my eyes to try to sleep, and I kept wondering if I was going to die. (Also, as it was my first baby, I had no idea which things were normal for postpartum and which things had been caused by the stroke.) When I came home and I would feel a twinge in my leg, I would wonder if I had a blood clot. I wasn’t afraid of what would happen after death, Jesus Christ has shed His blood on the cross in order to provide eternal life for me, but I was not desiring to die and didn’t know what would happen to Seth and Tanzen.

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PRAYER: So many, many people were praying for Seth, Tanzen, and myself. People were praying for the doctors and medical staff as well.

DISCOURAGEMENT: There were so many changes so quickly, dietary changes, a new baby, medication and trying to remember what shots were supposed to happen where and how often. There were many, many doctors appointments, and it was all a lot to handle. Thankfully, God gave me a great husband and church family who helped a ton. And He blessed me in that I didn’t have to have any therapy after the stroke.

FACING QUESTIONS: Will life ever be back to “normal”? Will I have another stroke? Will I have to be on coumadin forever? Will we be able to travel, have more children, etc? But God is so good, in control of all of those situations. I had awesome INR nurses, women who were really sweet about the difficulties of the medication, lack of sleep with a new baby, so sympathetic when I had to go back onto lovenox because we couldn’t get my INR levels straightened out, etc. They were so caring!

I am so thankful that I have been able to learn more about the intricacies of the brain and how God has created things to work, and thankful that He has given you all the ability and the brains to understand and to help others! I can’t even say how much I appreciate all of those people who have helped and served me and my family through such a difficult time in our lives. Thank you to all of you for what you do, and the lives that you are impacting by working with others and helping them.