TheJonMorris

When You Least Expect It

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:14:45 +0000

Don’t you love how God show’s up when you least expect it? This last Wednesday was that way.

For the last 11 days I had been in Rochester, MN at Mayo Clinic. My dad had a major surgery you can read about it here. After sleeping 8 nights in the hospital room in a blue reclino chair, it’s fair to say I was ready to be home. On Wednesday at 5:30 AM, what I like to call the butt crack of dawn, I started my journey home. I drove hard, only stopping once to get gas in Kansas City and grab some cheetos and a bottled water. After 10 hours, I WAS HOME.

My boys smiled from ear to ear when I walked through the door and my wife was the hottest I’ve ever seen her. Finally, home to my family.

It hit me right when I walked through the door, “Jon, you didn’t get anyone to cover you for worship tonight with the youth. DUMMY!” For 2 hours I contimplated calling my team leaders and bailing on them. As much as I wanted to stay home and just rest, I also wanted to experience God with my 180remix peeps.

So I put on my game face and went to church. Ran through rehearsal thinking, “Jon, you are so tired. What are you doing?” Went to preservice prayer thinking, “Jon, you are almost done. Just get through this.” Then as I led the first song I was thinking, “These kids are just as tired as I am.”

Then something hit me, something stronger than me, something bigger than me, something I had to respond to. God was in the room.

His presence feel hard and heavy. I was in awe of my God and what He had done for me, my family, my dad in this season. I became an ambassador for worshiping God through life’s crap. I had broken through my selfish poo and was experiencing the King of Kings.

God hit me Wednesday night “when I least expected it.” I love that God does that. Has that happened to you recently? Comment here.

Taking Care of Dad Part 6 & 7

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:17 +0000

Well I didn’t get to the blog yesterday or Saturday. But that’s good. Dad was so busy on Saturday, getting up, walking around and feeling pretty good that I didn’t really care to talk to myself on my computer : ) Yesterday was not so good. The whole journey has been a few steps forward, one step back. Saturday was 3 steps forward and Sunday was 5 steps back. Dad had quite a bit of pain, he became nauseated and his stomach (area of incision) began to swell.

Last night he regained control of his pain and began to fill better. He slept for probably 5 or 6 hours and got up and walked at 2:00 a.m. (he woke me up to go with:) Today he’s experiencing some discomfort but overall he feels like he did on Friday. This has postponed us going home today, maybe, hopefully tomorrow if he’s feeling better.

We had some lifelong friends come visit us Saturday Night and Sunday for lunch. It was great to see them and give them a hug. Who knew we would ever be in Minnesota to see them : ) Love you Gould’s and Kounce’s. And who knew Mallory would be such a smart beautiful woman and Morgan such a rockstar!

Keep us in your prayers as we continue down this long journey.

Taking Care of Dad – Part 5

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:36:37 +0000

It’s funny that in times of great pain and discomfort we find a way to celebrate the little things, but in our days of normal living we find a way to be negative about little things. There’s a good life lesson right there.

Today Dad went on 5 walks, sat up and did exercises, ate jello, and moved to a clear fluids diet. Today we celebrated little things. Who would have thought that taking a bite of jello and passing some gas were notable accomplishments. : )

I’m running night shift again and letting Mom sleep at the hotel. Surprisingly enough, I’m pretty comfortable in this blue reclining hospital chair (another small celebration:)

Ask yourself this today/tonight….
Are you celebrating the little accomplishments?

Taking Care of Dad – Part 4

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:28:55 +0000

Today has been another good day. Dad got up and walked several times and has been able to rest. His pain levels have been down slightly and his day seemed to go by quicker. Currently the doctors are a little concerned about a few things. They ran a vascular test on his veins and arteries around his kidney and then a test on his kidney. Both seemed to be functioning properly.

Prayer request: The concerns right now are that he is still on oxygen and that he hasn’t passed gas (seriously). Specifically that is two areas you can pray for. This marks a first for me…I’ve never asked anyone to pray for gas. : )

Prayer request: this week I’ve had a pestering tooth ache and went to a HNL (hole nother level) today. My beautiful wife called our dentist and got some meds prescribed to me. If you can, pray for my tooth to be patient until I can get home.

And finally, the last Prayer request/Praise report. One of the things the doctors speculated was that this surgery could possibly fix my dad’s blood pressure issues he’s had for 15 years now. Praise Report: so far the last 36 hours my dad’s blood pressure has been perfect with no meds, Prayer Request: that this continues.

Taking Care of Dad – Part 3

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:03:20 +0000

Today was a good day. Dad got out of ICU and to an in-between room. Not quite ready for a normal care unit but close. He’s been in a lot of pain today but he is such a trooper. Again I will say “Mayo Clinic is the real deal.” The nursing staff is top notch, the doctors are sensitive and knowledgeable, and the cafeteria is better than high school. A vascular surgeon just came up to check in and left with this question, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” This has been a great experience. Instead of bunch of lengthy text I decided to do a video tonight.

Taking Care of Dad – Part 2

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:16:21 +0000

This morning we arrived at St. Mary Hospital at 5:30am. That was really early : )
At 7:55am my dad was taken to be prepped for surgery.
At 9:50am the surgery began.

The surgery is a 3 phase surgery. 1) Removal of his kidney, 2) The replacement and/or repair of 4 artery’s and 12 veins around that kidney, 3) the transplant of his kidney back in his body.

We are getting vague updates every 2 hours, like clockwork. They are just letting us know that he is stable and everything is going as planned. My family and I are in a private ICU waiting room where we have internet access and cable tv and big comfortable chairs. (That’s how I’m sending you this: ) Well hold on…we just got a new update. They have his artery’s and veins fixed and now they are calling in an ultrasound team to see if it’s working. Pray that is fixed!!!!

His surgery will last 6-8 hours total and then there will be 45 minutes of private ICU care before we can see him. As they are preparing him for ICU we will get to hear from the surgeon on how it all went. The estimation is that my dad will be in ICU for 2 days and in the hospital for another 6-8 days after that.

Thank you so much for your prayers, we are believing that this is God’s plan and His healing process. Looking forward to a good report later tonight.

Some more pics from my trip to Minnesota (min-nE-soda, properly pronounced)

Taking Care of Dad – Part 1

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:34:29 +0000

Well we are here. We drove from 8am to 8pm Sunday, from Fort Smith, AR to Rochester, MN. For the last 9 months our local doctors have been trying figure out what’s been going on with my dad and his illness. After 9 months of this merry-go-round my dad ended up at Mayo Clinic. 2 weeks later he had a diagnosis and a procedure scheduled. Now you are all caught up.

Today my dad met with the doctors for his consultation. Tomorrow at 5:30am we head out to St. Mary’s for the procedure. It will take most of the day and will be pretty intense. The docs will be removing his kidney and then doing damage control on his veins and arteries around his kidneys. After this they will transplant his own kidney back to his body and stitch him back up.

Keep my dad in your prayers tomorrow. He will be in ICU for the 2 days following the surgery.

Here’s some pics from our trip so far.

ONEband ASSEMBLE and Destroy!

admin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:53:31 +0000

Last night the ONEband (our youth/young adult worship team) came together to celebrate a huge “W”. Two weeks ago our team led worship for over 1,200 students at Genesis Conference. We witnessed God do some amazing things in thousands of lives. The worship was nothing short of incredible, some of the most passionate, intimate worship I’ve ever been a part of.
After every great “W” there needs to be a moment of reflection and kick butt celebration.

Here’s how we did it…

We destroyed 3 of Ed Walker’s 5 lb. burgers last night. Not a crumb left.

I’m Back.

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:10:59 +0000

Ok, it’s been waaaaaaay to long. In September I took a new role on staff here at HT. I’m now the Creative Media Director. I’ll be honest with you, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. For all those creative media peeps who are also worship peeps….I pray a special multiplication blessing over your sleep.

My calling is worship, my heart is to see life change. So I took an opportunity to help my church create life change in a larger capacity. I like to think this was a chivalrous act, setting aside my wants and desires to let my life be used by God is a bigger way. In just five months I’ve been stretched in ridiculous ways, my creativity has hit brick walls, and my schedule has looked me in the face and laughed at me…BUT some really great things are in progress.

“You will only grow to the threshold of your pain.”

My blog will be taking on a new focus. I will only be blogging on creativity in media and worship. My wife has started our family blog HERE and there is something coming that will be really cool I’m working on with our HTcreative team.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for the new and improved TheJonMorris.com.

Sabbatical

admin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:10:32 +0000

I’m on a blog sabbatical.

Putting all my creative thoughts into my new job here at Harvest Time.

At this point, honestly, there is none left at the end of the day to share with you.

Soooooooo……I”m on a blog sabbatical.

When I come back it will be with a fresh look, fresh ideas and thoughts, and a fresh Jon.

I’m still interacting on twitter and facebook.