Where have we been? In Bethlehem Inn {Part 1}

Whew!!!  What a whirlwind December was!!
So much so that it nearly knocked the wind out of my sails,

and rendered me in need of a sabbatical for a few weeks!!
I had writer's block.
It always seems to happen that way.

And here we are.

Already half-way through February!!!
We've been enjoying the less hurried pace of these deep winter months
early in the new year, and I'm finding my voice again.

In December, our family was consumed with the Christmas production at our church.
It was the very first year we did anything like this and it was amazing!!

I had the privilege of directing this and it was a 12-month labor of love!
When we walked in the doors of our church back in May of 2007, I felt immediately
that this was a place that had the potential of doing amazing things to tell the story
of Jesus's love for us through drama.
But I never envisioned that it would be another 11 years for us
to be ready for something of this magnitude.
Through a friend at a former church in Michigan, I heard about this amazing story.
When I first presented the idea to our Music Minister several years ago,
we had to shelf it because of some administrative transitions happening.
We finally received the all-clear in the middle of 2017, and my kitchen lady and I were sent
to Michigan that December to view it first hand and bring it back to our church in Texas.
What a glorious blessing it was to watch so many of our people work so joyfully
together, to use their talents and skills to create beautiful crafts and art work and all the costumes,
and to meet so many new people in our community eager to be a part of this.
So many of our people didn't know a lot of the new members and many new
friendships were forged as they collaborated together.
But most importantly was the incredible spirit of unity
as we worked together to tell the story of Jesus and how He came to us in our mess
to ultimately die to pay the price for our sins.
So much joy!!!

A Night Before Advent Invitation

Happy birthday, Dr. Frederick Grant Banting!!

Today is World Diabetes Day.
It's the birthday of the Nobel Prize winning co-discoverer of insulin, Sir Frederick Grant Banting.
I originally wrote this post on January 11 which is the anniversary of the date Dr. Banting and his collegues first administered insulin to children dying of diabetes.
Below is the incredible story of how their discovery changed the lives of millions.



A stunning thing happened on this day in history.
Most people aren't even aware of it.
It was the silent miracle that literally raised the dead.
It's incredible to me that this discovery, which had such dramatic effects on the lives of so many, can still be within the memories of those alive today.  It really wasn't such a long time ago.
Many advancements in treatment have been made since this life-saving discovery, and for that I am so thankful.

According to this website the above picture was taken in 1922.
On this date 95 years ago, January 11, 1922, insulin was injected for the first time ever into a 14-year old Type 1 Diabetic child in Canada.  One of my favorite stories about what happened after that date is this story taken from Wikipedia:

Children dying from diabetic ketoacidosis were kept in large wards, often with 50 or more patients in a ward, mostly comatose. Grieving family members were often in attendance, awaiting the (until then, inevitable) death.

In one of medicine's more dramatic moments, Banting, Best, and Collip went from bed to bed, injecting an entire ward with the new purified extract. Before they had reached the last dying child, the first few were awakening from their coma, to the joyous exclamations of their families.^[45]

Can you just imagine?  Knowing that a diagnosis of diabetes was a death sentence for your child.  A very slow, horrible death.....and there was nothing anybody could do?? And at that time, they did not know enough about diabetes to have the distinctions of Type 1 and Type 2.

A couple years ago, I was fiddling around with some of my family genealogy.  I was pretty much blown away to discover that my great-grandfather had passed away in January 1922 of diabetes. Nobody in my family had ever mentioned that before.  I found his death certificate online!
I knew at that point that scientists first treated someone with insulin in January of 1922, but I was thinking it was later in the month.  So when my friend mentioned on facebook (January 11th a couple years ago) that insulin was first administered this week 94 years ago, I ran and pulled out my notebooks.
Could not BELIEVE what I found.....

My great-grandfather died of diabetes 95 years ago YESTERDAY....January 10, 1922.
One day before insulin was first injected into a dying patient.
He was not quite 30 years old.
My grandfather had been married not quite 3 years earlier.
He left behind a nearly 23 year old wife with 2 children.
The youngest of which was almost 5 months old.
She would eventually become my grandmother.

This is my Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother on what we assume is their wedding day.
June 2, 1919

How grateful I am that his great-great granddaughter was sovereignly chosen by God to be born in the 21st century and given Type 1 Diabetes where the treatments and technology for this horrible disease have advanced so far that patients can live fairly normal and healthy and long lives!!

I can't WAIT to see what God is up to in our Ashlyn's life, and why He chose this for her/us!!