Behind the Scenes

From the New York Premiere of The Shack movie, to our own home-town opening of the movie with 250 people who flew in and drove in to watch the movie with Brad and me, it was a wild week. It was fun to see so many people who have been God Journey listeners and Lifestream readers and see the work God has been doing in their lives. I’ll post some pictures at the bottom to capture some of the flavors of the weekend here in Thousand Oaks.

As fun as all this has been however, I’ll be glad when all the hoopla settles down and the star of the show isn’t the movie, the actors, Lionsgate, Paul Young, Wayne Jacobsen or Brad Cummings, but God himself.  That was the joy of the book, seeing how God used this story to invite people out of the places they may have gotten stuck into a more compelling relationship with him based on his love and his work, not our own efforts.

It is already doing that. Here are just a few of the emails I got over the weekend as people were seeing the movie all over the country.  (And my apologies to those frustrated readers from other countries who cannot see the movie yet. I ‘m so sorry.  Your turn is coming!)

From a mother in Nashville: My 19 year old son saw it last night. He said “all I can say Mom is Wow! I feel better from just seeing that movie. I just want to hug you!” I don’t know what all God is doing in his heart…  But He has used you and this movie already!!! Can’t wait to see it tomorrow!!!’

Marlowe: Such a POWERFUL movie for anyone who has ever suffered heartache, and struggled to move forward… or wrestled with “why the pain?”… or longed for a closer relationship with God. If you can relate, RUN, don’t walk, to The Shack!!!

Chris: Just saw The Shack with my wife all I can say is wow, so powerful. Broke my heart and put it back together again, it’s life changing.

Jennifer: I’m sitting in the theater parking lot after my 2nd time of seeing it. It was even more amazing than the first. I was a complete movie nerd taking notes because some quotes I do not want to forget.

John: Just wanted to tell you thank you for all you have done. This movie bears your language and words and poetry and love in Christ. During the movie people in voluntarily were calling out. Thank you for all you have done without fanfare or attention.

Loren: Took my family to see The Shack tonight. I did my best to put on my critic hat and leave my personal bias for it at home. My take on it is best summed up by a Darth Vader line, “Impressive! Most impressive!” It was far better than I expected it to be. I haven’t cried like that in the theater since I was ten years old and saw E.T. Plus it was super cool seeing Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings names pop up on the first end credit. I’ve never seen a wide release movie in the theater in which the name of someone I know shows up on the screen. I got so caught up in the movie it actually caught me off guard when their names popped up. That was fun! Great job guys! All the actors were fantastic and overall the movie was great! Totally worth seeing!

Now I’m up in Wyoming and Montana helping some others process this story before I head to the east coast (Boston and Baltimore) at the end of March.

Oh, and here are the pictures I promised

Sara registering people for the movie

Brad and I interacting with the audience after the show

Even the grandkids showed up for the After Party, though two of them didn’t see the movie

Brad and I sharing the story at the After Party

Our celebration cake at the open house the following day

Sara and I returned last night from New York where we attended the Worldwide Premiere of The Shack movie with Brad and Kelly Cummings and their daughter, Taylor. (Here are some short videos from our time there:  from Central Park, from Times Square and from our hotel as we get ready to leave for the airport.) We walked the “red carpet”, but in this case it was gray and even had a chance to talk to some reporters that were enquiring about the movie.

It was a whirlwind of two days, but gave our families time to celebrate the culmination of a very long journey.  Eleven years ago four of us sat in my dining room with a manuscript Paul Young had written for his children, to brainstorm how we could take the heart of that story and make a redemption-themed movie out of it.  We discovered that the first thing we needed to do was turn it into a book and if we could sell 100,000 copies of it in 2 or 3 years we might get the chance to make a movie.

Thus began a 16 month journey to rewrite the book and make it more of a story. The months we worked on the book were some of the most spiritually potent and personally enriching seasons of my life. I’ve never worked with two other men who demonstrated such love, generosity, tenderness and wisdom as we sought to get the story right. We were more concerned with serving the story of God making himself known to a man lost in pain and depression than serving our egos.  As I look back it is clear to me that God brought three unique individuals together with life-experiences and perspectives to help craft and refine this story.  And in the process we were aware that we were part of something greater than ourselves. What came out was bigger than any of us or all of us combined. It was a gift, an invitation God wanted to put into the world and we were merely conduits for it.

Quickly the book found its audience and in a few short months we had already overshot the 100,000-copy runway and interest from movie producers and directors began to pour in. Delight and joy soon gave way to pain as some of the relationships didn’t survive the journey. Even though I knew millions of people were being touched by the story for a time I came to regret my involvement with it. I’d been part of close friends in Jesus separating before, and had promised myself I’d never be part of that again. Yet, here I was despite my best efforts to avoid it.

In the past few months, however, God has drawn me back to that season of collaboration. The sixteen months we wrote together and the eighteen months we were putting it the world as good friends, filled with laughter and friendship and deep, deep sharing of life and heart. And even if others no longer wanted to honor or celebrate it, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t. In the past few months I have come to see this all as an amazing gift God gave through some amazing lives. If you missed that part of the story you can hear Brad, Paul Young and I discuss it in a podcast that aired on January 11, 2008, talk about it here.

I wasn’t involved in the nuts and bolts of making this movie. My friend Brad was, and though he allowed me to look over his shoulder and throw in my two cents worth from time to time, he bore the brunt of an incredibly arduous process. Making a studio movie is balancing a host of agendas and egos that would make you tremble and were always concerned as to how it would come out. This was a painful process in many ways, but honestly this movie would not have come out as true to the book as it did without his hard work and sacrifice. But somehow, through a less-friendly collaboration, God also found a way to shape this gift too. Brad and I could not be more excited at how this movie came out and the touch of Father’s hand that seems to be on it for all kinds of audiences. It stays true to the story and the message and we think you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise.

As Sara and I sat through the premiere showing on Tuesday night, I found myself incredibly grateful for all God has done in this process. As we reminisced with Brad and Kelly it brought such warmth and tenderness to our hearts and an excitement about what this movie might do to invite others to know God. I was asked by a reporter as we went down the “red” carpet what I hoped people would have in their hearts as they walked away from the movie. My answer was that no matter how lost they might be in their own pain or failures, that they would at least wonder if there was a God in the universe looking for them, winning them into his love and freeing them from all the places they got stuck. “If we have to find him on our own, we have little hope. But if he is looking for us then we have all there reason in the world for hope.”

As many of you see the movie you may want to talk about it with others. We are hosting a place at Lifestream for people to comment, ask questions, and process their own journey. You can of course comment on the bottom of this blog, or on the Facebook posting about it.  Or, you can go to our Shack Discussion Forum at Lifestream.  We’re just going to open a door for people to comment, ask questions, or share your favorite moments. You create the topics you’d like to talk with others about and we’ll manage it just to make sure everybody plays nice. You don’t have to love the movie, either to participate. We realize not everyone appreciates art at the same level or hits them in the same way.  However, we’re going to ask you to play nice. Abusive and arrogant postings will be removed.

I do hope you get a chance to see it. And I do hope it draws you ever-closer, not to the characters in the story or those who helped in the process, but to the Father, Son and Spirit themselves. Helping people discover them has been the purpose behind this process. And the frosting on the cake is the friendships it has brought into our lives from all over the world.

I probably won’t do this again. I don’t see myself as a “tour operator” in Israel or anythwhere else. I much prefer being a tour operator to help people discover how to live freely in God’s kingdom.

But I promised I would go back, to get my daughter there, after my son and wife went on the last trip. She couldn’t go because of young children at home. So this time she is going along with my niece, and Sara is staying home to help Julie’s husband with the kids. I also decided to go back because of the number of people who wanted me to do it again and said they wanted to go. However, most of them ended up not being able to go this time, so we have a bunch of others.

So in a couple of hours I depart for the airport and an overnight flight to Frankfurt and then to Amman, Jordan. I am looking forward to the next two weeks wandering around some of the most amazing real estate in the world with Brad Cummings and his wife and people from all over the world. We’re going to see some amazing sites in Jordan first, and then in Israel. We’re going to reflect on how this land became so critical to God revealing himself in the world and the unique challenges that it faces until the day the New Jerusalem descends from heaven. I’m always amazed when I’m there that God chose this place of all those on the earth to make himself known. We’re also going to let the Scriptures come to life as we visit places where these things actually happened. And, we’ll have a great time on the bus, around meals, and walking around to get to know each other. Last time a group of strangers became knit together pretty quickly and the sense of family we had there continues to bear fruit across continents since.

We are going to take a boat across Galilee (the picture above is from our last time there) and observe the hills that Jesus would have seen countless times, stare down the Gates of Hell in Caesarea Philippi, stand near the altar Jeroboam built in Dan, be on the mount Jesus where most likely preached his famous sermon, swim in the Dead Sea, go up to Masada, and end our travels in Jerusalem on some of the very stones Jesus walked on, visit the mount where the Temple stood and the traditional sites for his death, burial and resurrection.

I wish you could all go. I know many reading this wish they had the time and resources to have joined us on this trip. I wish you could have as well.  I don’t believe God is any more present in Israel than he is in your own home. God inhabits his universe and we can discover him right where we are as easily as any place else. So I don’t go to Israel to have a more special time with God, though like everywhere else I go, I fully anticipate engaging him there.

And I pray that you, too, wherever you are, will make some time to lean into his reality over the next few weeks. It’s so easy to get caught up in the rush of life that we don’t set time aside to reflect on him and to ask him to make himself known to us.  That’s where this journey thrives, not on Israel trips, in books or by listening to podcasts. This is a journey he wants to take with you. I know that connection takes some time to develop. It may be just inklings at the start, but it will grow into nudges, and then revelation, and then the joy and confidence of knowing he is always with you whether you feel him or not. Your whole life is in his hands and there’s no better place for it to be.

I have been so grateful for so many of you who have helped carry me through this surgery and recovery. I’ve received so many emails, cards, phone calls from so many of you, as well as shared walks and conversations that have made this all incredibly smooth. This is my last update regarding my heart surgery and recovery.   I am now 10 weeks from surgery and feel as if I’m 90% back to normal. My only limitation now is not exerting my heart too much until it is fully healed. My maximum heart rate for exercise now is about 120 and increases each week. I had my 10-week check up with my cardiologist earlier this week and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the results.  Everything is normal at this stage of recovery and the extensive bloodwork that he did showed everything in the normal ranger and some of my cholesterol numbers he said were great!  Who would have thought?

This has been a bit of an ordeal, but I’m so glad to have come through it as smoothly as I have, thanks to the incredible medical team and the prayers, love, and support from so many family and friends. So now, I’m returning to my normal activities and just in time, too. On Sunday I leave for two weeks in Jordan and Israel. When I had surgery on November 10, I thought I would have to cancel my part in the God Journey Israel Tour. My surgeon told me at the time that would not be necessary, I would be good to go by January 22.  That seemed too incredible to me, and I’m still shocked now that I’m well enough to travel and participate with the tour.

I will continue Cardio Rehab for the next few weeks after I return, an the heart is still completing its healing, but there really isn;t any need for further updates about my medical condition. I’m ready to move on from being the Wayne-who-is-recovering-from-heart-surgery, to just plain old Wayne. After The Shack opens in March, I’ll be returning to my normal schedule. I’m already book travel for this spring and summer. So as far as surgery and recovery are concerned, there’s nothing to see here now. If some complication changes that, I’ll certainly let you know, but in the absence of that let’s all move on to what God is doing in the world and how we participate in that reality.

For those of you interested in joining us for The Shack Showing in Thousand Oaks on March 4, you can purchase your tickets on the web page that will go up tomorrow. I’ll put the link here when it does.  We will also have an after-part after the showing for people who want to converse with Brad and I more about it.

One last thing, I made two appearances on A Christian And a Muslim Walk Into a Studio, a podcast where two men of different faiths hammer out their friendship and share it with the world.  I know, it sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s not. One of the co-hosts is a good friend of mine, Bob Prater, and the other is becoming a good friend, Emad Meerza. Emad describes himself as a seventh-century Muslim and he’s a recognized emir in Central California. He’s a fascinating man with a very open heart. They invited me into their conversation for two episodes. The first airs this week about my involvement with The Shack, and the second (to air next week) is about my former work with BridgeBuilders helping public schools bridge the cultural divide. I think you’ll find these conversations fascinating.  I know I did.

“Missy was murdered right here.”

The conclusion came with a wave of grief and sorrow I was not anticipating.  It felt as if I stood on holy ground amidst the wooden boards of the dilapidated shack with shards of light piercing the semi-darkness from cracks in the walls. The hole in my heart was so vast I felt loss and lost.

I was so disoriented for a few moments that I’d forgotten all this was fiction. There was no Missy and she had not been murdered. She was part of a story I’d helped to write and in fact this setting was the first chapter I’d rewritten after the prolonged insistence of the original author to help him rework his manuscript. I’d been drawn back to that moment and the setting was exactly as I had imagined it.

No, I wasn’t dreaming I was on the movie set for the film adaptation of this story in July of 2015.  Brad, who had also helped on the rewrite and was now a producer on the film, was showing me the shack set, built out of old barn wood alongside a lake in British Columbia.  We were alone as we walked across he porch and inside the shack.  I took it in, eerily familiar on a visceral level, though I’d only been here in my own imagination.  Seeing it in reality was disorienting, disturbing the line between reality and fiction.

Brad watched me take it in and so he was already looking at me when I turned to him.  “Where?” I mouthed. Any noise seemed so inappropriate here.

Knowing what I was asking he nodded to the floor not far in front of me.  Until that moment I had been on a set.  In the next, my heart plunged into the depths of sorrow as I felt the loss of an innocent little girl to the tortured heart of her killer. My heart began to break with sorrow.

And then reason slowly began to take over.  “Wait a minute. No one died here. This is a movie set.” Like waking from a vivid dream each thought sought to break the hold of my emotional reaction and remind me that this was a simple convention in a fictional story. It took some time, but reason finally won out and I was once again back on a movie set, though still surprised at the emotions it hat provoked. It’s what others had experienced reading the book, that blurring between a fictional story and the reality of our own pain.

That’s what The Shack was designed to do, to carry the pain of its readers before God in a way that would allow him reveal himself as more good and loving than any of us would dare to believe amidst the tortured brokenness of the world we traverse. It seems far easier for us to blame God for our pain than to let him show us a greater reality beyond it and the immense love he holds for his creation.

I wanted to stay there as long as I could and soak in the moment, but we had to move on.  The film crew was elsewhere and we didn’t want to miss the day’s shoot. As we walked back to the car I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder to take it in. There stood the shack just like we’d imagined it as a crew around it was winterizing it for tomorrow’s shoot. I can’t wait to see what comes from it all.

There’s a mild antipathy inherent in any film production between the film company that wants to creatively adapt the story to a visual medium and those that worked on or enjoyed the book and want to see it stay faithful to the original story. I hear an ominous concern from many readers who love the book so much, fearful they will be disappointed if the film doesn’t live up to their imagination.  They want my assurance that the story is in good hands.

There is much to be done before we’ll know for sure so we’ll have to see what comes of it.  It will be different—a movie and a book have to accomplish different things.  But having been on the set for a couple of days and meeting some of those involved in this adaptation, I came away wonderfully hopeful.  Hearing words that are so meaningful to me in the mouths of actors touches a deep place in my heart, listening to so many who were touched by the book, and seeing the scenes come to life with such beauty, was exhilarating.  And there was something indefinable in the air and I suspect more is at work here than the human hands touching it.

In the end it will be a beautiful movie and I am hopeful that it will unfold God’s reality in a way that will touch many more people who haven’t yet read the book.

Wayne on the set while the Shack was being prepped for winter in July 2015

I wrote the above right after I returned from the set but was not allowed to post it at the time because of restrictions from the studio.  I can now.  Two days before Christmas I got to take my family to a special screening and see the entire finished movie. It was my first time to see it color corrected, with all the special effects and the music. Wow!  It is simply amazing, and my family thought so too. It was weird to watch people in the the theater cry or laugh to some of the words I wrote and the scenes I helped create. But the main messages of this movie that I wanted to convey are fully intact within it.  There is so much here as to how God can touch the lives of people.

And, yes, the controversy is beginning to rage once again by those who think we want the world to believe that God is a woman or that we got some detail of the Trinity not quite right. Unfortunately they miss the greater story—that God is capable of walking into the depths of our most painful disappointments and despair, win us into his love, and walk us out into reality and freedom.  It’s all about relationship. It’s what God desired before the Creation and what heals the restlessness and brokenness in our own souls. That comes through wonderfully clear in the movie. It’s not a perfect movie and there are bits that I would change if I had the power, but what is here is a faithful depiction of the story we worked on and some visuals that are amazing. I was touched at a heart level many times and I knew what was coming.

But you don’t have to take my word for this alone.  The studio has been running trial screenings in various markets. They’ve come away very encouraged by the audience reaction. Two of the statements audience I’ve heard repeated are: “The Passion shows us what, The Shack shows us why!” and, “Finally Hollywood gets it right!” Honestly, I think they did here.

Two of my friends got to attend two of those screenings, one in Atlanta and one in Colorado Springs.  I had no idea until they wrote me to share their perspectives:

From Colorado Springs:  We were privileged to attend the preview showing of The Shack last week. So well done, and moving. Several unexpected moments of revelation and exhortation throughout.

From Atlanta:  All I can say is, WOW! Brad – you did an awesome job fighting for keeping the integrity of the book with Hollywood. Not that I have it all memorized, but it seemed like the majority of it was kept intact. As an actor and Christ-follower, I have a high (and maybe even a super sensitive) BS meter when it comes to “Christian” movies — and that could be because of the acting or the writing or cheese-factor I see in most of those flicks. That meter didn’t go off one iota in The Shack. The directing was great. The acting was even better. And this is something I feel I can tell others to go see. I’m excited to see where this will go! Unfortunately, my wife didn’t get to goodie to a prior commitment so I took a friend with me who had never read the book.  He is going through a painful season in his life. He absolutely loved it. I asked if he had a favorite part and he mentioned the portion with Mack and “Wisdom” was his favorite.

It’s only a few weeks now until the movie will be out for everyone to see.  March 3 can’t get here soon enough for me, but I do have to run off to Jordan and Israel first. We’re still planning on hosting a showing here in Thousand Oaks, CA either on February 25 if we can get permission to do it a week before the release, or March 4 if we can’t. Hopefully we’ll nail that down in the next week so people can begin to buy tickets. If you’re interested sign up here.

You can follow what’s going on with the movie and view the trailer here or follow it on Facebook here.

2017 has arrived!  Big deal!  I’m not much on arbitrary dates like this. Oh, they are fun to celebrate with friends but I know for many dates like this haunt them for the lack of seeming progress they’ve made in their lives over the past year. But transformation doesn’t come in giant leaps and resolutions, but in a slow, steady heart that keeps leaning into Father’s reality and out of the illusions of this world and even our religious sensibilities.  God loves you. He lives in you and as you just keep opening your heart to him each day he is at work in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. Find your way into that reality today, even if you can’t see it’s impact in the way you would like, and that transformation will continue.  God wants you free and alive in him far more than you do!

Sara and I have enjoyed the week between Christmas and New Years at Shaver Lake with my dad, my daughter and her family and with some friends from this area that we don’t get to see often enough.  Kids, puppies and snow are quite a delightful mix as our new pup explored the white stuff. It amazes me how much all our dogs have loved the snow at first sight.  They bolt from the car and run through it like they’ve just discovered heaven. And they are barefoot at that!  We have had a great time up here and are getting ready to head home in the next day or two.

I’m now seven and a half weeks out of surgery and feeling pretty good.  Except for not being able to exert my heart as much as I would like, I’m pretty much back to normal and am so grateful.  The heart will take another 4.5 weeks to heal so we’re slowly elevating my heart activity to make room for that. I continued my walks up here, in the snow and ice, so it’s been brisk and beautiful.  And after all the trauma my body has been through I’m constantly amazed at the resilience of it as it finds it’s way back to “normal.” And hopefully it will be a new normal with a stronger heart and greater endurance.

Over the break I’ve been reading Colson Whitehead’s book, The Underground Railroad. It’s a novel that won the National Book Award about the people who risked their lives to help slaves escape to the north and the hunters who fought so hard to bring them back to be tortured so others wouldn’t be tempted to try it. It is a story of fear and great courage. I started reading it as background for the book a friend of mine is writing about the Civil War. I’m helping him with it and wanted to read an award-winning book in that genre.  I am fully hooked on the characters and the story and looking forward to continuing later today.  It’s got me thinking what kind of person I would have been back in that day if I’d be raised in the South.  There’s no way to know, of course!

The best “gift” I got this holiday season was the opportunity two days before Christmas to watch the final version of The Shack movie with my family at the Lionsgate Screening Room. I’ll write more about that experience in my next blog, but it was such a joy not only to see the movie myself, but to experience it with them and watch them and a roomful of other people respond to it. It exceeded my hopes. To watch people react with laughter and tears to the words and scenes that I helped to write was an extraordinary experience. Talking about it with my kids after was a further delight as they shared their thoughts and insights about it.  Will March 3 ever come?

But before it does, I still have a trip to Israel to make. Three weeks from today I’ll be headed to Jordan.  Yikes!

Due to the holiday season our office will be closed this week.  We will open again on January 4. We apologize if that’s an inconvenience to you in some way. Book and audio orders placed this week will be sent out early next.

The good news, however, is that our 15% discount at the Lifestream Store continues until December 31.  Just place your order as usual and type in “LSChristmas” for your coupon code and it will reduce your order by 15%. Our books and our Audio and Video products are included.

Also, if you need to some year-end giving opportunities, we’d be blessed for you to consider the ongoing need in Kenya, the production of the Jake movie, or an of our ongoing needs at Lifestream. Please see our donation page if you’d like to give.

Finally if you’d like to go to Israel with Brad and I from January 15-February 5, you have to get it done quickly, but I think e can still smash you in.  Check here.

I continue to recover from heart surgery, allowing me a bit of time to run up to visit my dad. I’m six and a half weeks out from surgery and all is doing well.  I’m back to doing most things I was able to do before except put too much exertion on the heart. I’m permitted some light workouts as well as my walking. It takes 12 weeks for the physical trauma of the heart to heal.  So I’ve got a ways to go here, but couldn’t be more pleased at my recovery.  I am grateful for all your prayers and expressions of concern and it is good to feel functional again.

I hope you are looking forward to the year ahead and all the possibilities God might have in mind for taking your journey into greater freedom and fruitfulness.

One of the greatest days of my life was spending an afternoon with my daughter’s well-marked copy of He Loves Me after she had returned from college shortly after it had been published. With her permission I got to read through the comments she’d written in the margin and enjoy what she highlighted. My daughter posted the picture above a couple of weeks ago. It’s my oldest granddaughter reading So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. It took my breath away. I knew she was reading The Shack with her mom for the first time, but now she wants to read everything her grandpa has written. I cant tell how how that impacted me and I can’t imagine the conversations we’re going to get to have ahead.

I’m still amazed and incredibly grateful whenever I hear how something I’ve written has touched someone else deeply, and helped encourage their own spiritual journey whether it’s my family or people I haven’t met yet. The power of a story can invite people into a transforming reality they are not even expecting.

The Shack movie will be out March 3, and it will give people a lot to think about as they process that story and God in their own lives. And we are well into the process of adapting Jake’s story in So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore for a big-screen movie, tentatively titled Out of the Game. The movie focuses on the religious game Jake doesn’t even know he’s playing by serving his own need to gain approval from others. Though an encounter with a mysterious man who is living in more freedom than Jake has ever known his life begins to change. As it comes unraveled he has to choose between the false security of his past, or the risk of finding God is better than he ever dreamed. We made some changes in the story, but not to its meaning and I’m thrilled that we’ll have a chance to re-tell this story to a wider audience.

We just added a new section of the website that will let you look behind the scenes at the process I’ve been involved in, introduce you to some of the people I am working with, and if you’d like, I can give you an opportunity to be involved in the production. The link above will explain everything but we’re hopeful to make this movie with a combination of investment money and passion dollars from those who care about the message and want to help us make this movie. You can do that through a donation to Lifestream that will give us a stake in the movie and the ability to shape its message.  In return we’d like to offer you some special gifts as our way of saying thanks and involving you in this unfolding process.  .

Unlike The Shack, we don’t have a major studio behind us. This is an independent production, born in the heart of a man who found this book to be a meaningful part of his own spiritual journey by helping him see that God was not the demanding taskmaster he’d learned in his childhood. I am deeply involved in all phases to his project and am excited to put this story into a new medium that can touch a different audience of people. I invite you to click through to our behind the scenes video and see if this is something that would interest you.

And don’t forget, through December 31, you can receive a 15% discount for all items in the Lifestream Store simply by using the coupon code: “LSChristmas”.

‘Tis the season and all that. Just found out we had two more sign-ups to go to Israel with us. I thought it was too late, but it turns out our reservations still allow us to sign up nine more people who might be able to go with Brad and I to Israel at the last minute. We depart January 22 for three days in Jordan and then those not going to Jordan will be flying to Israel on January 25 for our ten-day stay there. You can get all the details here! Yes, I know it is expensive, and a once-in-a-lifetime trip, but it might be just the thing for someone you love this Christmas. But you have to have a passport and move quickly. Imagine, in six weeks you could be walking along the shore of Galilee, standing in the ruins of Capernaum, Beit Shean, or walking the old city on the very stones Jesus would have set foot on. And you’ll have Brad and I to mess with you! It could be a win/win.

On the less expensive side, we have lots of books and recordings in our Lifestream store. A Man Like No Other makes a perfect gift for anyone who appreciates the story of Jesus. And as a way to thank you for all the love and support we have received this year from so many of you, for all orders placed between now and December 31, we’re offering a 15% discount to help you buy for someone else, or use your Christmas money after. Just enter the discount code: “LSChristmas” in the appropriate box. I hope you can find something there to enjoy or pass on to a friend.

Finally a health update: It has been four weeks and a day since my surgery, which is a milestone in my progress. Most of the pain and soreness is gone and I can function to about 80% capacity during the day, so I’ve spent a lot of time this week catching up on emails and recording two more podcasts with Brad. Yesterday, my cardiologist and I took my refurbished heart out for a test drive on the treadmill while all hooked up to monitor how it’s all working inside. He said everything is perfect at this point and all the numbers are above expectation for only being a month out of surgery. My incision has healed well and runs about four inches down the top of my rib cage. He traced his finger from there another four inches to the bottom of my sternum and said, “In the old days, the would have cut you to here.” I nodded with a grimace having watched my dad go through that 12 years ago. “The old days,” he added, “were eight months ago!” Wow! That hit home. I’m glad my valve held out long enough to get to this procedure because it makes recovery a whole lot easier.

The next milestones come at 6 weeks when I can begin to lift things heavier than ten pounds and at 12 weeks when my heart will be mostly healed and I won’t have the weird stuff going on in there or the shortness of breath. Thank you for all the prayers, love, and concern you’ve shared with me and my family through this process. I’m walking about 5 miles a day now on two separate walks. One I do with Sara and the dogs usually in the afternoon and the other I do in the morning with God, a friend around here if I can find one, or with my cell phone in hand talking to many of you who have been gracious enough to call me and help pass the time. Next week I should begin cardio rehab which will be an hour a session three times a week and learn how to care for this thing! They say it’s a hoot.

If some of you want want to shift your prayers to Sara, that would be awesome. For the past five months she’s had some medical challenges that aren’t as eye-catching as open-heart surgery, involving her back, right hip, some weird food allergies, and neuroma in her feet. She negotiates a lot of pain every day as the doctors and therapists try to find a solution for her. Prayers and love her way would mean a lot to her.

Walking. Walking. Walking. It’s a good thing I enjoy it, because that’s the regimen now.  I’m nearly two weeks out from open-heart surgery and according to my doctors I’m on the upside of the recovery curve. I was home after two days, have nearly stopped all pain meds  and can function at about 80% of normal for 4-5 hours a day. All in all this has been way easier than I had thought watching my dad go through this 12 years ago.

But there were some significant differences in our two surgeries. He also had triple bypass; by God’s grace my arteries were clear and I did not need any bypasses and thus did not have the extra load of having arteries harvested from elsewhere for the grafts. Also, I didn’t get my entire rib cage split open. My surgeon has been part of team developing a less-intrusive procedure only opening the top half of the rib cage instead of the whole thing. Also, the technology of these procedures has also changed significantly leading to better recovery times. So I’m not anticipating taking a year to recover as I’ve heard from many other open-heart patients and for them I’m thankful.

So as Thanksgiving approaches, I’m really grateful: for an unexpected warning during a soccer scrum with my granddaughter, for skilled doctors, surgeons, and nurses who knew exactly what to do and were the most amazing people, for God’s care during the harrowing moments just before and just after surgery, for the support of my wife and my family who carried me through this with compassion, humor, and kindness. And of course, there were so many of you who sent greetings my way, prayers God’s way, and many who came by to visit and distract me from the long hours of staring into space.

And I love how many of you wrote me about others you were praying for in your life alongside your prayers for me.  That was so cool. Thank you for doing that.  And I received emails from people suffering worse than me, or with loved ones that were facing imminent death because they were beyond medical help. This world really is cruel and I have prayed for your loved ones as I have been prayed for by so many others. It is good to share the fellowship of suffering and not pretend a life in God is always full of ease and happiness. This is a broken world, and even Jesus navigated it often with “loud cries and tears” raised to God.

My friend David said I should “relish” this experience. I’m not sure I got there. His encouragement, though helped me see a different way to navigate this surgery. I got to a  place where I no longer fought it, or fought God in it. I let him have the reigns on these circumstances and relaxed into his goodness. He’s been here with me, but I know some are waiting for new revelations of God’s reality or of my mortality, but this didn’t play out that way. God was just with me as we are navigating these events. I was more touched by a movie I saw last night, ARRIVAL, than anything that happened in surgery. It was not at all what I was expecting and I mean deeply touched at a Matrix-like level of seeing into some things God has been showing me for some time.  More on that at some future time, I think.

Two weeks out and I’m truly amazed at how all this has gone. It’s nice to be mostly pain free now and only a bit uncomfortable at times. I’m glad I can read and stay focused for a significant chunk of the day. And I’m grateful to get out and go for a walk or even to a movie last night with Sara. Things are getting back to a better normal. I’ve got some more recovery time, obviously, and am looking forward to a quiet Thanksgiving season ahead with my family. After that I begin some cardio rehab to get my body back up to speed, but I’m grateful all this is on track for me to still be part of the Israel Tour leaving at the end of January.

And look who came to visit me yesterday afternoon to pick-up my spirits.  That panda on the right is Pepper, a gift from my daughters’ family. The kids fill her with hugs so when I need to cough or sneeze, I can hold her to my chest with their love… So sweet!

So wherever this journey takes you, I trust that you too find gratitude and thanksgiving rising toward God as he walks alongside you helping you find your life in him, not your circumstances.