olive garden and pumpkin carving

I went to olive garden today. SO GOOD. The entrees all come with a soup or salad and some of the best garlic bread sticks in the world. I got minestrone soup - pretty good. We also ordered a sampler plate - chicken fingers, calamari and fried beef ravioli. The chicken fingers were amazzzzzing! So crisp on the outside and so tender on the inside. For the entree I had the Tuscan garlic chicken. That was very good too. Then we got the chocolate mints that I love. I asked for more from the waitress and she was happy to provide me with a handful :P All night I was thinking.. "How come they're not in Canada anymore?" I remember back in the day when my parents would bring me and my brothers to olive garden for lunch after church. It was one of our favorite restaurants and we all couldn't believe they were leaving Canada when they did 5 or 6 years ago. Such a sad day :(

Anyhoo today is halloween, so here are some pumpkin carving pictures from fellowship last Friday.

This is how they grill in America :P
BBQ Food.. Mmmmm... energy for pumpkin carving:
Taking out the pumpkin goop:
Where the pumpkin goop went:
Stabbing the pumpkin:
The Finished Product: Its supposed to be a dizzy guy seeing stars, but everyone thought it was a monkey :P
Lights out!

Edit 11/2/06:
I forgot to mention another Halloween story.. I got a candy gram from one of my friends here at school.. and she writes "Do they celebrate Halloween in Canada?" haha.. its funny because I ask that all the time to my friends here.. "We have (insert item/product/holiday) in Canada - do you guys have that here?" Canada isn't too different from the states... :P There are differences tho.. I'll make up a list of them in the near future..

postsecret

Joyce really enjoys going to postsecret every week to read secrets. It's an interesting concept. This guy collects secrets and he asks people to send in their secrets on a postcard. This guy then posts 20 of them on the website every Sunday.

Anyways, Joyce told me that the guy who receives these postcards, Frank Warren, was speaking at one of the bookstores here in Philly, and that I should go check it out. So I did, and I really did enjoy his talk.

He had many stories to share - about how he was affected by reading the secrets, to how others responded to reading the secrets, and to how the people that wrote the secrets responded. He said that people can relate to the secrets because the postcards don't always tell you the whole story. The postcards are big enough to tell you the secret, but we have to fill in the blanks so that the secret would make sense to us.

Freeing
One story that I liked was of this lady from Texas. She sent Frank Warren an email saying that she had wrote her secret on a postcard perfectly, but when she read it, she didn't like the secret so she ripped it up and decided to stop living a lie and to get rid of the secret. He said that that story reminded him that sometimes we think that we are holding onto a secret but in reality, the secret is holding onto us.

Relating and Encouraging
He shared a story about a teenage girl who sent in a card that said something like: "I have great parents, great friends, amazing grades in school, etc., but I'd trade it all away to be beautiful." And after he posted it on the site, a reader saw it and emailed him saying how she related to that secret. She said she was like that once. Now she's 40 and the secret made her look back in her old yearbooks and she said that she looked pretty cute back then. So she decided then that she would stop wanting to be more beautiful because she was beautiful the way she was. And so Frank Warren posted that story underneath the secret and he said how it was amazing how people can be touched and changed by the secrets and how others that go through the same thing can encourage each other.

Loving
One last story that I liked was of this girl who wrote to Frank Warren saying that she had written up a bunch of secrets that she had never told anyone, including her boyfriend. But instead of sending them to him, he left them by her boyfriend's head while he was sleeping and went to work. That afternoon, the boyfriend came by and proposed to her. It was really touching and encouraging to see that regardless of our secrets, the people who love us will still ultimately love us.

Community
Some of the most memorable moments in my life were in a couple of winter retreats I went to while I was in Toronto. We had "deep deep sharing". We would essentially share our "secrets" - what we were struggling with. I remember one where I shared my secret and I just couldn't stop crying. Everyone was crying, but man.. I just couldn't stop crying the whole night. It was liberating to share my struggles, to be transparent. I remember a few people coming up to me to encourage me as well. I think what these experiences and what the talk yesterday by Frank Warren taught me is that we are definitely not alone. We may feel that our secrets are too shameful for others, but in reality it is something that we all probably struggle with. God asks us to be transparent because it frees us from our chains - frees us from our bondage to sin. It is through community that we can relate to one another, to encourage one another, and to unconditionally love one another.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
~Gal 6:2

Bonus!
Some of the secrets that I found funny last night were:

Frank Warren's neighbour, who is an author, wrote: I hate that my neighbour thought of a better idea than me

The most popular secret sent was:I pee in the shower

This one is from Frank Warren's wife:I want to sleep with Richard Gere (a little awkward wouldn't you think? hehe)

And my favorite:
...so be careful how you treat others ;)

scrubbing in

I scrubbed into my first surgery the other day. Sounds exciting huh? Well.. it seems all exciting and stuff on TV but it wasn't too exciting; my job wasn't too spectacular. Maybe it'll be more exciting when I'm actually the one doing the surgery. You know on TV when doctors yell out for a scalpel or a retractor? Well.. I was the guy in the surgery than hands them the instruments. The procedure was a removal of a foreign body. I didn't even get to see the surgery.. oh well.. I don't think I would have had time to watch anyways. I had to be on the ball. Anticipate everything they needed before they needed it. Hand them instruments and medicines and specimen cups and whatever else they needed in a timely fashion so the surgeon could do their work without delay. It was pretty fun, even tho it was boring and tedious work. That's the life of a surgeon tho.. you gotta start with the basics and step your way up. Next year when I'm in the OR I'll get to retract! Nice. I have a couple years before I actually get to cut skin and bone in a surgery :P. Gotta pay my dues first I guess. I understand how it works tho.. learn the basics first before you go onto the complex.

Isn't that how it is though? We so often want that "solid food" and yet we have yet to learn how to drink "milk" (Heb 5:12). We need a good foundation first on which to base the more complex things in life. There are times in our lives when we look forward to the future - when we look to the spectacular and the exciting things we might be doing then. We may try to "skip steps" and do the things we'd like to do in the future before we learn all the basics. We may not like our situation presently - we may even can't wait to get out of it so that we can move on to more exciting things. But before we move on to those exciting things - whatever they may be - we need to learn the basics first - essentially the gospel message. We need to learn how to love, how to wait, how to long, how to have faith, how to forgive, how to relate, etc.. Life on Earth is just a detour to heaven. I believe that the character we develop here on Earth will impact who we are in heaven. We are told to finish the race strong (Heb 12:1), and to prepare for the Day of His return (Matt 25:1-13). The present shapes our future. The basics shape the complex. The building blocks shape the building. Its nice to look forward to things in the future - be it opportunities, situations, relationships, skills you'll attain, or heaven! But if we don't focus on the present and all that we can learn from it - we may be robbing ourselves of the best future that we can have.

"In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!"
~Hebrews 5:12

red-carded

This past weekend I was helping out at the breast cancer walk here as a podiatric/medical guy. There were people with sprained ankles, and twisted knees, and good 'ol blisters. It was busy, but it was fun talking to people. There was one patient that we saw that we had to "red card". That's when a patient's injury is significant enough that we can't allow them to continue the race (for their safety). As I was examining this patient, it was apparent that she had a tendinitis in her foot, but she also had a focal pain in the bottom of her foot that seemed to resemble a fracture. So I called over one of the sports medicine doctors for a second opinion, and he said that it might be a fracture. So he decided to red card her. At this point, the patient just broke down in tears right in front of me. I had no idea what to say. Thank God 2 of her friends were there to encourage her - telling her that she had raised money for a good cause and that she did the best she could. I never realized how important it was for people to finish the walk. They train for months. And to not be able to finish the race is devestating for them. This patient in particular had children that were coming from 6 hours away to see her cross the finish line. And now they wouldn't be able to. Finishing was important to her, and she wasn't able to finish because she got red carded by us. Afterwards we went to talk to the sports medicine doctor and we were able to talk him into allowing the patient to walk the last mile so at least she could cross the finish line. If the x-rays were clear, she could walk the rest of the way too if she could stand the pain. So that seemed to lift her spirits up a little. Reminded me of one of my favorite stories - Footprints in the Sand. When we are at our lowest, God is there to carry us through.

This whole situation got me thinking about finishing the walk of life. How important is it for me to finish well? How much am I training? Is there anything in my life that is going to get me red-carded? Is there anything that will prevent me from walking my best? I am guilty of falling so many times in terms of training my mind, body, and soul. I have been red-carded many times in my life. But it is amazing grace that allows me to continue to walk. It is Jesus who carries me through the walk and who will help me finish well.

Footprints in the Sand by Mary Stevenson

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand: one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life. This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, You said that once I decided to follow you, You'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me." The Lord replied, "My son, My precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I Carried You."

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
~1 Cor 9:25