Don Bowen Update: 2008-05-17

Thursday my pastor Tim Reist took me out for lunch and we had a great time. We always enjoy brainstorming on all kinds of topics, many related to growing the ministries at our church. Tim is one of our primary teaching pastors and in an upcoming message series is going to interview me.

Here we are at Starbucks. It really brought out our creative best. Great time, Tim. Let’s do it again soon!

Thursday night we attended Amy’s Baccalaureate where our senior pastor Cal Rychener spoke to the graduating class about giving it their BEST:

Believe in your God given talents

Excel in matters of character and integrity

Serve others even if your efforts seem small

Trust God to make up the difference

It was a great message and I hope they listened.

Friday was a really hard day. One of my hardest in a while. I was in pain the entire day, even from the night before. The headache I had was just crippling. I ended up in bed most of the late afternoon and all the way until I went to bed. Pain like that makes the day long and very lonely. I was incredibly weak and knew getting up at 5:30 the next morning for golf was going to be difficult. Eileen was worried too and had it been up to her I would have stayed home.

I was right about it being hard in the morning. My legs were very shaky as I walked down the stairs and I could tell I was in for a long day, but I wanted to golf badly. My friend Doug Cheney picked me up first and then we got Jeff Ringenberg and Dan Hittinger, the rest of our foursome and drove to Macomb, IL for the Youth For Christ scramble.

For the first time I didn’t even take a practice swing or putt. I just didn’t have the energy. Dan was an awesome cart mate. He basically caddied for me. He got my clubs out and put them away. It made a huge difference. As promised I did drive, but only for the first few holes. Even that was too much effort. I know, I was pathetic.

My driving off the tee was incredibly bad. I wish I could blame it on my eyesight, but it was worse than that. You know the rule where if you don’t drive the women’s tee you have to pull your pants down? Well, there were stretches where I would have had to leave my pants around my ankles! I got weak enough near the end that I stopped hitting drives altogether and just waited to pitch onto the green and putt. I got to contribute here and there, including a long 30-40 foot putt on the sixth hole, but in general my partners carried me. Dan almost literally :-), but that is the kind of friends I have. Thanks guys. I had a really good time.

Keep praying for relief from all side effects, specifically headaches and weakness.

I need a miracle, God specializes in them, pray BIG!