Author Archives: Reggie Lyell

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About Reggie Lyell

Christian, husband, father/grandfather, and physician- my roles in order of importance.

Katie Turns Sixteen

It seems like yesterday that our 9-week premature 3+ pound daughter was struggling for breath under an oxygen hood in the neonatal ICU. Today, she turned 16 and all the fears dads have came with the birthday. She has been through driver’s education, has her own car, and drives fairly safely with me. But what will she do when she is on her own.
She can start to date on her own now, too. Her boyfriend is at a college visit this weekend, so her first ‘date’ will be with me. I want to show her how a boy should treat her and hope she isn’t ashamed to be seen with me. She may not want to go out with me now, but I hope that she looks back someday and says, “That was cool”. But again, what will she do when she is on her own.

I pray for her wisdom and safety, as well as my patience and assurance that God holds her tighter than I ever could.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Comfort and Complacency

As I sit here in a warm home, my belly full, my children in bed, my comfort devices all working—I can’t help but think about the people in Haiti. Many without a place to sleep, nothing to eat, no fresh water, no sanitary living conditions at all. What I feel is not guilt, but rather shame. I am ashamed that I am not more active in supporting relief efforts. I am ashamed that it takes something in our part of the world to bring recognition to conditions people share throughout the world. I am ashamed that my previous response to such a catastrophe is to pray for those effected. My prayer should be for the people stricken. And those involved in rescue efforts. And those who organize relief efforts. And those who contribute money and skills to the relief efforts. But most of all, I pray that my heart and mind may be led by the Holy Spirit of the Living God to be made more acutely aware of how I can actively help this and like situations. I am complacent, comfortable, lazy, and selfish.
Lord, make me humble. Lead me to treat your children as my brothers. Don’t let me forget. Everything I have is yours.

Ben Stein Commentary

The following  was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on  CBS Sunday  Morning   Commentary..

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my  ancestors was Jewish.  And it does not  bother me even a little bit when people call  those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees,  Christmas trees.  I don’t feel threatened.   I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s  what they are, Christmas trees.

It  doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry  Christmas’ to me.  I don’t think they are  slighting me or getting ready to put me in a  ghetto.  In fact, I kind of like it .  It shows that  we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this  happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all  that there is a manger scene on display at a key  intersection near my beach house in Malibu .   If people want a creche, it’s just as fine  with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards  away..

I don’t like getting pushed around  for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians  like getting pushed around for being Christians..   I think people who believe in God are sick  and tired of getting pushed around, period.   I have no idea where the concept came  from, that America is an explicitly atheist  country.  I can’t find it in the  Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved  down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it  another way: where did the idea come from that  we should worship celebrities and we aren’t  allowed to worship God as we understand Him?   I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting  old, too.  But there are a lot of us who  are wondering where these celebrities came from  and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to  one another for a laugh, this is a little  different:  This is not intended to be a  joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you  thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was  interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson  asked her ‘How could God let something like this  happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina)..   Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and  insightful response..  She said, ‘I believe  God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are,  but for years we’ve been telling God to get out  of our schools, to get out of our government and  to get out of our lives.  And being the  gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed  out.  How can we expect God to give us His  blessing and His protection if we demand He  leave us alone?’

In light of recent  events… terrorists attack, school shootings,  etc.  I think it started when Madeleine  Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found  a few years ago) complained she didn’t want  prayer in our schools, and we said OK.   Then someone said you better not read the  Bible in school.  The Bible says thou shalt  not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your  neighbor as yourself.  And we said  OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we  shouldn’t spank our children when they  misbehave, because their little personalities  would be warped and we might damage their  self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide).   We said an expert should know what he’s  talking about.  And we said  okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our  children have no conscience, why they don’t know  right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them  to kill strangers, their classmates, and  themselves.

Probably, if we think about  it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.   I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE  REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it  is for people to trash God and then wonder why  the world’s going to hell.  Funny how we  believe what the newspapers say, but question  what the Bible says.  Funny how you can  send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like  wildfire, but when you start sending messages  regarding the Lord, people think twice about  sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and  obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace,  but public discussion of God is suppressed in  the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this  message, you will not send it to many on your  address list because you’re not sure what they  believe, or what they will think of you for  sending it..

Funny how we can be  more worried about what other people think of us  than what God thinks of us.

Pass  it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just  discard it… no one will know you did.   But, if you discard this thought process,  don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape  the world is in.

My  Best Regards,  Honestly and respectfully,  

Ben Stein  

Today I learned…

I’m not really sure how I want to do this ‘blogging’ thing. Part of me wants to be random. Part of me wants to journal. Part of me wants to communicate. Part of me wants to vent. Part of me wants to test the waters of thought as I bounce ideas off an invisible wall. I guess we’ll see how this works out.
The most important thing I learned today involves prayer. It’s not about knowing how to pray. It’s about being in a spirit of perpetual prayer. The Holy Spirit takes our willingness to pray and communicates that to the Father who responds to us with His blessings. I don’t have to pray perfectly for God to hear me. In fact, He hears me perfectly when I just pray.

24 Hour Bug

OK. Now I know. The 24-hour bug going around lasts less than 24 hours. It’s the recovery that takes a while. After the worst gastrointestinal symptoms (you know which ones I mean) left, the weakness and fatigue seems to stay around for a while. After 6 hours of ‘the bad stuff’, I have now had almost 3 days of no appetite and the resulting weakness from lack of calories. This is despite 2 liters of IV fluids. I’m not sure I really want to eat.
To make matters worse, I have been on-call for the past 2 days. Having to take care of people (some who are not as sick as you are) creates a bit of a challenge.  But I really think the worst part of it is having to feed the caffeine addiction without worsening the GI symptoms. Maybe it’s time to wean off the caffeine.

Funny One on Me

I bought my wife (Gena) a remote car starter for Christmas. I thought it would be nice for her to walk into her office in the evening, hit the remote, and then be able to walk out to a warm car. This works well on these 10 degree nights. I also thought (selfishly) that if she like it, she would tell me to have one put on my Equinox.
I was talking to Brett Wilson (our car dealer) who said that he thought my car already had one installed. He walked back to my office, took my key fob, and started my car from the office. I have been getting into a cold car for the past several weeks, not realizing I already had a remote starter.
It could have been worse. I had planned to drop off my car at the dealership for installation. They could have charged me and I would have never known that I had it all along.
Laughs on me.