I go to Vanguard Skin Specialist yearly for a skin check as I’ve had a basal cell carcinoma years ago. For many years my check-ups have been clear. I thought maybe I will just cancel the appointment this year.  Then Mac, who never goes to the doctor, was told by the dermatologist he needed to get a skin checkup. Surprise, surprise, Mac said, “I think I will go.”  So, I decided to go with him and make my appointment too.

Emily found a suspicious place in my scalp, a place I would never see hidden in my hair! The biopsy was sent to the lab. I’m usually the ultimate optimist and told Mac, “It’s going to be nothing.” 

A week later I got the call saying its basal cell carcinoma and I need to schedule surgery to have it removed. After Dr. Chung removes the cancer, I wait in chair for 45 minutes for the lab to look under a microscope to make sure all the margins are clear.

I’m reading a book and enjoying resting in the chair to hear the verdict. Dr. Chung comes back in and says, “I’m sorry, we have to cut more to get the margins clear.”  So here we go again. This time for another 45-minute wait, I’m not relaxing reading a book.  Instead I’m praying and taking deep breaths.

Dr. Chung comes in again and says, “Good news, we got it all!” I’m taken to another room for the MOHS surgeon, Dr. Archibald to sew me back up. I ask if Mac could come in to be with me.

Mac is sitting in a chair across from me.  I see a troubled look on his face even though he is smiling at me trying to comfort me. He was worried how I would react when I would see myself in the mirror after the doctor shaved part of my hair off to stitch me back up. He didn’t tell me until we were in the car that the hole on the side of my head looks like about 2 inches in diameter.

I was so thankful as it could’ve been worse if I had not gone in for my annual check-up thinking I could self-diagnose. Today may hair is growing back.  The scar has healed and looks amazingly good.

This lesson reminded me of being in recovery. Sometimes we think we can do life alone and self-diagnose while living in denial. We absolutely need mentors, a sponsor and accountability partners as a part of our recovery teams. They help challenge us and support us.

Your recovery team will walk by your side on your life journey. People who will tell you the truth even if it hurts when it’s uncomfortable. People who will listen to your heart. People who will celebrate with you in your victories!

Lessons learned: 

Go to annual check-ups.

Dig in God’s Word daily to know God better.

Check-in with your recovery team weekly to know yourself better.

“Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.”  Proverbs 1:5 NIV

Before Mac & I were in recovery, I started learning how to play the violin while listening to our daughters at their violin lessons. They starting playing at 3 years old. I began picking out songs to play bluegrass music with my dad. It gave me something positive to do during those difficult pre-recovery years.

Then when Mac & I started working on our recovery, my violin went to the wayside as I had important things to focus on.  It was always in the back in my mind, though, that I would pick my violin back up one day. Those recovery years have flown by!

30 years later, I started taking lessons. Within in a few months I had a car accident and got a double concussion. I wasn’t able to play for 2 years.  I started back playing again January 2019. Then I had a ski accident that February. That put me back down again for a bit.

But I’ve been determined to not stop learning. I know it’s good for the brain to learn new things as we get older. And this has been so much fun for me.

While we were playing music at the Christmas Eve service and hearing the harmony we were creating, I started to get choked up with tears.  My heart was so happy to be a part of this service.

November 30, 2019:  Our daughter, Callie, helped host a Christmas tree cutting event in the Colorado National Forest. Callie asked me to help as they were serving chili, hot chocolate, hot dogs and desserts. She also created a Christmas photo booth.

The road was narrow, snow-packed and icy. As I met a vehicle coming out of the forest, it was difficult for either vehicle to move over. The truck coming towards me slid off into the ditch of deep snow. Then I saw others behind him that got stuck in the ditch as well.

There were 5 vehicles behind me with another one stuck in the ditch. It was a standstill of 5 cars one way and 5 cars the other way.  Men started coming out of their vehicles with shovels to help dig out the stuck vehicles. The situation turned into teamwork.

One hour later, we were all ready to move forward slowly to pass one another. Both first cars facing each other started moving ahead and then all of a sudden stopped. Everybody realized that one lane of cars needed to pull over, the slightest bit, and let the other lane of cars pass by first. There was some negotiation of which lane would get to go first.

Whew, I made it to the tree cutting location. There was a sense of camaraderie high-fiving and woo-hooing, as each vehicle arrived safely.  We confirmed, at the end of the day, nobody would be left behind leaving out of the forest.

Then later that day, our grandson, Gannon, with his Palmer Ridge football teammates, were playing in the semi-finals. The fierce wind made the wind chill feel like 10 degrees. Everybody was wrapped in layers of clothes and blankets. The field was muddy and the players were freezing. The players worked extremely hard pulling together as a team.

All their hard work paid off. Gannon’s team won!!!

And now they are going to the state championship, December 7 in Pueblo!

Teamwork is a vital key to success in any situation!

We love being a part of the National Team for Celebrate Recovery. We get to meet people all over the world who are followers of Jesus Christ.  People who love to share the hope they have in Christ.

A few years ago, Mac and I decided to bring our oldest grandchild to one of the training events. Ever since then, as the other grandkids are getting older, we bring one or two of them to a conference occasionally.

Last week we were in Orlando teaching at a Celebrate Recovery training event. We took two of our grandsons, ages 12 and 10.  Johnny brought his son, 11.  And Marnie brought her daughter, 12. It was so sweet watching them interact together.

My eyes filled with happy tears having them with us to experience the amazing praise & worship we get to be a part of at each conference.  We are planting seeds in our grandchildren’s hearts; the desire to minister to the hurting, to help them find healing. 

They are the next generation of people who will be equipped to deal with life’s hurts, hang-ups and habits. Unlike many of us in our younger days, they will be prepared.

I have always prayed our children, and now grandchildren, won’t have the hurts we’ve had in our past. And they haven’t so far. But since we live in a broken world, they will have some kind of hurt living on this earth.  

I believe there will always be a need for Celebrate Recovery. Everyone is welcome. We say to come as you are.  All you have to do to qualify is to be human and identify that you, too, have a hurt, hang-up or habit. No perfect people allowed.

An added blessing for us: when we take a grandchild with us, after the seminar is over, we find something close by to make a fun memory together! This time we took them to Disneyworld. Our grandsons said it was a trip they will never forget. But the thing that took us back a little was when we asked their favorite memory of the trip, expecting them to say something about Disney, they said being with the other two other kids who came on the trip.

Our grandchildren are starting to get it.  It’s not about the rides. It’s all about relationships and who we take with us on the ride.

October 9, 2019:  Meteorologists predict snow for the mountains.  Mac stacked chopped wood on the deck, winterized the camper, drained all the garden hose bibs, removed the shade cloth over the garden and took the cats to the barn.

Afterwards, we decided to take a hike before the winter blast hit. It’s a beautiful drive towards Cripple Creek on Hwy 67.

We love getting to share the good news of Jesus across the globe for Celebrate Recovery. I have to say, though, the travel part of it isn’t so glamorous as some may think.

This year so far out of 80 flights we’ve had only 4 that weren’t delayed or cancelled. My heart skips a beat when we receive an alert that our flight is delayed or worse, cancelled.  Lost luggage.  Eating on the go.  Grumpy people.  Weather alerts.  News monitors everywhere proclaiming bad news. 

I reminded myself of the verse I had written down recently: “They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.”  (Ps. 112:7 NLT) So what do you do? You can worry, get angry or pray and praise God. I choose the latter.

Then here we go again: Yesterday, 2 delays in Dallas. We finally made it home last night. I opened my suitcase. Everything was wet. I had packed a brand new large bottle of shampoo. I didn’t take the time while packing to pour some in a small bottle. In the high altitude, the top popped open!

I always take my own comfy pillow with me. It was soaked through. So I put the pillow in the washing machine along with the wet clothes. As I was wiping my suitcase down with multiple washcloths, I heard a loud banging.

Sounded like the washing machine was going to bust through the wall! Mac & I both ran to the laundry room. The washing machine was sideways from the imbalance in the washer.

We had just done a talk on Anger at the CR training event the day before. Both of us looked at each other and wanted to blame each other for something!  Blame stands for Be Lame. Instead, we admitted we both were tired. We needed to keep our mouths shut and go to bed. Tomorrow would be a new day.

I woke up this morning with a grateful, rested heart after a good night’s sleep. We are so blessed in what we get to do through Celebrate Recovery.

We got to share with 500+ people in South Carolina last weekend hearing story after story of changed lives. We wouldn’t know any of those people if God didn’t bring CR to our family. We wouldn’t know the Bakers, the National Team, State Reps, Broken Chains members or church leaders from all different denominations if not for God’s plan in each of our lives.

We don’t have to travel by ship or walk on a dusty road like our forever family did in Bible times. We also have technology to talk face to face, even though we live thousands of miles apart when we need to plan future events. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

I have to close with a funny memory while thinking about my drenched suitcase…at least my suitcase smelled good. 

Once we were traveling to Canada for CR. We told a friend, Marnie, how liquid smoke was good to splash on food on the grill. She had never heard of it. I wanted to surprise Marnie by bringing her 2 bottles to Canada.

My suitcase was jam-packed. So I told Mac I was putting the liquid smoke in his suitcase.  I didn’t think to put it in a Ziploc bag, oops!

When we were unpacking our suitcases at the Canadian hotel, you know the rest of the story, right?!! Mac’s suitcase, all the contents in it and our hotel room, smelled like a barbecue pit! We laughed all weekend calling Mac, “Smokey.”

Lesson learned: order liquid smoke through Amazon to send to a friend or use a Ziploc bag. Also, no matter what happens while traveling, we want to smell sweet to God and one another.
“Live your life with love, following the example of Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. He was a sacrificial offering that smelled sweet to God.” (Ephesians 5:2 CEB)

I would like to tell you we summited Mt. Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado. However unexpected weather prevented it from happening. Mac checked the weather before we began our ascent at 5:00 a.m. It was supposed to be just partly cloudy. It started raining on us after the first hour. 

I started out full of joy thinking of all God’s creation we were going to see! People had told us ahead of time how wide the path was for Mt. Elbert, just a very long hike. 4 hours into the hike, my legs and shoulders started aching. At one point my left knee buckled for a moment. I looked ahead and realized we still had at least another hour to go using all the strength I had. I kept saying to myself, “One more step. Just one more step.”  I slipped and bruised my arm coming down hard on a rock. That hurt my feelings and I had to fight back tears.  

I remembered our daughter, Cherry, telling me a story about Rex, our youngest grandchild when he could barely talk.  He loved chocolate. He found a bag of chocolate and ate several. Cherry took the bag away. Rex kept begging, “One more cocklett (chocolate). Just one more cocklett.”  I laughed recalling that story. So I started telling myself, “Just one more cocklett” instead of “one more step.” Laughing about Rex helped give me more energy to keep going.

It was fun conversing with hikers along the way. One college student told us he was a soccer player and thought he could do this with no problem. He ended up turning around after the first 2 hours. He arrived in Denver just 36 hours before. Nope, his lungs were not acclimated for Mt. Elbert. Another guy was from Pennsylvania. His athletic shoes had no tread on them and he was walking out of the sides of them with no ankle support. He trudged on ahead of us. We never saw him again. I hope he made it back down safely. Another young couple turned around before us saying how bad it was ahead.  They said they weren’t prepared for this.

As we continued to climb to the top of the steep “false summit” the rain turned to snow and a cloud set on top of us which brought zero visibility and the rocks turned slick. We couldn’t see the trail anymore.  We talked about it for a minute and decided it would be wise for our safety to head back down. We took a picture in the clouds before we turned around. 

We were disappointed thinking how close were were to summit Mt. Elbert. As we descended a surgeon from Denver asked how bad it was up top. By this time the sun was peeking out of the clouds. We told him our experience but it could be better now. So he went for it. His wife was at the bottom of the steep part with their lab. The lab was whining because she wanted to go with her master. But he said no. He went alone while they waited.

Mac and I told each other that day was a win for us because we were on an adventure together. Afterwards we sat in a coffee house in Leadville being thankful we were warm and safe while eating homemade carrot cake and pecan pumpkin bread.

Last image is on Mac’s iPhone. I looked at mine later. I walked 12.2 miles and 29,511 steps. Mac takes big steps while I take little steps. :)

If you haven’t read our previous post, read it first for the back story.

4:00 am we were on the road to try again to hike the 14’ner Mt. Sherman. We were so excited and ready to do it!  The previous hike I wrote about, there were no markers so we hiked blindly by just looking for a trail that was worn from travel.  That hike didn’t turn out so well. We just found out recently we WERE on Mt. Sherman. But because the trail head was so hard to find and there were no markers, we were actually trying to go up the face of the mountain! Nobody but professionals should do that with proper gear with ropes!

This time there were some hikers getting out of their truck where we parked. We pointed to the mountain and asked if that was Mt. Sherman and which trail to start on. They had actually done the same thing as we did the week before. They went up the face of Mt. Sherman too! So they came back for round 2 as well!

I have to say Colorado hikers are so encouraging. Hikers ascending had the right of way. Hikers descending would pull over and say encouraging words as we continued on. They were shouting, “Way to go!  Have an awesome hike! It’s a beautiful day!” It was so cool this time as hikers stacked rocks to show the way! We added our own rocks along the way to the markers. I love my trekking poles and knee pads I use for CrossFit. My knees never hurt going up or down! And the trekking poles give more balance!

Beautiful wildflowers are still in bloom everywhere. The columbine, our state flower, was proudly blowing in the wind along the way.  Something interesting we saw:  10 feet tall old telephone poles that I guess were the first installed going across the mountain from Fairplay to Leadville years ago. I can’t even imagine how the workers were able to get the poles in that rock solid ground on the side of a steep mountain!

My backpack wasn’t so heavy starting out. But after much climbing, I stopped. While leaning on a boulder and breathing in oxygen, I told Mac I didn’t know if I was going to make it. He said we could go down if I needed to. I really did want to summit. I looked up and saw we were only halfway there. I prayed and said I want to make it.

Mac said he would carry my backpack. He would do whatever it took for me to be able to summit. He is a strong man! He reminded me to keep my eyes on his steps so I wouldn’t stumble on loose rocks when the path got tricky.

Our conversations consisted of, “This is good!  This is not good.  Whoa, this is scary!  Wow, this is beautiful!”

I decided to not look up or look down. Looking up seemed insurmountable where we were headed. Looking down made me dizzy and want to go back where my security was.

We got to where we thought was the summit and discovered it was a “false summit!” We couldn’t believe it! We hadn’t even seen the worst and steepest part yet!

At one point on the narrow part of the saddle between two peaks, the wind was blowing it felt like 50-60 mph. We were hanging onto boulders to keep from getting blown off the mountain. At this point we were going really slow and staying low inching across.

Oh, but the view when we stood at the top….I wanted to cry happy tears! First,  for making it to the summit. Second, we saw such majestic beauty surrounding us with mountains upon mountains. It was totally serene up there with the wind blowing just a soft breeze on top!  There were other people already there and we all hollered in celebration we made it! I see why people love to hike mountains!

We walked around and took pictures while talking to other hikers. Soon we noticed a huge cloud hovering over the top that continued to grow darker. So everybody started their descent. Then the wind kicked in and it was fiercer than before! I was praying and trusting God would keep us safe. I would do my part to the best of my abilities to be safe.

Before descending I thought with gravity in our favor, it was going to be a piece of cake! I forgot we would be using different muscles going back down. ¾ of the way down, my body was getting weak. I had to really pay attention to not trip. I fell hard once as my foot slipped on the scree! I looked down to see where the car was. When I saw the tiny speck of our car, it seemed so far away. At this point I realized it wasn’t going to be a piece of cake just skipping down the mountain!

I quit looking at the destination and put my eyes back on what the next step was in front of me.  Before I knew it we were at the bottom! Well, after a few more hours of boulder hopping, rock choosing and scree sliding!

I told Mac in the car on the way home in a soft southern tone, “That will be the first and last of my 14’ner hikes.  It’s like snow skiing. I don’t ski “Black” runs anymore. Blue & Green runs for me! I like to slow down a bit and enjoy the view. I love to hike to waterfalls and camp overnight in the national forest. But hanging onto the side of a mountain cliff trying to keep from being thrown off….no more!

Mac said, “Don’t make any hasty decisions. You’re just tired right now.” Makes me think of when family ask right after you have a baby and you’re in pain, “When are you going to have another one? How many more are you going to have?”  Hah!

The next morning I wrote this in my journal: I’m not telling Mac this yet but I may hike another mountain.  Just not for a while.  I’m smiling and shaking my head in wonder of what all we experienced in that 7-hour journey on Mt. Sherman.

All great journeys come with a cost.  This one was hard work and made our bodies really sore. But after a good night’s sleep I felt exhilarated.  I’m amazed remembering all we experienced.