These last few months have been somewhat crazy for me. At IHOP we are ramping up to launch 180 hours a week of tv production – yes I know there are only 168 hours in a week! Added to this everyday I have been coming into the hospital. I really want to come and see my son, however coming into the hospital is somewhat of an arduous procedure. Driving 25 mins to Downtown Kansas City then coming into Children’s Mercy – which, although one of the best children’s hospitals in the US is a little city in itself, coming through two security checkpoints and signing in twice is rather a procedure. The questions are the same everyday “What’s the name of the child?” I answer “Hall” they (always) reply “How do you spell that?” There is a very funny little black lady that chastised me for my English “You gotta get with the program… you been here 31/2 years… you gotta speak like this” I have complied and can speak in a KC Afro American accent reasonably well – much to her delight!
Then onto the Intensive Care Nursery, where after signing in you must perform a 3 minute scrub. The nurses here at the ICN have been great, there are over 180 nurses on the unit and they rotate around 60 beds – We were a little alarmed at first as the same nurse would never see Josiah, however now he has two great primary nurses – Kristy on the weekends and Jessica in the evenings. Josiah is in a room with one other room mate, this week his long term room mate Andrew was discharged and he has welcomed the sixth room mate to the little pod.
In the midst of all the work at IHOP and the intense periods at Children’s Mercy, we have had quite a Job season – The sewage backed up into the basement, the transmission on my truck broke, followed by breaks, followed by dead batteries and oil leaks on the car. Then my computer completely crashed – I had to completely reformat the whole thing. Then the hospital bills mmmm…. Last week I was informed by a nice lady from Georgia that we had to pay them at least $550 per month for the next 3 years or be taken to the collectors – that was a nice telephone conversation!!
So it has been an interesting season to say the least – and what have I been learning?
1) The Power of Words
How did God create? He spoke and it existed. We too are created in his image and must understand the vast power that we have in our tongues. In the Bible, James calls it a small rudder that controls a ship – we know that we have to speak wholesome talk, however, do we truly know the power that is in the tongue? It seems that Proverbs understood that there is the power of life and death in the tongue. There are many, many scriptures which back up this claim. Even outside of the Bible a non-Christian scientist has discovered the power of blessing – check out http://www.hado.net – A Japanese Scientist’s discoveries in the power of blessing water and cursing water.
It makes you think a little about Jesus cursing the fig tree and also speaking healing over people. This was true for the early church too – They didn’t pray for healing in the New Testament – the apostles commanded healing. They heard the Spirit of God and they spoke with the authority that God had given them.
It also makes me think about prophecy in a different way – Prophecy is not some sort of fortune telling – a foretelling about a future event – although there are definitely some elements of that could be confused as foretelling. Rather it is a forthtelling – calling forth that which is not into existence. This gives us more confidence when we speak the heart of God over people.
This is one of the things that I have been learning as I have been increasing my team from 10-60 people, as I have been filming many programmes, as I have been digging a big 10 foot hole to fix my sewer.
2) The Power of Blood
We talk about the power of the Blood of Jesus, there is much in the Bible about Life being in the blood, however it has struck me recently the massive importance of blood and hematology (the study of blood). The main things that they have been tracking with Josiah have been his blood oxygenation levels and also his blood labs indicate how he is doing with reference to the acidity or alkalinity of his body, but also with reference to the amount of CO2, the amount of all different types of minerals. When Josiah got sick – it was a close monitoring of his blood that revealed how to treat him. It amazes me how true the statement is that there is life and death in the blood.
The Official Site of Jono & Shari Hall 