A Mike Life – The Life of Mike!

Stuff on my mind today

// August 25th, 2009 // family

This Tuesday morning finds me busy focusing on work, but at the same time my mind is filled with thoughts for some things going on with people I know.

My buddy Jeremy Impicini…he’s 26 years old and left at 5am this morning for Army boot camp in Atlanta. I’ve known him for a long time. I was a youth leader at our old church Canyon Creek back when Jeremy was in high school and he was always one of my favorites. In fact, he’s one of my favorite people period. Always has a great smile on his face, full of humor and fun. He always told me how lucky I was to have such a hotty for a wife, something that always made me laugh. He even joked that I should give him a few pictures of her so he could make it through boot camp *grin*

Anyways, I’m so proud of the kid. He’s going to enlist in the Airborne Rangers I guess, something that sounds fairly impressive and awesome. He’s had a bit of a rough life I think and this decision to join the Army has put some things into focus and given him direction.

I can’t wait to see how it turns out for him and the adventures that come from it. I only hope it doesn’t change him too much and that he returns with that same ol’ smile. I know of another kid from that same youth group that went to Iraq and saw a lot of death, including some in his own squad. When he returned to the states, he had changed.

I’m going to do my best to pray for Jeremy as often as I can remember.

The second thing on my mind this morning is baby Max Griffin, the newborn son of Claire and Jordan from our church (Lifechurch.tv). The little guy has CDH (congenital diaphragmatic hernia), which has a survival rate of 50%. I don’t know everything that has transpired since he was born on August 10th, but the initial surgery went well and they were very hopeful. So much so that yesterday was going to be a huge day for them where Max was to be extubated and things were going great.

This morning and last night his lungs started filling up with blood and so now he’s struggling for his life. The last word is that he’s stable, but they are very scared and have no idea what’s going to happen.

As a father now, I find my heart breaks for other parents going through stuff like this. I don’t think I used to be fully aware of what it’s like to love a child until I had my own, and to think of what Claire and Jordan are going through with Max just brings tears to my eyes.

You know, it’s like if anyone touched Lyla, or hurt Lyla, or whatever, I can totally understand those fathers who would take matters in their own hands to destroy whoever did that to their little girl. I love her that much. If anything happened to her, I don’t know I would take it.

And thus this morning I’m just praying so hard that little Max makes it through.

If you want to read more about Max, visit their blog, and above all, pray for the little guy.