Guatemala

Hi gang! I'm off to Guatemala this weekend. I'll be gone through next weekend. This is a trip with Compassion International. We'll be working on a radio special while we're in country. The focus of this radio special will be to gather the perspectives of American youth on global poverty. So we're taking three 12-14 year olds with us to meet kids their age, living in abject poverty. We'll visit their homes and the Compassion projects where the kids go for food, fun, fellowship, shelter and after-school tutoring. While I'm in Guatemala, my wife and son are traveling to Kansas to be with her folks. Please pray for safe travel. As I've said before, I absolutely hate having to leave my son for this long. And now is such a crucial time in his development. He's 13 months old. Just starting to walk. Already saying a few words. But he's also at the point where he loves to have daddy hold him. And, as you can imagine, daddy loves that! So I'll miss that for a full week. Ugh. This is my second trip to Guatemala. I went back in December of '04. It will be great to see some of the Compassion staff that I befriended on my first trip. I'll probably write a post or two while I'm in Guatemala, just to let you know how things are going.

I Traveled Back in Time...

I thought I'd share this story with you about a "dream" I had nearly two years ago. I swear that what I'm about to share with you is true. I realize that, once you read this, you'll be inclined to think that I'm losing it. But I tell you, dream or not, this was a real moment in my life. I was at a point in my life where I was really struggling with being completely unhappy with where I was. I don't know, maybe it's because I was getting older…and hadn't achieved any of the goals I had laid out for myself. I was struggling with depression on a major level. My life just hadn't turned out how I had hoped. And, seemingly at the end of my rope, I started begging God, almost daily, to let me go back in time. "Please, God...let me go back to college and start over. I've screwed up my life in so many ways since then. Can I please have a do-over?" I became so obsessed with the notion that it was all I thought about…at work…as I was lying down in bed to sleep at night, etc. During my drive to work everyday, I would talk out loud to God, pleading my case. "God, you can do anything. You are the one who created time. You can send me back. No one has to know. Just let me go back and start over. I'm just so disappointed with the way things have turned out. I won't tell anyone, I promise!" Then, after several weeks of this pleading, God answered. It was late at night and I had just laid down in bed for the night. I closed my eyes and started praying that prayer again, silently. It was seriously one of the most earnest prayers I had ever prayed. It was a prayer of desperation. Before I knew it, I was sound asleep. But within only a few short minutes, I awoke. Wait...where am I? I wasn't in my big comfy bed at home...I was on a small, hard mattress. I sat up. Wait a minute…I recognize this place. Holy cow! I'm in my dorm room! You did it! God thank you! Thank you! I can't believe you let me do this! Oh this is awesome! I sat there on the edge of the squeaky little bed. Room 210 of Jennings dorm on Howard Payne University campus. The room wreaked of the dirty laundry that was always piled on the floor. The bluish glow of the streetlight outside was peering through the blinds. It was my dorm room…just the way I remembered it. I must have sat there for 20 seconds, eyes and jaw wide open, taking in the entire scene. It was honestly one of the most miraculous and happiest moments of my life. I looked across the room. There was my roommate, Kevin Gradel. He was sound asleep in his bed, curled up facing the cold, white brick wall. It was so bizarre to see him. Kevin died in 1997 from complications due to diabetes. Once I graduated, I lost touch with him. I only found out about his death while trying to track him down online a few years later. I was heartbroken to find out he had died. I didn't even get to go to the funeral.Yet there he was…sound asleep just a few feet away from me. Without hesitation, I jumped out of my bed and ran over to Kevin and started shaking him. "Kevin! Kevin! Wake up! Listen to me...you've got to get some help dude...you've got diabetes. If you don't do something about it, it's going to kill you in 1997!" No sooner than I finished the sentence, I found myself waking up back in my bed at home. No! No! I screwed up! I had a chance and I screwed up! Somehow I knew I wasn't supposed to share that information with Kevin, but I did it anyway. I broke the rules...and God brought me back. As I lay there in my bed, I started weeping. I'm not sure if my wife heard me crying in bed or if she just decided to let me cry it out. She had been dealing with my depression for so long that she must've been at wit's end on what to do next. So many emotions came over me. Was that my chance? Did God really give me a chance to start over…only to have me screw it up? Seeing Kevin alive brought so many emotions too. Feeling helpless that I couldn't stop his impending death. To this day, I'm still torn, wondering whether this was a dream or an actual event. I know that sounds odd, but it was so real. The smells, the details. The fact that I immediately knew that God had taken me back in time. He had granted me this desperate wish. I got my do-over…and blew it. For more information on Tim Glenn, go to www.timglennmusic.com tim glenn