Bonner's Journal- Day 27. End of Influence

February10, Day 27

Today is the day that I resigned my teaching & coaching position at Lemoore High School. I announced a meeting early in the week, and then met with them today. I was not prepared for the reaction that I would see...not even close.

There was much crying and hugs from my team, my coaches and fellow teachers.




Obviously the love that I gave them had an effect on them. I guess I never knew how much INFLUENCE I was actually having. Is it normal for a football coach to have his staff and team weep at his departure? I don't know...but I am hurting as much as they are.

Only God can provide the kind of strength that it took to face this task, and actually tell the men and boys that I love goodbye... especially when we just got started. We had a dream.

As I have felt about every school that I have coached at, I love these people.
I have always given myself to the community of people that I serve in the arena of football. Football for me is about mentoring young people in a time of their life when they so badly need it. Football for me is about helping parents send their young men into young adulthood with some tools of character. Football for me is about teaching boys how to sacrifice their desires for the good of others. I guess I have been attempting to teach them how to be a man, the way God intends.

I have seen more ACTIVE love from the Lemoore community than I have ever seen before, and I have only been working as their head football coach for one year. It is one thing to say "Oh, let me know what you need Bonner, whatever it is... we will help your family." It is another thing for them to actually make painful sacrifices for my family. It is true love when they put their own lives in a position that is uncomfortable. They have made an unswerving effort to actually DO something helpful.  Not just talk, but action. This is love.

It amazes me what people are capable of! Who had ever heard of a school district donating 60 plus days of their personal sick days to their football coach? Unheard of. This is what they did for my family!

 My football team going into the playoffs. We were chosen as the valley's team of the week!

Lemoore you are truly a quality people. I owe you my complete respect and admiration. I will always tell of your loving actions. I expect that you will forever have a great man to lead your sons to be men of character through the sport of football.

Bonner's Journal- Day 26. God our source

February 9, Day 26

I am so excited, because God is our source. 

If I were to depend on my ability to put our life back together, we wouldn't make it. If I were to reach forward into our future and prepare the way, it wouldn't turn out right. If I were to pick the exact day that my wife is made whole, I would miss many opportunities for growth. I am glad that I cannot make it turn out.


But GOD is my source. I don't think that settled into your heart Bonner...the Almighty God Himself is who is taking care of you! He has your life already set up. He is not wringing His hands in heaven, worried about what He is going to do with you, your marriage and your family. No! He has your supply set aside. What ever the need is, He has promised that you can depend on Him. Trust Him.

Ok then. I will have complete dependence on you, Lord! 

Oh, how important it is to "cast our cares" on you. I obey your command. I refuse to care. I refuse to worry. I refuse to give one moment of my thought in anxious concern. I don't have a care in the world. Why? Because I gave them all to Jesus! I have literally unloaded all my frustrations onto Him. I have said, "Here you go God, you take them." I throw my worries at God. I am not holding one thought of fear. Not one doubt will be in my mind.

I think of my family as healthy and whole again, back at our river camp!

Much of my efforts today were spent on piecing our lives back together, and reassuring Hannah that she will be ok. I have spent most of my energies today calling/discussing the dynamics of getting the children back home and enrolled in school again, while calming Hannah's fears of being left behind. 

She has been very resistant to any change, and for good reason. If I were her I would not want to be left alone in the hospital either...let alone with her helpless condition. 

However, she is not fully aware of how disturbing it is for our children to be out of our normal routine. With time she will understand more. This is ok,  I expect her to remain focused on herself completely. I am able to carry the family until she can return. It is time though for a change, the kids cannot be uprooted from their life any longer.  I can see it in their faces. Even though my extended family has done an amazing job in caring for them, and I am so very grateful for their loving help, I need to return my children to their "normal" routine.

The doctors are saying that she will probably need another month of therapy, which will extend her hospital stay. Our lives must continue to move forward. Painful reality.

Bonner's Journal-Day 24. A Tiger dies

February 7, Day 24

I know who my strength is. 
Lord, you are my solid place! 
I lean completely on You Jesus. 

After getting Hannah prepared for the day I got Lilly from great grandmas and went to my moms. I spent the day with the kids and my brother burning brush on the property. Fresh air! I needed it. Many tough decisions ahead.

I called LHS and prepared to meet my football team on Friday and announce my resignation. This is a tough decision to move on, but I am capable. I know that this transition is the right thing to do.

I love those boys and I have given a part of my life to lead them in life, but I must keep my priorities lined up. There is no way that I can keep care of my wife in the hospital, be a father to my hurting children, commute two hours a day, teach 300 students in PE and run a football program with 150 athletes. To attempt to do so would be foolish. I owe it to my team to allow someone else to step in and give them 100%. I owe it to them to give up our dream, because I can't help them get there right now...and they need me right now, not later. I have tried to hold on to it, trying to make it all work out in my mind, but I have to let it go. I am dying again.


I know that my teaching position is tied to my coaching position...which will automatically end my employment. This is a step of faith financially. Where will my paychecks come from? Will I continue in my passion as a head coach? Did I lose all that time that I put into my athletes? 


The answers are in Him.

A great student supports me after we lost the Milk can bowl

Bonner's Journal-Day 23. Debridement

February 6, Day 23


Oh God, prune us back to the very foundation. 
Cut off the dead wood. While we are at it, just surgically remove all the rotten contaminated tissue. Debridement.

Please repair this place that you have chosen to live in...US!
How shameful it is, for me to say that God lives in me...that He has chosen to abide in my person...that He goes everywhere with me...and I do not treat Him with the respect that He deserves. 

The Holy Ghost is a gentlemen. He is not a bully. He does not force his way into peoples lives...but He whispers ever so quietly, but consistently. Why do so many of us ignore Him? He is always speaking to everyone all the time...yet so few people listen. He is trying to make our lives better, yet we want to do it our way...and ignore our conscience. It is that easy. Listen to your heart. It will lead to a Loving Father every time. 

But that stupid mind of ours needs to be reprogrammed. Too many foolish people, too many degraded television commercials, too much pride and arrogance, etc etc. Pride is the worst of all.


So I say it again. God please kill me. I desire to be like your Son. I despise everything in me that is not of you. I am a fool. I am lost. I can do nothing without you. Hear my pleas for help. I keep my focus on your good words. I will not take my attention off of you. You are my only help. You have always been my identity, you always will be my identity. I surrender.


My Daughter
I have been bringing Lilly in to see Hannah at the hospital now. I am very concerned with her coping strategies. I understand that she is a young girl, however I am overwhelmed with how dysfunctional my daughter's view of her mother is right now. She has refused to look at her mother, to touch her, or to hug her. I am not a psychologist, but I know that this is unhealthy, and that I need to correct it immediately. 

What to do has been eluding me until I received direction from the Lord during church on how to help relieve Lilly's Emotional/Anger difficulties. God is good. He always will show us the way of wisdom if we will listen. So I will begin to implement the plan that He has given. Time with mommy will be the healing she needs.

 I demand in Jesus' name that Lilly will grow from this trial, just like every other member of our family. She is under my loving care, and I demand that the Lord have His perfect shalom in her soul.

Bonner's Journal-Day 22. Our Cross

February 5, Day 22
God please help

Had a very rough night. Woke at 2 am with  bowel pains and eventually a movement. It took until 3:30 to complete the process and settle in to go back to sleep. She finally began medicine today to combat the bladder infection that she has battled for the past 3 weeks, which has stolen our sleep as well. Some times I feel like am going to break.

This is very trying on our patience; she is constantly trying to find a pain free position...and I am continually trying to help her escape the agony. She can't move an inch without me doing it. I am miserable, but I cannot imagine how much worse she has it. She cannot even move her own body. Talk about feeling trapped.

Had a refreshing time at church this morning. The Lord showed me that the cross was a trap that the enemy fell into. Satan thought he was so clever and had the Son of God destroyed, but actually his murder of Jesus ended up in explosive life that saved the world!

So it is with Hannah's situation! He tried to kill my wife...flat out. But the devil's weak attempts on our life are going to bring more people towards the One true God of Love than he can handle. I refuse for it to be any other way.

Did the enemy of man think we would give up and go away quietly? That I would fold under the pressure and turn away from God? Did Satan think I would fall for the common "blame it on God" trap? Not a chance. I am giving MORE of myself to the great healer...because Jesus is my only hope anyway. I lean EVERYTHING on the promises that God has given to me personally. I go further in Jesus than I ever did before. God has been so good to me thus far, why would He stop being amazing to me now?
Stupid devil just drove me closer to the source of my help!
 
I also extremely enjoyed time with the kids during their weekly mommy visit. It has been a major challenge as a father to be the glue. I feel the necessity to travel and make every effort necessary to ensure Hannah and the kids well being, no matter how exhausted I am. Sometimes I wonder if I can make it. Does she realize how hard this is on me? Then again, do I realize how hard it is on her? Even further, do we realize how hard it is for our children? 

God please help.

Bonner's Journal- Day 21. The great physician

February 4. Day 21

Great physician, do your perfect work in us. Jesus, put us back together! Made in your image.
 

A very difficult reality set in today when we had no therapy to be mentally engaged in. We realized that our business in appointments and therapies had become a form of escape. Saturdays have become a day to slow down and face reality.  

In normal life, how many times have we tried to "hide" in our daily schedule? How many times have we heard the voice of the Holy Spirit tell us to slow down? How many times could we have listened to our hearts, but we pressed on with anxious worry?

Here at the hospital it has been so hard to remain at ease when we have been eager to get well and return to our "normal" life...but how does location and circumstance have any bearing on the Lord's command to, "fret not, neither let your heart be troubled"?


We had a very stressful morning because we would not rest. However, we learned our lesson and ended the day in a state of peace. We went outside into the sunlight and found a quiet park like setting and just rested in the Lord.

The battle of the mind is one that we are winning by allowing the promises of God to take root in our thoughts by continual meditation of His word, prayer, and praise. We are doing what we have been taught, and it works! It has not been easy, but His ways work.

Bonner's Journal- Day 20. Re-learning

February 3. Day 20

I declare in Jesus' name that we will not be the same. This time next year we will not recognize who we used to be.
This is going to be a lot of hard work for my wife. Everything that involves movement...her dancing skill, her martial arts skill, basic everyday movements...she is going to have to re-learn. She is fighting for her life right now.

She reported feeling more confident, yet had several bouts with nausea and had to stop and sit

Bonner's Journal-Day 19. A new life

February 2. Day 19
A new assignment

Every one of God's assignments have a birthplace. Today is the birth of a new life and calling for us. We both can feel it. We know it in our spirit. Yesterday, and the old life, is gone. The interesting thing is that we do not know what our new calling looks like. Only God knows what lies ahead!

 Another daily challenge with intense & sharp low back pains, but she never quit and pressed through all rehab. 

I had to try to parent our children today over the phone with other people supervising them. After all these days how are they doing? I give them into the fathers hands and know by faith that His Angels are keeping them.
 
Today was Hannah's first shower!

Bonner's Journal-Day 18. A faith walk

February 1st.  Day 18

 Trying to get her legs to work again

New month. 

Wow!  The month of January was an interesting way to start 2012.

After 18 days we are facing some major life changes and decisions. This is a balance between recognizing the symptoms of a spinal cord injury that naturally occur, and the word of our God promising full recovery. We are expecting each day to be a day of drastic healing,  yet also determined to get the promise no matter how long it may take. 
We are trusting God to lift the burden off of our family.


Our Bible faith is being tested.
I realize that we do not pray to get our faith in God to work...but it is the exact opposite. Our faith in God causes our prayer to work.

What does God-like faith look like when your wife is trying to come out of being paralyzed?

God-like faith EXPECTS.
I expect her to gain strength...because God has promises that include strength for those who believe.
I expect her to gain balance....because God has promises that He will secure our steps.
I expect our marriage to grow closer...because God has promised that two in agreement can accomplish anything.
On and on, in every single area of our life...we continue to expect, because God has given His promises that we apply to every area of need in our life. Pick the problem, God has already provided a way to overcome it...and His name is Jesus!


We have faith in the name of Jesus.
We have faith in the blood that Jesus spilled.
We have faith in the words that Jesus spoke.....therefore we have EXPECTATION.

Standing in a box is a safe way to teach her body how to balance again

Bonner's Journal-Day 17. Losing Ground?

January 31. Day 17
Losing ground?

Excruciating morning.

Everything Hannah does requires a major process of effort, due to the effects of the spinal cord injury.
This morning her bladder did not empty enough, even after using the new toilet/shower wheelchair that they provided to make the bathroom experience more effective. The nurse had to insert a temporary catheter to empty her bladder, because she could not go through a morning of therapy with it full. This procedure was very painful. It was also frustrating for her that she wasn't seeing proper bladder function, and it seemed to her that she was losing ground. Seeing her pain was too much for me to handle.
I wept.

Sometimes, for a brief moment, I catch myself wondering, "How are we ever going to make it?"

Then I realize that our faith is not "human logic". The only source of faith we have is from the promises God gives to mankind in the Bible. Bible faith is believing what God has said, and it often goes against human reason and logic. We know that the usual stream of things in this life is fear, curse, lack, decay and death....but we are running upstream!

Reason and logic that comes from man kills faith, but hearing what God says about certain details brings life-filled faith. By continual study of the "good book" we have learned to refuse the force of fear, which controls man's usual reasoning methods...and we have launched out on an adventure of faith. We have gone beyond learning bible stories, to using bible POWER.

We have learned to reject anything that reduces our faith and brings fear upon us. Faith is a creative force, fear is a destructive force. We choose to live in the character of God, which brings faith. After all, are not we called "the children of God?" He calls me His son!

 The PT staff said that in all their years they have never seen anyone progress so quickly from a fresh SC injury to standing as Hannah.

My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. (Proverbs 4:20-22)

Bonner's Journal-Day 16. Demonic attack

January 30. Day 16
Demonic attack

We have had some very difficult nights.
There is little room for Hannah to sleep, which has had a damaging effect on her progress. She has had a very difficult time during the day sessions because she has had so little sleep at night. Now that she is off the catheter we are having to continually wake up to use the bedpan, and the nurses come in every couple of hours to "adjust" her because they fear that she will get bed sores.

But last night was exceptionally difficult. Both of us awoke with extremely evil fear-filled nightmares. I cannot safely describe how disgustingly evil the dreams were that Hannah and I both experienced. Having "been down this road before" we knew that these were not just the usual bad dream feelings that leave someone uneasy when they awake.  

There was a literal evil presence in our room. It was such a choking degree of oppressive fear that I immediately cried out "JESUS" in a plea for help, as I was jerked from sleep. With the hair on my arms standing on end, and the overwhelming degree of fear that was gripping us, I knew that we were being attack by evil spirits. I immediately recognized them as a spirit of suicide and a spirit of fear. I also knew in that instant that they were familiar spirits with the hospital, who had been tormenting people there for many years.

Having dealt with evil spirits on several occasions over the years, I knew exactly what to do.

At first, it was defense.

Maintaining a stable mind in the presence of such filthy evil and fear...I began to thank God for His victory over all the power of Satan. Hannah and I thanked God for defeating the enemy, and stripping him of all power to harm us. We worshiped the Father for our rights as children of God, using scripture after scripture as our source of truth.

But then, I went on the offense.

I felt commanding power and I began to take full authority over our room, the 6th floor, and the hospital...all in the power that belongs to me, in Jesus. Again using the promises found in the Bible, I became righteously angry. I utilized my full rights as the King's son and demanded the demons that had come to torment us to leave, and never return. I continued to protect the hospital patients that were there around us.

We then spent an hour or so praying and worshiping in other tongues. We continued to use the powerful gift of tongues, that the Holy Spirit has given the body of Christ, until we found victory. I knew that we had won, because peace had replaced fear.

It was at this moment that God reminded me of the message that little Andrew had delivered to me the day before at church (see day 15 journal entry). That innocent, but powerful young boy, was God's messenger. It really settled in heavy on me. That child heard the voice of God, took the time to locate me after the service, and then had the courage to deliver the message to me! A message that delivered us from a demonic attack. I will never again underestimate what young children can do in God.

Today was Hannah's first visit outside. We enjoyed coffee and a scone together. Precious moment. 

We are doing everything we can to not become "problem minded", but to become "solution minded". After having a night like last night we recognize the propensity in human nature to be overwhelmed. But we know that we are entitled by Gods favor. 

We have made a covenant promise with Him, because He first made a covenant promise with us. He shows His kids preferential treatment, therefore what is normally impossible, is possible for us. He opens doors, that man says cannot be opened. He changed the very rules of this universe for us, so whatever the circumstance He will turn our adversity into a victory. 

This may sound "cocky", but that is how a child speaks about his daddy. He knows his daddy loves him, and that his daddy is the toughest guy on the block who won't let a bully come in and hurt his kid.
God has a plan for our lives.
No matter what... no devil, or any man, can keep us from that plan.
God positioned us.
God has promoted us.
God is backing us.
 

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all." (Psalm 34:19 KJV)