matmusic ministries

Below is Kara’s email update on Parker’s condition which was sent this past Thursday, April 20th.

I left the house at 11am this morning and did not get home until 4pm. I was told to show up for “sign in” time at 12:30 and I got there about 15 minutes early. Even at 15 minutes early, I was behind about 25 people to be seen. I must admit though, Parker’s accident does not look so bad compared to some in there.

It seems my money is well spent here, because we were seen by a nurse practitioner, 2 or 3 physical therapists, a surgeon, and an occupational therapist.

They all said he is looking good and will not need surgery. The therapists all were concerned for his mobility once the tissue starts hardening, so he now his a splint to keep his fingers straight. He has to wear it all the time for the first couple of days, then only at night. His ring finger is healing very nicely, but his middle finger has a puffy red spot that runs down the side, it does not seem to be healing. One of the doctors said that the skin on a finger will not grow up and over that bulge so they had to put silver nitrate on it to kill some of the extra tissue. This was supposed to hurt, but he did not even flinch. On of the doctors laughed and said to watch out for him with such a high pain tolerance, he may be a risk taker.

All in all it seemed to be a good visit, but by the end he was quite tired and getting grumpy, so when they put the splint on and I got him the car he passed out. Since being home though, it was not 10 minutes before he got that thing off and it will be a struggle for the next couple of days to keep it on. He walks most of the time, but still crawls some and will the splint on he cannot crawl at all because the splint goes part way up his arm.

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for praying! Kara

I thought I would share a picture of the kids at Easter time. This one was taken in front of Pops and Nana’s house.

The thought for this song came to me during a sermon.

Our preacher was speaking about how we should define ourselves to find our identity in Christ and the truth of God’s word. One such word is found in Psalm. David knew that the identity could be found in God’s love. Many times, the refrain or the echo to his songs contained a simple phrase.

“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever.”

The tune was now entrenched in my head.

I excused myself from the sermon and went outside with my pocket pc to record the thought.

Click to hear the mp3 clip.

This is a humble start. More to come.

I am writing a new song.

The process has changed for me.

I used to sit down one evening and hammer out a song based on a chord progression that had come to me during a practice time. I would sit and strum and listen and sing and write. I would put pen to paper and compose words and phrases that went together to make a complete song.

Sometimes, I would open the Bible to get words, sometimes it would come from within. Most times chord progressions for verses and bridges would come relatively quickly to fit with the chorus that was already bouncing around in my head.

(The below picture is included because I think text only blogs can get pretty boring…plus I really like taking pictures and this is another way to share them with you. If forced to make a stretch, I would say the picture represents the long road that writing a song to completion can be.)

Songs now are more laborious to complete and harder to come by.

I will get a chord progression that might work for a chorus. Or I will hear a melody in my head that comes from a phrase spoken by a preacher. Or I will read a passage from the Bible that just transforms into a tune in my head.

The problem now is, if I don’t record the musical thought right then, in three days, when I have a spare 20 minutes to develop the thought, I would have totally forgotten it. This lack of time also keeps me from being able to hammer out my thoughts into a cohesive enough collection of phrases and chord progression and strumming rhythms to make up an entire song.

To help me keep my focus, I am planning to write the lyrics and chord progressions here. I might even link the recorded phrases here so you can share in the process with me and encourage me to finish. Accountability can only help.

Below is Kara’s second email update sent on April 4th.

The doctor from Parkland called this afternoon and we will schedule an appointment for Monday. He will be going to something called hydrotherapy, where they will clean and assess the damage. We will know more when we get home from that visit.

Parker seems to be okay, he does not seem to be in much pain. He has pulled his bandages off about 5 times today and even then his wounds don’t seem to bother him. It is a hassle to re-clean, salve and dress the wound with him squirming and grabbing all the stuff, but I’m already pretty efficient about it.

In other news …. Ashton was taken to the doctor for an x-ray on her elbow. she was playing and fell down on it. It was almost out of joint but not completely, but enough that the doctor had to push and twist on it, sending her into complete hysterics. Her arm is in a sling, the doctor said to appease her and she is still favoring it. I think she is not in pain now but is not using it for fear of being in pain again. The reason I think this is because she took a nap this afternoon and she moved it around just fine and even rolled over on it. I suppose we will let her be a drama queen for a little longer.

Thank you to all who lifted us up in prayer, called, or sent an email. Between Parker and Ashton I think I’m cried out for the moment, though we will see what happens on Monday, I’ll let everyone know the time so you can be praying.

Kara sent some family updates via email and I wanted to share them in this forum as well. Below was her first message.

Subject: Scares and Prayers

Friends and Family,

We had a bit of a scare last night at Numed. I heard Wyatt turn on the treadmill machine and I knew he had Parker in that room with him, so I went in there to tell him to turn it off, the machine was running fast and as Wyatt was turning it off I noticed Parker’s hand. He was sitting at the end of the machine and his hand was up under it, I grabbed it out and he started crying, hard. He could hardly catch his breath and when I looked at his fingers I knew why. His fingers had been caught and the friction of the belt burned away his skin on his first two fingers. We rushed to the emergency room at Denton regional and received excellent care. My mom and dad came up there and took Wyatt and Ashton back to their place.

Parker has some very bad burns and soon we will have to visit the burn clinic at Parkland. He seems, this morning to be in good spirits, they gave him a very strong narcotic at the hospital that was supposed to knock him out, he slept maybe 10 minutes then woke up. He was very high and it was quite amusing considering the circumstances. I was not in the room while the Dr. cleaned and dressed the wound. Mat said he cried only a bit at the cleaning, then laughed as they were dressing it and laughed and babbled the rest of the night until finally falling asleep about 10:30 or so.

He will have to wear wraps and maybe a splint on his hand so the skin will heal properly, so the scar tissue won’t prevent him from having full range of motion in his fingers. I don’t know how long the healing process will be, the ER Dr. did not know, but the burn clinic will. My main concern will be keeping him from taking off his bandages and making sure he develops no infection.

We covet your prayers for a full and quick healing with no complications. Mat and I prayed several times at the hospital for his healing and to ease the pain. Last night I had to pray many times while trying to sleep and not reliving the whole accident or visioning what might have happened or what I could have done differently to prevent all this. We are doing fine this morning, I don’t know how things will go at the clinic, but I will give you updates now and again. Thanks for your prayers, our love to all, Kara

Our church’s monthly praise night will be tomorrow, April 2nd. I will be playing guitar on the worship team and would love to have you join us.

Click here for directions.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Ashton.

This was taken on Easter of 2003 when we took the kids outside for their egg hunt. I think the smile says a thousand words about her personality.