“He died young, but lived old.”
That’s how pastor Tommy Nelson described Kyle Ogle during Monday’s funeral. Kyle’s life ended at a much-too-young 38, but in the process he touched many with his full and deep and overflowing magnetism. Before the cancer and with the cancer, he was a bigger-than-life kind of guy.
As I mentioned in a Wednesday Wonder post last year, Corbin & I appreciated and admired both Kyle and Darla during our Baylor days. Kyle was a year older than Corbin, consistently kind and friendly and warm, a natural leader. Darla was tiny and lovely and classy and engaged others with her generous smiles. Carrying out the quite-coveted role of KOT sweetheart, she displayed a warm and nurturing and caring spirit even in college years.
It was said at the funeral that if you’d met Kyle for even five minutes, you knew him - what you see is what you get. The same could be said for Darla. Another commonality is their over-the-top, brilliant smiles. And their kids didn’t miss out in the gene pool. God created Ogle smiles to be dazzling and and wide and contagious.

My take-aways from Kyle’s service:
- The privilege of attending. Of joining a thousand people to honor Kyle and his family. Proximity allowed Corbin and I the gift of participating in this outpouring of love and gratitude for Kyle’s life.
- Kyle’s dazzling smile in every photo - with hair, without hair; with his arm, without his arm; that grin consistently exuding a supernatural joy.

- Hearing Kyle’s two friends, Tommy Saxon and Jeff Turner, speak beautifully and honestly and sincerely about their life-long friend. They offered MANY moments of comic relief relaying stories. Among my favorites were descriptions of the junior high boys hunting, skinning, and frying north Dallas squirrels (or cooking them over a campfire - in a shovel), and Kyle scaling a neighborhood tree with an automatic BB gun to “welcome” younger brother Brad’s friends to their home.
- Kyle worked hard to make others comfortable with his declining health. Keeping things light, spouting classic one-liners and hilarious come-backs, and keeping an eye on the eternal. Before his amputation, Kyle threw a “farewell to arm” party with his friends.
- Sharing the experience with my dear friend and roommate Kristin - an unexpected gift of time together. And watching Nan dart about making things happen. Incidentally, Nan is one of Darla’s best friends, so she and Jeff flew in from San Diego for the weekend, leaving Mike and his brothers in the care of both grandmothers.
- I could write pages about Darla, and I haven’t talked with her in years. Simply from observation - her balance of including others in this journey along with truly protecting her family. Her full-time job of caring for Kyle and making home a sweet place for the four of them. One of the guys related a story about a recent treatment phase, with Kyle exhausted and nodding off as Darla read aloud the side-effects of his drugs. At the top of the list was “inappropriate humor.” His eyes flew opened and he flashed that grin. Now he had an excuse…

The deep and humorous and full atmosphere from Monday’s service can be summed up with the poem Darla had printed on the inside of the program:

On a miserable day during the worst of chemo in 2007, I wrote a spin off of Rudyard Kipling’s “If” for Kyle to cheer him up. He read it and flashed me one of his 1000 watt grins. I hope it makes you smile. - Darla

If… for Kyle

If you can do more with one arm than most can do with two.
If you can smile though the reasons are few.
If you can face suffering with courage and grace,
And not begrudge others who aren’t in your place.
If you can look at the odds and know they’re against you
But fight even harder because “lose” is not in you.
If you can count your blessings in the midst of pain
And refuse to give up, even with little to gain.
If you can trust God when things don’t go your way.
And remember that Heaven is just a breath away.
If you can face a world obsessed with perfection,
And know you are complete, no matter the reflection.
If you know life is short but that it can be wide,
And you grab onto it and make the most of the ride.
If you can look Death in the face and still grin
Then no matter the outcome, I say you win.

Hudson, would you like to pray for Mike?
“Mom, sometimes things are too sad for me to pray for out loud.
This is one of those times.”

Our friends Jeff and Nan Lawrence and their family are suffering a tragedy this week.
Their nearly six-year-old son, Mike, tripped and pummeled out of a vacation condo window, falling three stories onto a concrete staircase. Jeff and Nan and Mike’s two brothers saw him fall, and everyone looked down to see him lying on the concrete below, unmoving and not breathing.
That’s about all we knew Sunday morning as I asked Hudson if he wanted to pray. E-mails and phone calls and texts frenetically traced Mike’s constantly changing diagnosis through Sunday’s afternoon and evening hours.

I spoke with Nan on the phone Sunday morning shortly after they’d gotten Mike to the emergency room. Listening to her scattered, rambling description of Mike’s fall and thinking of the ER physicians working to save his broken and bleeding body seemed incomprehensible. The few times I’d spent with little Mike and his twin brother Luke flashed through my mind: Nan lugging both infant carriers, one in each arm, into my den, and laughing as the baby boys watched the whilrwind of superhero-clad Branson and Hudson prancing over and around their little carriers. A couple of years later, Mike and Luke’s highchairs side by side in a Fort Worth restaurant, the boys literally covered each other with bright blue jello. And again I watched Nan cradle one boy in each arm like footballs, carrying them to the restaurant’s bathroom and then emerge with clean but faint blue smurfs.

I met Nan through my friend Jude my freshman year at Baylor. Nan was a sophomore - really smart, really beautiful, and really original. She didn’t take much time or energy to worry about impressing people. One of my first impressions of Nan was seeing her on a street corner as Jude and I drove to church one Sunday morning. In shorts and a t-shirt with her long blond hair tied back in a loose ponytail, Nan laughed and talked with a handful of young African American boys. Rather than spend her Sunday mornings in a church pew, Nan got to know the neighborhood kids by showing up each week on a street corner with an enormous box of doughnuts.
It wasn’t long after that Sunday morning that Nan called me out of the blue.
“TJ, I’ve been thinking about University High School.”
“Uh huh?”
“Yeah, and how there’s no Young Life, no Campus Crusade, no ministries on the campus at all.”
“Uh huh?”
“So I’ve been thinking about University High, and all these inner-city kids, and I keep thinking about you.”
“Uh huh?”
So the next day I found myself sitting in Nan’s car in University High’s empty parking lot, praying with her for teachers and coaches and instrumental leaders the Lord might use to bring these kids into a relationship with Him.
And the next three and a half years I found myself volunteering as the cheerleading coach for the freshman, JV and Varsity girls.
A little Nan goes a long way.

Nan has influenced many, many lives, and along the way has endured her own share of crazy trials. I’m talking, crazy. I won’t expound here, but she’s an open book if you can catch her for coffee. Her years of walking with the Lord have been deep and difficult and rich and startling and glorious and pain-filled all mixed together. But through the marvelous seasons and through the miserable ones, the Lord is producing in Nan a strong and stable and steadfast heart that longs for Him. I have seen that when her flesh and her heart fail, the Lord provides her strength and hope.

Back to Mike.
The happy update is that God is choosing to spare this precious little guy. After scans and x-rays and surgery (and who knows what else), Mike remains in the ICU in a San Diego hospital with broken bones and some serious internal injuries but a clear MRI. I’m overwhelmed with God’s grace for Nan & her family, for Mike’s life. Evidently so are the doctors. Mike has a long road to recovery, but at this point his physicians anticipate a full recovery.

The real Wonder here is not Nan or even Mike, but the Lord who named himself Jehovah Sabaoth - our Protector - and Jehovah Rapha - the God who heals. That a six-year-old boy can fall three stories head-first onto concrete, and via God’s protection and healing can that very day ask a nurse to move away from in front of the tv because “I can’t see through you” - now that’s a miracle.

Jeff and Nan (pictured next to me, second-to-right) live in NC, where Jeff pastors a church and Nan explores their forested back yard with her three boys. They had just arrived in San Diego Saturday night for a family vacation and anticipated celebrating their twins’ 6th birthdays on La Jolla beach and at Legoland.

Thank you, Lord, for Mike, that his life will be celebrated as never before on his 6th birthday tomorrow. We will never understand the implications of your provision. Thank you for Nan, for creating her into the capable and perfect mommy to these three active and tender-hearted boys and as the perfect compliment for Jeff. For the friend she is to so many, and for her heart that overflows with you. We trust you!

She writes devotionals every day on her Morning Coffee blog.
Every day.
She simply moves verse by verse through books of the Bible and expounds on them,
adding her thoughts and personal stories.
And she does this in her free time as a pastor’s wife and a homeschooling mother of two.

I first met Renae at the Mt. Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference last year and felt drawn to the fellow Texan with her warm smile and easy laugh. Like with another of my Wednesday Wonders, Jennifer King, it was fun to meet another young mom with an awakened interest in writing (well, I thought we were young until BJ entered the room). Renae is wise and thoughtful, but she’s also funny. An endearing quality that makes me like her even more, because I’ve always wanted to be funny.

One of the things I’m most fascinated about Renae is that her son, Foster James, was adopted six years ago. My nephew, Foster James, was also adopted six years ago. What are the chances of finding two six-year-old boys named Foster James living in different states but whose families actually know each other?!
Renae is married to Mark and they also have a beautiful ten-year-old daughter, Charis.

It takes about 5 minutes of meeting Renae to sense her love for God’s Word. When asked about her favorite passage, she cites Isaiah 55:8-13:

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed.”

“Verses 8 - 11 inspire me as I write. I know that as long as God’s Word keeps being thrown out there, in one way or another, God will use it to accomplish His great purpose. I love
that in Ephesians 6, where it talks about the armor of
God, the only OFFENSIVE weapon is the sword, or God’s
Word. The rest of the armor is defensive. If we have
salvation, faith, righteousness, truth, etc, we will
be protected. But still, we can have on our armor, but
without an offensive weapon to fight with, we might as
well curl up in a fetal position. Satan will still
keep coming at us. He just won’t be able to pierce
very deeply. But with God’s Word, the sword, we can
actually fight Satan off! We can make Him run away,
with our Sword!
Then, v. 12 - 13 give me such a warm peaceful feeling.
Mark and I have been through some really tough times
in ministry. But I am reminded that in the end (and am
claiming it even for now!) that He will make sure I
“go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the
mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and
instead of the briers the myrtle grow. This will be
for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign which
will not be destroyed.”

When asked how she’s been personally rewarded through writing, Renae said,

“I love writing. For me, it has always been a form of
therapy, whether anyone reads it or not. My favorite
thing right now is the weekly newspaper column I am
writing. It is so exciting that God is letting me
address a secular audience with His message. Again -
as long as we keep casting it out there, God will do
the rest.”

Renae’s devotional/Bible study series, Morning Coffee, is slated for publication in Fall, 2009. The first book in the series is Morning Coffee with James. In addition to these devotionals, Renae is published locally and nationally in newspapers and magazines, has written a book chronicling the adoption of her son, and also recently signed a contract to write for a chapter book mystery series for girls, ages 8 - 12. She’s been busy.
Thanks, Renae, for your friendship and for sharing your love for Scripture with us - a great jolt each morning. Your work blesses many… keep writing!

** Look for my Wednesday Wonder posts (most weeks!) - please forgive the cheesy name - as I highlight inspiring friends and people in my life… enjoy! **