Shane Life

My good friends Brenna and Rebecca have both blogged this, but I know there are several people who read here that have not seen their posts. Whether or not you are a spiritual person, this is an important story for me to tell about a friend.

One of the members of our church is currently suffering very badly from the effects of cancer. Kelli is a wonderful mother of two small boys, loving wife, and devoted congregant of the church. She is only 36 and requires a ton of care so she is spending her final days with her family surrounding her at the Hospice House in Kansas City.

Kelli, along her husband Jeff, her kids Elijah and Zack, her parents Sharon and George and her brother John could all use any amount of prayers that you would be willing to send. These are good people who are in this horrible, terrible situation and they need God to bless them indeed.

I’ll leave you this morning with a section from her mom’s e-mail yesterday:

Her vital signs continue to be strong. We’ll take every little bit we can get. Kelli says that she is not afraid to die, she just doesn’t want to. She is a determined young lady. I know that all of your prayers are helping as all of us are able to cope during this scary time. 

Thanks,
Shane 

In 2006, I read 25 books. Those books ranged from the first 6 books in the Harry Potter series to excellent nonfiction tomes like The Tipping Point to books about my industry like Designing With Web Standards.

I enjoyed most of the books, but I haven’t read nearly as many this year. I don’t know what it’s been, but I’ve still read plenty…I just haven’t posted many reviews. I read several books when we were in Europe and never got around to reviewing any of them officially.

• Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassen
• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
• Textpattern Solutions by Kevin Potts, Nathan Smith, etc.
• Songbook by Nick Hornby
• The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
• others that for some reason I can’t think of

I just finished reading Stormie Omartian’s book, The Power of the Praying Husband. Omartian has written several The Power of a Praying… books and Alli really loved The Power of the Praying Wife. It’s taken me quite a while to get through it completely, but I really thought it was a great read.

As someone who has a strong belief in the power of prayer, I really liked how Omartian wrote 20 different chapters about things to pray about for the most important woman in my life. There’s stuff in there that I would never really think of, but after reading through it, it made a lot of sense. Alli and I have started giving these two books to new married couples and I would highly recommend them to any married person. I really thought the book was great. Wherever you might be in your life, I think there’s a Power of Praying… book for you.