The day started out much like any other day. Up before the sun rises, coercing children out of bed and off to school.

This is when Mona’s hearing problem started. She’d dropped Emily off at her school bus stop, and the Holy Spirit whispered in her ear, “Mona, you should go to the YMCA this morning. It’s safe there.” “What?”, Mona said, “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

A few minutes passed and, after having been ignored the first time, the Holy Spirit tried a new approach… “Mona, if you’re going for a run, you should go down this nice smooth paved sidewalk.” “What?”, Mona said, “huh? what?” Mona paid no heed.

So, off Mona goes. Back home. Change into exercise clothes and out the door with the iPod and some favorite tunes.

I don’t know if it was on the outbound trip or the return trip, but there most definitely was a trip. A trip that Mona won’t soon forget. You don’t want to know the details. Not from me.

My phone rang this morning at about 9:30AM and a guy said, “here’s your wife”. Mona said, “I was running and fell on the bridge. Now I have a sliver and I need you to come get me.”

If you’ve had a sliver before, you know how much that can hurt. While the words out of Mona’s mouth said it was a “sliver”, the tone of her voice said it was a S-L-I-V-E-R. After 20 years of being married, one word was all I needed to hear to know that this was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill, “we’ll get the tweezers” sliver.

I dropped everything, jumped in my car and hurried off to help my love. When I pulled up and Mona showed me “the sliver”… oogy. We spent the next 2 hours at the urgent care center.

Mona is home now and recovering nicely. She’s such a trooper.

So, Mona, if you’re reading this, I recruited some friends to put together a “back to the basics” training video for you. Please, please watch this… and take notes.