Tag: skiing

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Crash – Kesleigh’s Tree

While skiing during Spring Break, Kesleigh hit a tree with her head! She was flying down the slope and was out of control, but she was too scared to just lay down and fall. Instead she sped down the slope, crossed another run and ran straight into a tree. As a dad, I watched in horror  and screamed. My heart sunk as her head bounced off the tree. She was wearing a helmet, but I could see her little eyes close as she fell to the ground and then she didn’t move. I imagined the worst. Was she alive? Was she paralyzed? I was there in just a couple seconds, but those seconds were long, difficult, and frightening. She was conscious. She was crying and scared, but she was alive and appeared to be functioning in every way. I was relieved and thanked God as I grabbed her little body and held it close to mine. I just held her for a while. I was grateful for helmets. Hers had a dent about the size of a softball on it.

Someone came by on a snowmobile and asked if we needed Ski Patrol. I declined and said that I thought she was OK. I was right. She was OK physically, but emotionally, she was not OK. She didn’t want to ski again. She was done and I must admit that I understood why. She had experienced something that would have shaken anyone.

Together, with many tears, and at a very slow pace, we worked our way back down to the lift and then back to the house where we were staying. She opted out of skiing the rest of the day. I didn’t blame her.

The next day, she wanted to try again and so we went out with her cousins and everyone. She was a different skier. A slower skier. A more controlled skier. Unfortunately, at her new pace, she couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group. We had to let them go on without us and so she cried. Grandma stayed with me as I watched over Kesleigh. She didn’t enjoy herself that day. She was sad that everyone went on without her, but she was too scared to speed up. She cried that her legs hurt. She whined saying she couldn’t go any further. She laid on the slopes and refused to get up over and over again. I don’t think she smiled the whole time we were on the mountain together. Skiing was not fun for her anymore. As her dad, that broke my heart, but I must admit that I was not having any fun either. I was growing weary and impatient with her whining and complaining. Yes, I knew she came by it honestly, but I also knew her potential, and I didn’t want to let her settle for staying home and not skiing. She had already fallen in love with skiing and I didn’t want to allow her to deprive herself of all the fun she could have simply ’cause she was scared. Fear can do that, but I felt like this was a perfect time for a lesson in perseverance. (It would test my own as well.)

For the rest of the day, we struggled. She didn’t want to stop, but her pace, her whining and complaining and crying made me want to stop. Even grandma grew weary and tired of Kesleigh’s attitude. When we got home at the end of the day, my mom told me that she thought I should win the “Best Son” and “Best Daddy” award for staying back and watching over them on the slopes. I was shocked ’cause I didn’t feel like I had been a good dad at all. I was really feeling impatient and tired. I felt like I had been short with Kesleigh and maybe even pushed her too hard a few times. Mom thought I had been patient, but mom didn’t know the thoughts that I had been fighting all day.

Here’s what I realized. I can be really patient and I don’t mind going slow when there is effort being made. As long as we’re moving forward, I’m OK with slow and methodical. I struggle when there’s complaining and whining and excuses. At those times, I’m not patient at all. I just want to keep moving forward and none of those things helps the process so I grow weary and lose patience.

Here’s my plea: If you need someone to be patient, put forth some effort. Don’t whine, complain, or make excuses. Just keep working toward the goal.

I can be patient when there is effort. I think we all can.

PS – The 3rd day, Kasen chose join us to help his sister and she did much better. By the end of that day, Kesleigh was back to her normal pace, but wiser with controlling her speed. That’s my girl!!! Proud of my boy too for sacrificing some of his ski time to help his little sister.

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Lost

Surrounded by strangers, my mind raced. . . .she’s not here? My heart sank. I went into denial. She has to be here. There’s nowhere else she can be. My heart sank deeper. No. It can’t be. No! No. No. No. My baby is missing. The tears started rolling down my face as I slammed my face into my hands.

My extended family (brother, sister, in-laws, nephews, nieces) was skiing in Angelfire, New Mexico and Kesleigh (6yrs old) was a brand new skier. We all started at the top of the mountain together and headed down a run we had done together multiple times that day. My son Kasen had a little spill and so I stopped to help him and allowed my daughter, Kesleigh to continue down the slope with our group. After getting Kasen settled, we raced toward the rest of our group and caught up with my brother about 1/3rd of the way down. He pointed Kesleigh out to me quite a ways down so I sped up and headed in her direction flying past lots of other skiers. I could see her with my sister as she turned a corner. When I made it to the turn, I saw my sister helping her son get up but didn’t see Kesleigh anywhere. She told me that she must have followed the others on down to the ski lift. There was only one ski lift at the bottom of that hill and she had been skiing with our group all morning long so I felt pretty good about meeting her at the bottom, but raced down to catch her anyway.

That’s when my mind started racing and my heart sank. She wasn’t there. Where could she have gone? What could have happened? Maybe it’s irrational, but I imagined some crazy abduction case or that maybe she had not made it down the mountain and was stuck hanging over the edge of some cliff. Why did I leave her? How could I have let her go on without me? Why? OK…….OK….Calm down. What should I do? OK – be smart. Alright. I asked my family to head up the lift looking for her and then to make another run down sweeping the area in search while I waited at the bottom in case she came down in the meantime. Waiting. . . . Oh, this can’t be. What kind of father are you? Is she alone? Please God. Keep her safe. Bring her back to us. Time moved so slowly. Please God. If I can’t be with her, please put someone else with her to help. My phone started ringing. My sister. She said they had seen Kesleigh from the lift and that she would come over the hill at any moment where would be able to see her. Thank you God. Thank you God. Thank you God. Oh. . . . there she is. As she approached, I could see her whole body quivering from her cry. She skied right into my arms and held her quivering dad who couldn’t control his own crying.

Evidently, she had crashed near my sister in between some trees where no one could see her. By God’s grace, and as an answer to prayer, another skier just “happened” to stop a few feet away from her and heard her crying. She helped Kesleigh out of the trees and got her back on her skis. After waiting a few minutes for someone to come looking for her, they decided that we must be waiting at the bottom. She told me that she knew she’d find some very worried parent at the lift. She was right. I couldn’t thank her enough and have prayed for God to bless she and her family many times since that day. She was an answer to prayer.

After the whole incident, Kesleigh and I talked about it and she forgave me for not being there. She also learned that God is watching over us and helping us even when no one else is. God never leaves us or forsakes us. Even when we are alone, we are NOT alone.

Thank God.

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Legacy

Me and grandma 1983
Me and grandma 1983

My grandma died last year at the age of 97 and she never snow skiied. She traveled all over the country and did all kinds of things, but she never went on a ski trip. Well…….. maybe she did……. just last week. She was there. I saw her almost everywhere I looked. When I broke open mom’s haystack candy, I saw grandma nibbling on one of her own. When the kids had a snowball fight, I saw grandma throwing one off the deck at me accompanied by her laugh and smile which both hit me harder than her snowball. When we played board games at the table, I watched her nimble hands slide the exact card into place to win the game. One morning

There's that smile I saw last week. 1982
There’s that smile I saw last week. 1982

we had cinnamon rolls and they got burned because ovens cook differently in high altitudes, but I couldn’t help but see grandma’s cinnamon rolls sitting on that countertop. When I looked around the room at all my family, grandma’s influence was evident. She didn’t put up with arguing, and you know what? I don’t think we had any. We learned that from her. She loved spending time with family and so do all of us. She laughed often and it just hung in the room there like it was a permanent fixture.

 

 

When grandma’s estate was divided, my mom used some of her portion to take us on this trip. There were 17 of us: Mom, Me, Miranda, Kasen, Kesleigh, Roger, Kathy, Tyler, Betsy, Tucker, Tanner, Brenda, Schonn, Brianna, Ethan, Jaycee, and Tristian.

Grandma took all of us skiing…………. but we also took her. And we will take her everywhere we go.

Grandma left some things behind for us, but the most important things aren’t things at all. She left her mark on us. We have her in us. We became at least partly who she influenced us to become. Influence – that’s grandma’s greatest gift and the greatest inheritance anyone can leave for their loved ones. Love you Grandma! Miss you!

Thank you Mom for passing this precious gift along to us. Love you.

Here are a few pics. If you want more, check out facebook, shutterfly, or google+ sm - 01sm - 02IMG_1448IMG_1425 (3)

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Family Update & Videos

Here are some fun things to tell you about:
I got up to go to the bathroom the other day and when I returned, this is what I found. Isn’t she the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?

Kesleigh loves Kleenex from Steve Corn on Vimeo.

Kasen has been watchin’ the Olympics this past week and when he heard his cousins were skiing this weekend, he decided to go skiing too. Here’s what resulted:

Kasen Skiing from Steve Corn on Vimeo.

The other BIG News is that Kasen pooped in the potty today for the very first time. We rewarded him with a “Big Sucker” and he chose the Mickey Mouse Sucker. Here’s a pic of his poo poo (long pause) . . . . reward:

For those of you who are still reading and who want to know some of the deeper things going on with us, I thought I’d update you on a few things too:

1.) I have officially become unemployed. Sundays are strange. We have visited a few churches and will continue to do so until we find the place that’s right for us. Neither Miranda nor I has ever chosen a church to be involved in. We’ve always been chosen by the church and welcomed with more than open arms. Now, we’re not staff people. Now, we experience what everybody else in the world experiences when they walk into a church. There’s something kinda fun about it though too. It’s nice to be in a worship service without feeling like you had to be “on” or be weary of the neverending saga of politics which surround church staff people each week.

2.) I am currently in the midst of an alternative certification program for teachers. This week I passed the 4-8th Generalist content exam which makes me eligible to get a teaching job. I’m able to teach anything 4-8th grade. The exam was much more difficult than I had imagined, but I ended up scoring well. 282 out of 300 and the passing grade was only 240. I’m excited about the possibility of teaching. My favorite parts of youth ministry have always been the times with students and this way I’ll be able to be with them every day of the week. I’m also excited about having a schedule similar to my kids as they grow older and having Sundays off so that we can be involved wherever we’d like. We’re prayin’ that I can get a teaching job before the end of this school year – preferably close to home too.

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My First Memory of God

I’ve been doing a project for my family – scanning pictures from mom’s old trunk. In among the pictures I found an article that mom had saved – It’s an article I wrote almost 15 years ago – Dec 1994. It was the first time I remember realizing that my parents couldn’t do anything. It was the first time I remember praying for God to do something to help us. Anyway, I typed it up here ’cause it brought back such memories for me.

Wagon It was a cold winter night in New Mexico and the wipers were frantically pushing the snow from the windshield. I was 10 years old and my family had been skiing in Colorado. We were headed back home through New Mexico when the storm hit us. The same snow that had brought joy in skiing, was now the icy villain which threatened our very lives. We were caught in a “white out.” So-called because the intensity of the snowfall had blinded us. Dad was unfamiliar with the road. Did it drop off on one side to a cliff? Were we even on the road? All of these thoughts ran through our minds. I decided to hide from my fears by sleeping in the back of the old station wagon with my younger brother and sister. It was hopeless. I was too scared. Mom and dad just drove. The usual boring adult conversation that had always made it’s way to the back seats had stopped. There was nothing but silence, except for the sound of the tires packing the snow underneath the car. That awful pounding sound the rang with the rhythm of the car.

Finally, dad decided to just quit driving. We no longer had to fear falling off a cliff or hear that awful sound. Now it was only the possibility of being stranded. There was still no conversation, except for the desperate prayers that mom and dad were silently sending up to God. Even at my age, my prayer was the same as theirs, “Help!” I only wished I could have had the innocence of my younger brother and sister who were asleep in the back, but I was older and wiser and understood what there was to be afraid of. Ignorance for them wasn’t a bad thing though.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on dad’s window. It was an older man who offered to let us come stay in his house for the night. With no other real options, dad agreed and we very carefully followed his tail lights to a tiny little cabin. We met his wife and began talking to him. It turned out that he was a Methodist missionary on an Indian reservation there in New Mexico. His wife made jewelry out of rocks that she cut and polished. As a 10 year old I was most impressed by the machine that cut the rocks. That night in a tiny little cabin in a stranger’s house, we slept safe and warm.

To this day, I don’t know that missionary’s name, but then again, I do. His name is Jesus, because he let God work through him. He had given my family one of the greatest gifts that anyone could have ever given us. He made us feel safe in the midst of turmoil. He gave what he had to help us. I wonder if we could learn something from the example of this humble missionary? I wonder if he learned it from another humble missionary – maybe one who came to earth?

Anyway, that’s the article I wrote. Hope it was helpful.