X-ray

I got to go to church today for the first time in several months. I didn't know really what to expect, but I was sure I wouldn't be able to get right back to where I was spiritually before the events of the last 15 months, I mean, how long does it take to recover from a year long backslide? I actually felt pretty good going into the service. I knew I was a little banged up spiritually, but I felt like I was doing the best I could do given the circumstances.

We have a moment of prayer before each service, and today my prayer was simple. I thanked God for my mom and wife who are both fantastic women of God and asked that wherever I was in my relationship with him that today he would make clear where I was and what steps I needed to take to become the kind of spouse and parent he wants me to be.

What can wash away my sin? What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. I don't have the words to describe what happened as I, for the first time in months, praised the God of healing. Have you ever gone to the doctor for something little, something you didn't think would even require medical attention? You know, one of those doctor visits you make just to pacify a parent or spouse. Imagine if they took an x-ray and the Doctor comes in and flips on the light on that little board and you see clearly that all your bones are broken. Completely broken.

I knew I had fallen, but that picture was terrifying and sobering. The reality of what falling has done to me is overwhelming. The confession and repentance that took place in that moment was unlike anything I've ever experienced. It all happened very suddenly. Its like we were both there staring at damage, I'm looking at it and he's looking at it and we're both very aware of how terrible it is. The beautiful thing about that moment is that we both also know who he is. I'm confronted by the horrific damage done in the moment I looked away, but I don't doubt his healing for a second. I'm afraid of what rehab will be like, but I expect to make a full recovery.

What can make me whole again? Nothing but your blood, King Jesus. As I sang those words in the final chorus It seemed so simple, I've been trying so hard to get through this thinking that if I could just get through the next couple of months I would be able to focus on God again. Time and circumstance and financial stability can do nothing. Jesus, its your blood.

I wish I could say that I'm pleading the blood of Christ and waiting for healing. I can't. I think rehab is as active process. Luckily, or something else like luck, Pastor was doing a series on how to study the bible. I wish I could remember his exact phrasing, he's much more eloquent than I, but I can't. He said in studying the bible you have to lay your life against God's word and let it be your standard. Or something like that. It mad me think about sitting on my dad's lap as a young boy. He was so big and so strong and I wanted/want to be like him so badly. I can remember feeling his chest rise as fall as he breathed and I remember trying to make my breath match his. He was my standard. It has to be like that with God. At the very core of who we are, God has to set the rhythm. I have to be in tune with him. That starts in his word. Tonight I pray for desire and discipline and strength. I pray that I find in the Bible a word that is living and I find in myself the desire to make my life match.

The Right Direction

I noticed just now that I haven't posted on here in over a month. I wish I had something clever or wise to say now but I don't, shocker, I know. I'm here because I have literally nothing else to do. I am stuck in a hotel room.

Today has been one of the most frustrating days I've had in a long time. Its the culmination of weeks of the most frustrating days I can remember. I've been preparing for years to get to this point, I am on the verge of getting paid to fly. I have my commercial license so technically I can get paid now, but the Instructor certificate is what will allow me to get paid a little (very little) now. The problem is the FAA. I have to take my CFI (certified flight instructor) checkride with them. All the others have been with a local examiner, but this one has to be with the Feds in Nashville. So, I have prepared for weeks for the longest (near 8 hours) and most difficult test of my life only to fly down here and be told my paperwork isn't right (they ok'd it before I came) and I can't take the test. After that they informed me there is also a paperwork problem with the plane so I can't fly it home. I'm stuck here until the airplane's owner can get the proper paperwork done and faxed to me. I'm in a hotel with no car and nothing on TV.

It's weird, but its been a pretty good day. Maybe a great day. Today was the kind of day that drives people to drink or intentionally hurt other people, but for me it was just a day that was better than the one before it. Part of that comes from it being over. I have been dreading it and worrying about it for so long - it was worse than I thought it would be, but its over. That's part of it, but I think the main thing here is that I got up this morning and went after something I'm passionate about. It was a misstep, but it was a misstep in the right direction. I'm certain that doesn't make sense. I'd rather stumble down this road than sail down any other. I'm more certain of that now than I was when I went to bed last night. Its a good day that teaches you something like that about yourself.

I try not to offer advice much on here, I don't know shit, but I'm feeling reckless so here goes. If your doing something you don't love - stop it. Choose what you want to be and go be it. I'm talking professionally. I know there are people out there that have no idea what career they would be passionate about so they do their job the best they can and then pour what's left of themselves into family or church or working out or boating or whatever else they know they love. That's great, I have a lot of respect for those people and would tell them to keep doing what they're doing. If you have a dream, please chase it. I can tell you it will probably be difficult - it might take longer than you expect - it will cost more than you can imagine - but today I learned that the worst day spent in pursuit of that dream in better than any spent waiting on 5. Taking care of family and meeting your obligations and responsibilities as spouse and parent are admirable and good and worthwhile and I'm not knocking those things, if fact, I advocate them. Do those things. Work - be productive - create and build and do and provide. If you know there is a way to take that ride in a vehicle you know you're passionate about, take the risk. Its worth it, that's all I'm saying.

New Favorite Poem

I'm not much for poetry, can't write it, so I don't read it much. Frustrating. I have seemed to stumble across some lately and here is my new favorite.

Pardon My Train Wreck

A man like me is dead in places
Other men feel liberated

-Elton John-

I’m at the computer tonight because I read a poem a friend’s dad wrote and it made me want to write. I thought about trying my pen at a poem, but that ain’t me. I love words, I just can’t make ‘em dance. What I can do, what I do really well, is talk about me. This is probably going to be a train wreck, but I’m going try and walk through, as honestly as possible, what my experience has felt like and who I feel like I am in and because of it.

The line above is my favorite line from what is probably my favorite Elton John song – how’s that for honest? This is pretty much how I feel all the time. The reverse is also true.

I’ve talked a lot about the anger that followed my dad’s death. Anger that came hard and fast. Anger that took over and drove out all else. I knew I couldn’t control it and I didn’t want to give it up. I didn’t trust God to take it and I was afraid of what I would feel with it gone. I was confused and afraid, so I hid it. Buried it deep so no one would know or be hurt by it. I was wrong on both counts. When you do that with emotion it does funny things to you. It changes you. This anger ate away at joy and hope; it left me numb and cold. At first I liked it. It was better to not feel. In that way anger gave way to apathy. After all of it, this is what I still struggle with. I don’t care much anymore. I have a hard time getting excited or sad or anything. I’m dead in places.

At least I think that’s what’s happened. I often think maybe I’m not so much dead in those places as I am lost. I think maybe something’s gotten crossed in there. There are times I get emotional, it just never seems to be at the right times. I didn’t cry when my daughter was born, but I sure can’t watch The Biggest Looser without a hanky. What is with that show? I don’t have control of it anymore. I have a leak. I don’t know how to express emotion when its appropriate so it comes out at wired times about strange stuff.

I mentioned in that last post that things are never ok again, and I stand by that. It’s been the most surprising thing about all of this. It turns out people are unique and irreplaceable. Having a daughter doesn’t make up for losing a father. She made her own place, she didn’t take his.

I’ve come to an interesting place, just now. I’m finding that I’m still afraid of feeling anything - or at least uncomfortable with it. I was just about to write a little about my daughter, but I stopped because I knew I would get emotional about it. Weird. Maybe the issue isn’t that I buried emotion before, maybe it’s that I created a habit of burying or avoiding it. I still do it. I’m doing it right now. I’m going to park this and move on.

I may be dead or broken in places most people are not, but I’ve also gotten to experience God in ways that have changed and restored me. I’m not good at the Christian thing - apathy isn’t an asset in this endeavor. I want to read the Bible, I just don’t. I want to pray, I just don’t; At least not very often. Again, I think it’s because I don’t want to deal with the way I feel or why I don’t feel. The problem with the Bible is that it is truth. People respond to truth. You have to deal with it. I don’t want to. Not yet, and certainly not all at once.

I hope this doesn’t sound too depressing. I feel like I do a lot of bitching on here. I hope it doesn’t come across that way. I’m generally at my most somber and introspective when I write. I struggle, yes, but I would rather fight and know than never be challenged and just say that I believe. Mercy and Grace and hope and love aren’t just things I’ve read about in books. I have and do wrestle with and live in them. I have lived - life hard and fast. I have had everything I know torn down around me. Through it all God has been faithful. He has pursued and loved me more fiercely than I ever could have imagined. He has recklessly poured out grace and mercy. He has restored hope and delivered on his promise of freedom. I’m free to embrace life because in the middle of all the mess it’s made I’ve found some good things.

Say What?

A friend of a friend’s father just passed away and my friend asked me what they could or should say to their friend. My first reaction was there is no right or wrong. It’s a terrible situation, one filled with pain and anger and fear. Words can’t make those go away, at least not our words.

I thought about it a while and decided that while there is probably nothing you can say that will magically help, there are some things that you probably shouldn’t say. At least there are things that pissed me off when they were said to me. Please understand that this is just how I feel or felt. I just thought it might be good to get it out there in case someone is in this situation and has no idea what to do.

First, don’t say you know how they feel. You don’t. I’ve been in close to the same situation as her friend and I don’t know exactly how he feels. You don’t know - no need to lie about it. People who have lost somebody like to tell you that you can’t see it now, but it will all be ok. That’s total shit. Please don’t do that. My dad died like eight years ago and it isn’t ok. Its better, but everything is not ok. He will have times when he feels ok, but then he’ll buy a truck or build a fence or get married or have a kid or get his commercial pilot’s license and suddenly it won’t be ok again. There are things a man should be able to share with his dad, in those moments, the big moments, his absence is palpable. There’s a small shadow in the corner of all these moments, in the midst of joy and triumph sadness lingers. That is not ok. Don’t ever say it’ll be ok, you can’t know that. If losing a loved one teaches you anything it’s that nothing is certain. If they are like me suggesting things ever will be again will just piss them off.

I personally don’t like the, “they are in a better place,” or “they aren’t in pain any more” lines. It’s hard to explain why I don’t like them. I think maybe because they make me feel selfish. I wanted my dad back more than anything. To point out that he is better off now made it feel like I was being selfish by wanting him back. Like I would rather him be here suffering instead of me. The other problem there is; what if they aren’t in a better place. I know it’s ugly to think about, but not everyone is. It’s just a bad topic to get on all together. For me the pain and anger of those first few months was almost too much. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I couldn’t think about anything else. I know it sounds bad, but that made it about me. I couldn’t see past my own pain. I got tired of people always asking how my mom was doing, I know it was the worst for her, but it was hard on all of us. Let them know you care about their family, but your focus needs to be on the person you are dealing with. It’s about them. When you talk too much about how sorry you are or how you hurt for them or how you can’t imagine how their mother is making it, it makes them feel, or made me feel, like my pain was being downplayed. That made me feel selfish and gave me an avenue to direct all that anger inward. During the worst of it I was angry at and didn’t trust God, but man, I hated me.

So what do you do? I think you tell them you’re sorry. Tell them you love them, and hold them as tight as you can for as long as they’ll let you. Be honest and real. Create a safe place. They have to know its ok to be angry and sad. They also have to know its ok to laugh a little to. My friend asked if she should try to make him laugh. I said not to try and make him laugh, but allow him to laugh. They have to feel safe expressing whatever emotion they feel, burying it only drags out the process.

If you want to know how to just be there for someone - how to handle the situation with grace and love, ask Kyla and Daniel and Claire and Aaron and Ryan and Danny and Anthony, they were my breath - my safe place. I don’t remember specifics of what they said or how they said it, I just know they loved me well and that’s how I survived.

A Good Thing

It blew my mind, it bled me dry, it hit me like a long goodbye,

and nobody here knows better than I that it’s a good thing.

It’ll fall like rain on your parade, laugh at the plans that you tried to make, it’ll wear you down till your heart just breaks and it’s a good thing. It’ll take just a little too much. It’ll burn you like a cinder till you’re tender to the touch.

It’ll follow you down to the ruin of your great divide, and open the wounds that you tried to hide. And there in the rubble of the heart that died you’ll find a good thing. Love is a good thing.

-Andrew Peterson-

This song hit me hard. I’ve felt all of those things. I’ve said the long goodbye; had plans blow up in my face. I’m worn down and broken, burnt and tender, wounded and exposed. I’ve been sifting through the rubble lately trying to make some sense of it all. Trying to find a reason to hope – something to hang my faith on. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me. I know people who can just believe. Who seem to hope by default. I’m a Christian, but I don’t know how to just live it. I have to choose it. Every day, I have to choose it again and again. Sometimes it seems like such an obvious decision and others it takes everything I have. It doesn’t come natural to me.

This song, or the truth it contains, is huge for me because it makes that decision just a little easier. I understand that God is love, I feel loved by him. It’s just that I’ve never thought about it being the power of his love that drives me brokenness. I know this is a necessary part of the process for me, but with the complexity of God it’s difficult to be sure what about him is wreaking this havoc. I’m not sure I’m really getting to it here. The difference seems so subtle as to at first appear irrelevant, but the distinction couldn’t be more powerful for me. I know God is love and I thought that it was out of love that he chose to do these things to me. Like he was actively burning and breaking me. It’s more that this is just what happens when the created is loved by the creator, when imperfect is loved by perfection.

The only thing I can think to compare it to is the way my love makes my daughter feel safe. I don’t tell her she’s safe, at two she wouldn’t understand it anyway. She doesn’t see me lock the doors of know that I have a gun in the dresser. My love for her doesn’t drive me to show her these things so she can feel safe, but when she lays down at night it’s my love the allows her to sleep in the dark. God doesn’t break me because he loves me - he loves me and that breaks me. The difference is subtle, but it’s what allows me to sleep at night.

Live Big

Just look at the ground on the grassy hill. It’ll lift you up but it holds you still, ‘cause gravity binds us but glory defines us—it’s the greater pull of a perfect will ...

It’s so full of meaning, alive and careening into the grace of the great unknown. I’m stuck down here. …up and away to the great wide open, adrift in an end­less ocean, in a bliss of mystical motion. I have found this much is true: love alone can carry you.

-Andrew Peterson-

It’s no secret that I love Andrew Peterson. Something about the way he writes. I think he says things the way I would say them if I could – or he says things in a way that reaches me. Sometimes I feel like the songs are his but the words are mine. I feel like I’m seeing things that I knew or should have known all along, but somehow couldn’t express or identify. I learned last night that he has an album for kids. I think my daughter will like it someday, if this next one is a boy I imagine he’ll eventually enjoy it to. I love it now. It was on in the car today and I enjoyed it more than I’ve enjoyed any music in a long time. It’s probably that I’ve regressed so far spiritually that I have become like a child, but in between all the silly there are powerful truths. Kids are silly and young and so they like fun and adventure - they don’t dream because they are young - they dream because they haven’t forgotten how. We were made for adventure and dreams and pirate ships and imagination. None of my jeans are grass stained and I rarely make gun sounds when I fly. I want to live – live big.

I want to slay the dragon and rescue the princess. I want to live the life I’ve forgotten. This gravity binds us, but its glory that defines us. To live big, in his will, carries us with grace unto the great unknown. I want to fly.

I became a commercial pilot two weeks ago. It’s the realization of dream. In the pursuit of that dream I have done and seen things very few people will ever experience. Up and away into the great wide open, I’ve escaped the bonds of earth and danced the clouds. I’ve been engulfed in blackness and thunder. I’ve seen beauty and power - felt free and weightless. I’ve been both conqueror and completely insignificant. I have been breathless and speechless and giddy. Somehow in all of that I began the think it was work and study that propelled me. I got lost in the effort and forgot the dream. The truth is: it was never me. It was and is always about the greater pull of a perfect will. It’s not a dream I had, it’s a dream I was given. I forgot.

God, forgive my forgetfulness. I have nothing to offer this journey. This is your dream, your story, your will. My efforts are futile; it’s your love alone that carries me.

Pt 2. Backwards

A good friend at work says she believes in God, but she doesn't want to go to church because she doesn't want to be a hypocrite and she isn't ready to stop living for herself (I'm paraphrasing). Earlier in a crazy moment I had told her to do something, not asked, told and not overly nicely. I apologized later and said I should have asked and probably said please, her exact words were, "I don't mind obeying people I know and like." She has is backwards. She thinks she needs to have basically become a Christian before she comes to church. She thinks she needs to come to a place where she puts God's desires before her own and then try to get to know him. It won't happen that way.

To know Him is to know that He is good. It’s that knowing that starts to make it possible to value his glory above your own. You'll never be willing to obey someone you don't know and like. She is waiting until she is willing to obey before she tries to know Him. Church is, or should be, the ultimate come as you are place. Learn him; know him, then decide if you want to obey him. There aren't many promises I can make, but I know enough to promise her (and you) this: Christianity is difficult. It won't solve all your problems. It doesn't provide a life that is easy. Christianity is a decision, a very personal and often extremely difficult decision. It’s a decision that you have to make over and over every day, but if you find in yourself the desire and strength to make that decision it will lead to joy and purpose and life. The first thing that we have to decide is whether or not we want joy and purpose and life more than we want fun and sex and alcohol and parties. For what it’s worth, I have of all seven.

pt. 1 What I Know

The next three posts are kind of part of the same process for me. I'm going to divide it up and post it over the next couple of days. I hope you stop back by for the rest.

These days have been quiet for me -long and . I haven't done the things I've needed to do to stir the waters. I've been absent - far away and busy. Even the days seem quiet - still and lonely. It’s cold and dark now, I don't feel or think - I just do. The motions are easy but rest is elusive. There are faces I don't know - parts of a story that can't be mine. There is a fog - cold and quiet.

Something has moved. Pebbles dropped in a still pool. The ripples are small, but the water is moving. It’s hard to make my way back to the pool, but I know there is healing there. I've heard stories - been asked questions - been invited, challenged. I feel almost brave enough to hope - could there be light, warmth, and healing enough for me?

A friend recently lost his newborn daughter. I haven't spoken to him since, but I heard he spoke at the memorial service. I can't imagine having strength like that, but I know where it comes from. This is the kind of story that penetrates, that finds you where you are and forces you to think. It wakes you up and brakes you. I don't like to think about what I would do in his situation, but I can't help it. I know in the moment I wouldn't be as strong as I've heard he has been, it takes me longer. I think in situations like these the only question is whether or not you believe that God is good.

I don't believe God kills. I believe we do. It’s difficult to accept death because deep down we all know we aren't supposed to die. We weren't created for it - we choose it (or chose it). I don't believe my friend’s daughter chose it, just like I don't believe my dad chose it. Adam and Eve made the same choice we all make. We choose our glory over Gods, our wishes over His plans. In this way we choose death, every day. We have created a fallen world, destroyed paradise and replaced it with a sort of nursing home. We are all dying here. God chose not to abandon us this fate. He provided a way out. He gave up his glory and came to live among us. While here he didn't choose death, he chose life, over and over every day for 33 years he chose life so that when he did finally decide to meat death it was ours he met and not his own. He took our death - he met it as sacrifice and conqueror. Death has been defeated - we have life and hope and grace and mercy freely available to us. We just have to choose it.

Hover Near

Our enemy, our captor is no pharaoh on the Nile
Our toil is neither mud nor brick nor sand
Our ankles bear no calluses from chains, yet Lord, we're bound
Imprisoned here, we dwell in our own land

Deliver us, deliver us
Oh Yahweh, hear our cry
And gather us beneath your wings tonight

Our sins they are more numerous than all the lambs we slay
These shackles they were made with our own hands
Our toil is our atonement and our freedom yours to give
So Yahweh, break your silence if you can
-Andrew Peterson

I’ve felt disconnected lately. I haven’t been able to go to church regularly in over 9 months. It’s taking its toll. I knew it was affecting me, but it’s become more glaring over the Christmas season. I can’t connect with the story. It’s all porcelain dolls and silent nights. I don’t like terms like Christmas Spirit and Holiday Cheer. I prefer words like redemption, rescue, and grace. There has always been since of awe for me in the reality of the story we tell this time of year. Not so much this year. I haven’t seen one advent candle lit. Not even a glimpse of the wonder surrounding the story of God with us.

A few days ago I took a friend flying. She wanted to touch a cloud. I know, sounded a little silly to me at first to. It was a great day for it. Scattered clouds at 2900, broken at 5000. We went up through the first layer and flew between it and the second. The world became white. Clouds above and below - blue sky out in front. For a while the wheels were skimming the clouds below us. It’s the second most breathtaking flight I’ve ever been on. It was fun, until she opened the window. When she stuck her hand out into that cloud the look on her face changed the experience for me. It was a look I’ve only ever seen on my daughters face, a look I thought only existed on the face of a child. So much joy – such wonder. I didn’t experience it then, but I knew I wanted to.

Tonight I read words about the Christmas story – beautiful words. Words with the power to connect to a story with the power to rescue. As I read about the birth of Christ I found myself, for the first time this year, wide eyed and slack jawed. It became real. A story about real people changed in moment by the overwhelming love of a father. It became clear to me that the only way for me to really connect with the story was to try to connect to its characters – characters that really lived and breathed. Not porcelain dolls under wooden frames, real human people with dirt on their sandals – the same dirt I dump out of my New Balances at night.

I did what I always do when I’m trying to get somewhere – put the IPod on. I listened to Andrew Peterson’s Christmas album. The story starts with Israel – my story starts there to. They were enslaved, rescued, delivered, and then spent 400 years waiting. I feel a lot like that now. Silently waiting. I’m afraid I almost missed it. Tonight as I wait I’m going to pray what I think could have been the first prayer Israel ever prayed in total unison. It’s a prayer I believe addresses the needs in my life. I need mercy. I need love. I need a Savior.

"Lord, let your judgment Passover us

Lord, let your love hover near

Don't let your sweet mercy Passover us

Let this blood cover over us here"

Andrew Peterson

The Ninety And Nine

There were ninety and nine that safely lay

In the shelter of the fold

But one was out on the hills away

Far off from the gates of gold

Away on the mountains, wild and bare

Away from the tender shepherd's care

It's probably arrogance and pride, but I always feel like the one. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. That's me. I don't know why, but I can't stay put. I think sometimes it's because I like the attention the danger brings. This story is not about the ninety nine, it's about the one. I'm starting to think there is a part of me, a part I'm growing to hate, that wanders into the mountains, not because I'm confused or lost but because I enjoy the attention. I don't like the beating, but I like the complaining. I want people to feel like I've overcome, that I'm strong. I can brave the wild, barren wilderness and return with stories of daring rescue. I get restless in the fold; I want to be the one.

But none of the ransomed ever knew

How deep were the waters crossed

Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through

Ere He found His sheep that was lost

Out in the desert He heard its cry

Sick and helpless and ready to die

I can't handle the barren lands; the desert is never the adventure it seems to be when viewed from the safety of the fold under the protection of the Sheppard. I don't think it's the desert that makes me sick and helpless. I am sick and helpless, the desert exposes me for what I am - dying. Well, I was, and not dying - dead. I was dead in sin, condemned to the desert from birth by the weight of a choice I didn't make - and all the ones I have. When you're born in the desert and then carried to green pastures and still waters it's hard to understand just how difficult the journey was. I struggle to remember and understand what it cost the Sheppard to come after me.

'Lord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine

Are they not enough for Thee'

But the shepherd made answer

'This of mine has wandered away from me

And though the road be rough and steep

I go to the desert to find my sheep

I wonder if Jesus discussed his plan with the host of heaven before he set out on his rescue mission. This is obviously me reading myself into the story, I don't think the Lord gets questioned in heaven the way he does here, but I can just imagine them all wandering why he needed to go so badly. How am I worth what the journey would require? I find comfort in his answer - "He his mine. They will be my people and I will be their God. For that to happen I must go to the desert".

But all through the mountains, thunder riven

And up from the rocky steep

There rose a glad cry at the gates of Heaven

'Rejoice, I have found my sheep!'

And the angels echoed around the throne

'Rejoice for the Lord brings back His own!

We had a baptism service at church Sunday; it was one of the most moving services I have ever been in. A friend's husband was baptized. I worked with her for years and heard stories and occasionally saw this guy. I didn't like him much; he wasn't there for her kids and didn't treat her right. He was on drugs and in and out of jail. It seemed he only came around when he saw the opportunity to take advantage of her love for him in a new way. I'm sure on more than one occasion I told her to forget about him - to move on - to live for herself and her children. I didn't understand why she couldn't or wouldn't just let him go. Sunday was powerful. This may sound weird, but little of its power and my joy in it had anything to do with the guy who got baptized. Sunday's power was in the reminder of what kind of God we serve. We serve a God who rescues - A God who pursues. It seems to me that if you want to die in the desert you are going to have to try really hard. This guy at church is proof that God will never stop calling. What happened in his life echoes what was done in mine. His story is my story, the words are different, but the hero is the same. It's not about the sheep. We don't rejoice for the one, we rejoice for the Lord who brings back His own.

- The Ninety and Nine is a Song by Andrew Peterson.

Drive By

I don't get to go to church much these days. I think I've been about 4 times in the last seven months. I've taken church for granted. Up until I got this job in March I had been to church almost every week for 28 years, sometimes several times a week. I got to where I didn't think about it much. Kind of the way you don't think about food or shelter much until you visit a third world country - or they way you don't think about oxygen much until you go skiing at 13,000 feet - or the way you don't think about sleep much until you have a new baby. This is a time of spiritual deprivation and exhaustion. Months without feeding have led to a new kind of struggle. A struggle to stand, to go on. I stumble more now and it seems harder to get back up. I'm struggling, but I'm also seeing and learning things that I think are growing me.

I was "churched" a couple weeks ago. I think of it like kind of a drive by churching. One of those things that happens fast and changes you in an instant. I mentioned that I've been in church my whole life. It's always been a place for me to give - time, talents, resources. I've, of course, gotten more that I've given, but not in a tangible way. For me its been about community and relationships more than having physical needs met. Now I find myself short on both time and resources, I find myself, for the first time, in a place where my family has needs I'm in no position to meet. I was telling Preach and Preachess about our air conditioner breaking, It was still pretty hot outside and I knew we wouldn't be able to fix it. We had already had one night sweating it out. I know it's a small thing, but it was heartbreaking to see my daughter in the morning with her little hair matted with sweat. I should be able to give her a comfortable safe place to sleep. I really felt like I was letting her down. Anyway, Preachess said there is a HVAC guy in our church and said she would call and see if he would look at it. I felt really weird about it. The idea of having a stranger come to my house and help knowing I would probably never be able to pay him back was really unsettling. Preachess said I should let the church be the church. They called, he came that very afternoon.

He was at our house for, maybe, 15 minutes, but when he left our AC worked. I know I've taken a long time to tell a simple story about a small thing, but it was huge for me. I'm going to have a hard time explaining it, I've thought about it for weeks and I can't get it right in my head. It's the first time I can remember seeing the church from this side. I understand how it works, my love of Christ has compelled me to give, I just didn't expect to see so much more clearly from this side. There is something about a man you've never seen before coming to your house to do something for you that you can't do for yourself that moves you. It's a humbling - powerful thing. He talked about his desire to give back, to make a difference. He did, in no small way, he made a difference in our lives. Not because we're more comfortable now, I am different because I've seen first hand what it looks like when someone you don't know, that you can't do anything for, shows you compassion.

See. Do. Go

2! You’re both getting so old. You are no longer babies - You are entering little boyhood. I am so proud of the little men you are growing into. Live as big as you’re becoming.

See with compassion. Do in love. Go with Faith.

I wrote this (or something like it) in a birthday card for two little boys (twins) that I love like they’re my own. The last line there comes from a blog I read back in May. It was a simple post that changed more than the way I sing a song to my daughter - I think it may have drastically altered the way I want to raise her. Most every night of her two years I’ve gone into her room before I went to bed to check on her. I take her milk cup out, put her in the middle of the bed, cover her back up, brush her little bit of hair from left to right, and I pray. I pray for her safety, that she’ll be protected – shielded, that she won’t know pain or loss or fear. I pray that where I fail, God will not.

I haven’t checked on her yet tonight, but I think when I do my prayer will be different. I think tonight I’ll pray that she’ll live – live big.

What you see, little eyes, see with care.

This is the line of the song the blog author suggest we use. The words are so similar to the original, (Oh, be careful, little eyes, what you see) that it may be easy to feel like they mean basically the same thing. I feel it’s safe to say the original author only meant to say that children should be careful what they are exposed to, input – output, right? While I agree with that, I also think there is suggestion there that we look away if something is ugly or broken or unholy. I don’t want my daughter to look away. I want her to see people. I want her to see them in their brokenness and need and desperation. I want her to see with compassion.

What you do, little hands, do with love.

I don’t ever want my daughter to be afraid to reach out. I want her to see need, be moved with compassion, and reach out in love. I want hers to be hands that heal – that hold up – that comfort.

Where you’re called, little feet, go with faith.

To do the things I hope she does, she has to be where God wants her to be. I hope he wants her to be next door to me, forever, but I’m convinced he has greater things planned for her. She’s beautiful, funny, sweet, engaging, smart, and she never stops going. She is going to do great things. Assuming she learns to listen when God calls and willing to go and do. I don’t want her to be careful where she goes. I want her to follow God with recklessness. I don’t want her testing the waters, I want her to leap with faith and go in head first.

I understand that she’s way too young to really process any of this. I just don’t want her to be afraid. I don’t want her to be so immersed in religious rules that she can’t see the miracle life is every day. I want her to be awed by God’s love and committed to his plan. I know where not supposed to be like the world, but I’m convinced we have to live in it. This may not be home, but it’s a pretty nice place to vacation and I'm in no hurry to leave.

When we were kids my youngest sister was terrified to get in the ocean. It looked like a water fall and she was afraid that if she got in it would suck her over the edge. The ocean is a big – dark – dangerous place, and we are not aquatic creatures. It makes sense to be afraid of what may happen if you lose yourself in it, but it ain’t much of a vacation if you don’t get in the water.

Rise Up

Habakkuk 3: 17

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

13 yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

19GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

Can you pray this prayer? This is the question Preach closed the message with today. For me, the answer is yes - I can, I have, I do. It doesn’t sound as good, but the idea is the same. It took me a long time to get here, but I know God is powerful enough to rescue – I understand that sometimes he doesn’t – I’m going to rejoice and take joy in Him either way.

This is not something that’s easy, and feel weird saying I can do it (I almost never get to answer rhetorical preacher questions in the affirmative). So, I’m going to try and explain why I’m confident in my answer this time. The reason most people have difficulty with questions like this is that the language is all wrong. The question is not, Can I? The question is Will He? People say God won’t allow you to face anything too big for you to handle - those people are mistaken. It’s almost inevitable He will.

God causes, or by inaction allows, things to happen in our lives that we are in no way equipped to handle. He does this so we have nowhere else to turn but to Him. If you try to take on these things without him you will be devoured by them. You can’t handle much of anything on your own. Can I? No. If you choose to turn these situations over to God, you change the question. Will He?

God’s power is terrifying and his motives often unclear, but He is good. Of that I am sure. Preach made a powerful statement today, I don’t remember it exactly, but basically it was that God only moves in love and always toward salvation. His motivation is love – His goal salvation. When these truths are difficult there are two passages in scripture I carry near my heart to lean on:

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future

Romans 5:20

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more

Grace is always bigger than sin – God is in control. He is good and so is what he has for me. If you never receive another blessing from God - If you lose everything you have. If in that you never see God’s hand or hear His voice, He will still be there. He will still be good. He will still be God. You may not see Him, but He will be there. God will rise up to meet the storm and absorb the flood because it’s the only way you survive. All things come from Him. There is no faith, no hope, no life apart from God. You can’t. He will.

Don't Make Us Sing

http://burnsidewriterscollective.blogspot.com/2009/08/please-dont-make-us-sing-this-song.html

Psalm 137.

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

2 There on the poplarswe hung our harps,

3 for there our captors asked us for songs,our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

4How can we sings songs of the Lord whilein a foreign land?

Habakkuk 1:

2 How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not save?

3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.

4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.

I'm alone tonight, have been pretty much all week. The wife and daughter were at the beach all week and tonight the wife is at a wedding. They were both here yesterday and I had the kido to myself for a couple hours tonight, we had fun, but she's in bed now and (except for the giant dog parked on my lap) I'm alone again. I don't like myself when I'm alone. I'm never sure what to do, tonight I decided on some surfing. I came across the blog I linked to above and now I'm here trying to express to you what I felt watching it. It may be that I've been on the verge of emotional for the last few days anyway, but when they kept the camera on that kid towards the end of the video, something broke in me. I think its because I've felt most of the things written on his face. There was such sadness and confusion and fear and, somewhere just below the surface, anger. When I take the church mask off I often find that to be the face I wear.

If you're going to understand where I'm coming from it's important to realize, and I think both of you do, that for me there a two very distinct spiritual times in my life. When my father was alive and since. A lot of the questions posed by events such as Katrina I dealt with in a personal way with the passing of my father, I thought I understood how that works. I thought that until Katrina, as a watched footage of that tragedy I couldn't help but feel like Habakkuk. How could God cause, or by inaction allow, that kind of devastation? I understood, again, how that could leave gaping holes in some people's theology. I think the easy answer is that the existence of such feelings points to a being created in the image of a God who is just. Without God where do we get ideas like justice and equality and fair play. These are certainly not things we see in nature. Nature is about power and ability, the strong get to evolve and the weak are devoured. Surely we did not learn compassion from such a place, the natural world teaches nothing of justice or fair play. If you crave those things I think you are forced to concede that you must be created in the image of a God who embodies those things. So we are forced to conclude there is a God and that he sometimes does things that don't seem right to us. The question becomes, how do we respond?

Some people call what happened in New Orleans justice? I couldn't disagree more. About a year after Katrina we went on a cruise that left out of New Orleans, and I got to see the devastation with my own eyes. That was not justice. The innocent died there side by side with the guilty - the guilty survived with the innocent.

I can't remember where I was going with all that. We live in a fallen world, the sin we choose takes lives every day. Sometimes it looks like justice - more often its just tragedy and despair. The world is dark, but the dawn is coming. I think it goes back to the question Ker Gire asks that I use on the top of this page, "How will we wait"? What will we do as we advance towards dawn?

You can see the answer in videos of Katrina's aftermath - in footage of 9/11 and the war on terror. You see it in hospital rooms and nursing homes and restaurants - in neighborhoods, stadiums, and churches. We do all that we can. We rescue. We are heroes. We fight. We show compassion. We live. We build. We give. We love. We sing.

Enough

The little blue engine looked up at the hill.
His light was weak, his whistle was shrill.
He was tired and small, and the hill was tall,
And his face blushed red as he softly said,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
So he started up with a chug and a strain,
And he puffed and pulled with might and main.
And slowly he climbed, a foot at a time,
And his engine coughed as he whispered soft,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
With a squeak and a creak and a toot and a sigh,
With an extra hope and an extra try,
He would not stop — now he neared the top —
And strong and proud he cried out loud,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!”
-Shel Silverstein


I read this poem for the first time, again, yesterday. I read this as a child, Where the Sidewalk Ends, was one of my favorite books growing up. This is a pretty classic tale. We're all familiar with the Little Engine that could, and the Little Blue Engine here seems on the verge of the same sort of triumph. We all love this story, we love it for the same reason we love Rocky and Hoosiers. We want to see the little guy triumph, we want to believe its possible to defy the odds. We love these stories because at times we all feel like the underdog. The deck just seems to be stacked against us. I feel that way now. These last few months I've felt like Rocky in the first 14 rounds against the Russian. I love the progression in The Little Blue Engine. In the first parts of the poem he He blushes and coughs and whispers soft, "I think I can." Eventually he starts to see the top of the hill, he begins to believe he may be able to do the impossible, strong and proud he cries out loud, "I think I can."


I think I may be starting to see some light at the end of my own tunnel. At times the unthinkable seems almost possible. Sometimes.


He was almost there, when — CRASH! SMASH! BASH!
He slid down and mashed into engine hash
On the rocks below... which goes to show
If the track is tough and the hill is rough,
THINKING you can just ain’t enough!


I've had a few of these moments this week to. It seems silly to think that just because I finish flight school things are going to get better. I know how the industry works, I know what the economy is like. Thinking and hoping just aren't going to be enough. I'm not afraid I won't be good enough, I can fly. In ways I don't understand God's been preparing me to do it my whole life. Flying feels a lot like standing at the alter with my wife, or holding my daughter in the hospital. I know its right, and I know I can do it. The question becomes; how do I go from thinking it may be possible to making it happen for myself? This is question I've been wrestling with.


Its funny how God meets you in places you'd never thought you'd be at times you least expect. I got to go to church today for the first time in a long time. I was tired and worried and discouraged, I was hoping for peace and rest. I found both. I'm thankful for a church that seeks truth in everything it does, from what the pastor says to what the band plays:


You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation


You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless


For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
-Chris Tomlin


Am I still worried about finding a job? You bet. The track is tough and the hill is rough. The last thing I want to be is engine hash on the rocks below, and I've seen enough of the way God works to know that, for him, that might not be the worst thing to have happen. Believing in and serving a God that is completely sovereign is a terrifying thing. Coming to a place where you can choose his glory of your own prosperity is maybe the most difficult of man's duties. I'm not there, but I've had flashes. I've seen enough to know that I don't want to be in this alone. With things as dark and difficult as they are there is only one source of light and hope and peace powerful enough to drive out the doubt I often carry. He is King of this city, and I'm confident that if we stay around long enough we just may see some great things.