Liar

How would a person fare in this world if they told the truth 100% of the time? No sugar coating, no flattery, just the truth. It doesn't mean he speaks without tact or love, but just tells the truth all the time. I don't think that person would be very popular to be around. I think people like to be lied to. Not just the big things like, am I ugly, or am I stupid, but the little things like some random story that never really happened. The Bible says people loved darkness rather than the truth. It also tells us to buy the truth and do not sell it. I think that is the heart of the problem with us. Many of us have sold the truth and have bought this fluffy and apologetic version of it.

Many would feel uncomfortable around a person that never lied. They somehow wouldn't trust him. They wouldn't trust him because they have never met a person that doesn't lie. This person would be foreign...an invader to our normal way of ignorance and bliss. Really honest people lie in the subtle ways. They lie with their eyes when they feel it necessary to save the other person's heart from breaking. Really dishonest people lie with every breath they take. Their entire existence can be a lie. Both are no where near the truth. Isn't that disheartening? To actually want to be lied to? Is it less of a lie if the person tells it with good intentions? Do you want them to lie to you if they are doing so with a good heart? Temporarily, I say yes, because it may save me hours of agony. Eternally, I say no, as it can cause decades of bitterness and hatred. Did Jesus ever lie to save a person's feelings? No. He called out his best friends for allowing the devil to speak through them when He directly said to them to "Get behind me Satan." for simply trying to comfort Him and tell Him they weren't going to let anything bad happen to Him. It didn't seem as though Jesus valued anything that wasn't true.

I think I am going to try harder to never, ever lie. To tell the entire truth....IN LOVE....whenever asked anything. It is important to note that this doesn't mean you need to open your flap every single time you have an opinion. Try telling the truth when asked. This is a good start I think.

This is the project of humanity to bring the truth to everyone's eyes.








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Thanks for reading...Z

Tantrums

I wish I could remember the tantrums I used to pull when I was a kid. From my mom's stories, they seemed pretty staggering. I do remember one that I had during church. I was crying for some dumb reason, probably because I hated church and wanted to leave. My mom used to threaten the spanking when I was acting like an imbecile, but usually the threat was enough. Not this time. I was obviously pissed off about the guy shouting at me from the podium and could not take it any longer. She took me to the bathroom and reluctantly gave me the "What have you." But while she got her workout I thought something brilliant. This would be the ultimate "Got you sucka." I didn't even think about it, I just screamed "HELP!" As loud as I could toward the bathroom door. I wanted them to think I was being beaten for no reason. In my head, I saw them nodding their heads in shame at my mom as she shrunk lower and lower in shame. Instead on my way out of the bathroom, with tears in my eyes, I watched them nod with excitement and recognition at my mom. As if to say, "Nice one, you actually got him to cry for help." It was the 80's, don't judge. Of course I needed no help, I needed to stop being a jerk in church. I needed to stop making it hard on my mom to raise us in the right environment. But that is me. I will make nothing easier for you.

Sometimes I still have tantrums. I still have my moments of overreacting to something and someone else has to come along and say, "Hey man, let's hug it out." It isn't the loud ones that end my rage, it's the quiet ones who don't usually say much. They say the very thing I cannot argue with and make me feel like a dumb kid that just threw a tantrum for nothing.

A few months ago, I was doing something I was supposed to be doing and I was questioned by a person that had no idea what she was talking about. I picked my son up from school and went to this place and did what I was supposed to be doing while my kid played with all of the cool things there. When on my way out to put something in my car, this person who had no idea what she was talking about approached me and accused me of doing something she knew nothing about. I got really mad. I proved to her that I was right and she was wrong empirically. I got into my car and drove off to my house. About three quarters from my home as I was patting myself on the back for being so awesome and owning this ignorant women, I realized it was awfully quiet in the back seat. I took a quick look. Then another. CRAP!!!!!! I did leave my oldest son at that place where that ignorant women was. I had to go back. Knock on the door. Go in. And try to covertly explain how I had left my oldest son there.

I had a tantrum. That's how I left my son there.........Humbling.







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Thanks for reading...Z

Funeral

Mark 14:3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. 4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume?  5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly. 6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.  7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.  8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.  9 I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Now her brother Lazarus is sick and dying. The family is in chaos and desperate. Mary and Lazarus had become very dear to Jesus. They went to the only place that hope truly lives, they went to Jesus. In all of their turmoil, Jesus says this: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Imagine the comfort they felt. Imagine the weight lifted. But then Jesus does something unexpected for a Savior. See when we imagine a Savior, we imagine this Superman-like character who swoops in just in time to save the damsel in distress. This mighty muscle man that keeps everyone safe from the things they don’t want to ever happen.

Jesus waits.

When he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.  Two more days the hero stays put. Now imagine the panic as Mary and the rest of Lazarus’ family watched him deteriorate. They went home with hope after speaking with Jesus and now they watch Lazarus close his eyes and breath his last breath. Meanwhile as Jesus is walking with the disciples, He stops and says John 11:11b“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” 12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.”  13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. 14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead,  15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Jesus makes the less than 2 mile trip and upon arrival, he finds Lazarus dead in his home for the last 4 days in the Israeli desert. Less than 2 miles. He only had to travel 2 miles and Lazarus would still be alive his families cries. Instead, he strolls in 4 days after Lazarus has died. The very thing He told Mary the story would not end in. It would not end in death. Mary was so upset that she didn’t even come out to greet him as He arrived. Martha wailed and cried and wept in anger. Jesus looks her dead in the eyes and says, your brother will rise again. Of course he will, there is a resurrection in Heaven, that does us no good right now. No, Jesus says, He is getting out of that bed. He sends her to get Mary, and she comes running and falls at His feet upset with Him for allowing her brother to die. Jesus looks at her. He sees her grief, he feels her heart beating with His and they are both broken. So He weeps.

This is a passage that has always intrigued me. It is the shortest verse in the entire Bible, but at further study reveals such detail about the character and heart of God. Jesus knew what He was going to do. He knew He was gonna walk into that room and tell that guy to get up out of that death bed and walk right out for all to see. Jesus isn’t grieving for the death of His friend. He isn’t weeping because of any lack of faith his family had in him. Jesus tested their faith by not showing until Lazarus had died. Jesus wept because of what God named Him. God named Him Emmanuel, which means God with us. God named Him exactly who he was and was going to be. God, in the flesh with us. Jesus wept because he felt the pain of loss and sorrow with Lazarus’ family. Jesus was sharing in their suffering as He would later ask us to do in His.

John 11:43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

The point of this story among the sheer fact that there is nothing too powerful than God, even death, is not that death happened. Lazarus was risen from the dead, but he died again later in life. The point is that death happens. It is the curse of sin on this world. But the point is that Jesus is with us. Sharing in our sufferings as we share in His. At a time like this, it is common to feel alone in you grief. It is common to be angry. It’s ok to be angry. You didn’t see Jesus rebuking Mary or Martha for their grief. You saw Him weep with them. Jesus is here with us as we weep. Jesus is offering His presence. You can bang your head against the wall without hope, or you can rest your weary heads on the chest of God and find real comfort.

Photo credit to: http://coffee-milk.deviantart.com








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Thanks for reading...Z

Shutting Your Idiot Mouth

What is at the heart of the disagreement?

This is what you have to ask yourself whenever you find yourself in battle with another human being. Ask yourself, "Why am I so offended by the way this person believes?"

I stopped arguing. Well, almost. I still find my idiot mouth involved in arguments from time to time, but nowhere near the me in top idiot form. I say I was an idiot because of the way in which I would disagree. I was not taking the time to understand where the other person's thoughts were coming from. I would be harsh and drop bombs and stand back grinning and patting myself on the back watching the aftermath that undoubtedly was going to escalate the situation. Then I would take a step back and try to turn it around on you and make it about your anger. Idiot. Eventually I got sick of it. I noticed myself keeping up the argument even when I knew I was wrong, never admitting defeat. That is when I decided to shut my idiot mouth and listen. When I disagree, I try to listen to everything the person is saying and understand where they are coming from. Why is this an important thing to do? Because you are probably speaking to another human being unless you are in the habit of arguing with inanimate objects, which means you are further gone that expected. People see things because of past experiences and beliefs, even if the thing they believe is completely false. We have to understand that our emotions are tied up in our beliefs. Very often, this is why we believe what we do...because our emotions drove us to conclusions that helped us cope. So when we go on the offensive and hurl hate at another of God's precious creation, we hurl insults at God Himself.  Arguments almost always end in anger and resentment.

There is another way. Love. If a belief is wrong, it is probably based in emotion. If you want to help change the belief add emotion to the desired belief. Love is always desirable. Come to a person with respect, dignity, and love and watch them listen to what you have to say. Let the Spirit of God lead them in the direction of truth as you may not have the truth either. But what we know for sure is that God desires we love all people.








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Thanks for reading...Z

Boxing

Every punch produces a counter punch. You get hit, and strike back. You may fall, but you get up and stare your opponent eye to eye in the center of the ring. Your eyes bleed blood never expressed through words or ink. You bleed through rage, and fear, and will. All of the sudden your past becomes the fault of the person standing right in front of you and it doesn't matter how tough they are. Or you are. It matters what you have inside you.

Why does a guy go to church his whole life while still doubting the existence of God? Because he is trying to find a way to fight back. Because life has beaten him down and he is out of ideas. Out of punches. Out of time to recover. He sits in the benches of that church looking for something that will help him battle. He finds it every Easter when they talk about a beaten Jesus rising from the dead, but loses it again, when the pastor speaks about forgiveness. Is there a happy medium to rage? Is there this amount of hate that is Ok to harbor, as long as it fuels you to fight?

Jesus said 70 times 7. I think that means 490. I think that means as much as you get punched...forgive.

This isn't an easy passage for me to live, even as I tell 16 year old kids to forgive their family who has stolen everything from them. I still remember my hate. It doesn't go away easily. It fights just like you, because it has you believing you need it to survive. It has you believing that it has kept you safe for this long. But it hasn't has it? It has broken your heart too many times. You hold on to it like a dying daughter, but it stings you like a viper when your guard is down. See, we are fooled into believing our strength is in what lies deep and sometimes dormant in our hearts. All along, it was a not so silent God giving us what we have needed. Not vengeance, but God. We mistake the two very easily. I have to find a way to let go of what people have done to me and so do you. Christ reigns in all things. Christ heals all things. Christ is involved in you. We too often are involved in us too. Let go!


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Religion

What does the church mean to you? What role does it play? What does it mean to be religious?


Church in our culture has really been considered the center of the Christian faith. One may ask you, do you go to church? You may say yes, and they may take on the notion that you are religious. You may say no and they may assume, you are not. Church has taken the hierarchy of many Christians in Western culture. But was it intended to be?

To be religious means much more than putting on a suit and tie and heading off to church on Sundays. It means more than your day of baptism or your first communion. To be religious is like this according to the Bible:

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

There isn’t much written in this passage about pure and faultless religion about attending church every Sunday and observing special religious holidays. These things are NOT bad things, however, they are not at the core of what true religion is intended to be. Religion is more about the point of Christianity...Love. Service. Sacrifice. Church is a beautiful thing. A church service is a really great way to express your faith and share in God’s Word together with your family of Believers. Go to church...period...even if your meeting with your brothers and sisters looks different than the traditional church. The Bible says not for forsake the gathering of the saints, so don’t. But church isn’t intended to be the end game of religion. It is a supplement. Religion begins the moment you open your eyes and ceases the moment you close them. Everyday. Sundays are a really refreshing way to allow others to hold you up and for you to be someone’s shoulder.

Usually when someone says I am religious, I cringe in the very pit of my stomach, because I have always hated religion. I was basted in it growing up and from what I saw, I had had enough. So I walked away. Ran really. I hated it because unknowingly I was experiencing the rot of the Biblical church. I was witnessing church becoming the idol that people worshipped while rolling around in money. I witnessed the evil one perverting what should be a thriving meeting place for His followers who have been working their hands to the bone for God all week long. Church for me was more about building funds, little tin plates being shaken under your nose, and the endless battle to stay awake through the very long and predictable service. I believe Jesus would have run from those churches too.

The church should be alive with the power of the Holy Spirit, whom God said was to our advantage being sent in His place. The Spirit of God being more advantageous for our faith than Jesus himself dwelling in flesh here. I never saw a church that showed any real evidence of being alive until now. Not that my church is the THE church or something to be revered, but I think that service to those around us is the point and in that, our mission is focused. We may meet in a high school and may NEVER get a building, but I think that’s just fine with God. Maybe, we need to keep working our hands to the bone. Maybe this is what God wants from us, not to get comfortable in a building and subsequently comfortable in our faith. Comfort in our faith, I believe, is the enemies most effective attack on the church. When we are comfortable, nothing happens, which is exactly what the one in the red suit wants.

We should look different. We should upset people. We were meant to be attractive and exciting to the world around us. We weren’t meant to have to soup up the Gospel of Jesus to get people to listen. Getting the people to listen and understand is the job of the Holy Spirit alone. This is not our lot to cast or load to bear. Our lot is obedience. We cannot compete with popular culture and why would we ever want to. Why would the church want to cover a Lady Gaga song to get people into the seats or excited about what God is doing in our lives? We have the Holy Spirit of God among us. We have the most unique attraction the world has ever seen dwelling right in our midst when we gather together in His name. We have God Himself.

What is the point?

“Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” Matthew 10:34-35

If you are living the life that follows Christ, you are going to make people mad. Jesus did. John the Baptist did. All of the disciples did. You will too. We are called to be loving, but do not make the mistake of fooling yourself into believe that means you need to be timid and silent about what you have witnessed Christ do. This is a mistake. God gives us a bold spirit, not one of fear. People reject Christ and will reject you, however, people are looking for a Savior in a crippled world and the way they see it is in the light that shines in those that are vessels of God. Many will be drawn to Christ through our Christ driven lifestyle.

Buying all of the aesthetics and furnishings for your building made of bricks, tar, and mortar may draw people to it’s seats, but it will never lead a person into a deeply committed religion. This is the job of The Holy Spirit. The aesthetics can very easily serve as a distraction to what God is really doing by making the church service a spectacle. Religion may or may not ever happen there.







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Thanks for reading...Z

Day Changers

If the horse were leading the cart, it wouldn't slam into trees.

Christianese language and attitudes can be very baffling. I was raised in church my entire life and have heard so many awe inspiring and motivational talks, mostly surrounding being a "World changer" or a "Warrior" for Christ. It can get you hyped up and ready to take on the world with the power of Christ in your right hand and the vengeance of past hurt in your left. But does anyone ask themselves whether or not God is calling them to be a world changer? He told the disciples to be fishers of men and to go and make disciples of all nations. These were to be the people that started the entire church. Normal, average guys like us were used to change the world. This is one of the most wonderful aspects of God...that He uses who He will use.

What kind of attitude are we in danger of having?

^{Mark 10:35} Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” ³⁶ “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. ³⁷ They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”  ³⁸ “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” ³⁹ “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, ⁴⁰ but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

 Too many people have been filled with pride trying to change the world. It is easy to do. We get a few things accomplished and set our goals high, so it is a natural (sinful) thing to do...to consider yourself as good. Except Romans tells us no one is good, not even one. People go off to seminary or devote themselves to studying God's Word, but completely forget about the foundation that faith is based off of in the first place. Maybe God isn't asking us to be world changers, maybe that is a product of what happens when we aspire to be day changers. I cannot impact this world right away without becoming infamous. I can impact it the way Mother Theresa has chosen to. She has never aspired to change the world, but to change the conditions in the area surrounding her. We should aspire to change the day for the people at the water cooler and the ones holding out cups for change. 

You simply cannot positively change the world with anything you say. It will always take long suffering actions. I think in the passage above, the disciples were guilty as you and I have been of thinking too highly of themselves and forgetting the point of what we are trying to accomplish in the first place. Jesus wasn't prescribing them to change the world in a single swoop. He used the work of fishing as his illustration. Fishing takes patience, silence, and purposeful luring. So does fishing for people. If you want to see Christ reign in the lost around you, we must be patient and long suffering, prayerful and purposeful. We must love the way Christ loves us. This is the very base of Christianity. Read every book about faith and religious history, but it will mean nothing if you aren't actively and purposefully acting out love in your every day life.

A day changer can very easily become a life changer which can very easily become a world changer. But love (Jesus) has to lead. 

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Needful Things

There is beauty in old things. Things we grew up seeing all the time. Things we forget about until that one moment that you see it, or smell it, or hear it, and you remember what it was like to be 13 again, sitting in your room worrying about things that shouldn't worry anyone.

Will had a satin jacket he could not part from. Slept with it until the day he died. I love suitcases. Old, hard, plastic ones, that people give away at garage sales. I want to buy every one I see. I put them in the rafters of my garage and don't look at them again, but when I see one, I have to have it. Don't quite know why, I have never really used a suitcase or had a need for one. Most trips I take require a duffle bag. There is something I love about them though. My wife likes old quilts and soft blankets knitted from wrinkled hands. She calls them her secret blankets. Caeden likes them too.

Old things can trigger some real things in people. The smell of cigarette smoke on someones fingers or pipe tobacco. The sound of a train in the distance. The smell of an old elementary school. The hidden things you find in a thrift store or an antique shop. Old things remind us of who we used to be...of how we used to perceive everything or maybe just that one moment. They are relics of things forgotten. We will grab them before we grab our safe in a fire. There simply is no price for them.

What's yours?

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Easter

Why did Jesus have to die?

Because I can't die for my own sins or yours. Because as hard as we try to do the right thing, we fail more times than not. Because God was tired of hurting, watching us writhe and moan. Because our sin was piled up as high as Heaven in dire need of atonement. Because the garden was plundered and it's fruits rotten. Because the shame that set in at the birth of human sin, set us on a path of destruction like a large vehicle careening out of control on a side street next to a school releasing it's students. Because the lamb and the lion paint an accurate picture of the oppressed all over the world. Because God wanted to show us His face and model what He is to all the world.

Why did Jesus have to raise again"

Because He wouldn't be God if He didn't have dominion over death. Because we need hope. We saw the disciples scatter back to their native homes and occupations when He died. We needed Him to rise to have the fire the disciples had after seeing Him raised. Because He cannot lose, no matter how difficult the situation. Even death cannot contain Him. Because someone out there is terrified of death and can now rest assured in the resurrection of the saints into eternal bliss. Because He loves us dearly.

Thank you Christ for the cross, for the grave, and for a stone lying on the ground separated from it's place. Thank you for my salvation, my family's salvation, and my faith ground and strengthened through the valley of darkness. Thank you for everything.




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Crush In My Stomach

Then that same song played on my radio. The radio that plays discs that allow you to program them to repeat. I played that song all night long. I played it as I wept. The velocity of the song kept those living in my house from hearing me. They slept like they haven't in years, dreaming about things they will forget in the morning. I won't get to forget mine.

The notes alone crush my stomach. It reminds me of when we were kids. We did crazy things. Things I don't believe anyone ever has done in the history of the world and that was the point. We faked being in a mainstream band to a Total gas station clerk every night when we went in for pre-fishing coffee. He thought we were so cool. He may have even believed the things we told him. We shot ducks with blow darts by luring them in with bags of popcorn. The darts would fall to the ground and the ducks would flee to safety. We would drive around talking and the whole world would go away without a trace. It would be me and you two on the grid. In our minds, this was all life needed to be. I believe that would still be enough for him to stay here. But those times are gone and he never really got a chance to adjust.

I have nothing practical to offer tonight, just abstract descriptions of what you have been through before too. My hope is that you go back while reading. For me, life was in them. I didn't have one apart from them. They were what God gave me to survive. They were Christ in the form of two innocent, yet dead end kids...just like me. We recognized it in each other immediately. This blank stare, this longing for something we could never have. We could reach, but never touch it. But we were innocent all the same. We were just kids. Kids shouldn't turn out this way. No kid should grow up and lose hope in life. No kid should choose lifelong sabotage over happiness. No kid should spend the nights wishing everything was just like it used to be while keeping all the beauty he has now. But this is the way of the Dead End Kids. We knew when we built those rockets that they could only go so high before fizzling out and falling to the very same ground that launched them.

I am not finished grieving. Every few weeks when I think things are getting better, I am flooded with everything he was. I am overcome with the ghosts we left behind, still repeating their joy and their folly.


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Great Friday

Turn to page 343.
Ha. Turn to page 21.
Ok. Turn to page 500.
Pshh. Turn to page 135.
(Picture of a nun kissing a goat) Turn to page 5.
Still following along? Follow closer and turn to page 255.
OK now, almost done. Turn to page 377.
This could be it. Turn to page 55.
Turn to page 299 for a big surprise.
Idiot. Hahahahahaha!

Did anyone else terrorize the church hymnal like this when they were young?

I hated church. I would sit on my knees and play with my wrestling figurines. Sometimes, when my mom was saying amen, I would crawl down the sloped floor under the pews to look at the panty hosed calves. I think I had some weird thing for pantyhose when I was young, this is twice in two posts I have written that mentioned it.

I would be wearing slacks; a word I have always hated, but understood exactly what it meant to wear. I would be sporting a sky blue ironed dress shirt with suspenders that had plastic hands masking the clamps that held them to my waistline. My mom always said to dress your best for church. Now, knowing she has lost the battle just begs me not to wear jeans with gaping holes in them. I think I will honer her and not wear those anymore. I never understood church though. I always saw it as a scary place to be. It was...at least for a kindergartener. Everyone would sit there in the wooden benches shouting back as the pastor with huge sweat rings shouted at them. I thought he was mad all the time. If a dude was that happy about God, why doesn't he smile. I still don't know the answer to that question. I stayed away from church for the majority of my life after I was able to make the choice not to go. That happened sometime soon after I got my girlfriend in high school pregnant. People weren't too fond of me after that. Boys will be boys right?

I sat in one of those very same churches tonight for Good Friday service. Directly behind me was a widow. She spoke to us immediately, even before I tried to cover the tattoo on my forearm. Most won't unless I look the part. She sang the praise songs even though she didn't know the words as loud as she could 3 seconds behind the worship leader. She was learning the song as she sang. This is an important quality to have. Many try to learn the song in life before singing, too afraid to make themselves a fool. Not her, she sang out of necessity. Well played blue haired lady. People like you are my heroes. You see Christ in everything. How amazing is that?

I looked around and thought of all of those in our culture that get angry at the thought of God and especially Christians. I looked around at two distinctly different congregations of people with very different ways of doing things and just thought: "These are just people." People who profoundly love Jesus, but still just people. People that meet together in dark and musty, old paper smelling, matted carpeted buildings. They don't meet together to nominate the next king of the world. They meet to share their lives with each other. Sure, there are bigots and hypocrites, and judgementalists, but they are all just humans.

We eat cereal in the morning. We step in dog poop and maybe swear. It hurts our eyes to look directly at the sun. We get really sick, some fatally. We get overwhelmed with sorrow and question God. We mow our own lawns. We occasionally taste rotten milk. We are just people. People with pasts. People who miss their wives in Heaven...or our brothers. We are people who get bills we can't afford to pay. We are people that stare at photographs untill we fall asleep.

We are God's people. Undeserving of the sacrifice, yet all too eager to accept it. We are born again, regretful and fearful of our former lives getting a foothold in us again. We fumble on most snaps and sometimes we recover. But we are always forgiven. I say a lot of things on this blog. I fear that I don't say enough of how grateful I am to my Savior, Jesus, who died for me...but not only that, came to my heart and drew me kicking and screaming unconscious to Him. I have everything I ever wanted and never thought I was good enough to possess. I wasn't good enough. God is good enough. God makes me good. My sin is apparent to anyone that knows me. I am not one to try and be a different person to different people. But my prayer is that in all cases, people see the grace of God shine like the sun in me. I pray that no one would be able to look at me and not ask what is wrong with him? What is different? I fear I fail more often than not in those things. But God is still faithful.

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Elijah

1 Kings 19:13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"


What was he doing there? Was it fear? He heard all of the prophets of God were being slaughtered. Was it anger? He was rejected for his belief in a One True God. Was is rejection? No one has ever been good enough. He searched for God in the elements of thunder. He looked for God to open up and split the earth in pieces to speak to him. He looked for real, definitive answers. He got bored waiting up on that mountain. He fell asleep. Like they did in the garden waiting on Jesus. Like we all do. Every time he would get his hopes up at what we would call a "Natural disaster," he stood at attention expecting to hear the undeniable voiced of the God He served... the very same God I serve, He was left disappointed. Elijah was a man, just like me. He was messy too, full of sin and mistakes. Full of doubt and fear. Full of hatred and anger. He was looking for His God. The only one he could run to.

God sent him sterile signs. I think he sat down on the rocks beaten up in his own spirit and gave up. After all of these things, God does not speak to me? NOW He chooses to be silent, when I really need Him to speak? He wasn't asking for proof, he was asking for His savior to save. He didn't hear God's voice the way he wanted and I think he just about gave up hope. This happens: "Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there,  4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”  5 Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep."

Then God shows up in a whisper. His eyes open slowly. Something is happening. God is speaking. God has heard me crying. My prayers have reached His throne and He is here gently speaking to His child. No fire. No earthquakes. No tsunamis. Just God and me. How it was always meant to be. God is big enough to be anyone's "Just you and me." God is huge and here He is taking a real interest in the fears of Elijah. "Why are you here?" God knew. But did Elijah? Maybe Elijah was just scared and needed his only hope. Maybe he lost faith in the sight of fear. Maybe he just wanted a friend at a time when no one would go near him in fear of sharing in his death. Any way you want to perceive that day, God came to him when he needed Him too, even if it wasn't how he expected Him to come.

God rarely comes how we expect Him to.










Sing.
Migrate.








Thanks for reading...Z

Papa...Can You Hear Me?

The final part of this blog series. Tonight's submission comes from guest blogger Mandy, a writer and friend of mine. Enjoy...I did.

You were a superhero to me when I was a child.

I loved the way your eyes sparkled

and the beautiful music you made on the guitar.

You could do no wrong

(even though I rarely saw you and I never had my own space wherever you were living).

You made it easy for me to put the blame on my mother

(the one who raised three kids alone and put herself through college while she too was just a kid).

The woman you married made you look like a saint

(one who chokes children, chases them down the

driveway with bats and butcher knives, steals loads of money at your ex-wife's son's funeral

and hires a hit man to slice up her face -makes anyone look like a peach).

I always daydreamed of the day you would leave her.

She was the reason I didn't see you.

This woman

(the one who kicked me out in the middle of the night

 in the dead of winter

after I had lost my brother)

was also so easy to blame.

I never once questioned why you didn't stop her from choking him.

I never once questioned why you let her kick me out of your house

(repeatedly)

In the middle of the night

in the ghetto

and didn't even drive me the two miles to the payphone

so I could call my mom.

I never once asked why you allowed her to call me horrible names

(like whore. stupid. loser. low-life)

at such a young age

(or any age, for that matter).

You were, after all, the innocent one.

Last year the unthinkable happened.

You left her.

Finally, I thought,

I would be able to go get coffee alone with my dad

for the first time in my life.

Finally you would get back together with the love of your life

(my mother, the one you called your best friend...and she was).

But there was something about the way you left that woman that didn't sit well with me

(or anyone else, for that matter).

This is the day I had dreamed about my entire life.

But then I never factored in that she

(that woman who did unspeakable things)

had a heartbeat and feelings that would get hurt...

and  broken.

I didn't imagine that she would swallow a bunch of pills

and get very

very

sick.

And in those daydreams you never left her while she was strapped to a bed

in a mental hospital.

And I never once imagined that we would find out

that you had been living a double life since... 

oh, forever 

and that it would make all of the hardship we endured because of that woman

all the more painful.

I mean, really?

Really?!

You had a mistress this whole time?

You really weren't in love with my mom

even though you said that you were?

You could have left years and years ago.

Surely it wasn't your fault that you didn't know my children.

It was her fault you never called.

Her fault I didn't know you.

Her fault.
My mom's fault.

Anyone's...but yours.

One year later, I now know you were never the man I puffed you up to be.

You are...so...human.

So human

(and always have been).

You have missed out on my life and now the life of my children.

I have father issues now (which, really, I always did...but now I am painfully aware of them).

The way everything went down wrecked me.

And I have been mad.

So mad.

But I wanted to to tell you something.

I forgive you.

Do you hear me?

I forgive you.

I will be here when (if?) you ever decide you want to be my dad.



*Now that I am an adult, I see my dad for who he is -a broken man in need of a Savior.  I choose not to be bitter. I cannot be angry with a man who has not yet been redeemed. There is still breath left in me and there is still breath left in him. I am praying for the day when my dad and I can make ammends. He is not perfect, but he is my daddy...and  I love him.

Read more about Mandie at Jesus in Shanty Town

Photo credit to: http://larafairie.deviantart.com











Sing.
Migrate.






Thanks for reading...Z

Dad?

My dad was a revolutionist. He lived in a culture of tyranny and imperialism. He was a freedom fighter in the war, a legendary one. He left me behind to play with my friends as he went off to wage war against the bloodthirsty king of Scotland. In he end, he died, but Scotland gained it's freedom. Except that wasn't my dad at all. That was the story of William Wallace as told through the movie "Braveheart."

My dad was the anti-Braveheart, he was the opposite. He was unbrave. My mom got pregnant and he got gone. In fact, offered her $5,000 to leave well enough alone and walk away. After all, she was the promiscuous one, not him. Guys are just being guys. My brother Will used to say, "Like Jesus always said, Boy's will be boys." She took him to court to fight tyranny and give me a semblance of a father. She was the freedom fighter, the warrior.

1978. No DNA testing was admissible. Her word against his....and my brother's estranged father's. They ganged up on her. She was defenseless. He left the courtroom smiling.

I lay on the court pew, staring at a small hole in the toe of my mother's friend's stocking. I slid down to the floor to get a closer look. I probably resembled Ralphie with the leg light. I picked at the hole until I could get my finger through it. I looked up shortly after and my mom was sitting next to the judge talking about something. It was nothing to me then, but was going to determine my future for better or worse. He left grinning. I left murdered without knowledge of my demise. But really? Was I?

If you asked me at age 13, I would have told you I was dead. I wasn't a man, but I had to grow up fast and learn as I went. I did things that men with integrity did not do. I learned the hard way every step of the way. We didn't have much money, so I think us moving all the time encouraged me to put the blame in the wrong corner. I pointed my fingers at my mom, because I couldn't find my dad.

I always wondered what he looked like. Will I look like him? Will I see him someday in the world and we would make eye contact and just know and walk away? There were two occasions in which this did happen.

I worked at a factory and there was this guy on the morning shift that trained me. I spent hours on top of steel rollers talking to him. There was something familiar about him. A very strange piece of me wanted him to be my dad because I could forgive this guy, I could love this guy despite the anger and hatred that fueled my blood to circulate. His name was Jim, as was my fathers. He had a daughter a year younger than me...one of the only pieces of information I knew about my dad, apparently when I was a small child I played with my sister in front of a church during a kids musical presentation. He wasn't my father.

Another time I was working at a factory and this Scottish guy walked in. My father was Scottish. His father born in Scotland. He used to come watch matinees at the theater wearing his kilt. Again, this strange familiar feeling that this one was something different to me, not just some kilted Scotsman. I believed him to be my grandfather Noble. I dashed over to the cash register and pushed the teller out of the way to take his payment. He paid by credit card. He was not my grandfather.

It was hard for me not to know who he was or what he looked like. This was the single thing I wanted to know the most. I needed a face to paint my anger on. I didn't get it until a couple years ago when my mom hired a PI for father's day to get his picture for me. He was nothing special at all. I looked at his face and felt nothing familiar. I was ambivalent. Wasn't the reaction I was looking for.

All my memories of my father came from memories of someone else's father. People I idealized and wanted to be, just were not. There was this guy, who when contacted three times rejected me three times. Just like Jesus. I should have rejoiced in sharing in His suffering.

It took me a while to ask myself the most profound question concerning my father: Was I better off without him? I looked at so many things to determine these things. My sister told me through a rejection email that he was her hero and was this utopian man dedicated to serving Christ. I only knew the back of his head. My mother raised us without much. We could have used some help. He raised my sister in this big house with tractors and motorcycles. My mother worked and will continue working 14 hours a day to keep food on the table and a leaky roof over our heads. Once we had to live in a rat infested house. He got to retire and relax and enjoy everything a break gives you. I struggled with rejection and rage my entire life. I made crucial mistakes that have altered my life. I have been broken and broken things all due to the lack of any idea at all on what it meant to be a man. Because of him. But was it? Was it because of him?

The answer, after so many years of suffering is no. It was because of God. God does not cause sin. God does and will work through anything He chooses though. God had a finger on me from the womb. My father's heart was hardened, but God saw something different in me. He created it in me. He mourned and wailed and howled with me as I suffered, but He did all of those things with me, not just for me. I was no pity case to my Christ, I was a warrior, training how to get cut and bleed and continue to fight. All of these things make sense to me now. I am who I am because of who He is and what He has done in me. God moves in disaster. God moves in defeat. God moves in misery. Because nothing in this world or the next is mightier than our God.

I got what He wanted. I got to be stronger than my father. I got to know God in a way my father could never imagine. I got to really appreciate being a father as a child that never was one.

Our God is good. If you are in turmoil, take heart in that. Hide it deep inside your heart.


Photo credit to: http://amazoncocugu.deviantart.com







Sing.
Migrate.






Thanks for reading...Z

His Hands

Part one of "The Lie Detector Results say.......You are ? The Father" blog series. This series aims to express the grace and love we find in our Savior even in the deepest, darkest valleys of our lives. Today, we have Courtney, my dear friend whom I have never met before (Thanks to the internet, I suspect I get to know more about her heart than many she has met). She is the owner of Storing Up Treasures. One of my favorite people. One of my favorite blogs. Introducing......




I can still smell his truck.

His dirty, old pick up. The smell of chewing tobacco mixed with sweat.

I can still feel the weave of the seat covers as it rubbed against the back of my legs. And the wind blowing on my face as we drove.

His hands.

I can still see his hands.

I was only four years old the day he left. I remember that day in vivid detail. The way his face looked. The way his voice sounded. The way he loaded his things into that truck. The way he hugged me.

"Where are you going Daddy?"

"I have to go away for a little while. But, I will be back."

And then he was gone.

For years I waited for him to come back. I prayed he would come back. I pretended he was away on business. I even told my friends that. I cried myself to sleep. I dreamt he was with me.

And each day that passed, each month that he didn't call or write, a piece of my heart died. Each year that came and went, each birthday he forgot, bitterness took hold of what was left.

In the grade school years he showed up a couple of times. He made promises he couldn't keep. Told me he loved me. Said he was sorry. Took me and my little brother to McDonalds. Somehow thinking his brief presence would make up for all of the years he lost.

"Let's just let it be water under the bridge, Courtney"

It will never be water under the bridge Dad.

It could never just be water under the bridge.

My brother idolized him. He wanted to be him. I hated him. I wanted him to go away and never come back. At least that is what I told myself.

The teen years were an unleashing of the bitterness that had taken root and festered for so long. And before anyone could blink, I was on a path of destruction.

Drugs. Alcohol. Men.

I looked for anything to numb the pain.

Things with my Mom became volatile as she watched me slip away. We fought all of the time. She had lost control of me. I was drowning and she couldn't save me.

So the summer before my 10th grade year, I went to live with him.

He didn't hesitate to have me come.

He smoked pot with me. He bought me cigarettes and alcohol. He let me continue destroying myself and told me it was all okay.

He said he loved me. He said he was sorry.

"Let's just let it be water under the bridge."

But, it could never be just water under the bridge Dad.

 I went back home. Never wanting to see him again.

Daddy's should be strong and brave. Polished and secure. They should tell you to be safe and ground you when you are misbehaved. They should hold you when you are scared and wipe your tears when you are sad. They should offer you advice and wisdom and tell you that you are worth more than the boys you are chasing.

I wanted a Daddy.

I didn't need another friend.

At 16 I became pregnant. At 17 a Mom.

My baby girl saved me. Suddenly I wanted to be more than I was. I wanted to be better for her. She was a healing balm to my injured soul. One look in her eyes, and I knew that there was a God. I knew that He loved me and that this baby was His way of telling me.

I started picking up the pieces of my shattered life. I started chasing after God in every way I could. I wanted to be so much more to my baby girl than my Father was to me.

And God came and enveloped my world.

I always thought I was fatherless. It was then that I realized He had been there all along. I was never alone.

Bit by bit my heart began to heal.

 I began to understand God's love for me and as a result I started to see my Father in a whole new way. As I started to understand what Jesus did for me, how He saved me, I began to see how very broken my Dad truly was.

And forgiveness came.

God began pulling at my heart to call him. To tell him all that was happening to me.

"Dad, I love you."

"Dad, I forgive you."

"Dad let's just let it be water under the bridge."


A month later at the age of 45 he very suddenly died.

I can still hear the sound of his laugh. I can still see his eyes, those baby blues that turned down slightly in the corners.

I can still hear his voice quiver at the other end of the line the day I told him I forgave him.

I miss him.

Not for who he was, but for what he could have been. Not for what we had, but for what we could have had.

My life will never be normal. I have and always will long for a Daddy.  I cry at every wedding when the Father walks the bride down the isle. I long for the wisdom only a Dad could offer. There is a hole in my heart that will never be full this side of heaven.

 I wish my kids had a Grandfather. I wish my Dad could have met them.

I wish that things could have been different. And I don't always understand why things were the way they were. But, Jesus has done what only He can do. He took a broken little girl and healed her. He brought forgiveness to a man that didn't deserve it. He has loved me through the heartache and put back together my heart so that I could live.

 I pray that whatever life has handed you, you would turn to Him and let Him do the same for you.

Sing.
Migrate.




 Thanks for reading...Z

One Left Standing Still

Married for 5 days. He proposed to her at an outdoor flea market in front of a booth selling giant wooden spoons and forks. It means nothing to anyone else, but to her it meant he was the one. She grew up with her grandmother. Her parents both died in Jetliner Flight 223 out of Missouri, when it exploded on take-off. She went to private Catholic school and still wears her uniform sometimes because it reminds her of her grandma. Every Saturday morning at in her kitchen was served fresh biscuits and chocolate with burnt links of sausage, her favorite way to eat anything. In front of her chair, next to the picture of praying hands were these giant wooden eating utensils. They always seemed strangely funny to her as she pictured the Jolly Green Giant eating with those. Her grandma died in her sleep holding a picture of her husband taken during the war.

He knew what her grandmother meant to her...she meant that much to him. She loved that he loved her that much, like her grandmother did. She said yes without speaking, looking at him in the eyes, looking down, and grabbing his hand. She smiled with tears in her eyes and he let himself exhale. They were married days later in front of a judge. He could not stomach having his huge family sitting before him at his wedding and her having no one.

They went to the river and took a riverboat ride for their honeymoon. It was modest, but she never asked for anything but his heart and she had it.

They did things like attend midnight movies and fake choking in restaurants. They ate most of their meals picnic style anywhere there wasn't a table. Tables reminded her of big giant spoons. She wanted to eat smiling. On a Thursday in June, they ate cheese sandwiches and Cracker Jacks in the park. He laid his head on her lap and ran his fingers around her Ruby ring given to him to give her by her grandmother. She told a story about listening to mystery records when she was a child. The weight on her lap lifted almost causing her body to fall backwards. He was gone. She looked down and he was gone.

The rest was the mess she left as she passed through.


Photo credit to:http://mastowka.deviantart.com







Sing.
Migrate.






Thanks for reading...Z

One Disappears

 

Who doesn't hope this is the way it all goes down? To be sitting on your favorite chair nodding off to old episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. A piece of potato chip drops to your chest. Your mind is alarmed to the potential that the grease will stain your shirt, but your arms are fixed in a warm position at your sides, hands tucked slightly under your butt. The sun is peeking through the curtain as the window blows it back and forth exposing the sun to your face and assaulting your eyes. The phone rang a half an hour ago and it didn't matter who was calling, you just got home from work...ALL work is done for the day. You shut it down. The world can wait because there is nothing better than a mid-day nap.


Boom. Gone. Your hair seems to be missing, it no longer dangles in your eyes. You can't move your hands freely due to the force. One light-year per millennium is equal to about 670,616 miles per hour. This is the speed you are traveling. It feels like the speed and distance would feel if you were sneezed from your Lazy Boy with the force of God's allergies. Expelled from your chair, your house, and into the universe...watching the houses become sheds become boxes. The grass and landscape become green and brown squares. You haven't had time to even think about what is happening.

A sudden stop somewhere far above Omaha. Above the sun. Above The Milky Way. Above everything times 7. You reach your temporary destination and are placed 6 inches from the mouth breathing Jesus' face. He is smiling. If you look around, you will see millions around you doing the same thing, staring into the face of a smiling Jesus. He smiles because He is happy to see you for the most part. For the least part, He smiles because He knows what He just put you through, the ride, the chair, the chip stains all over your shirt, the smell of vomit for those that can't handle fast rides.

This is the day. The one we have inherited through faith in our risen Messiah.



"Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left” (Luke 17:34-36).



Photo credit to: http://nicholas-bouwer.deviantart.com








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Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

Present Day Detroitish Michigan

I would tell most of you that you would not have liked me much in high school and the few years after that. I wasn't the person you see now. I still am not the person you see now sometimes. My last post was scary and messed up and could very easily leave a person thinking: "This guy is a whack job." Maybe true, but I want to be clear that the state I was in at that time in my life was messy. Life can be messy for people. Not everyone gets through unscathed with nothing but good, happy stories to tell. A person's life experiences do not make them scary, or weird, or still in that state of mind. Things change. In my case, Christ was the answer. He is in your case too. This is the state of mind of a person that was profoundly serious about taking his own life. This state of mind isn't pretty and doesn't always sit well with "Normal" people. I can't apologize for my past. I can apologize to people I hurt, but not for who I was, because it served to make me who I am. God's handiwork sometimes is dipped in blood and hidden beneath the night sky.

God is glorified through our weakness, so I cannot apologize for posting the story of God's hands in my life, His heart on my heart. I have to tell of His work in me, because I am so imperfect that it could only be God that keeps me going. This glorifies God you see.

Here is a picture of me now. Completely amazed by the love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness of God. Ashamed in His righteousness. Healed and redeemed in His blood. Lavished with gifts that I could never have deserved. Happy for every moment I have of air to breathe. Thankful for the opportunity to try and glorify my Savior. I am a failure at many things I try to do and helpless in my lack of ability to do some things. God is good. God is present. God is still chipping away. I am still messy. I am a far cry from where I was, but still messy and so are most of you. I have to admit that if you don't think you are, I am not sure I can relate to you at all. I am really sure that you won't be able to relate to me.


 Photo credit to: http://dignacker.deviantart.com




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Migrate.









Thanks for reading...Z

The Scary One

 This blog is rated R for people who scare easily.


I mentioned in a previous post this person/enigma that used to rule my conscious. He began when I was child, I eventually would grow to call him Cold.

I used to live next to park. The year before I began kindergarten, I would spend a lot of time playing in the park during the day. Most days Tom was there. I remember his name because I made a mental note to fear him forever when I met him. He would sit in the park and play the saxophone all day for coins. I didn't have any coins, so I don't know why he wanted me around, but he did. I was 4. I wanted to play. He was like 20. He wanted to spit fire about dark things at a 4 year old. I listened as if these were the last words I would ever hear. Tom was fascinating. Something was off. He taught me about nuclear war. Taught me about the coming apocalypse. Taught me that everyone has to die. One final time...I was 4.

15 years later I began seeing Tom again. Not the same guy, but a manifestation of him (Cold). I saw him everywhere. I was drinking a lot, so let me preface what I am about to spill on you with the fact that not all feelings and bits of perceived reality can be trusted when you are basted in beer. However, the effects were real to me. They still are real to me.

It began one night at about 4 AM. I was dreaming horribly. This was my habit for several years...to dream horribly. I woke at the sound of my name. My eyes opened without flutter to a very dark room...darker than I had ever remembered it to be. Dark spots briskly moved around in my periphery and vanished at focus. I was sweating like I had run miles and my heart was racing. I could actually hear my heartbeat. I got up, flipped on the light, and shrieked at what was plastered in front of me. A poem painted directly on my wall, with paints below on the floor. It read, "Cover me in ashes. Abandon me in the cold. I'll still be here. I'll still exist." .............Yeah.

By months end, there were 13 or 14 of those things painted on my wall. I don't remember authoring any of them. However, like I said, I had zero nights sober then, so who knows. Poems like "In the end, we all will fly, up to the heavens, to the fire and fry" (Cobain reference maybe, who knows). I painted a single clown. I painted dozens of eyes all over.

I grew paranoid. Anyone would. I believed someone was going to kill me. My door had been kicked in weeks earlier and nothing stolen, so I had some evidence to believe I was being stalked or messed with. I continued seeing things...shapes...hearing things. All things any decent shrink would have diagnosed me Schizophrenic for telling him. I was obsessed with death.

I woke one night after a horrific dream, one of the worst in fact. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed. In my dream, I was being raped by something unseen. I woke and could not move my arms, they were being held down. Maybe by my own mind going ape turd or something different. Couldn't see anything. My phone rang and my arms were released. I ran into the kitchen and looked out the window as I answered it. I felt something terrible behind me. I put the phone to my ear and it was Joe, my brother. He said this: "Adam, he's behind you. I am on my way." .........Yeah.

My mom knew I was in trouble. She had her charismatic friends (Demon slayers, Holy Ghost shooters...joking, all in good fun) over. She says they started praying in my apartment when I was at work and stuff started whipping around there. She said something of a sun flying out the door into the basement. Ghostbusters visuals everywhere. She says everything became suddenly calm and she looked over at my 6 foot iguana who was giving everyone the stink eye. They put a Bible in it's tank and she said he laid his head down on it's 60$ pages. Now, no more definitive answers here. There are several things at play. Psychology proves that when you enter a scary place expecting to see something, you usually do, at least your perception of something. Also proves that terror can deceive your mind and make you draw conclusions that are not in reality. However, my iguana died the next day......Yeah

Took me months of dating to share this with Laura as I didn't want her to run for cover and lose her forever.

Once again, no definitive answers as the horror stopped when I placed my trust in Christ, however, conveniently the same time I stopped drinking.


Photo credit awarded to: http://claudiu-popescu.deviantart.com




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Migrate.







Thanks for reading...Z

Applause. Exit Stage Left

Who do you owe your life to? I owe mine to Christ. And I owe mine to the vessels of Christ. His hands and feet...His very heart. I am supposed to be studying right now. Instead I sit in a secret place thankful for those God has put into my hands. Regretfull for those that slipped out of them.

The wind is howling, blowing around fragments of winter retreating. The bushes and branches dance in unison. The beauty of God is magnificent. It reminds me that everything is in the hands of God. Unlike me...He doesn't drop anything. We are safe in His arms. I believe that with all that is me. So why do I feel so terrible? Why does true beauty make me so sad?

It makes me miss my brother.

Went to DQ today. Standing in line, it remanded me of when we were teenagers and would go to the DQ his girlfriend worked at. He had his own treat...off the menu. He named it the "Tall Will." It was a tablespoon of ice cream and an entire foot of whipped cream stacked on top.

There is something other-worldly about our closest relationships. Those we do not ever want to picture our lives without. Through the love and loss, we finally really see God I think. We see God when we love intensely in these isolated moments when you cant even explain what you are feeling or what is happening, it feels unreal. Like it really isn't happening to us, like deja vu. We see God when everything we fear walks through that door and the phone rings at an inappropriate time. Our hearts sink, we are crushed. Suddenly the sound of the water smashing against the rocks sound more like our bones crushing than beauty. We find ourselves in the dark without a guide or a torch. We navigate by feeling hell's slick walls begging for the way out. This is when God puts your hand in His without the lights, beckons our faith and guides us through hell and into something different. This is when our faith, though scarred becomes our vest worthy to take any punishment.


Photo credit to: http://aimeelikestotakepics.deviantart.com


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Migrate.

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