Faithful

Gonna do a study on faithfullness. The subject interests me because all around the world, there are these pictures of what faithfullness should look like, but in reality, they seem to be this fairy tale or work of fiction.

Being unfaithful is clear to see. It causes divorce, lost friendships, disappointment, anger, heartbreak, and even death. Usually the fairy tale endings we see in movies is just someone being faithful. It is revered, but increasingly elusive to find.

Paint me a picture of what your idea of faithfullness would look like. Being a faithful person, someone others can trust with their hearts requires a collection of faithful actions which prove one to be trustworthy. Maybe it's a story or a memory. Share it.

Sing.
Migrate.

Rockstar in Review

 

 

What have we learned about the Rockstar? He is shy and quiet and does not like to share stories. He did not succumb to an ant bite. He is not in the process of tricking out his super manly 15 passenger van. He is a staunch racist. He values being forced to raise your hands to worship. He teaches the class on how to speak in tongues. He makes very good first impressions with rich people as do I. He is fluent in Russian. He would never place his butt cheeks on a window after being pantsed. He is absolutely no fun at all and was a terrible guest. The worst to have ever darkened our doorstep.

Or he is the opposite of all those things and it was great to share the evening with a brother from across the green grass. Courtney is next.









Sing.
Migrate.








Thanks for reading...Z

The Rockstar "Friend or Foe?"

It is the same feeling you get if you were to be pen pals with a guy in prison. You never really expect him to get out me meet you face to face. Such is the case with my blog friend Brian AKA Rockstar. He is in Michigan for a few more hours and has been graceful enough to spend it with us and J and K-dogg. Gonna be fun.








Sing.
Migrate.









Thanks for reading...Z

Holding Hands in Hell

Maybe all I needed was for someone to sit with me in hell. Someone who didn't feel bad for me for once, but felt it with me. That's what brought me back. My wife. My kids. They suffered too. I wasn't alone in it. That is the difference between hope/survival and your own burial. There was a time I sat alone, at least in my own consciousness, in the fire. It burned white at times. Never has there been a hotter fire for me than the last year and a half. But in the fire I always held their hands. I had to go through it, I had no choice. Like some kid going through surgery that looks to their mothers for comfort. My wife and kids were there when I reached out my hand.

I am a proud man. I am not proud of my pride. I am ashamed of it. I work really hard to rid myself of it. But when your at the bottom of what you can handle, you scream for help. I did. I reached out my hand and my daughter grabbed it and put a little pink plastic heart in it. My wife wrapped her arms around my neck and wouldn't let me go, even when I asked her to. My son kept me from collapse. He asked me questions persistently, like "Is Will coming back? or Promise I won't die?" He still asks if he is gonna die every night before bed a year and a half later. What do you tell a kid that asks that? They will die and may die whenever God sees fit. I tell him no. I will see him in the morning, even if the morning is when the sun rises in Heaven.

It's just been a tough couple of days. I can't really express it, just engulfing. This feeling of helplessness in life and in my faith. I cannot control anything. This gives me comfort most of the time because I am a screw up, but days like these have been somber... it drives me to mourning the things I will lose and cannot control.  There have been very few people who could see beyond what I let them see, but my brother was one of them. Not because he could see beyond the lies I was showing, but because I never felt the need to lie at all, which is priceless to me. To have a person listen without judgement and offer support even when he knows I am wrong. I am not saying it is a good thing to have flattering lips, but it is nice to have someone that won't allow you to be hurt. Very few of them around. I am so blessed that my wife, even when she drives me crazy has my heart in her hands. She protects it with her life. If is stops beating, she picks up it's rhythm herself. She is tenacious in keeping me alive.









Sing.
Migrate.


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









Thanks for reading...Z

Father, Where Art Thou?

What would you do if someone called your kid something their actions may just dictate them to be. Would you agree bashfully and apologize? Or would you deny the claim, and stand up for that kid? I would do the latter because I believe in my kids. Even if I am wrong, I am human. Even if I am wrong, I am a father who refuses to see the worst in his kids. I think that is what makes God so great. We may be what everyone says we are, but not to Him. To Him, we are perfect. He would and did defend with His own blood, just like we would. There is  nothing we wouldn't do for our children, and nothing He didn't do for His.

I have seen a lot of parents fight for their kids, when they are wrong. This may drive others crazy because everyone knows they are wrong, but I admire it because it is a picture of the Christ that puts Himself in our place. Two parents fight because one kid did something horrible to the other. The other parent defends out of pure ignorance of the situation...but because of the love that courses through their veins. When they get home and get the real story, the kid will be punished and maybe the kid will apologize, but in the moment when the other parent wants blood, they aren't gonna allow it. Because they shouldn't.

Christ allowed no blood but His own. He bleed for us, even as we are attacked, He takes the heat and is our only defense. But what a strong defense is perfection. No one can say a word to the perfect person in the room. Kids make parents do some pretty radical things. How about putting yourself on a cross after having your flesh torn off and asphyxiate yourself? This is the father we have. This is Christ, the object of our affection. The Son, The Father, The Holy Spirit that will and did bleed for His children.

I had a few father figures growing up, well maybe not that many, but I had one. I had Jim. He looked at me differently than many other grown men. Most saw me as a loud and obnoxious kid. He may have too, but he did something different for this bastard kid. He cared beyond what anyone would have asked of him. He was a dad to a kid that didn't know what that would look like and didn't know it then either until he had his own kids. I realized it for sure as a troubled teenager.

I was in legal trouble. I had gotten myself in a lot of trouble over several cities spanning several years. Jim Doederlein had three kids of his own to deal with, but this one day he took the day off of work. This was rare because he worked hard to keep his family in a home. He took me to every single court and paid my fines. He set me up to pay back this loan, not to get his money, but to teach me to pay back what has been given to me. I paid him back quickly because I didn't want to disappoint him. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of disappointing someone. For the first time, someone had some faith in me. I had always had a problem with calling a person dad because of what mine did to me, but if I were to call a guy dad, it would be Jim. He looked after me as God would have. He was a true picture of Christ to me...one of the people that gave me hope along with Jo-Ann, his wife, my other mother. I think they were God's way of loving me in a way I could feel and hold on to.

My mother is another. She tried to be my father too. She tried to find men to be father figures whether it was my uncle or a dad to one of her day care kids that she respected... she tried really hard. But kids without dads easily blame their mothers for the absence of their fathers...because there is no other person they can fight with. She was nails, I will tell you that. She wasn't perfect as no one is, but she was as tough as they come. She loved me intensely and fought for my survival.

I sit and watch my kids play and hold them on my chest to feel their hearts beat next to mine and smile. I cannot believe the coward that runs from such a thing as a child's unconditional love. I cannot fathom the monster that lives inside of his flesh that would permiss him to flee...because what I hold in my arms is the very heart of God. I could have never walked away from that. That makes me grateful for the grace of God for saving me. It makes me glad that I was abandoned by my father. It makes me close my eyes and imagine what my Father in heaven was thinking when He sent the people He sent to make my life whole.

May God bless you this Father's Day, even if you haven't a father to celebrate. We have one who is far more important right next to us.




Sing.
Migrate.


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






Thanks for reading...Z

Emeralds

She had green eyes. Most wouldn't have even noticed them as she twirled around the silver pole. When she was little, she wanted to be a dancer of a different kind. She wore pink and skipped rope at school before the war in her head began. She wasn't looked after. One night while she wasn't being looked after, one of her mother's boyfriends looked after her with his hands. She was ruined. Her mother chose to continue her love for the wrong man and the little girl with green eyes moved out to the streets. She was 13. She started dancing when she was 13.

She would pretend to be someone else when she danced. On days her mind would not cooperate, she would medicate herself until it did. She wanted so badly to believe in real love. The kind that doesn't cripple you in agony. The kind that looks out for you with their hearts. She wanted someone who would ground her instead of indifference. She wanted anything that wasn't everything she had ever seen.

I met her in the pits several years later. I was there too. I wanted the same thing she did. We were friends because I noticed her green eyes. Very shortly after I met her, I gave up and went to the tracks to accept my fate. If you have read before, you know the rest of the story of the tracks, but maybe not the rest of her story. I fell deeply and passionately in love with Christ. Sadly, I also fell judgmentally in love with religion. I started bringing her to church with me. She kept embarrassing me. I bought her christian cds and she danced to them, this irritated me. I never thought for a moment that she danced to them to take herself to Christ in her own way. I had had enough of being humiliated by her to my church friends, so I walked away from her. Told her not to call. I left her alone again. Another person walked away from her. She called many months later to tell me she was moving out of state. It never occurred to me why she was calling. I think now that she was trying to ask me to stop her. Not for any reason other than to be her friend and share what I knew of Jesus to her. She loved Jesus, at least the idea of Jesus was beautiful to her. I was cold on the phone and she hung up and I never spoke with her again.

I regret very little in my life. Everything that has happened has served to lift me up or to break me down to strengthen me. This is my one real regret. I let her walk away without giving her her heart back. She wanted Jesus to be real. I knew He was. I could have showed her who Jesus really was, but I showed her exactly who He wasn't. I can only pray and hope that Jesus used more than me to show her His love. I tend to believe He did, but I will never know.

Remember this when a broken person reaches their hand out to you, even if they drive you mad. I don't get know the rest of her story because I was a fool.

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









Sing.
Migrate.







Thanks for reading...Z

These Pictures of You

And somehow, we forget about our own past. Like it was some story our mothers told to us that could never really be true, just some fable meant to lead us in the right direction.

Cell phones have made those clear picture wallet inserts obsolete. They don't make them anymore. Some guy somewhere is sitting on the curb in Delaware eating scraps and dwelling on his anger that some digital piece of machinery has taken his job. I think the concept is the same between the two. Looking backwards at who you once were, maybe before your children became adults or your grandma got sick. Photos are the very thing to save in a fire. Pictures are validation of our faulty memories...little signposts to lead your to where you have already been. I think that is why we treasure them so much. Given the choice, I still believe most people would choose their family photos over their safe full of money. I may be wrong on that, but I would. I would give ay possession to keep these little pictures that stimulate my brain to bring me back to that place the picture was taken. These tings have no price. They are a record of what life was to us.








Sing.
Migrate.








Thanks for reading...Z

Cuz Mickey Loves You

Is there an art to giving up? Just throwing your hands in the air and walking away? Like in the movie Office Space... Can I just not show up to the things that I don't like? What would that look like I wonder? My kid is throwing a tantrum, so maybe I can just sit and smile and read the funnies at the back of the paper. School kicks me in the stomach again, maybe I just fail out and chalk it up to some right/left wing conspiracy to keep me from succeeding. My job gives me a handful of white dog poop? It's all good, just lay low under the radar and allow vagal response to take over and sleep it out. All of these things are options. I don't say good options, but options that many take none the less. I don't have it in me. I just can't quit. I am a glutton for punishment or have a strange thing for pain. The problem with not being able to give up is that I have also been blessed with a very severe failure response. When I fail, I get crushed under the waves and I feel my bones snapping and the walls closing in or whatever other cliche you can think of. I WANT to quit. I WANT to crack an egg and sit back and enjoy my breakfast knowing I don't have to ever show up again. But I CAN'T. Something buried deeper in me gets really pissed. I begin seeing me against the world or whatever lame cliche you want to come up with and begin to fight. I have written about this before, mostly to illustrate how dumb stubbornness can be, but I think that God puts this fight in us. We can use it wisely and know when to hold em or whatever horrible Kenny Rogers lyric you can think of, or we can use it to rebound and recover.

I've been hit a lot. Sometimes I feel like some abused child sitting in his room listening to his father yell at his mom knowing he is coming for me next. I expect the worst in most things and I am not sure if that attitude actually causes the worst or not, but the worst usually happens. Not the worst thing ever, because many are going through that right now as I type this, but the worst that I can think of at the moment superficially. It isn't me. It isn't me who overcomes. Jesus said to take heart because He has overcome the world. He also says that He works all things for the good for those that love Him. I know it is God, I just am baffled at His methods. Because I am human. It's OK to not know everything. It's OK to get turned around by God and get confused. This is the human condition. We don't get to always know where God is leading us.

There is this line from the song that has stuck to my head for the last few weeks as I have been wading in constant trouble and turmoil. It's from one of my favorite bands The National. It says: "What makes you think I enjoy being led to the flood?" It is precisely what I feel sometimes. I know as a pastor, many will lower their glasses and shake their heads at me for saying this, but sometimes I get frustrated with God. Sometimes I really hate the way I have to learn things. I get really tired of being tested and failing as though I were expected to somehow pass an impossible test. I try to follow as closely as I can and yet it usually ends up with me being crushed and stomped out.

But then there is this thing inside me that tells me to fight back. To stand up and keep fighting through and you know what? I always see the other side of it. Not because I am strong, but because I am weak. God breaks me so I can be used by Him. He then stands me back up and leads me through the dark valleys. I have said this before, this is my anthem for life. I can't answer why horrible things happen, but I can tell you that God is good. He always has been to me. He has the habit of crushing the pride and will to rebel from me and setting me on my feet scarred, bleeding, but determined. 








Sing.
Migrate.


Photo credit to: http://grinch7.deviantart.com/







Thanks for reading...Z