I need some recharge time. Nothing works like the sun. It's just this weather here in the Pacific Northwest isn't always so helpful between September thru June ish. It's not only the sun I need. As we were driving away from the marriage class at the church tonight, I sort of not really apologized for sticking around talking to someone for 15 to 20 minutes afterward. I quipped to Chris, that's all the conversation I'm gonna have this week outside of family. It wasn't my desire to just give her an excuse for making them hang out and wait for me. But it wasn't til the words were finishing coming off my tongue that I realized how true they were.
This stage we are in right now has forced me to come back over and over and ask what the heck? This sucks! I know it sucks, Chris knows it sucks, the kids know it sucks. So I have to keep figuring out how to lose that mindset. How can I not only survive this time but grow? I don't think big picture too much. Like how is this time gonna affect the kids 5 years down the road or 10? I know the now creates the future so if I am successful now, that's enough to worry about. I know it sucks, but how can I grow with God? I know it sucks, but how can I make Chris's life easier? I know I don't have time for my car stuff anymore so what could I do instead? Where else could my creative juices be allowed to flow? I don't have another adult to talk to so maybe I can tell God all the various angles I've come up with. How hard it is to stay upbeat without sunny D most days. You have a great sense of humor God giving Emma to me but how do I _______ and ________ and what about ________? I'm gonna lose my mind. And Tony and Josh and Ashtin and Chris? I'm barely keeping myself together how do I keep them together?
I learned from an old pastor friend and his wife how to keep giving. They didn't teach me how but after several years I began to see in myself the rewards of how they would speak to me. So I have begun trying to be positive and encouraging to those around me. This is something I can do in this stage of life. When at a store or wherever I try to use a persons name and thank them for whatever it is they do. The other day I stared obviously at a girl's name tag trying to read her name through the lengths of hair that kept moving across the letters until her hair moved away and at the same time she said, Chell. So I said, Chell (shell), that's really cool. Well thank you very much. Have a wonderful day! I find it really powerful when I intentionally use someone's name. Another time I had some special tithe money (not our regular paycheck tithe) and bought the ladies at the credit union some flowers and a gift card each. One time we were out to eat and on our way out gave $20 to a nervous young couple on a date. We don't have a lot of money so those things don't happen often but I am looking for more ways I can impact the lives around me. I have a vision of a group of 8 to 15 people meeting at our house and taking them to places of victory and growth. Places they don't know how to get to and then them going forward and doing the same for others. But that is not now. What can I do now? I've described some of that already. I can also become a better father, a better husband, a better steward of my house. I'm naturally a Debbie downer, a Eeyore. How can I be more positive? I am asking this of God, asking for His help to do what I cannot. There is so much I can do in this bummer of a time to positively grow. But what about those times I just let everything go? When I gripe instead of asking? When I yell instead of ______? When I totally pooch screw it? Those times suck and still come too often but I don't dwell and keep moving forward. I may have to repair stuff but I'm a gonna keep moving forward. The devil wins when I stop moving. I have given him far too much victory. It's not about always going forward. Sometimes planting myself and not going backward is growth. Is victory. Choosing conviction rather than condemnation.
I saw at the checkstand today one of the Kardashians is getting divorced. My heart was like, yes! Then God said no. I want the very best for her, same as I do for you. The lie of the world, the lie of satan, is that I should want her to be punished for all she has done. For her selfishness and selfcenteredness. Then God reminded me that I am selfish and selfcentered. That I derserve to be punished. But that is not what God wants for me. That is not what He wants for her. God is love. Love is patient, love is kind, love keeps no record of wrong doing. Whoa! If God is love and I'm becoming more like God, then I gotta love people, even the hard to love ones. That is just a small portion of 1st Corinthians 13 but it's probably enough to be my entire bucket list. Be patient. Be kind. Keep no record of wrong. This is life changing stuff here and yet I think few lives have been changed by it.
For all the miracles and recorded speaches of Jesus in the Bible it seems dificult still to really get who Jesus is and what that means for me. So much of my view of God and His will are viewed through a western filter. I have seen all of life through this filter and don't know anything else. How then can I remove it so to see God and Jesus unfiltered? We say, the woman caught in adultery. Jesus would say, the woman set free. Or, My precious virgin daughter. Jesus would call her by her true name. By who He created her to be. Jesus always calls us to who we are meant to be. He never calls us by our sin. When I see the magazine announcing this womans divorce, how can I see the beautiful daughter of God rather than the ugliness satan wants me to see? If millions of people watched me and expected certain behavior how could I ever do differently? If these same people acted in love towards me and called out the beauty inside, how could I remain ugly?
God is calling us to love. I don't think that is what the world is getting from us on a whole. Let's give em something more shall we?
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