The Coke Bottle

     This is a lonely little Coke bottle. His worth is 10 cents. Back In the olden days you'd buy one of these, pay an extra dime for the core charge, and after drinking, return it empty and get your dime back. I know we still do that but what was different back then was instead of crushing it, the bottler would wash it, refill, and sell the same bottle again. Full of Coke of course. 

     I made a flower display this last year, almost a year ago actually, with 21 Coke bottles in a wood crate. Each bottle had one rose. Each rose signified one year of marriage. And each of those bottles is worth 10 cents.

     You see, the worth of the bottle never changes no matter what is in it. Whether Coke or dirt or marbles or diamonds. Clean or dirty it doesn't matter.

     We are like that bottle. This I believe is the single hardest thing for man or woman to 'get'. God has placed a value upon us. Not a nickel or dime, but a measure without measure. A value of infinite value. Maybe that's why we can't grasp it. Before I breathed my first breath I had God's greatest worth. When I had done nothing to get it I already had it. When I have done every thing to lose it I still have it.

     That's the thing. The value isn't determined by me. God decided He wanted me so He made me. From that first moment the value was already decided. The payment was already known, the cost of His Son.

     We are not far from the 2000 year anniversary of that payment. So when I raced my car down 25th street by the airport at 90mph my value stayed the same. When I stole, when I cheated, when I watched on my screen as women defiled themselves for my pleasure, my value did not change. When I pay my tithes and help another, or shout rude suggestions thru my windshield, or whatever it is that I do, there is nothing, not a single thing I can do that will change the intrinsic value I have in Christ. 

     This is not a license to steal. It is for my freedom. It is the proverbial 10,000 steps away from God but 1 step back. I know what I did wrong and I feel so bad about it. I know I'm not worthy back in God's graces but I am. I always am. No matter what I've done I'm always welcome. Every time God says let's begin again. Or, do you remember where we had got to before, son? Let's continue on from there. God is so great! God is so merciful! His only motivation toward us, toward me, is always love. 

God is still working miracles, even for us, the Matsons

     We took our Tiki-wagon on an impromptu trip from Salem to Crater Lake yesterday. We call it the Tiki Mobile because there is a mean looking tiki with his surf board painted on the hood. Not our choice but it came with the car and certainly attracts lots of attention. It was fairly hot yesterday and as we climbed the mountain the temp gauge reminded me the radiator is fairly well plugged and kinda hot headed. I had forgotten. We don't drive it much, only when all six of us are riding together, which seems to be increasingly rare. Then, leaving C.L. the Trans started acting up. Making noise in first gear, not shifting up some times, and not shifting down to first at stops were the most obvious. I knew there was no chance of it getting us the 230 miles from our hotel home. None. This morning we packed up car, moved it back from curb to check fluids, then did something we have never done. We held hands in the car and prayed. Prayed for protection and safety and please, please, please, hold our car together until we get home. No need for paragraph breaks in this story, right? So off we went. Got gas, drinks for everyone, quart of oil for car, and hit the road. It was never right.  Noisy in first and second, didn't want to shift to third, but once on Highway all was beautiful, like nothing was wrong at all. 3-1/2 hours freeway to our off ramp. No stops needed. 1/2 home someone had to potty. We hit up Ronald, let the kids play, and some people searched for poke stuff. Second half of journey was more of same. Hit our off ramp in Salem and made it to about two miles from home when car just stopped pushing forward. Pulled over and left car running for minute or two, hit the gas and it started moving. Little old lady in a walker might have gone faster but we were moving. Repeated this three or four times til we hit our driveway. We had probably gotten an hour into the ride when I just knew we would make it home and car would still move on its own. After the car quit moving though, I had serious doubts. This is an absolute miracle. No ifs ands or buts. Years ago I sat on a broken school bus on the highway's shoulder going home from a youth group beach trip not a mile from the other bus we broke on the way to the beach. My buddy (the youth pastor), gathered most of the 35 kids and staff in a circle to pray, and not kidding, I sat in the bus scoffing under my breath, what can God possibly do in this situation. Within minutes a 95 or so passenger bus pulled up with only 35 people on board and offered us a lift. That was the defining moment in my life to understanding that God is, well, still God. So now my car sits at home needing a radiator and Trans or Trans work and life keeps on spinning. Another time God stepped out and did something too obvious. Not a silent whisper, but two large hands clapped together and a ha!, see that? God says. See what I just did there? I love you in the quiet and I love you in the big loud audacious way that only I can.

Time for me to be committed, one way or another.

     I went to bed and curled up fetal like, I wanted to admit myself to a psychiatric place and remain in that position forever. The cause of my condition unknown in those moments. I wondered what would I feel in the morning. There was little relief with daylight. Relief would require a why. Why was I self destructing? Like a great train wreck that continues to pile car upon car was me inside. Outside completely normal.

     When I finally came to enough to realize how late it was I heard Chris tell a kid we weren't going to church. We had just gotten up to late. I needed to go to church. I needed to connect. Although I knew the chance of any real connection happening was slim, I needed to go. After getting a Coke and Haagen-Dazs on the way I managed to show up just over an hour late.

     I didn't get any miracle connection. I did talk to people for quite a while and then bumped into an old friend at Goodwill, but there is this. We have this wonderful analogy of a cup. We meet with God, He fills the cup, we pour out into others, meet with God and He refills. We repeat forever til we leave earth. I think God showed me something else cause that didn't fit the right now. Imagine a machine where something is fed in, like fabric. So there is a big hand crank and as you turn it rollers on top and bottom feed the fabric in. Now at the other end after the machine has done it's work the fabric leaves the machine. I am the machine, the fabric is what God has put in. Something on the other end has happened though. The fabric has not been allowed to come out and go to the people it is meant to be for. The handle continues to turn and feed more in but now the insides become all jammed up and it is hard to turn. Realizing this, the handle is turned the other way, but this creates further jamming as things are not meant to go this way. Now the inside of the machine, of me, is a jumbled mess. From the outside it is fine. The hum of the machine's motor continues on day after day, all appears well. Inside is, as the conductor would say, chaos and delays. (Thomas the Train reference).

     Where do things go from here? Well, probably not an asylum, maybe not anyway. Today has been something else. Complete and total freedom from every obligation my life normally holds. No worries whatsoever of the kids, no time needed to be home, no dinner or laundry or bike stuff or car repairs. No demand on me whatsoever. I do not remember another day like this. God is so good. Surely one day this will make sense. It will be relevant to another time, to another me, further down the path. For now though I've got to listen to the still small voice when He says to get involved where I have said no before. I must act. I must do something. I have an idea. Something that has been a recurring thought. I think i will finally have to step out and just do it. I think it is time to join this group, not as leader, but as just one small piece. Oh Lord be with me. Help me to move.

     I know the end of this is pretty vague, please forgive me for that. I'm a really messed up guy yet God still has work for me to do. People for me to reach. I hope you think that is cool. I'm still hurting a lot. I don't know what comes next. I don't know if everything will be better next week or if next year I'll be a disaster still. I want things to be better but really not sure if I'm ready to make the choices for things to change.

     As usual, thank you for reading. May your journey be amazing and filled with God's love. God bless.

Depression's dragon

     I have a pretty charmed life yet there is a monster that I cannot tame. Everybody is healthy and whole in our home. Our bills are paid, we have food, I just got some cool parts for some bike projects, and a stream of small car projects to make some extra money. But still the monster looms. My wife and I are having amazing sex (yep, went there), I have done some of my coolest home projects to date, got the most recent Bloodgood album in my car and it rocks, but the monster has beat down the door and is making itself at home. I have read my Bible, I have talked with my savior, I know the truth, I know the lies, all my defenses, my best offenses, it has cut thru like butter. Like blackberry vines on steroids depression has reared it's ugly head, has set a place at my table is eating my ice cream with chocolate sauce and sprinkles and left me with peas. I hate peas!

     I slept a couple of hours today so I'm up late eating ice cream and playing video games. I think this is depression protocol. Just finished listening to Clay Crosse's He Walked a Mile. I always want to help others but I'm not so good at helping myself. The other day the kids were gone and I was back at home all by myself. I just couldn't move. I called out silently to God, ya gotta help me, I can't help myself, help. About 5 minutes later I started to get a load of wash going. Then I moved on to something else and something else, eventually getting two projects done also. Without God's help I likely would have sat at the kitchen table for hours until Emma needed picked up. God gives me other 'suggestions' of ways to help myself but most of the time I'm just unwilling to move. Unable often, but sometimes simply unwilling. Unwilling to help myself.

     I'm getting tired now so I think I'll head to bed. I'm not in my best space now. There's a lot of things I can't do right now but I can write this. If I wait until I am in my best space this will never get written. So I write it now. Someone may need to see this. If you wait until you are in your best space, all put together so to speak, someone may miss out on what God has for them from you. A young woman stopped by yesterday for me to look at her car and I talked her ear off. Maybe, just maybe, something I said was something she needed to hear. Maybe, the gift was mine just having someone to talk to. Maybe both. I may never know. Anyways, I'm going to bed. Thank you for reading this.

Jealousy and growth

     I had been so jealous of a friend of mine for so many years. I'm not sure how specific I want to get as then everybody will know who it is. Well, there's two people really. My old roommate Tim was probably the first. Everything he touched turned to gold. Everybody liked him. He was better at basketball than me. As we went thru the automotive tech program it was apparent he was more skilled than I. He never even got a job as a tech but took on a piece of his dad's construction business. He was gifted there as well. Then there's Tim. Super talented artist. Can also play about any instrument he touches as well as sing. I was so jealous of these guys.

     Maybe I just started slow. I have done many amazing projects. Built cool trucks. I can fabricate all sorts of cool stuff out of metal. I've built many Rad things out of wood also. Built a loft in the shop, rewired much of the house and shop, and so much more. I have more projects spinning in my head at any given time than I can ever get to. And I would bet that I make some other people jealous.

     So God has given me so many talents but it has taken me a lot of life to begin to grasp them. And these are just the MacGyver gifts. These aren't even the spiritual gifts. Those are the ones I really look forward to unfolding in the future.

     So I'm not writing this to say how awesome I think I am but I wasted a lot of time looking at how awesome others were and thinking I had little to nothing to offer. I just couldn't see it. There may have been not much to see. It seems like my life has been a slow build. Looking back there is a small thing here and another aways later. But those were very far apart although they built on each other, and a lot of failure. Now I build and do new things all the time that are the product of all those years of preparation.

     At one point almost ten years ago God put this guy in my life who was a few years older than I and had a lot of experience building hot rods and restoring cars. I had won this old Truck on Ebay for $50 down in Eugene. Each day I'd go to work with this guy who cuts things up and builds cool cars and since I had only spent $50 on this truck it was no loss if I ruined it. So every night I would work on the truck and every day I'd tell Mike what I did and he'd give me encouragement and offer creative suggestions. This was really the springboard for me becoming the mechanical madman I am today.

     There is also a spiritual journey that has taken place. Much, much growth has happened there in the last 5 or 6 years but I don't know where that is going yet so we'll leave that for another time.

     Pastors always talk about the "takeaway." We'll I don't know what that is so you'll have to figure it out for yourself. I'm just telling my story.

A different addiction experience

     I don't know if this will have a theme or not I just wanted to write. The other day I grabbed an empty beer bottle to move it to the recycle bin. When I grabbed that bottle with my whole hand around the neck time stopped. *a note before going any further. I don't drink. I never have. Not even a drop cept for a sip of pink champagne left from my first wedding. Nothing. No desire. But as I held that bottle, as that bottle held me, I became a different me. Although there were no specifics I could sense a destroyed me, a destroyed family. I could feel myself sitting in a chair tipping back a bottle, my grip on that bottle very specific. I stood there holding that bottle, we were holding each other really, and time stood still. It should have been a simple task that lasted a few seconds at most. I don't know how long it lasted but I was in awe of the power it held on me. I've had some comparable experiences with cigarettes and I can't explain either. I wrote about this probably a couple of years ago. I don't understand but I do know that for me to drink or smoke would be a slippery slope. One that I need to stay far away from.

Contemplating life's highway

     Sometimes life just drones on and on, like a highway in the desert going mile after mile after mile. Other times though are like those TV commercials "life comes at you fast." Today I dropped off 3 kids at three different schools then stopped at Safeway for a Coke and donut. I know, I know, the breakfast of champions. Sitting in the parking lot I contemplated what to do next.

     Goodwill opens at 9 so I could wait ten minutes and go there. Or I could go to the little store over there where one of the managers is a friend. A competitor is opening a new store in a small town nearby and I think she should apply for store manager. Maybe I should go to my grandma's house, I have a couple ideas for things she could do with her spare time that I think would really bless her and others. I had two or three more ideas that escape me right now.

     I had close to 3 hours before heading back to school to make the first pickup. So long story short, I could reach out to others and maybe have an impact in somebody's life or remain isolated. As I drove home from Goodwill I was feeling kinda lonely and when I feel like that I tend to isolate and that's exactly what I did. Went home and got to work. Not a bad thing. Some part of me was worried about rejection from the people I would have tried to connect with. I couldn't overcome the idea of loneliness being topped with that rejection.

     Anyways, I was just struck with the idea of how many different directions life can take at any place. Maybe I do better next time.