Marbles and Yo Yo’s

To say it’s been an interesting few months would be the understatement of the century as far as I’m concerned. 

Starting back in October things started to move in very interesting directions.  I began doing computer work,  this job was very clearly a God thing, as I found out about it by of all things snail mail.  It worked out really well, move forward and I have had the chance to stretch and learn more IT stuff.  Then J and I started to get more involved at church.  Helping out where we could.  I was privileged to speak to men's breakfast, and have enjoyed our Pizza and Prayer time when they are offered at the church.  We then realized the importance of giving more of our time, and so J and I started to volunteer at Powerhouse.  I really enjoy working with Bob and the rest of the power house team. 

So much more has been happening, most recently I was privileged to attend Orange Conference.  WOW was it awesome.  I had forgotten how awesome these experiences can be.  Worship in a large group setting is a thing of beauty and something not to be missed if you ever have a chance to do it.  Still it’s more than that.  I have come to another realization.  My self imposed sequestration from certain parts of life, who I am, what I am called to and what God has gifted me with has really only served to make life dull and grey.

Anyway on to the marbles and the Yo Yo.  Several interesting things have happened in the past few weeks.  I want to speak to those things. 

First the marbles.  Strait from the conference.  They did a great visual of how much time we have left with our kids.  How much time we have to pour into them, to influence them, to teach them and let them know that they are loved, and that they are needed, that they are special.  Figure out how many weeks you have left with each of your children until their 18th birthday.  Put one marble in a jar for each week.  You will be amazed at how quickly this visual will make you understand how important your time and relationship with your kids is.  I know it has made a huge impact.  I already was trying to interact instead of react but now it is all the more important.  I want those weeks to be full of the things that will prepare my girls for a life that is full of relationship, service, and happiness. 

The Yo Yo, yea that’s one of those ooggyy ooggy things.  I recently was in an interview, and was asked how I prepare for messages etc.  I walked the interviewer through the process that I use, down to my yo yo habit.  See when I prep for a message or teaching, after the prayer and study, and writing.  I then take all the points and walk around talking out loud to process things.  While I am doing that processing I am also yo yoing.  I have been doing this for years.  It’s just this thing I do.  The problem is one of my yo yo’s is broken, one is lost, and the other one has a busted string.  So I don’t have a yo yo.  I was in fact thinking that if things happen the way I think they will I’ll have to go buy a yo yo.  Remember I don’t do oogy oogy, but this is kind of strange in a good way.  I arrived home from Orange really late on Friday.  Saturday morning Amberly was all excited and informed me she had to give me something, she was so excited to do so.  She reached into a bag and pulled out a yo yo.  The oogy oogy part of it all is I never told her about the yo yo or the conversation I had with the interviewer.  In fact as far as I know the only person that knows about the whole Yo Yo conversation is the guy that did the interview and myself.  So yea, that was just strange.  If I were the kind of person that went in for the whole Gideon fleece thing, well then perhaps I would latch onto this,  That’s just not me, still the fact that she gave me the yo yo is kind of strange don’t you think.  It will be very interesting to see what happens next.  We are just remaining open.  That’s all we can do.

So that’s about it.  Orange had so much good stuff in it that I will do some debriefing when I get the chance.  I know there are several blogs sitting in my notes from the week, look for those in the coming weeks. 

The one that did it…

We stream TV, that’s all we do now.  We haven’t had cable proper for years.  It can be a bit of work to get it all worked out but it makes more sense, sure we have to wait a couple of days for new shows but the plus side is there are less commercials and since the commercials we do see are the same over and over for the most part you know exactly how long between them you have to go grab a snack,  carrots lately as I am going for the whole healthy thing. 

Anyway on occasion Hulu will allow you to watch an extended commercial instead of the normal breaks in the show,  when it offers this option, which I think is fantastic, you can then watch whatever show you have chosen commercial free…

The other day J and I were about to watch Guys with Kids, we like the show it’s funny and as a dad that stays home with the baby it can be pretty cathartic.  The choice to watch an extended commercial came up, the interesting thing this time was I don’t remember it telling me what it was about, it probably did but who knows I don’t recall the normal identification of what was about to be shown coming up.  I said yes to the commercial and found it was a movie trailer.  

Now for the record. I love scary movies, suspense movies, just about anything with a zombie in it I’ll watch.  Years ago I sat in our basement when J was at a women's conference and watching Room 1408, as I watched the movie it got darker and darker outside and consequently in the house.  I thought the girls were asleep in their beds until Amberly called from the top of the stairs.  I freaked out mainly because she had the same sing song voice that the little girl voice was in the movie.  The thing is I look back at that and laugh and remember the feeling it gave me and it’s a good time a good memory…what I saw the other night just sits there and bothers me. 

The trailer was for a movie called The Purge.  As I said I normally love scary movies.  I’m the guy that  telegraphs what the bad guy is going to do or to use to carry out his killing, and will normally make some sort of snarky comment,   “oh look it’s a wood chipper, bet that gets used later.” Wow look at that someone left a perfectly good hatchet sticking out of that tree stump…”  run dude run I just saw a chain saw in that wood shed”  you get the point.  It’s almost comical, always over the top, and said implement of destruction is usually wielded by an equally over the top bad guy with some mundane name be it Jason, or Michael or Freddy. 

There are things in life that we all wish we could un see, visual pictures that evoke emotional responses.  Amberly will forever be the little girl that had an ear ache.  She knew band aids were for things that hurt so she wanted a band aid on her ear.  I’ll never forget my tear filled baby girl crying and holding the band aid to her ear, looking at me wanting to know why I wasn’t putting the band aid on her ear to make the earache go away.  It was one of those heart hurting moments when you understand that no matter how much you love them and how much you want to shield them from any and all pain, no matter how many bees you catch in the car so they don’t get stung, you can’t always make the hurt go away. That picture of Amberly in need will always be in my brain, a good thing.  Unfortunately so will the movie trailer for The Purge.

I was so disturbed by it, so put off by it, so angry that someone would make this movie.  I have never really gotten worked up over a movie.  I figure if I want to see something I will if I don’t I won’t but neither will I attempt to influence others one way or the other.  They need to work out their own things what is right and wrong.  If they are a Christ Follower it’s called working out our salvation, if not I don’t know what you would call it but I’m sure there is a correlation.  (incidentally if you’re reading and you would like to know the ins and outs to being a Christ Follower I’m more than willing to give you the details.)  This is the first time that I would actively tell someone not to see something,  Not to put it in their brains, not to watch a movie.  It was that frightening to me.

The question is why?   That’s what I’m going to be working on for the next few weeks.  An answer to why.

Fresh Air

Much has happened since my last post.  God is moving in some interesting ways in our life, and in mine in particular, we started volunteering in Powerhouse at our church, the girls have been growing much faster than I want them to, we went on vacation to Florida and did what we usually do which means we packed way more into our days there than we should have.  Typical Newell family life.  The blog has been siting here catching dust for a long while.  I thought it may be a good idea to get back to it today,  The sun is shining, it’s a pretty warm day out.  I have pulled down the plastic from the windows and thrown them open to allow some much needed fresh air throughout the house.

Ah fresh air.  Nothing cleans out a space like fresh air.  All winter long we clean, we try and catch up on the things that have to be done.  We scrub floors, and vacuum carpets, do the dishes and well you  get the idea, all the stuff that has to be done to make a house clean, many times we will even choose a cleaner that has a scent to it, a way to fake out or minds and noses, making them think that things are fresh and clean and great.  We cover up the stale air with a manufactured freshness…

Which of course brings me to the point .  Much has happened over the last five years in our lives.  There have been highs and lows, really low lows.  If you need a refresher well you know what to do for that.  Most of it is pretty much here and if it’s not well I’ll probably get around to putting things up again at some point.  The thing is a couple of years ago I really thought that something was going to happen.  I thought God was going to open this certain door and that it was going to be everything that I wanted it to be.  Ah but you see I wasn’t really there yet, too much had gone on and we were still working through the illness that almost took J away.  God was still in this process of breaking me apart and teaching me what it really means to be not just a person with a calling but a box of Lego's that are placed into his hands to be built into something best suited to the place He has for us.

I almost feel like I was in that place where I was doing all the right things, but I was using the cleaning supplies that had the fresh scent.  Still trying to mask hurts, and pains,  trying to prove to God and myself that I really believed the truth that he had spoken clearly into my heart when J was in the hospital.  I knew what he said but I really didn't KNOW what he said, maybe it’s better to say I really didn't KNOW what he meant.  I was doing all the right things, but I wasn't opening the windows and doors to let the fresh air in.  I had a manufactured freshness, doing all the things I was supposed to, saying all the things I needed to say.  Spending time reading and praying.  Going to church, blogging my thoughts.  I wasn't faking my relationship with God but I was fooling myself into thinking that I had really allowed the process to be fully implemented.

Spring cleaning is more than just a good wash down of all that is in the house.  Many times we do that during the winter, the difference with spring cleaning is the fact that suddenly the fresh outdoor air can blow through the house, taking with it the dead stale air that has been sitting there since some where October.  I needed to get to the point where the windows and doors were opened and the fresh air could get in, blowing out all the stale, manufactured fragrance, replacing it with something that is the unmistakable sureness of being in the palm of God’s hands, the realization that as I push further into him, and as I spend more time being open to whatever he has, my life will not just be one lived in that permissive area of his will but in the perfect one.

Do I know exactly what that is at this point.  I think I have an idea but as we all know our ways are not his ways and our thoughts are not his thoughts.  So I will wait and live, and move and have my being in Him, I will step back, open the windows and doors and let the freshness that only can come from God blow through my life and in so doing carry me to the place that he has set up.