Moving Day

One of the things that is more stressful than most things is moving.  They say that moving a house and family is one of the most stressful things that people do.  Sure there is some excitement when there is a new house and a new city, but there are also a lot of unknowns. 

Over the last couple of day’s I’ve continued to write both here and in my pen and paper journal.  I’ve written things that I want to post but I am holding off on, to make sure that they are coming from the right place.  While I have always used this blog to get out my fairly “unfiltered” feelings, I also recognize that some things are best left to a limited scope of people. 

This post is a bit different though.  It’s moving day. Moving on from what was, but also, and more importantly moving away from false conceptions and hopes on my part.  Everyone has those things, and they are usually in a more abundant supply than anyone wants to admit.  I know for me that tends to happen. 

I think it has to do with selective hearing.  One of the many reasons that I need to have Joyce around to interpret for me, and that interpretation goes both ways.  To interpret what is really being said and to interpret what I’m really saying. I wonder what it is about me that hears the worst or what I want to hear instead of what is being said?

Now that I have actually listened, I am left with a rather difficult realization, but one that is none the less important to lean into.  While I don’t know what’s coming next for me as an individual, I do know what’s not coming, and while that tends to be a good thing, it is a sad thing as well, and I mean let’s face it.  I have myself to blame for this particularly biting loss.  

It’s easy to pack some boxes, and oh so hard to pack others, and then there is the necessary sorting of what should just be tossed in the dumpster out front.  As I sort through the stuff that has accumulated, the dumpster stuff is pretty easy to identify and has been tossed in, even as there is the struggle to explain the why’s for some actions. Even as I have embraced the train wreck of mental health that I struggled with, I also have to embrace the hard truth that while those things offer me understanding and reason there were much better ways to deal with those situation than the choices that I made.  Tossing the bad coping mechanisms and the digital world that I ran too was a no brainer, and has been so very freeing, even as I work at rebuilding what has been broken. That process will be ongoing, but shouldn’t that be how things are anyway?  We should constantly be building our lives and relationships with the people we care about and love and want to do life with, even in and especially in the horrible no good awful bad days. 

Then there are the boxes that you pack and put in storage and rarely if ever get to go back too.  Those can bring a lot of remorse, pain and sadness to life.  And so as I pack the boxes of Logos, Slack, Elvanto and Band in hand.  As I get out the tape gun and seal the boxes of curriculum, group study, board meetings and vision casting, I shake my head and wonder at the capacity that I had, to hurl myself off the cliff of fear, pride and depression with a poorly packed parachute.  I can’t help but be sad.  I can’t help but be self judgmental.  I can’t help but to fall into the arms of God and then my wife and kids,  people who would be justified in walking away but have chosen to show me what true grace and love is and instead of turning away, leaning in.  

Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t the only ones that love me, they aren’t the only ones that forgive and all that fun stuff, but they are the ones that matter the most.  So as I pack those boxes that I talked about and get ready to put them into the attic of my mind, I wonder if they will have any need to be removed some day.  I also know that if not, then living and moving and having my being in Christ, with my family in tow is more important than all the sermons I could ever write, all the outreaches I could ever plan, all the board meetings I could ever lead or be a part of. 

If you have any interest in the study and learning and digging deeper things that I’m doing,  If you want to know what I am getting from met time in the Bible and prayer and just in walking and working and being as creative as possible.  I will point you to a space reserved specifically for spiritual stuff that is going on in my mind and heart. 

https://anjandlila.wixsite.com/badpastor

See you around one of the two, or not…it’s totally up to you.

It's Okay To Reach...

      

                                                                                                        May 27, 2022  

I’m sitting here, looking at the document in front of me.  The page is full of white space, there is so much to say, so much to process, so much to get out there.  I am amazed at the signposts that are in my life.  The ones that were warnings, the ones that were pointed towards positive things, the ones that promised positive things but ended at not just a dead end, but a hair pin turn that went on forever with the inevitability of crashing through the guard rail, to be arcing through the air, hands gripping the wheel in some twisted Thelma and Louise ending, without the Louise.  

I’ve already talked about the things that I stopped doing, I’m not going to keep rehearsing them because when I do that what’s really happening is I’m looking in the front seat of that Delorean that doesn’t exist.  

So what is this one about.  What does it mean when I say it’s okay

It means that it’s okay.  It’s okay to ask me questions, it’s okay to wonder what’s going on in my head and heart.  It’s okay to pray for me and ask what I want prayed for.  It’s okay to be angry with me, it’s okay to get in touch and tell me all the ugly that I sowed in to your world. 

It’s also okay to be in a public place that you like with me and not worry about whether it’s okay for me to be there. 

Today, for the first time in months, I walked into C’s Waffles with an amazing friend.  We were going to head to Deny’s, but they have it closed for a remodel, something that it desperately needed.  So the question was put out do we want to go to C’s and I said “that works.”  The last time I was in C’s it was probably December or January.  When I walked in one of the waitresses did a double take and asked, “where have you been?”  I just smiled and said hello.  When she asked “How are you?”  I said I’m okay, now.  They called me by name, and were glad to see me, the regulars smiled, and it was all okay, more than okay.  

Life continues, how it continues is up to the individual living that life and those around them. If life stopped when any of us made a bad choice, or used a destructive coping mechanism, or ate too much chili then we would all be sitting in a state of continued atrophy, and that just isn’t sustainable for any length of time. There comes a point that steps have to happen, that moving forward has to occur.  That moment in time when forgiveness of self happens, even as those around you have chosen to forgive, or to wait and see, or to disconnect, as an individual self forgiveness has to begin in order for life to begin, for the muscles that have been unused for what seems like ages to get stretched and loosened and put back into circulation. 

The lie that we choose to believe about ourselves, the lie that I chose to believe for a very long time and that still knocks on the door of my heart and spirit is the one that’s tells us we are not worthy of forgiveness, and yet we don’t get too make that call, be it in that space of faith and spirituality, or in our physical relationships, it’s a lie that we tell ourselves and that we believe because it fulfills some sense of balance or justice.  The one that says there’s no possible way I’m worthy of anyones forgiveness, especially my own.  There is a difference between worthy and deserving.  Deserving is tied to my actions, it says that I deserve forgiveness because of what I have done or how much I have groveled or how many acts of contrition I have shown.  Deserving forgiveness reminds me of those scenes when someone goes into a confessional and spills their sins and is then told what to do as penance.  The forgiveness comes after the actions are completed.  I deserve to be forgiven because of what I have done. 

Worthiness is another matter.  Worthiness is not tied to my actions at all, I can’t declare myself worthy of an honor, or a punishment or anything for that matter.  Being worthy of anything comes from the other side of the table in the sit down.  God says that humanity is worth saving and having relationship with.  Who am I to argue with God?  It simply doesn’t matter what I think when it comes to this.  God chose to name me worthy of his forgiveness and acceptance.  People do the same thing, after all we are made in the image of God so it follows that there are going to be people that are going to look at us, and the mistakes that we have made and they are going to realize that the whole mistake making thing isn’t mutually exclusive to any one individual, it’s a universal issue when it comes to us humans.  God talks about it in His word.

Luke 6:37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.^a”

Think about that verse for a moment and what it really means. Contrary to what some people teach the gift that we are giving here to get more of something is not money or stuff.  This verse is not talking about tithing at all.  It’s talking about the gift of forgiveness.  Context matters dear reader as does reading the entire part of the text, no cherrypicking allowed. 

So it’s okay.  It’s okay to do all the things I said earlier, it’s okay to have questions and it’s okay to take small steps forward in life and in relationship.  

See I thought I was standing, only to fall.  There’s something about that in the Bible I believe.  I want to serve as a cautionary tale to others that are in the same place.  But I also want to serve as a voice that says, stop telling God and others that you’re not worth it.  You don’t determine that and neither do I.  I have to stop living in the land of what I think I deserve, and begin living in the land of being called a child of God, of being called Son, of being worthy of the God that chose me.  

See you around dear reader.

P.S.  I want to put this in the public record.  I say dear reader because one of my favorite authors uses it when he writes forwards or post scripts or afterwards in his books.  This author is a master of scary book writing.  I mean how many times have you hear me say…We all float down here…Lets all float?  So I say dear reader because of Stephen King, not because of any show that may happen to be on a certain streaming service with the title A Span Across Waterton or A structure joining two pieces of Landerton….