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.