We are just on the threshold of Spring, roughly more than a week into it. The weather in that time ( a little more than a week mind you), has produced everything from a late snow to "sitting on your balcony and smoking pipes, or writing, or both" warmth. The seasons of nature....you gotta love them! They are a quartet of wild and crazy guys...and prove to be very unpredictable.
In my part of the country, sometimes some of the seasons don't show up. Summer all of a sudden changes to Winter. It's blistering hot one day and teeth chattering cold the next and you're scrambling to find that one box in the attic you packed your sweaters and coats in so you won't freeze to death. Unpacking that box wasn't penciled in your Daytimer "To Do" list for at least another two or three weeks. Leaving Fall out of the loop even throws the best laid plans and forecasts out of their proper symmetry.....And furthermore what happened to Fall anyway? Did Fall take the short bus to nowhere? Did he show up twice in another state? Did he forget to set his alarm clock? Maybe Fall went on a bender and was just too hungover to show up...if that's true, I know of some great support groups Fall should attend....
Another thing about these guys....you can't figure them out no matter how much you study them. I had a good friend I was stationed with in the Philippines. He was the commanding officer of the meteorological station there. He invited me to go with him one day to help him and his team launch a series of weather balloons. Along the way he gave me a "Meteorology For Dummies" lesson.....and being the "dummy" I was, I still didn't understand what he was trying to teach me about the purpose of the balloons....but I kept nodding my head with a "yes" motion and saying, "Uh huh" and "I see" as if I did. All I know is that the balloons had these transmitter devices attached to them and some measured wind currents, some measured temperatures, some measured pressures, and others measured moisture in the air, and so on and so forth. All worked together to help the experts forecast future weather patterns for the area.
I only knew one thing about weather in the Philippines, it was either hot and dry, or hot and wet. The findings of this particular launch indicated that the island of Luzon would probably not fall victim to any typhoon activity that particular season. Three weeks later the air base got hammered with one of the worst typhoons in base history and it took about seven weeks to clean up and recover in the aftermath. As I said earlier, you just can't figure these guys out! They almost come off as the mischievous imps and sprites you read about in fairy tales. How they love to confound and confuse!....and these once sharp, talented, analytical, brilliant, scientific meteorologists are broken down to wearing wrap-around white tuxedos and placed in rooms that are padded and have no sharp corners. They are to be pitied and understood, but we can do neither because we're too busy complaining about how "they" got it wrong again. Sometimes I think trying to predict what these guys are gonna do when they show up is nothing more than a crap shoot.
Seasons, they come and go, sometimes they don't show up, and sometimes I think they do what they do just to push our buttons and give us something to talk about around the water cooler at work. They break into our lives with an unpredictability that shatters our otherwise fairly ordered world.....and in the spirit of one of my personal heroes, Forrest Gump, they are like a box of chocolates....you never know what you're going to get....
In life, we go through seasons. In fact, life is nothing but a constant flow of changing seasons. Solomon agrees with that. In Ecclesiastes 3:1 he states, "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven."-NLT Some seasons in life bring rejoicing, laughter, dancing, riches, and joy....other seasons bring grief, death, hardship, poverty, tears, and sadness. All of these seasons work together to make up the whole of our life....the whole of our existence....and these seasons of life, like the seasons of nature, are unpredictable. No matter how much we plan in one season of our life, another season shows up and destroys what we've carefully thought through.
Solomon is touted as being the wisest man who ever lived. Kings and Queens from other nations all over the known world would come and sit at his feet to hear his teaching. Yet, for all his God-given wisdom, he didn't have the ability to forecast life. He knew of its seasons and he knew the God in control of them, but he couldn't tell another how their life would turn out. He could only teach that life would happen and it would happen for a season. He knew that at times life would be easy and light, and he also knew that life would hit hard and with an unforgiving vengeance at other times.
If you have lived for awhile you have already experienced several seasons in your life both good and bad. If you are reading this, you have to this point, survived them. I don't know why but it seems for me the good seasons are shorter than the bad ones. I can only figure the reason is because in the good seasons I have a tendency to forget Who they come from. At times I have taken sole credit for the good seasons in my life as if I had something to do with it, as if in my own "brilliance" I laid an invulnerable plan that got me there, a plan so perfect even God Himself would dare not interrupt it. Perhaps this is one reason our Lord spoke of the difficulty the rich (successful) had in following Him. When it's good for me I have the foolish whim that I created that good. I want to take credit for the blessing that I made for myself. It is not only foolish thinking; it is arrogant and prideful thinking....and we all know the end result of pride.....that's right.....a fall is coming.
Bad seasons are longer for me. They are miserable and at times seem hopeless. A bad season is like living in a pit with no ladders or ropes. When the season of bad came to my doorstep, life hit hard from the blind side and my response was not turning to God, but rather to a bottle of escape. I was knocked in the pit through no desire of mine and was stuck. The only thing worse than being in a pit for a season is being in a pit for a season with a bottle of escape thinking that will help make the pit more comfortable. No matter how many L-shaped couches or Lazy Boy recliners you outfit the pit with....it doesn't stop being a pit.
I lived in a season of alcohol abuse, numb to the fact that there were lessons to be learned while going through a difficult season in my life. School was in session and I was too drunk to show up. The more I drank the deeper the pit. People got hurt, people I dearly love. I lost any sense of self-respect, there was an absence of dignity. I had a self-loathing and even for a season, a death wish I think. No hope for me, no peace, no joy, no dancing, no love, no help, nothing....it was all gone and I felt I no longer deserved those things anymore anyway. The more I despaired, the more I drank....the more I drank, the longer the season of bad. I got to the point that I was convinced I had entered a harsh winter in my life and it was here to stay.
However, when I truly came to the end of me....and you know, that's what we have to do, come to the end of us....before we can move on into the healing God offers. I came to the end of me and found God present. He was with me in the pit....in fact, He never left when I fell into it....He was always there. I take comfort in the fact that the Bible promises God never leaves us nor forsakes us. He is present always whether we feel His presence or not. In that season of bad, that pit....I found Him to be the one constant I could depend on.....he is the only constant in my life when I think about it. Circumstances change, seasons change....some are good, others are difficult; people change...some walk away, others stay; but God never leaves....whether we're up or down! He is in control too. Our seasons never blind side Him like they do us and He always knows what to do. Afterall, He's seen it all before.
I am not saying I now live in a constant state of blissful seasons. I still endure seasons in my life that bring difficulty and tests....I just don't drink over them anymore. I trust my Constant, I can count on Him...and I learn and grow....and I have clear eyes and a clear head....even living through a difficult season. Life happens, life is great at times and life sucks at other times...you can't count on life....however, you can count on God.....He never changes....He is the Constant. This is the reason the Psalmist refers to Him as a rock....He is unmovable....and when typhoons in life hit us....we can go to that Rock for shelter. You won't find that kind of security in a bottle, a needle, or from a conversation with even the best of psychologists...only in Him and Him alone.
Blessings!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
That Elusive "High-Life"
If you, like me, have walked with the Lord for any length of time, you no doubt know firsthand what it is like to revel in His glory. We truly enter into a high-life that compares to nothing else we've known before. It isn't that we enter into a "pie in the sky" life, but into a relationship that is so overwhelming it has the ability to change how we view our world, our problems, and those around us.
And....if you've walked with the Lord for any length of time, you also know what it's like to walk away. I don't know what it is about me but I have a tendency to want to create a "high-life" of my own. Every time I do, I always end up in a place I never intended to be. That place is always worse and I end up getting hurt and hurting others. It is like exchanging the freedom I have in Christ for the chain, muzzle, and leash ensemble of enslavement. My pursuit of a "high-life" of my own making turns me into a low-life every time.
I often wonder why I have a bent toward chains. Christ went through so much, endured so much, and conquered so much for my complete freedom. He wants me to experience the reality of a high-life only He can offer and I still want to create one of my own. Perhaps it's because I lived in chains so long they became habit....sometimes it's easier to deal with what you know than change everything you think about or do. Maybe His freedom just simply scares me. I don't understand it and I certainly don't deserve it. Why is it we humans always feel that the good we receive we have to earn? Maybe I simply tend to shy away from something freely given because the skeptic in me always thinks there's a catch, a fine print, a hook.
There is one thing about me I know. I'm selfish. I want to be in control of my own destiny. From that I think perhaps my leaning toward creating my own "high-life".
Paul addressed this in his letter to the church in Galatia. After coming into Christ's freedom, they were being duped into following the law. So they placed the Christ, who utterly saves, in a cage in order to follow the law that had no power to save at all. Paul, in a word, called this crazy! I identify with the church in Galatia though.....following Christ and walking in his unmerited freedom was less familiar than living out a faith they could control by observing and attempting to keep the law.
If you have never strayed from your beloved freedom in Christ in pursuit of going your own way; if you have never selfishly and foolishly attempted to create your own "high-life", the following is not for you. If you identify with what I am referring to here, then read on.
This is my first stab at rhyme. After reading, you may ask me to never "busta' rhyme" again. I do hope you get the message....I simply thank my God He never leaves or gives up on me, even when I try to put Him in a cage so I may trail off and ultimately fail in creating my own "high-life".
And....if you've walked with the Lord for any length of time, you also know what it's like to walk away. I don't know what it is about me but I have a tendency to want to create a "high-life" of my own. Every time I do, I always end up in a place I never intended to be. That place is always worse and I end up getting hurt and hurting others. It is like exchanging the freedom I have in Christ for the chain, muzzle, and leash ensemble of enslavement. My pursuit of a "high-life" of my own making turns me into a low-life every time.
I often wonder why I have a bent toward chains. Christ went through so much, endured so much, and conquered so much for my complete freedom. He wants me to experience the reality of a high-life only He can offer and I still want to create one of my own. Perhaps it's because I lived in chains so long they became habit....sometimes it's easier to deal with what you know than change everything you think about or do. Maybe His freedom just simply scares me. I don't understand it and I certainly don't deserve it. Why is it we humans always feel that the good we receive we have to earn? Maybe I simply tend to shy away from something freely given because the skeptic in me always thinks there's a catch, a fine print, a hook.
There is one thing about me I know. I'm selfish. I want to be in control of my own destiny. From that I think perhaps my leaning toward creating my own "high-life".
Paul addressed this in his letter to the church in Galatia. After coming into Christ's freedom, they were being duped into following the law. So they placed the Christ, who utterly saves, in a cage in order to follow the law that had no power to save at all. Paul, in a word, called this crazy! I identify with the church in Galatia though.....following Christ and walking in his unmerited freedom was less familiar than living out a faith they could control by observing and attempting to keep the law.
If you have never strayed from your beloved freedom in Christ in pursuit of going your own way; if you have never selfishly and foolishly attempted to create your own "high-life", the following is not for you. If you identify with what I am referring to here, then read on.
This is my first stab at rhyme. After reading, you may ask me to never "busta' rhyme" again. I do hope you get the message....I simply thank my God He never leaves or gives up on me, even when I try to put Him in a cage so I may trail off and ultimately fail in creating my own "high-life".
Lion in a Cage
Placed Him in a cage deep within,
Had to walk my own way, live in sin again.
A life of separation, isolation, and despair,
Thinking of the "high-life" being just around the corner, but always there.
I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,
Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.
Pushing and pressing against the bars,
He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.
Now neck deep in the stench of my choices,
The "high-life" is still around the corner, I can hear its voices.
Blind to my situation, in a pit, unaware of my desperation,
Pressing forward to selling myself away,
wrapped in chains never again to see a free day.
I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,
Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.
Pushing and pressing against the bars,
He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.
Captive now to what I hate, never dreamed of such a fate.
A puppet on a string, a slave to everything.
No freedom, no joy, no power,
Losing myself to the "high-life" by the minute, by the hour.
I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,
Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.
Pushing and pressing against the bars,
He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.
Where am I?, Who am I?...wanted life on the high,
Exchanged His truth for a lie and the life around the corner has passed me by.
Stuck in the mud at the bottom of this pit I'm in,
How could I walk away and choose a life of sin again?
I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,
Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.
Pushing and pressing against the bars,
He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.
Gonna set this Lion loose inside of me, free to roam every part,
even into the dark corners of my heart.
Gonna set this Lion loose, from around my neck remove this noose.
Make me the me He wants me to be,
Fill me with His power and roar, to go my own way again nevermore.
I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,
Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.
Pushing and pressing against the bars,
He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.
Well...hope and pray you will choose to live His high-life. It is the only one that's real. Blessings....Richard
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A Day in the Sun
I love spring. It seems the sun shines brighter in spring. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because with spring there is newness of life breathed into the earth. Dead, brown grass begins to wake up after its long winter slumber and becomes green. Maybe the grass thinks the sun shines brighter in spring too...and turning green is its way of saying thank you. Naked trees that lost their clothes of leaves start to bud and new clothes of leaves begin to grow. It must be embarrassing for the trees to be out in front of God and everybody naked all winter. I would be if I had to stand outside all winter naked in front of God and everybody. I wonder if the trees, while their buds are popping through their branches, whisper to the sun and say, "You know, I'd like something in a pastel plaid this season."....or, "Sun, it doesn't matter; outfit me in something new and different! Surprise me!"
Spring is like a "do-over". All the bright and beautiful colors and hues break forth in spring. Most of them carry on through the summer. Nature seems to celebrate the burning warmth of the sun in spring. All the colors that come out is its way of tanning I suppose. I almost envy that because I don't tan well, I just turn a darker shade of white when I attempt tanning. When I tan too long at one time, I go from white to lobster red in a blink. Lobster red is a bad look. My kids tan well. Thank God they got their pigmentation from their mother! Anyway....what was once dead and stripped bare becomes alive with activity and excitement. This resurrection, if you will, in nature affirms the tenacity of life in its fight to overcome death. And overcome it does!
All of humanity comes alive as well. We come out of our homes, condos, and apartments....our cocoons...and take flight in the freedom of warmer days and brighter skies. I don't know of anyone who ever got "cabin fever" in spring. That disease is usually epidemic in the dead and cold of winter. I like to observe how life outside seems to crescendo from us being trapped inside during winter, protected from the cold, sometimes bitterly cold, elements to venturing out on a warmer day to walk, or work in the yard, or play catch with our children, or whatever we do outside. A trickle at first, then days get consistently warmer and longer and more go outside to explore their freedom until it seems no one is inside anymore. That's the beauty of the coming of spring.
Winter on the other hand is just the opposite. It almost seems winter has no heart. It steals away the beauty of changing colors and the Indian summers we enjoy in fall and springs on us with a vengence. It pounces on us like an unseen mountain lion. No matter how we prepare for the harshness of winter, when it comes it is as if we didn't prepare enough. When it hits, it kills everything in sight like a nuclear explosion.
I love snow when its falling. It's beautiful really. I like how it quiets the earth, how it seems to make everything still. But there is an ugly and nasty side to snow that has fallen. We have to plow it away from our sidewalks and driveways so we can maneuver in and through it. We have to clear it from our vehicles so we can travel to work or the local market. Work crews contaminate the roadways with salt and sand in order to melt it away. Snow melts and turns to slush, slush sticks and freezes to our fender wells and builds to the point it rubs against the tires. Regardless of the color of your vehicle, chances are your vehicle endures a layer of brown, salty yuck throughout significant periods of winters' grip.
I survived a blizzard this past season. Drifts as high as the eaves of the roofs of my apartment complex in some places. We were all trapped in our caves for days in the aftermath. Thank God I went to the grocery store just before the onslaught of the storm. That's how winter can be...unpredictable, relentless, vicious, and well....heartless. No respecter of persons or landscape this sometimes wicked and cruel season is.
The contrast of these seasons help me to reflect on my journey in life. I lived a harsh winter when I was in the grip of alcohol abuse. Those were dark, cold nights that went on forever. They were unpredictable...sometimes I would have a few belts and be done, sometimes I got hit with a blizzard of one after another....waking up the next morning wondering what happened the night before and questioning who I hurt during the white-out. There were many I hurt while enduring that season of winter in my life. Those who wanted to help were pushed away. I wanted to be left alone in my cocoon with my bottle....hibernating away from the world around me.....and I felt alone. Nobody really cared, nobody understood.....I floated in an icy river of self-pity and shame. I felt winter had come to stay. I felt I would die in its grip and I felt I deserved nothing more than death. My winter, the hell and cruelty of it, was that there would never ever be any spring and I would never spend a day in the warmth of the sun again. I was buried under an avalanche of hopelessness.
But I didn't die. And while I hurt many, there were still those who never left, never quit believing, and never stopped praying that my winter would turn to spring. At my ugliest, they held on in faith that the God, who they knew was bigger than my drinking affliction, could and would melt away winters' choke hold on my life and resurrect me to a newness of life found only in spring. That transition came through a series of incidents both negative and positive. Painful this transition. Spring didn't suddenly appear for me like it does in the part of the country I live. Where I live it seems there's winter snow on the ground one day and the blooms of spring the next day. Spring comes suddenly here....but not for me. Spring came slowly, in spurts, but it built steam and force with each little burst.
The hardest part was coming to terms with my responsibility for my own winter, admitting I created it and admitting it was my choice to live there. I had spent so much time blaming others and life circumstances for the winter in my life it took awhile for me to realize it was all me, and only me. I think many like me do the same. Who truly thinks it natural to take sole responsibility for the darkness of their self-inflicted winter? That first confession though started the process of spring overcoming my winter. Little by little color started replacing the brown, greys, and blackness in my life. The sun started shining brighter and clouds gave way to bluer skies. A step at a time, a day at a time. With each step and each day came more color. Shame started to give way to respect. Dying fell to the will to live. Hopelessness surrendered to a calm assurance that tomorrow would be different and worth living. Isolation died at the hands of needing others and wanting others around.....until finally I was able to step completely out and enjoy a full day in the life-giving warmth of a spring sun.
"Is it always spring?",you may ask. It isn't. I still fight to keep winter at bay. The difference is I choose to fight and I am doing what I need to make sure I am equipped to fight successfully. Those I hurt during my season of winter? Some have forgiven me completely, some haven't at all, and some sit watching to see if winter will return or if I will live consistently in spring. Regardless, I love them all. For now I will bask in the sun and revel in the colors God has brought back to my life. One aside, I think I enjoy this season of spring, this do-over in my life, after having fought for it and after having taken ownership of the winter I made for myself.
If your season is winter, regardless your addiction, affliction, habit, issue, or hurt....there is a spring for you ahead. It really is your choice what season you live in. Living in a season of spring is so much more satisfying. There are those who haven't left. Even if you feel alone, you're not. Take the "do-over" waiting for you and come with me for a full day in the sun of springtime!
Spring is like a "do-over". All the bright and beautiful colors and hues break forth in spring. Most of them carry on through the summer. Nature seems to celebrate the burning warmth of the sun in spring. All the colors that come out is its way of tanning I suppose. I almost envy that because I don't tan well, I just turn a darker shade of white when I attempt tanning. When I tan too long at one time, I go from white to lobster red in a blink. Lobster red is a bad look. My kids tan well. Thank God they got their pigmentation from their mother! Anyway....what was once dead and stripped bare becomes alive with activity and excitement. This resurrection, if you will, in nature affirms the tenacity of life in its fight to overcome death. And overcome it does!
All of humanity comes alive as well. We come out of our homes, condos, and apartments....our cocoons...and take flight in the freedom of warmer days and brighter skies. I don't know of anyone who ever got "cabin fever" in spring. That disease is usually epidemic in the dead and cold of winter. I like to observe how life outside seems to crescendo from us being trapped inside during winter, protected from the cold, sometimes bitterly cold, elements to venturing out on a warmer day to walk, or work in the yard, or play catch with our children, or whatever we do outside. A trickle at first, then days get consistently warmer and longer and more go outside to explore their freedom until it seems no one is inside anymore. That's the beauty of the coming of spring.
Winter on the other hand is just the opposite. It almost seems winter has no heart. It steals away the beauty of changing colors and the Indian summers we enjoy in fall and springs on us with a vengence. It pounces on us like an unseen mountain lion. No matter how we prepare for the harshness of winter, when it comes it is as if we didn't prepare enough. When it hits, it kills everything in sight like a nuclear explosion.
I love snow when its falling. It's beautiful really. I like how it quiets the earth, how it seems to make everything still. But there is an ugly and nasty side to snow that has fallen. We have to plow it away from our sidewalks and driveways so we can maneuver in and through it. We have to clear it from our vehicles so we can travel to work or the local market. Work crews contaminate the roadways with salt and sand in order to melt it away. Snow melts and turns to slush, slush sticks and freezes to our fender wells and builds to the point it rubs against the tires. Regardless of the color of your vehicle, chances are your vehicle endures a layer of brown, salty yuck throughout significant periods of winters' grip.
I survived a blizzard this past season. Drifts as high as the eaves of the roofs of my apartment complex in some places. We were all trapped in our caves for days in the aftermath. Thank God I went to the grocery store just before the onslaught of the storm. That's how winter can be...unpredictable, relentless, vicious, and well....heartless. No respecter of persons or landscape this sometimes wicked and cruel season is.
The contrast of these seasons help me to reflect on my journey in life. I lived a harsh winter when I was in the grip of alcohol abuse. Those were dark, cold nights that went on forever. They were unpredictable...sometimes I would have a few belts and be done, sometimes I got hit with a blizzard of one after another....waking up the next morning wondering what happened the night before and questioning who I hurt during the white-out. There were many I hurt while enduring that season of winter in my life. Those who wanted to help were pushed away. I wanted to be left alone in my cocoon with my bottle....hibernating away from the world around me.....and I felt alone. Nobody really cared, nobody understood.....I floated in an icy river of self-pity and shame. I felt winter had come to stay. I felt I would die in its grip and I felt I deserved nothing more than death. My winter, the hell and cruelty of it, was that there would never ever be any spring and I would never spend a day in the warmth of the sun again. I was buried under an avalanche of hopelessness.
But I didn't die. And while I hurt many, there were still those who never left, never quit believing, and never stopped praying that my winter would turn to spring. At my ugliest, they held on in faith that the God, who they knew was bigger than my drinking affliction, could and would melt away winters' choke hold on my life and resurrect me to a newness of life found only in spring. That transition came through a series of incidents both negative and positive. Painful this transition. Spring didn't suddenly appear for me like it does in the part of the country I live. Where I live it seems there's winter snow on the ground one day and the blooms of spring the next day. Spring comes suddenly here....but not for me. Spring came slowly, in spurts, but it built steam and force with each little burst.
The hardest part was coming to terms with my responsibility for my own winter, admitting I created it and admitting it was my choice to live there. I had spent so much time blaming others and life circumstances for the winter in my life it took awhile for me to realize it was all me, and only me. I think many like me do the same. Who truly thinks it natural to take sole responsibility for the darkness of their self-inflicted winter? That first confession though started the process of spring overcoming my winter. Little by little color started replacing the brown, greys, and blackness in my life. The sun started shining brighter and clouds gave way to bluer skies. A step at a time, a day at a time. With each step and each day came more color. Shame started to give way to respect. Dying fell to the will to live. Hopelessness surrendered to a calm assurance that tomorrow would be different and worth living. Isolation died at the hands of needing others and wanting others around.....until finally I was able to step completely out and enjoy a full day in the life-giving warmth of a spring sun.
"Is it always spring?",you may ask. It isn't. I still fight to keep winter at bay. The difference is I choose to fight and I am doing what I need to make sure I am equipped to fight successfully. Those I hurt during my season of winter? Some have forgiven me completely, some haven't at all, and some sit watching to see if winter will return or if I will live consistently in spring. Regardless, I love them all. For now I will bask in the sun and revel in the colors God has brought back to my life. One aside, I think I enjoy this season of spring, this do-over in my life, after having fought for it and after having taken ownership of the winter I made for myself.
If your season is winter, regardless your addiction, affliction, habit, issue, or hurt....there is a spring for you ahead. It really is your choice what season you live in. Living in a season of spring is so much more satisfying. There are those who haven't left. Even if you feel alone, you're not. Take the "do-over" waiting for you and come with me for a full day in the sun of springtime!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Living a Less Than Life
I recently viewed a movie about a man who traveled the country holding seminars on grief and the grief process. He helped other people navigate through their grief positively and successfully. His seminars developed on the heels of a book he'd written based on the subject. It was a national best seller. He was a popular author and much in demand. He wrote the book from his own experiences as a result of losing his wife in a fatal car accident.
I bought this movie for $9.99 plus tax. I thought it was going to be a romantic comedy. After all Jennifer Aniston starred in it. She doesn't do anything but comedy and the television show Friends right? I was expecting witty dialogue that made you laugh out loud, comedic tension between the two main characters (hereafter, Burke and Eloise), and the effect on others their relationship impacted. I was expecting to see myself in the movie....mostly due to the fact that some of my romances from the past played like comedies....or rather I should say, played like tragic comedies. Initially I simply thought my better half would enjoy it....I'm more an action movie guy myself....so I got the movie.
The plot was much more dramatic than comedic, much to my surprise and initial disappointment. I immediately apologized to my significant other and offered an optional viewing of Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. She declined that option....still trying to figure out why.
The subject I thought was handled with gentleness and dignity. I mean it was about grieving the loss of a loved one. Not exactly a topic to make a romantic comedy of. The twist came when we realized that Burke, doing all these grief recovery seminars, was also still grieving his loss because he lied about one small detail of the incident. In his book and testimony in the seminars he shares that his wife was alone in the car and lost control when she tried to avoid hitting a dog standing in the middle of the road. The car slammed into a tree on the drivers' side killing her instantly. In actuality, he was driving the car, and it slammed into the tree on the passenger side. For years he blamed himself for her death. The irony was, while he was helping others heal, he hadn't experienced any healing for himself....he hadn't moved one step beyond the battered car and the broken body of his wife....due to the denial of this one specific fact. From that point forward he covered it up, lied about it, wrote a book about grief, went on a book tour, then a seminar tour and still carried that spec of denial with him. It haunted him like a spectre. And all his success couldn't fix him.
Denial is debilitating, it paralyzes....keeps us from moving forward, keeps us from coming clean. It keeps us stuck....in a rut.....of living a life we were never intended to live. It sticks us with a "less than life". Denial tells us what we want to hear and shields us from reality. I drank alcohol; denial told me I didn't have an alcohol problem....that I was fine, that I could hold my licquor, that nobody could even tell I was drinking when I did. Even when I lost jobs, relationships, respect, and driving privileges.... denial kept telling me I didn't have a drinking problem. I believed that. It was easier to believe I didn't have a drinking problem than it was to face it and fight it. Facing and fighting just seemed too strenuous and exhausting. I was stuck in a "less than life" and even denied that!
When my world shattered it was everyone's fault but my own. Denial, you see, will lull you into thinking your problems are because of someone else or something else. Denial is an expert at conning you into placing the responsibility for your issues, addictions, and faults on circumstances or people. "If it weren't for the promotion I didn't get...", "if my wife hadn't left me....".......these are the kinds of things denial teaches us to say. And we stay stuck in that "less than life".
I didn't want to live a "less than life". I hated living at that address. In the deepest part of me I knew the truth, I just didn't want anyone else to. My problem was a shameful one. I was ashamed every time I drank to drunkeness. I buried that shame and kept on drinking. I was afraid of coming clean, of confessing my problem. I just wanted to keep it to myself. I did this mostly because I feared what everyone else would think of me. It was like I was living two separate lives or something. The fact is everyone around me already knew. Isn't that a pip? They already knew! My children knew, my parents knew, my siblings knew, my co-workers knew, my friends knew, and even people I went to church with knew. I was the only one who didn't think anyone else knew. Denial is a very strong deceiver.
Denial went out of its way to keep me from coming clean...convinced me that coming clean would be much harder than drinking. Denial also lies. After a horrible incident with one of my children, happened when I was drunk of course, and with strong encouragement from my best friend, I came clean. I admitted my problem, that I needed help. In that confession the weight of the world fell from my shoulders. We make confession out to be the bad guy. You know, like when we confess something we've done that isn't positive; we think everyone is gonna walk out of our lives and we will be alone to face the music of our mistakes. I am finding most people walk away from us when we deny our problem and continue to live at the address of a "less than life." They walk away because they are exhausted from trying to show us and help us through the problem we swear we don't have. When I confessed my problem and started getting help, God surrounded me with a host of people, angels, that brought encouragement and friendship. They drove the U-Haul to my address of a "less than life" and helped me pack up and move to the right side of the tracks.....to the address of "the life God intended me to live". I like living there. The sky is bluer, the air is fresher, and the lawn is greener. It isn't always utopia, but it is living in the Land of Oz compared to that "less than life".
"What about Burke in the movie?", you ask. "What happened to him?" Well, he met a girl, Eloise. She had a way of making him look at his reality of denial, of seeing into the parts of him he made unavailable and that were dark.....and she stayed, like true friends do, as he struggled to come clean. He did, publicly, at one of his seminars. It was his beginning in freedom. He kisses the girl at the end...... coming clean you see, sets you free to move forward with your life...and you get to kiss the girl. Happy endings always make me cry!
We have choices, we always have choices in life. If you are in denial and deep inside you know it, as I did....come clean....it will free you to see your tomorrows differently and you'll be amazed to find that many in your world are praying to come alongside you and help you move to the right side of the tracks to "the life God intended you to live."
I bought this movie for $9.99 plus tax. I thought it was going to be a romantic comedy. After all Jennifer Aniston starred in it. She doesn't do anything but comedy and the television show Friends right? I was expecting witty dialogue that made you laugh out loud, comedic tension between the two main characters (hereafter, Burke and Eloise), and the effect on others their relationship impacted. I was expecting to see myself in the movie....mostly due to the fact that some of my romances from the past played like comedies....or rather I should say, played like tragic comedies. Initially I simply thought my better half would enjoy it....I'm more an action movie guy myself....so I got the movie.
The plot was much more dramatic than comedic, much to my surprise and initial disappointment. I immediately apologized to my significant other and offered an optional viewing of Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. She declined that option....still trying to figure out why.
The subject I thought was handled with gentleness and dignity. I mean it was about grieving the loss of a loved one. Not exactly a topic to make a romantic comedy of. The twist came when we realized that Burke, doing all these grief recovery seminars, was also still grieving his loss because he lied about one small detail of the incident. In his book and testimony in the seminars he shares that his wife was alone in the car and lost control when she tried to avoid hitting a dog standing in the middle of the road. The car slammed into a tree on the drivers' side killing her instantly. In actuality, he was driving the car, and it slammed into the tree on the passenger side. For years he blamed himself for her death. The irony was, while he was helping others heal, he hadn't experienced any healing for himself....he hadn't moved one step beyond the battered car and the broken body of his wife....due to the denial of this one specific fact. From that point forward he covered it up, lied about it, wrote a book about grief, went on a book tour, then a seminar tour and still carried that spec of denial with him. It haunted him like a spectre. And all his success couldn't fix him.
Denial is debilitating, it paralyzes....keeps us from moving forward, keeps us from coming clean. It keeps us stuck....in a rut.....of living a life we were never intended to live. It sticks us with a "less than life". Denial tells us what we want to hear and shields us from reality. I drank alcohol; denial told me I didn't have an alcohol problem....that I was fine, that I could hold my licquor, that nobody could even tell I was drinking when I did. Even when I lost jobs, relationships, respect, and driving privileges.... denial kept telling me I didn't have a drinking problem. I believed that. It was easier to believe I didn't have a drinking problem than it was to face it and fight it. Facing and fighting just seemed too strenuous and exhausting. I was stuck in a "less than life" and even denied that!
When my world shattered it was everyone's fault but my own. Denial, you see, will lull you into thinking your problems are because of someone else or something else. Denial is an expert at conning you into placing the responsibility for your issues, addictions, and faults on circumstances or people. "If it weren't for the promotion I didn't get...", "if my wife hadn't left me....".......these are the kinds of things denial teaches us to say. And we stay stuck in that "less than life".
I didn't want to live a "less than life". I hated living at that address. In the deepest part of me I knew the truth, I just didn't want anyone else to. My problem was a shameful one. I was ashamed every time I drank to drunkeness. I buried that shame and kept on drinking. I was afraid of coming clean, of confessing my problem. I just wanted to keep it to myself. I did this mostly because I feared what everyone else would think of me. It was like I was living two separate lives or something. The fact is everyone around me already knew. Isn't that a pip? They already knew! My children knew, my parents knew, my siblings knew, my co-workers knew, my friends knew, and even people I went to church with knew. I was the only one who didn't think anyone else knew. Denial is a very strong deceiver.
Denial went out of its way to keep me from coming clean...convinced me that coming clean would be much harder than drinking. Denial also lies. After a horrible incident with one of my children, happened when I was drunk of course, and with strong encouragement from my best friend, I came clean. I admitted my problem, that I needed help. In that confession the weight of the world fell from my shoulders. We make confession out to be the bad guy. You know, like when we confess something we've done that isn't positive; we think everyone is gonna walk out of our lives and we will be alone to face the music of our mistakes. I am finding most people walk away from us when we deny our problem and continue to live at the address of a "less than life." They walk away because they are exhausted from trying to show us and help us through the problem we swear we don't have. When I confessed my problem and started getting help, God surrounded me with a host of people, angels, that brought encouragement and friendship. They drove the U-Haul to my address of a "less than life" and helped me pack up and move to the right side of the tracks.....to the address of "the life God intended me to live". I like living there. The sky is bluer, the air is fresher, and the lawn is greener. It isn't always utopia, but it is living in the Land of Oz compared to that "less than life".
"What about Burke in the movie?", you ask. "What happened to him?" Well, he met a girl, Eloise. She had a way of making him look at his reality of denial, of seeing into the parts of him he made unavailable and that were dark.....and she stayed, like true friends do, as he struggled to come clean. He did, publicly, at one of his seminars. It was his beginning in freedom. He kisses the girl at the end...... coming clean you see, sets you free to move forward with your life...and you get to kiss the girl. Happy endings always make me cry!
We have choices, we always have choices in life. If you are in denial and deep inside you know it, as I did....come clean....it will free you to see your tomorrows differently and you'll be amazed to find that many in your world are praying to come alongside you and help you move to the right side of the tracks to "the life God intended you to live."
Sunday, March 21, 2010
You've Got a Friend
"There are "friends" who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother." -Proverbs 18:24 NLT
I have always been a huge follower of James Taylor. To this day I still get lost in all of the work he recorded decades ago. In 1971 he released an album,..... (yes....they were actual albums (vinyl) back then, real discs, huge discs requiring a turntable to play)....., entitled Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. It was the first James Taylor album I ever purchased. On that album was the song, You've Got a Friend. It swept the nation. A simple melody with endearing lyrics and sung in Taylor's laid back, easy-going, unforgettable style. You felt he was actually singing the song to you and if you had trouble and his phone number, you could call him up and he'd be right over!
I was in the 7th or 8th grade when that song released. I was also discovering and developing a singing style of my own. I loved that song and wanted to sing it so badly....but I wanted more importantly my voice to sound like James Taylor when I did. Sadly, my young voice was probably at least 2 octaves higher and I would have sounded more like Carole King, who actually wrote the song, than James Taylor. I didn't want to sound like Carole King singing, so I never sang You've Got a Friend....ever....well, maybe in the shower or my car, but never in front of an audience.
I think about what that song says and it actually reflects the central meaning of Proverbs 18:24... ..."There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother". The first part of 18:24 speaks of so called "friends" who dawn the mask of pretense. They appear to be "friends" but really aren't at all. When the party is on they are there with their arms around you, especially if you're the one buying. Such "friends" usually seek to take what they can get from you, not what they can do for you. Their pretentious masks are deceiving. They prey on the knowledge that as humans we all want and desire friendship, it truly is one of our basic needs. They will do what they can to take advantage of that before they are found out. They lull us to the point of complete trust and after we are spent, and there's nothing left to give, they disappear under the cover of night and we don't even know they're gone until the sun rises.
I look at the last part of 18:24, the main thought of the verse, and ask," How does one determine the false friend from the true friend?" My only answer is this: real friends can be discovered by how they respond when our circumstances are less than positive. When my world is caving in, falling apart, shattered, when all hell is breaking loose in my life.....real friends show up, they stand with me, sit with me, pick me up when I've fallen, clean me up when I'm dirty. They feed me if I'm hungry, pour in the oil and the wine of healing when I'm sick, encourage me when I'm so depressed the only thing I look forward to is death. Regardless of how adverse the circumstances in my life or how ugly my life has become, real friends stay...they don't run away....they stay.
My best friend, (I will call The One Who Should Have Always Been) has been with me when my circumstances were dismal, hopeless.... she has seen loved ones and others walk out of my life because of the ugliness of it....and yet has stayed. At my very worst and lowest, The One Who Should Have Always Been has done nothing but love without the expectation of anything in return. She believed in me when no one else would, when no one else could. She poured her life into mine when it seemed I had no life at all. She looked beneath that turbulent layer of my life and saw a heart that beat for God....just like God! That's what best friends do....they see beyond the crap and focus on the real in your life, the good in your life, and they stay! She has become my significant other, a rock, a shelter where I can run and find acceptance, peace, and rest. Forever grateful to a merciful God I am for her!
I am also re-discovering friends from days gone by. I am remembering the bond then and finding that bond is still as strong today. Decades have passed and it amazes me how you can just pick up where you left off with a true friend. I know now that it has to be a God thing. I am facing uncertainty because of a layoff from work in February. About that same time I started re-connecting with these old friends....they were coming at me out of nowhere on facebook and I wondered why. It strangely makes sense in one way.....at the point where I was in need of a word of encouragement, where I needed significant someones to stand with me, pray for me, hold me up....God started bringing them in. It was like he was sending angels to minister to me. These are friends who, if I called, would come running...... just like James Taylor...if I had his phone number.
The sidebar here is I have been less consumed with and grinding my teeth to powder over finding a job. The encouragement I have received from these significant others has made me realize I don't go it alone. They are there walking with me and they will see to it I come through. That's what true friends do, they get you through. I am discovering how rich I truly am. I am grateful. I have true friends, real friends, and there are a host of them.
To all my true friends, old and new, thank you for selflessly pouring your life into mine, for making a bumpy trail smooth, for making me laugh when it would be so easy to cry, for pushing me forward when it would be so easy to quit. Thank you for believing in me! Thank you for not giving up on me!! May God find me as faithful a friend to you as you have been and continue to be to me. To you all, I love you!
I have always been a huge follower of James Taylor. To this day I still get lost in all of the work he recorded decades ago. In 1971 he released an album,..... (yes....they were actual albums (vinyl) back then, real discs, huge discs requiring a turntable to play)....., entitled Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. It was the first James Taylor album I ever purchased. On that album was the song, You've Got a Friend. It swept the nation. A simple melody with endearing lyrics and sung in Taylor's laid back, easy-going, unforgettable style. You felt he was actually singing the song to you and if you had trouble and his phone number, you could call him up and he'd be right over!
I was in the 7th or 8th grade when that song released. I was also discovering and developing a singing style of my own. I loved that song and wanted to sing it so badly....but I wanted more importantly my voice to sound like James Taylor when I did. Sadly, my young voice was probably at least 2 octaves higher and I would have sounded more like Carole King, who actually wrote the song, than James Taylor. I didn't want to sound like Carole King singing, so I never sang You've Got a Friend....ever....well, maybe in the shower or my car, but never in front of an audience.
I think about what that song says and it actually reflects the central meaning of Proverbs 18:24... ..."There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother". The first part of 18:24 speaks of so called "friends" who dawn the mask of pretense. They appear to be "friends" but really aren't at all. When the party is on they are there with their arms around you, especially if you're the one buying. Such "friends" usually seek to take what they can get from you, not what they can do for you. Their pretentious masks are deceiving. They prey on the knowledge that as humans we all want and desire friendship, it truly is one of our basic needs. They will do what they can to take advantage of that before they are found out. They lull us to the point of complete trust and after we are spent, and there's nothing left to give, they disappear under the cover of night and we don't even know they're gone until the sun rises.
I look at the last part of 18:24, the main thought of the verse, and ask," How does one determine the false friend from the true friend?" My only answer is this: real friends can be discovered by how they respond when our circumstances are less than positive. When my world is caving in, falling apart, shattered, when all hell is breaking loose in my life.....real friends show up, they stand with me, sit with me, pick me up when I've fallen, clean me up when I'm dirty. They feed me if I'm hungry, pour in the oil and the wine of healing when I'm sick, encourage me when I'm so depressed the only thing I look forward to is death. Regardless of how adverse the circumstances in my life or how ugly my life has become, real friends stay...they don't run away....they stay.
My best friend, (I will call The One Who Should Have Always Been) has been with me when my circumstances were dismal, hopeless.... she has seen loved ones and others walk out of my life because of the ugliness of it....and yet has stayed. At my very worst and lowest, The One Who Should Have Always Been has done nothing but love without the expectation of anything in return. She believed in me when no one else would, when no one else could. She poured her life into mine when it seemed I had no life at all. She looked beneath that turbulent layer of my life and saw a heart that beat for God....just like God! That's what best friends do....they see beyond the crap and focus on the real in your life, the good in your life, and they stay! She has become my significant other, a rock, a shelter where I can run and find acceptance, peace, and rest. Forever grateful to a merciful God I am for her!
I am also re-discovering friends from days gone by. I am remembering the bond then and finding that bond is still as strong today. Decades have passed and it amazes me how you can just pick up where you left off with a true friend. I know now that it has to be a God thing. I am facing uncertainty because of a layoff from work in February. About that same time I started re-connecting with these old friends....they were coming at me out of nowhere on facebook and I wondered why. It strangely makes sense in one way.....at the point where I was in need of a word of encouragement, where I needed significant someones to stand with me, pray for me, hold me up....God started bringing them in. It was like he was sending angels to minister to me. These are friends who, if I called, would come running...... just like James Taylor...if I had his phone number.
The sidebar here is I have been less consumed with and grinding my teeth to powder over finding a job. The encouragement I have received from these significant others has made me realize I don't go it alone. They are there walking with me and they will see to it I come through. That's what true friends do, they get you through. I am discovering how rich I truly am. I am grateful. I have true friends, real friends, and there are a host of them.
To all my true friends, old and new, thank you for selflessly pouring your life into mine, for making a bumpy trail smooth, for making me laugh when it would be so easy to cry, for pushing me forward when it would be so easy to quit. Thank you for believing in me! Thank you for not giving up on me!! May God find me as faithful a friend to you as you have been and continue to be to me. To you all, I love you!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Getting Stuck in Dreams
I am a writer. At least I think I am. This blog is where I have an opportunity to express myself about the things I'm passionate for. I think I am a writer because I love to write,(good or bad, if it's written...the person writing it is a writer). However, sometimes when I look back on some of the articles here, I see nothing but crap...."Who would want to read this?", I ask myself. "What end of the crack pipe were you smoking Skaggs when you typed that jewel?!" I have been told my random thinking is a plus in the expression of what concerns me. Sometimes my randomness is too random even for me...it's those crap articles I delete so some poor soul won't have to endure a bad read and waste 10 minutes of his life......I mean, taking a trip on LSD and seeing a purple rabbit riding a unicycle through a maze of rainbow colored mushrooms makes more since than some of the fiasco ramblings I've posted here!! Nonetheless, I'm a writer!
One of my fav authors, Donald Miller, talks about being a writer. He makes the point that a writer doesn't have to experience anything in real life in order to write a story. A writer can create a story in his or her head and pen it without actually experiencing what he or she is writing about. Why? Because writers, for the most part, are dreamers and anything dreamed of can be written about. How well it's written determines whether there will be a paycheck for the effort.
I am a dreamer. I have always been a dreamer. I can create all kinds of worlds in my head. Oddly, I've never written about any of them. I've just dreamed them. Nothing wrong with dreaming in and of itself. Dreams are often the springboard toward achieving greatness. Would we be able to fly across the entire world to any point of destination imaginable had Orville and Wilbur Wright not dreamed of flight to start with? Would we still burn candles today had Edison not dreamed of light made through the channel of electricity? Would we enjoy the comfort of staying warm and covered up while still being able to handle the remote control or drink a can of Coke had that guy not thought of a blanket with arms?.....hence the Snuggie. Personally, I've dreamed of creating a breathable trashbag so every time you throw trash in, you don't have to bleed the air out that collects between the bag and the can....or does such a trashbag already exist? Dreams can be good and positive and can end in beneficial realities. The advancements in technology, medicine, transportation, and the better quality of life we enjoy today all started with a dream.
The dark side is that dreams can be debilitating in that they can keep us from engaging in the real life God created around us to live. Living life to the fullest means for me to be actively involved in and aware of what is going on in my world. Circumstances, whether they are positive or less than positive, keep us alive, moving,...in action. These real life circumstances keep us from becoming stagnant and placid. Navigating successfully and courageously through the circumstances of life is, in part, what puts the exclamation point on living.
Sometimes the dreamer gets stuck in the dream and never moves out of it. I know from personal experience what it is like to get stuck in a dream. Getting stuck and staying there becomes an escape in dealing with reality. Life is tough and the world is cruel. Living in a dream where there is always a happy ending is so much more attractive than dealing with the harsh reality of a less than mediocre life. I thought I had a less than mediocre life..... so I dreamed up worlds where I was always the hero, the man most respected, most successful, most loved, most likely to win an Oscar and I'm not even a professional actor. I am more of what you might call a character. Some would say I'm just a mess.
Eventually being stuck in dreams led to being stuck in a bottle. Dreaming wasn't enough to escape my less than mediocre life....I needed the aid of numbing alcohol to keep my dreams in my head and keep them my realities. I disengaged from real life and with the help of alcohol, watched the loftiest of my dreams become nightmares. Circumstances were never positive, always negative. It took a long time for me to realize that these circumstances were mostly created by my own hand and the more I drank the worse the circumstances. I lost much, the most tragic of which were relationships to those I loved most. Boy! Was I ever stuck!
My turnaround came when I simply had no one but God to turn to and nowhere to look but up. In the lowest part of my ditch and in the middle of my worst nightmare, God through a significant other said, "Richard, you matter to me. I died for you. I want you to live not a less than mediocre life but an extraordinary one. Wake up! Engage in real life and live! Engage in the life I designed for you!"
Today I'm still a dreamer but I am living life also. If I dream of feeding the hungry around the world, my reality says I can go to the local soup kitchen and actually serve the hungry. This is, in a small way, what I mean by being a part of the bigger solution to feeding the hungry around the world. This is plugging in to the world around me and truly living. When I am involved in the reality around me and partaking of my role in it rather than escaping in some lofty dream....I truly am alive. This kind of life keeps me from imploding and drowning in a bottle.
Many today are stuck in dreams (nightmares) and drowning in a bottle or drugs or depression or whatever affliction. They are not living the extraordinary life God designed for them. They need help, love, understanding, a word of encouragement, a push to move them to real living. They need people like you and I.
I don't know how it is with you.....but like a phrase from one of my favorite songs says...."I wanna spend the rest of my life alive!"
One of my fav authors, Donald Miller, talks about being a writer. He makes the point that a writer doesn't have to experience anything in real life in order to write a story. A writer can create a story in his or her head and pen it without actually experiencing what he or she is writing about. Why? Because writers, for the most part, are dreamers and anything dreamed of can be written about. How well it's written determines whether there will be a paycheck for the effort.
I am a dreamer. I have always been a dreamer. I can create all kinds of worlds in my head. Oddly, I've never written about any of them. I've just dreamed them. Nothing wrong with dreaming in and of itself. Dreams are often the springboard toward achieving greatness. Would we be able to fly across the entire world to any point of destination imaginable had Orville and Wilbur Wright not dreamed of flight to start with? Would we still burn candles today had Edison not dreamed of light made through the channel of electricity? Would we enjoy the comfort of staying warm and covered up while still being able to handle the remote control or drink a can of Coke had that guy not thought of a blanket with arms?.....hence the Snuggie. Personally, I've dreamed of creating a breathable trashbag so every time you throw trash in, you don't have to bleed the air out that collects between the bag and the can....or does such a trashbag already exist? Dreams can be good and positive and can end in beneficial realities. The advancements in technology, medicine, transportation, and the better quality of life we enjoy today all started with a dream.
The dark side is that dreams can be debilitating in that they can keep us from engaging in the real life God created around us to live. Living life to the fullest means for me to be actively involved in and aware of what is going on in my world. Circumstances, whether they are positive or less than positive, keep us alive, moving,...in action. These real life circumstances keep us from becoming stagnant and placid. Navigating successfully and courageously through the circumstances of life is, in part, what puts the exclamation point on living.
Sometimes the dreamer gets stuck in the dream and never moves out of it. I know from personal experience what it is like to get stuck in a dream. Getting stuck and staying there becomes an escape in dealing with reality. Life is tough and the world is cruel. Living in a dream where there is always a happy ending is so much more attractive than dealing with the harsh reality of a less than mediocre life. I thought I had a less than mediocre life..... so I dreamed up worlds where I was always the hero, the man most respected, most successful, most loved, most likely to win an Oscar and I'm not even a professional actor. I am more of what you might call a character. Some would say I'm just a mess.
Eventually being stuck in dreams led to being stuck in a bottle. Dreaming wasn't enough to escape my less than mediocre life....I needed the aid of numbing alcohol to keep my dreams in my head and keep them my realities. I disengaged from real life and with the help of alcohol, watched the loftiest of my dreams become nightmares. Circumstances were never positive, always negative. It took a long time for me to realize that these circumstances were mostly created by my own hand and the more I drank the worse the circumstances. I lost much, the most tragic of which were relationships to those I loved most. Boy! Was I ever stuck!
My turnaround came when I simply had no one but God to turn to and nowhere to look but up. In the lowest part of my ditch and in the middle of my worst nightmare, God through a significant other said, "Richard, you matter to me. I died for you. I want you to live not a less than mediocre life but an extraordinary one. Wake up! Engage in real life and live! Engage in the life I designed for you!"
Today I'm still a dreamer but I am living life also. If I dream of feeding the hungry around the world, my reality says I can go to the local soup kitchen and actually serve the hungry. This is, in a small way, what I mean by being a part of the bigger solution to feeding the hungry around the world. This is plugging in to the world around me and truly living. When I am involved in the reality around me and partaking of my role in it rather than escaping in some lofty dream....I truly am alive. This kind of life keeps me from imploding and drowning in a bottle.
Many today are stuck in dreams (nightmares) and drowning in a bottle or drugs or depression or whatever affliction. They are not living the extraordinary life God designed for them. They need help, love, understanding, a word of encouragement, a push to move them to real living. They need people like you and I.
I don't know how it is with you.....but like a phrase from one of my favorite songs says...."I wanna spend the rest of my life alive!"
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Angels and Demons
I usually write with some humor mixed in to make the topic lighter, this topic is not funny. Pray for those afflicted and help those crying out:
It is a truth that most of us have issues of one kind or another. Some of those issues are not major and we go on with life fairly happily and content in spite of them because they aren't debilitating. Other issues we have may be monstrous afflictions that cause life to come to a screeching halt for a time until some recovery and peace can be accomplished. These I would call demons that beset us and several of us have them. For those that say they have no issues or demons at all, I would suggest they, at very least, suffer from the issue of denial. For those to admit to have them is to also admit the need for help.....when the honest admission for help is acknowledged, true recovery and healing can begin. I would say just about every human on the planet deals with an issue or demon in one form or another whether it is an issue of a loose tongue and gossip or the demon of drug addiction.
I believe most of us want to be whole and healthy. We want to live productive and successful lives. We want purpose, love, joy, happiness, fulfilling relationships, and peace within ourselves and with others. I have yet to meet a person who confessed they started out in life to become a failure and outcast...that this was their goal and ambition from the beginning. Most of us have lofty dreams....some of us achieve them and some of us don't. Some of us just get by, we just go through life and our insides yearn of something more.
One demon in particular afflicts millions of people around the world. A demon I am personally well acquainted with. This demon is alcohol. He, once in his grip, will steal your integrity, your honesty, your sense of humor, your laughter, your hope, your ambition, your friends, your finances, your family, and your health, to name a few. He will eventually steal your life if he can. He will convince you he can help you cope when life situations are harsh, and he will convince you that he will help the celebration be livelier when life situations are happy and achievements are made. He lies, he always lies. All he does is take and he leaves us empty and alone. We become embarrassments to our spouses, our children, our families, our friends. We are ashamed because of his grip on our lives and we become a shame to those around us. We feel misunderstood and incapable of seeing our lives as anything different than it has become. We lose jobs, marriages, houses, and some of us become acquainted with the inside of a jail cell. This demon is cruel, ruthless, and seeks only to destroy our lives and the ones we love. The road to forgiveness and restoration of relationships with those we've hurt is a long, rocky trail with many winding turns. Sadly, some of those relationships are never restored no matter how badly we want them to be....but....the story doesn't end here.
No matter how far the fall from grace with people, we never fall from the grace of God. He loves us no matter what we do. I heard a definition of God's grace once and it stuck: " There's nothing you can do to make God love you more and there's nothing you can do to make God love you less....He just loves you, He can't help Himself." That should give us afflicted ones hope. In His grace He strategically places angels in our lives who reach out to help us when we are at the lowest points in our lives, in our deepest ditch. They may be family members who never stop believing in us, who won't let go, who see the real "us" deep within the turbulence we have created for ourselves. They may be faithful wives or husbands who stand with us even when the storm is blowing hardest and all hell is breaking loose. Perhaps a pastor or a friend, who when all the other friends have left...stays..... and pours in the oil and the wine of encouragement. It could be the testimony of a fellow struggler who is winning the fight and moving on to achieving the lofty dreams he or she dreamed as a child.
For me it was my best friend who told me she wouldn't leave me, she wouldn't give up on me no matter if everyone in my life did....Someone understood me and accepted me and loved me right where I was. It was freeing. With the power of just a few words of encouragement, I knew tomorrow was going to be different. My tomorrow's have been different since. I got my hope back, my vision back. I knew God wasn't finished with me, His plan for me hadn't been ruin by the attack of this monster on my life. If He would flood such hope in me, He will do the same for my fellow strugglers'. His plan is simple: He wants us to overcome every day, He wants us to win every day. Why can we do that? Because He has overcome the world and all that is in it. I in faith stand on that one day at a time!
To those who read and are acquainted with this demon, I pray you find encouragement in this article, I pray that perhaps God can use this to flood your life with hope and vision. I love you that struggle in a very heartfelt way....because I too struggle....don't give up the fight. I stand with you, along side you....always.
It is a truth that most of us have issues of one kind or another. Some of those issues are not major and we go on with life fairly happily and content in spite of them because they aren't debilitating. Other issues we have may be monstrous afflictions that cause life to come to a screeching halt for a time until some recovery and peace can be accomplished. These I would call demons that beset us and several of us have them. For those that say they have no issues or demons at all, I would suggest they, at very least, suffer from the issue of denial. For those to admit to have them is to also admit the need for help.....when the honest admission for help is acknowledged, true recovery and healing can begin. I would say just about every human on the planet deals with an issue or demon in one form or another whether it is an issue of a loose tongue and gossip or the demon of drug addiction.
I believe most of us want to be whole and healthy. We want to live productive and successful lives. We want purpose, love, joy, happiness, fulfilling relationships, and peace within ourselves and with others. I have yet to meet a person who confessed they started out in life to become a failure and outcast...that this was their goal and ambition from the beginning. Most of us have lofty dreams....some of us achieve them and some of us don't. Some of us just get by, we just go through life and our insides yearn of something more.
One demon in particular afflicts millions of people around the world. A demon I am personally well acquainted with. This demon is alcohol. He, once in his grip, will steal your integrity, your honesty, your sense of humor, your laughter, your hope, your ambition, your friends, your finances, your family, and your health, to name a few. He will eventually steal your life if he can. He will convince you he can help you cope when life situations are harsh, and he will convince you that he will help the celebration be livelier when life situations are happy and achievements are made. He lies, he always lies. All he does is take and he leaves us empty and alone. We become embarrassments to our spouses, our children, our families, our friends. We are ashamed because of his grip on our lives and we become a shame to those around us. We feel misunderstood and incapable of seeing our lives as anything different than it has become. We lose jobs, marriages, houses, and some of us become acquainted with the inside of a jail cell. This demon is cruel, ruthless, and seeks only to destroy our lives and the ones we love. The road to forgiveness and restoration of relationships with those we've hurt is a long, rocky trail with many winding turns. Sadly, some of those relationships are never restored no matter how badly we want them to be....but....the story doesn't end here.
No matter how far the fall from grace with people, we never fall from the grace of God. He loves us no matter what we do. I heard a definition of God's grace once and it stuck: " There's nothing you can do to make God love you more and there's nothing you can do to make God love you less....He just loves you, He can't help Himself." That should give us afflicted ones hope. In His grace He strategically places angels in our lives who reach out to help us when we are at the lowest points in our lives, in our deepest ditch. They may be family members who never stop believing in us, who won't let go, who see the real "us" deep within the turbulence we have created for ourselves. They may be faithful wives or husbands who stand with us even when the storm is blowing hardest and all hell is breaking loose. Perhaps a pastor or a friend, who when all the other friends have left...stays..... and pours in the oil and the wine of encouragement. It could be the testimony of a fellow struggler who is winning the fight and moving on to achieving the lofty dreams he or she dreamed as a child.
For me it was my best friend who told me she wouldn't leave me, she wouldn't give up on me no matter if everyone in my life did....Someone understood me and accepted me and loved me right where I was. It was freeing. With the power of just a few words of encouragement, I knew tomorrow was going to be different. My tomorrow's have been different since. I got my hope back, my vision back. I knew God wasn't finished with me, His plan for me hadn't been ruin by the attack of this monster on my life. If He would flood such hope in me, He will do the same for my fellow strugglers'. His plan is simple: He wants us to overcome every day, He wants us to win every day. Why can we do that? Because He has overcome the world and all that is in it. I in faith stand on that one day at a time!
To those who read and are acquainted with this demon, I pray you find encouragement in this article, I pray that perhaps God can use this to flood your life with hope and vision. I love you that struggle in a very heartfelt way....because I too struggle....don't give up the fight. I stand with you, along side you....always.
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