Last minute

Oh my, another busy week, but this time we got some good things done. First off, we sold the other house. We are now down to one mortgage. I waited all week for the other shoe to drop and something to go wrong. I felt like nothing would go bad but I kept expecting one more hurdle to appear. Closing was at 10 o’clock Friday and I needed to leave work at about 9 so I could drive up to the house and pick up Angie and drive back to the closing. At 8:55 I get a cell phone call that is a number I don’t recognize. I answer it and it’s the title agency telling me that I need to call and get a payoff amount on the second mortgage and have them fax it to their office. I tell her I need to leave in 5 minutes to come to closing, she says without that number she cant close so call her back and then she’ll meet us there. Nothing like waiting till the last minute. So I call, get the number for her (why she didn’t do her own job I still don’t get) and call her back. After pressing “1” for English, “2” for service, entered my social security number, account number, birthday, and blood type, pressed “3” to speak to a person who would ask me for all of the above information again with the addition of my first pets name and mothers maiden name, and pressed “4” to signify that I haven’t lost my mind and hung up yet, finally I get a near human voice. I obtain the number and call the title agency back to let her know I have done her job and will most likely be late. She said that’s okay, she’ll be late too, oh joy. I was expecting the “semi-flaccid fecal projectile to reach terminal velocity as its vector attenuated towards the rotational device of vapor displacement causing indeterminate translocation of said fecal material into a polar arrayed pattern of stench.” In other words, I was expecting the *^%$ to hit the fan, and it turned out to be incredibly stupid, but not that big a deal. We closed and walked away with a little money, very little considering, but its done.
We also had some out of town company this week. Adam and Todd stayed the night with us on their way to Atlanta for the National Youth Workers Convention. It was nice to see both of them again. Adam was fun to watch because he was as nervous as a school kid getting ready to do his first oral book report on a book he only read cliff note on. That’s not to say he wasn’t prepared, but he was nervous. I think God has just really moved him outside his comfort zone, way outside. I like to see that because it’s the same thing He did to me. As an aside, both of these guys are from Michigan and were at the house before “the game”. They didn’t stop by on the way home. That was a shame.
In the way of a Gracie update, we got the Christmas card pictures done the weekend as well. She is becoming such a camera ham. I can just see her glow with pride and hear the song, “I feel pretty, oh so pretty” when she is the center of attention in front of the camera. I will post a link right here once I figure out what the link is.
Other news, check the Raising Lazarus fund, its growing, slowly, but growing.

"THE GAME"

It appears that Lloyd Carr has had enough and is scheduled to announce his retirement on Monday. As a Buckeye fan I hate to see him go because in the Tressel era, we have had his number all along. As a sports fan I hate to see him go because he is what college sports is all about, so as a gentlemen I say this. Coach, you will be missed. It has been an honor to watch you work regardless of the outcome of "The Game"

Go Bucks...........................................................................................

Cash Advance Loans

Apparently my blog is written at a level that my former Sunday School students can all understand it. This seems odd to me because absolutely none of them will read it. I dont know what that means exactly, but it is true. I did talk Lizzy B. into reading one of the sections but I know she hasn't been back, so , oh well. If you click on the badge you can enter the address of your blog or myspace etc and it will review yours for you as well. I think I might need to add some longer words with more syllables and pontificates more precisely my intentions in order to acclimate myself to a higher standard of readership. So, if you find verbiage in the future that seems verbose and persnickety, rest assured I am belaboring the words for the purely selfish purpose of increasing my score. Or the other thought is since the word "urinal" appears with ridiculous frequency, it may be the middle school humor that has the index stuck at this level.

Who's to know?

For now I will just wonder aimlessly down the contiguous infrastructure of existence.

Brian.

I would like you to meet Brian. I don't want to sound like Sally Struthers here so I am not going to beg or guilt you into doing anything. I want to introduce you to Brian and let you know what is going on so that if you choose to help, you may.

Brian is a youth worker, and has been for a while. He recently moved from the Midwest to Washington State to work on a boat. The boat happened to be operated by someone else who ministers to youth. Brian is married and I believe has children. Life was going along just fine and then something happened. He became very ill and was rushed to Seattle from his boat. They informed him his kidneys were shot and he needed a transplant, dialysis began immediately. Well he had a job and insurance, but that doesn't cut all of it, and its gonna be a while, like years, before he can work again. In the mean time, the finances are, well, lets just say its not a pretty sounding picture. Right now he is fighting for his life as well as fighting to maintain his family.

I have never met Brian in person, he is a member of YMX like me and we have chatted and debated and argued online about many things. What computer to buy, why liberals are better looking, why conservatives are smarter, we have discussed theology, economy and urinal habits together. I know Brian by the name Jespeachy.

So, what can we do?

First off, Brian is a youth minister and a Christian (duh). So what we can and should do first is pray for him. Pray for him, his family, and all of those who are challenged by this trial. Pray for healing, mending, guidance, strength, wisdom and the presents of God's hand on his life. Pray Gods will and His mercy.

Second, we can help him in a worldly way as well. At the top of the blog on the right hand side you will see something called the Raising Lazarus fund. Any money that is given through this connection from this blog goes straight to helping hurting youth workers. No administration fees, nothing. A dollar in a dollar out, period. Its done through a non profit foundation set up to assist hurting youth workers. The fund has many purposes but I put the link on this blog to help Brian. If you want to learn more about Raising Lazarus, click on the Youth Ministry Exchange link above my picture.

Praying for you Brian, Gods speed, and Gods Peace.

Ghost stories

Well, this has been an eventful week, and next week looks just as busy. First off let us discuss the most expensive part of the week. Our laptop was infected with some malware or some such cootie that has us worried about it sending out stuff we would rather it didn't send out. Not to mention the fact that it said it was running something like232 processes and keeping the CPU maxed out intermittently. So, the lap top is dead. I have never bought a computer before, our first was a gift from Grandpa, and everything behind it was hand me downs from my boss at work, including the laptop. So, I set off to do my homework, as does Angie. Angie gets some other folks involved with the decision process. These people she seeks advise from are the computer wizards and such from the YMX boards. These folks are IT guys from churches, web head ladies run the YMX board and a host of other smarter than me people. So, I listen carefully and take their advise. One of the IT people I am talking about uses the screen name MAC. So, you might guess which laptop I went with. It was a free-for-all when it came to suggesting what we should buy. They were all very helpful and Angie loves her new Mac. During this process a new phrase was coined, the "macgasm" The supporters of the product are rather rabid so I can see the point. I wonder if the term "macgasm" could be sold to apple for a advertising campaign? It might be a bit off color for that, but then again, have you seen any Cadillac commercials lately?

Next we have a visitation from the past. This was a strangely difficult experience for me for some reason. It was like I walked back in time to a place I used to be, but didn't belong now, Back to something I once was, but wasn't now. I was someplace I use to look forward to going, but now I had a feeling of anxiety and discomfort around me that made me eager to leave now. I was someplace where I used to fit in and was just one of the crowd, but I was misplaced now. This is difficult because I look around and I see a bunch of people, just like me. They are not any different than they were years ago when I used to come here. The place is a little local drinking hole named Foley's Irish Pub. A long time staple in the diet of Reading Ohio. I spent many and evening there with friends in years past, it was even one of the first places I took my soon to be wife some 15 years ago. This night I was again there with my good friends and happy for any opportunity to spend time with them because that time is more rare and more precious these days. We even got a babysitter, which is odd, because this is only the 5Th time since returning from China that we have both left the house together without Gracie. I was very happy to see my friend, at we were at Foley's for a benefit, so it was doubly nice to be out, on a date, with my friends, and doing something good for somebody else at the same time. However, before I even walked into the place, while we were just driving though the city of Reading, I could feel this shadow come over me. I felt like this was someplace I had been, but had left behind. The feeling intensified 100 times when we walked in the door. I looked around and all the people there seemed troubled, not happy like I remembered. The place reeked of stale beer, not the fresh smell of newly made hot wings like I recalled. At one point I had to go to the bathroom and take a leak. Upon completion of this task (for my long time readers, yes this is the second urinal story of the blog, I promise it will be a while before I enter another one) I happened to look down and notice I was standing in a puddle of piss about 4 foot in diameter. Nice, I don't remember that being the norm either. It was a couple of hours into the evening by now and in spite of the fact I was actually having a good time, I couldn't get past the feeling that I just didn't feel right being here, this is someplace I am not welcome. Don't misunderstand me here, I was welcome and comfortable with my friends, but not at Foley's and not in Reading. Then in dawned on me what the problem was. Ghosts. I was walking amongst my ghosts from the past. They remembered me, but I had forgotten them. They could see me, but I could not see them. This changed at one point in the evening. When I was a young man I had a small group of friend I hung around with, a posse, a crew, whatever you want to call it. Dennis, Darin, and Mike were that crew. Darin and I are still great friends, we have grown from pre-teen to responsible parenthood together. We have supported each other and helped each other through the many trials that life has brought us. Dennis disappeared on both of us shortly after I got married. Mike disappeared for the most part after he started college in his twenties. I had not seen Mike for more than a minute or two in years. This night Mike, a living and breathing ghost from the past came to pay us a visit. He walked up and I stood on my chair to give him a hug. Two grown men hugging in public, in a bar, oh well I don't care, its Mike. He talked for a while, we showed him pictures of Gracie, we talked a while longer and then we left. Mike is a high school football coach now. He works with kids, and loves his kids. He is not married, has no stable family, etc. He is stuck in time. He was very drunk this night, but he was Mike. The thing that disturbed me most was that when he looked at the pictures of Gracie and he talked about his kids at school, you could see the love and the pain in his eyes. Tonight I pray for Mike. Lord place your hand over him and guide him into the path of light. Send him a full dose of your mercy and help him find happiness and purpose within you. You have lead Darin and myself into your purpose and granted us many blessings, please Lord guide Mike and Dennis into this blessed place with us. Amen.

It will be a long time before I willingly go to Foley's again, but I hope its not so long before I see Mike again.

Then we come to Sunday at church. This is just a bit of irony that I choose to notice. One of the first series of sermons pastor Mark did when I arrived at Hartzell UMC was on the full armor of God. The last sermon I did at Hartzell also used this scripture from Ephesians 6:10-18. Today, pastor Tim used this scripture as the basis for his sermon. I took that as God telling me that as of last week when we decided to move to Crosspoint, we had indeed done what He wished us to do.

Gracie had a bad day today. She didn't want to take a nap after we got home. This turned into a feud that lasted almost 45 minutes. She said no, we said yes, the battle lines were drawn. Now, we being the parents are going to win eventually, but I thought this was going to be a border skirmish and it turned out to be more of a Long March.

On the administrative side of things, a quick thanks to my readers and you might notice I added Ythdudette to my link list. I don't think I should use her name here, but I have met her and she is a wonderful person. Please visit her when you have the time. I also would like to make a shameless plug for two other things as well. For the non regulars, please comment so I know who was here. If you have your own blog, please feel free to link to mine and let me know if you would like me to link to yours. Thanks. Chris.

"Gift of Goodbye"

The gift of goodbye is a phrase coined by one of my favorite pastors. (https://www.tdjakes.org/bishop-td-jakes.php)It is a gift that has begun to having meaning for me in the past several years. The gift is in the understanding of something fundamental. Sometimes we try to hold on to things we should let go of and we are better off letting go. Sometimes we get upset by things that leave us and we shouldn't. Sometimes we need to leave and wont because we are concerned by what we are leaving behind. The gift of goodbye is in the understanding that we, most of the time, need to accept that God has a plan, and we need to get in line and follow the plan. Just because someone leaves doesn't mean they are a bad person, it doesn't mean that they, or you, have done anything wrong, it just means that their part in your story is done. The reference comes from the Book of Ruth. Orpah (sp?) didn't do anything wrong in leaving Ruth. Her part in Ruth's story was done. She left Ruth and Naomi, with Naomi's blessings. Its that simple, Ruth had more things to do in Naomi's life, Orpah did not. The sooner we can grasp this, the better of we will be. We should not beg others to stay in our lives when their roll is done, we are better off moving on. We should not allow others to convince us to stay in their lives, it wont work, we have other things we need to do, and so do they. This is a difficult and painful time for people. Nobody likes change. God has a habit of closing doors in front of us, but we need to learn that when a door is closed, we need not worry, fret, fight, or cry about it. We need not bang on the door or try to hold on to what is on the other side of it. What we need to do is turn about face, keep our heads up and eyes open because when God has closed a door to us, another one is standing wide open waiting for us. Blessings are waiting for us to venture down this new path. This is what the Story of Ruth is about. Doors were closed to both Ruth and Naomi, but because they persevered and walked into the open door, many blessings were bestowed on the both. Their blessings came to them from others who were in turn blessed by them as well. Times of change can be difficult, but if we stay in Gods will, greater things are ahead of us and as we walk into this blessings through our troubled time, we will become a blessing to others.

Okay, whats the deal with the mini sermon you might be asking yourself..

Angie and I have decided that Crosspoint Community Church is going to be our new home church. I knew God was closing the door at Hartzell, my part in their story would seem to be over. I am of the belief that for some reason, we are to move to CCC now. I don't know for sure what ministry opportunities, if any, lay waiting on us, but I feel drawn there now. This became clearer to me this past Sunday when the Pastor started talking about Goliath and killing giants, and Grace (the divine kind if Grace) These are things I have had on my heart here as of late and things I have even written about in these blogs. If you note the date of the blog called "Lazarus" you will notice that it was posted before this past Sunday. I don't believe in coincidence so I believe there is a message here for me to take. I only pray that I don't misinterpret the message. Angie and I are going to look into what this place is offering the youth. They seem to have several kids running around, there might be an opportunity to work with youth again at some level. It is also possible that God just wants us to rest under a new teacher for a while and our service is going to come later and require the tools we gain from this new opportunity. Either way, God is leading and as for me and my house, we shall choose to follow. Amen.

Lazarus

Real men don't Cry. I had to think a bit on what to call this latest blog entry. Part of this story is another detail about the story of Grace. Part is another insight into the normal chaos that is me. Part of this entry is about growing up and reminiscing. I think I have to settle for the sarcastic just because that's me. Part of me wanted to call this entry, "I kill things" but that wouldn't make much sense until the end of it so I skipped that one.
Lets start by going back to "The Story of Grace" , which means I am going to assume you've read the story already, otherwise you might miss some of the meaning but you will understand enough anyway.
Okay, God and me have already had our little chat and I am still getting my sign posts delivered regularly at this point. Brief synopsis, we have no children but God has said we will. God is in the process of telling me about children and teaching me things I need to know. If you have ever had God get on your case, so to speak, you know what I mean when I say he is relentless and it feels a bit harsh at the time, but its for your own good.
Let me paint the picture for you.
Real men don't cry, better yet, real mean don't feel emotional pain at all and real men don't even over react to physical pain. Real men are in total control of themselves at all times, particularly when loved ones are involved. We must be the strong ones and help with everyone else. We must be strong enough to deny any hurts so that we can take care of any others who might need it. We must not feel pain so we can be the rock for our wives, our parents, our family, our friends, whomever. Real men don't cry, we simply say things like, yes that's sad, yes that's unfortunate, everything will be okay, its better this way, or the ever popular, they are in a better place now. Real men don't cry because we have learned not to. We learned as boys that crying is weak and we cannot be weak. It is a conditioned response. I had become a very strong and very real man during my childhood. My conditioning was excellent and complete. I learned every trick there was to learn. I not only learned how to hide my emotions at a young age to project the image of strength, I learned deny them by my early teens. By the time I was an adult, I could keep them from happening all together. I will say this, when it comes to defense mechanisms, building barriers, and manipulating ones self conscious, I am a master craftsman. Let me present you with the latest visual metaphor. I have grown fond of metaphors as of late. When something presents itself to me as a threat of causing me pain, I kill it, bury it, roll the stone over the grave and forget it. Its dead, its buried, its gone. Got the picture? Oh, must not forget the best part, I can do this in a flat second and once its buried, it is really gone from my conscious memory, it never happened, neat huh? Well this leads back into the story I have to tell tonight from the man cave. The night when God sent me a message, I killed it, and my Pastor brought it back to life. Two little girls about 6 or so years old about made my world implode, the system failed, it never fails.
Okay, here is the story.
Angie and I were at a gathering at the Pastors house. There were 3 or 4 couples there that night which added up to something like 7 kids. Gracie was still an unknown entity at this point, this is the place when God is preparing me for the answer He already gave me. This story became the first sermon I would ever do without notes. I digress. I am sitting in the living room on a small chair with kids running amok all over the place, chasing each other, playing tag, hid and go seek, etc. The adults are all sitting around just chatting about whatever. And then it happened. One of the little girls was running away from one of the others. She ran towards me and jumped in my lap, mushed up tight and cuddled in close. The chaser followed her up into my lap. I know have two little girls on my lap snuggling in tight. Having no children and not yet to the point of understanding that I will be a father one day, I am of the mind that I will have no children. This circumstance of cuddling with this little girls is oddly suitable at this second, it feels natural. But then one of them, the chasee, squeezes a little harder and says, "protect me daddy". Now, if I wasn't a real man, that would have been emotionally crushing. If I had not been a real man, that would have brought tears to my eyes. If I had not been a real man, this could have been awkward and painful. Ah but at last, I was a real man, a very talented and Strong man who took that phrase, killed it, buried it, rolled the stone across the door and forgot it. I did this in a blink of an eye and therefore never felt any pain, never shed a tear, never flinched. Angie was sitting across from me and instantly felt remorse and awkward for me, but she made the observation that my facial expression never moved so therefore it must not have been as bad as she perceived it to be. All was well and all was forgotten, except one small detail. God knows me, and God wasn't going to let me kill His message. Conveniently he happened to have a servant nearby in the form of a Pastor. Pastor chimes in right about her with a bit of a sarcastic comment. "well, I guess Chris and you mom have some explaining to do" this resurrected that which was dead. He brought the memory back into my consciousness. I was calm enough to let let it eat me alive, but now in my conscious mind I would have to struggle with this until it made sense to me. God had two messages for me that night, the first was Him still telling me about Grace and that he had changed my name to daddy, the second was that He didn't like me killing things because by doing that I would not address them. By not addressing them I could not forgive. He forgave me and He was letting me know that I had some work to do. I needed to address everything that was dead and forgive. Forgive others, forgive myself, forgive it all. He was not going to allow me to keep this tomb closed.
Back to the metaphor. I am going to keep this in metaphorical terms so that you might apply it to your lives as well as to protect the reader from all the horrid details of what I was forgiving. I had a tomb with a big stone in front of it. Every time someone nearly caused me pain, I would kill the memory, toss it in the tomb and roll the stone back in front. This thing was dead to me now. God told me to forgive, as He had forgiven me. That meant the tomb had to be opened. The thing in there were not pretty and most had been there for quite some time. They stank alot when they were alive, they were even more rancid now. I stood before the tomb as the door was rolled open with the assistance of my Pastor. God stood with me as the dead things were resurrected one by one. One by one they came out, I forgave and another one followed. One by one until they all came out. All but one. The last one had a name, its name was Goliath. He was the reason the tomb was built in the first place. God pointed me towards a creek bed from which a retrieved a smooth stone with which Goliath might be slain. I dropped Goliath where he stood because he was not a dead memory come back, Goliath was the fear of the memories. I didn't have to forgive him, he needed killin'.
From that day forward I have struggled to keep the tomb from returning. These days I cry at movies, at the sound of my daughters voice, I cry pretty much whenever I dang well feel like it. Why the change? Don't you want to be a real man anymore?
The answer is this: Real men don't cry. I don't want to be a real man anymore. I want to be like my saviour and Redeemer because my Redeemer lives.



John 11:35 "Jesus Wept"