Flipped Switch

It’s an amazing and revealing feeling when the switch finally gets flipped and you realize why you’ve struggled to feel, to write, and to even sense a love for others.  I’ve had trouble thinking of what I can write about and how to even put into words the way I’ve been feeling.  A little empty would probably describe it the best, but I’ve not had any reason to feel that way.  Life is good and God is blessing me more right now than he has at any other time in my life.  But something has certainly been missing and I’ve been praying and asking God to just speak to me. 

Yesterday, while listening to an interview pod-cast with Jamie Tworkowski, founder of TWLOHA (To Write Love On Her Arms) I believe God pointed out what my problem is.  I’M COMFORTABLE!  I could sense it in Jamie’s voice and in his sincere answers.  He’s such a genuine and honest guy and he continually finds himself surrounded by hurting, depressed, and broken people.  His organization is doing an unbelievably good job at raising awareness and pointing out how so many people deal with addictions, depression, and severe disorders that leave them feeling lost and alone.

I’m feeling comfortable because when I look around at the people in my life I don’t see very many who are oppressed.  For the most part, the people in my circle are doing pretty well.  Sure there are problems and issues that we’ve dealt with, but compared to the man living on the street in Dallas, I’d say we’re all doing pretty well.

I’m finally to a point where I have to stop and ask “am I getting my hands dirty?”  What am I doing that is really helping people who are oppressed escape from their oppression and find the life that God wants us to all freely live?  What am I doing that puts myself right in the middle of the battlefield where I might be able to help someone?

I think part of the reason I feel so comfortable is from a lack of challenge in my life.  Most of that is my fault, because I’ve failed to read, seek out, and listen for those opportunities.  I’ve not been pushing myself to find the areas that need the most help and I find myself settling for the status quo.

Understand, I’m not being unreasonably hard on myself.  I am doing some really good things and helping children who are impoverished, but I do feel I have to stop and ask, how much I’m really making a difference.  It’s easy to send the money, the shoes, or the food, but when we’re required to really get our hands dirty, it’s often a different story.

Where I go from here and what my next step should be is the hard question, but as I prayed this morning I felt an overwhelming sense that God was saying “meet your neighbors, ask them what you can pray about for them, and maybe you’ll find oppression you didn’t know was there!”  Maybe if I will listen, trust in God, and do what I feel he’s asking me to do, my life won’t feel so complacent.

Growing Up

Our Organic Church plant has been taking place for eight weeks now and since we started we’ve had the opportunity to teach our children about sharing, friendship, serving, Jesus’ love for the outcast, about who God is, about taking care of and helping those who are different than we are, and many other little life lessons as we experience life together.  What’s been fun are the stories we hear from parents each Sunday about experiences they’ve had throughout the week with their children as what we’ve been teaching is starting to play out in real life.

Over the past few days I’ve really seen a difference taking place in my son’s life.  Even though he’s a nine year old special needs child, he still has a big heart and is grasping the concept of the lesson’s he’s being taught.  On Saturday during his bowling league he was passing out hugs to everyone and I think he made several of the parents and buddies feel special.  Several of the teenage buddy’s stayed after bowling to play video games and hang out with Wakeland.  I’m sure they had better things to do and things they’d rather be doing, but they chose to hang out with the little boy who had earlier shown them love.

On Saturday night while having dinner together I shared my bread with Wakeland and you could see in his face how he felt about it.  He smiled, commented on how nice it is to share with others, and blew me a kiss.  I knew right then that he truly understands the concept of sharing.  (Now there are no more excuses!)

Sunday rolled around and while the adults were engaged in conversation we could see our son along with our friends two year old trying to get onto the trampoline.  Wakeland was trying his hardest to help our friend’s son climb up, but you have to understand, even though there’s almost seven years difference in their age, there’s only about 10 pounds difference in their weight, and Wakeland trying with all his might couldn’t get his little buddy up on the trampoline.  But it was so cute seeing the two of them work together trying to figure out how they could work as a team to accomplish this task.

Last night was the icing on the cake for me.  We’ve been trying to give Wakeland more opportunities to be responsible since he is growing up so quickly.  We got him ready for bed last night and like usual he wasn’t ready to go.  So we told him he could lie on the couch and watch cartoons until he either started feeling sleepy or the cartoon ended.  At that point we told him to get up and go to bed, because he wasn’t allowed to fall asleep on the couch.  About an hour later I went into the kitchen and decided to check on him to see if he made it to bed.  He takes medication at night to help him sleep and it’s pretty fast acting and works in about 30 minutes.  We often find him sleeping on his floor, because he didn’t make it all the way to his bed.  But last night, he had turned off the TV when he was finished and was sleeping soundly in his bed when I checked on him.  I smiled and was so happy and proud of him for showing us this responsibility.

When I saw him this morning I hugged and kissed him and told him how proud I was of him for going to bed all on his own, for turning off the TV, and for showing us he’s turning into a responsible big boy.  He smiled and glowed!  Then he went right back to playing.  Moments like these make me proud to be a parent and help me realize how blessed I truly am.

Gods Breath

Gods breath poured out over my soul like a morning fog filled with a cool refreshing mist, but there was a battle between guilt and fear brewing inside my heart.  I was still struggling with the news of our son’s chromosome deletion disorder and the guilt of knowing I had passed on defective chromosomes that left him with obvious problems.  We still didn’t know the extent of the problems this tiny little deletion would cause and honestly I was a little overwhelmed and dazed by the diagnosis.

The news had come five days before Christmas which in my opinion was really crappy, but we really wanted to know.  I’m not sure the timing was very good on Gods part.  Here we are a few days before we celebrate the birth of his son and all I want to do is throw a little pity party over our situation.  It really sucked knowing there was no quick fix for our son’s problem.  Doctors couldn’t tell us what the future would be like for him and that frightened the hell out of me.  Show me one rational and sound minded parent out there who doesn’t want the best for their child.  We wanted the best for our son too, but the uncertainty of not knowing if we could actually provide it was difficult.

As time past and our son grew older we found ourselves scheduled for surgery at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for children.  Wakeland had a condition which was causing the muscles in his legs to pull his legs together at his knees.  The surgery would release the Adductor muscles so he could get his legs apart, which hopefully would allow him to learn to walk.  Just before his third birthday we checked into the hospital.

I’ve never had to do anything as difficult as leave my child in the hands of the surgeon on the morning of his surgery.  Before I even made it to the elevator I was crying.  Then I proceeded to break down.  The fear of something going wrong and losing our child was so strong it consumed me.  I was so in love with my son and unwilling to give him up.  I wanted to be in control and I wanted God to back off.  Hadn’t we suffered enough when we learned about the chromosome problem?  Now we have to endure a painful surgery and body cast that would last for over a month.  But the beauty of God was real and evident that day.  In spite of my lack of faith and trust in Him, he still came near to me and showed his grace.  By the time I reached the surgery waiting room, God had breathed his peace upon me and I felt like I was in worship with him.  He was so close I felt like I could have touched him.  His presence was real.  It was calming.  And it penetrated through my anger at him and soothed my soul.  I didn’t deserve it and I’m not even convinced I even wanted it.  I was happy and perfectly content with my self loathing, but He knew what I needed and met me in the waiting room that day.

I’ll always remember it as a special time between me, God, and my son Wakeland.  I know God was as close to Wakeland that day as he was to me.  I know now that Wakeland was safe in Gods hands even though I was unwilling to release my control to him.  That continues to be the mystery and wonder of whom God is to me and I now seek for opportunities to experience God in this way each day.

Wakeland came through the surgery just fine.  There were complications a week later, but nothing the doctors weren’t able to fix.  The 33 days he had to wear the body cast proved to be the most trying and difficult time we’d ever had as a family.  By the time the cast came off, we were exhausted, beaten down and broken.  We longed and craved for sleep and rest, but it didn’t come and we only grew more tired and worn out.  It was at this time when things started getting more difficult for our marriage and we were starting to crumble even if we hadn’t yet realized it.

Need vs. Want

I just spent a few minutes looking back and reading last January’s journal entries.  I was specifically looking for any I had written about setting goals.  I’m not much of a resolution maker, but I do like to set a few goals as a guide to direct me in a more positive direction.  I didn’t find any entries with anything in the title about goals, but I did find one entitled “Top 10 Things I want in 2008.”  You can click on the link if you’re curious.

The interesting thing is, I can still use all 10 of these for 2009.  I still “want” everything that was on my list in 2008 and I’m going to continue to work on each of these.  The wants on my list tend to be more like goals, so it’s pretty easy for me to carry them over, because I still “need” to work on them.  Or maybe I was just so focused and had such clarity on the goals I set for 2008, they are good enough for 2009.  I’m pretty sure that’s not the case, but either way they are still applicable.

As far as needs verses wants, there are plenty of things I need in my life and those needs generally fall in the area of self-improvement.  When it comes to wants I rank up there with the greediest of Americans and have a pretty large list of wants.  Most of the time they fall in the area of material possessions, so I have to work extremely hard to find the right balance between satisfying my own desires and meeting the needs of others.

I think the key between needs and wants is looking for wants that line up with what God desires for his people to do.  With the smorgasbord of advertising we are bombarded with every minute of the day, it’s easy and almost natural for me to think “I want a new TV for my family room” and I might even think I need it.  But, since we just won a TV at my company Christmas party, which we put in our game room, do I really need a new one in my family room too?  Does spending more money on another TV that will rarely get watched make much sense?  No!  But, the empire of individualism, consumerism, and our addiction to stuff, often overrules what really makes good logical sense.

Now if I made it a habit or practice to start lining my wants up with what God desires for his people, then it would make more sense and be more logical for me to take the same amount of money I crave to spend on another TV and sponsor a child with Compassion International.  It’s going to cost me about $430 to purchase a 32″ LCD for my family room and I can sponsor a child with CI, for a whole year, for only $384.  I actually save myself money by helping someone else.  In my opinion, that would be lining up my wants with what God desires for his people.

Certainly I don’t think it’s wrong to want things and we all have times when we need something, like a new dryer when the old one goes out.  I’m not saying it’s wrong to want and need, but I am saying it’s about time for all of us to get our priorities straight and start wanting for the right and appropriate things.  According to the world’s standards, the people who will read this article, are rich beyond measure.  I think it’s time we all start doing something with our riches to help this world be a better place for EVERYONE to live.

And to my friends who are likely to read this and were part of the TV conversation on Sunday, in spite of what you might think, I’m not picking on you!  This is purely about how I’m feeling towards the purchase of another TV for our family room!