Fear and Triumph

I learned years ago that fear can completely paralyze us. I learned it from a four foot ramp built for jumping bicycles. It seemed like it was the highest thing that you could possibly launch a two wheeled vehicle from into the great abyss of nothingness. I sat on the seat of my bike watching as my friends made jump after jump from that wooden monster feeling like I couldn't.

After being taunted by boy after boy I decided action was necessary. I aligned my flying bike in the right place, took a deep breath and started peddling toward the ramp. I still remember my heart pounding, my mind racing, my instincts taking over as I went up the ramp. Then I did the stupidest thing that you can do. I hit the brakes.

I skidded up the ramp until at the top the bike flipped off the end of that ridiculous wooden ramp and I landed on my face at the bottom. Boys can't cry in front of their friends no matter how much blood you spilled, how bad you hurt, or how embarrassed. So I went inside our home and sat on my bed leaving my bike and hurt feelings laying at the bottom of the ramp. It was that day that I learned how you stare down fear.

It was that particular event that taught me when you are afraid of something you can own it or it owns you. Those are the moments that make you or brake you. It was then I learned that when things scare you it's time to try it again, and do it better the second time. So I rode at the ramp and didn't hit the brakes, landed on the other side terrified but triumphant.

Years later I stood at the bottom of an old telephone pole on a ropes course feeling the same butterflies I felt when I was a child looking at the bike ramp. It wasn't pretty, graceful, or courageous looking as I made my ascent to the top of the pole, but the victory is in taking each step when you're scared to death. Ramps and used up old telephone poles don't get to beat us.

In life, the things that scare us deserve for us to stare them down and beat them, and when we land at the other end we're triumphant. Our Savior prayed in a garden that there was another way than the path that led him to the cross, and in the end, he owned our sin and shame on a wooden cross that could not conquer him. Thanks be to God that on the other side, because of His Son's courage, we end up triumphant.

A Simple Wink

I heard from a friend, "We're our own best critic."

As I sit in the sanctuary on Sunday morning, fretting over my ability to communicate a good sermon I do several things. I pray the same prayer silently, just as a baseball player has his normal, perhaps superstitious routines that make you feel right about what you're about to do. I look at the congregation to remind myself that someone especially needs to hear the message that day. I remind myself that someone out there doesn't know how much God loves them.

Then...

I look at my son Connor. He always winks at me.

I asked him a couple of years ago why he winks at me during the church service, and with a bit of annoyance he answered,

"Dad... Everytime I ever went to bat on the baseball field I looked at you and you always winked. It means you can do it. When I struck out I looked at you and you always winked. It means it's okay." It's amazing how much I can learn from my children.

It was then that I began to see the sunrise as God's wink. God telling me that no matter how the day goes He tells me His love and grace is for me.

It's amazing to imagine, but a wink that is so easy, is so powerful. One wink from a 10 year-old boy that I happen to love can drown out all the critics, even the one in my head.

Wink.

Best Friends

I learned about friendship in many ways, and all of them were good. No, they were great.

I've had several best friends throughout my life that have shared love, laughter, tears, sorrow, and triumph with me over many years.

I hear my daughter talk about bff's and watch her text message them on her phone and her computer through facebook. It made me think about my best friends throughout my own life, what they mean to me, and why friendship is important. Maybe even more than important... Vital.

I suppose that I met my first best friends without even understanding it. My Mom and Dad loved me unconditionally first, without understanding or comprehending how much they loved and cared for me. I'm sure that in the midst of their love I didn't realize how I created smiles, tears, frustration, and pride in their heart and soul.

When I was 5 years old I met another best friend, his name was Cory. I didn't understand at the time what friendship meant, I just knew how it felt. Cory died when we were 5 years old in a car accident. It didn't make sense to me, but how would it make sense to a 5 year-old boy, but I guess I learned what it meant to have a friend and learn about loss and perhaps grief.

That same year I met another guy that is a best friend. My brother David was born that year. I used to frustrate those parents of mine by figuring out had to drag a chair to his baby bed and pull him out of it so I could spend time with him. He was born eight days before my birthday, and couldn't think of a better birthday present. Well, the swing set I got and the backyard birthday party was better at the time, but I learned it was secondary to the baby in the house and in my heart. He continues to be a brother, best friend, and a source of unconditional love and acceptance.

I met Trey in Junior High School. He became another best friend. We did all the things that teen aged boys do that parents don't need to know about, but that we still laugh about and pray that our children won't do like we did. We went through girlfriends, heart ache, High School, College, and beyond. We shared an apartment that was disgustingly marked with the sign of single young men trying to figure out who they were. We had more fun together, fought with each other, and fought those whomever messed with either of us.

On August 13th of 1993 I met a new best friend. I didn't realize it at the time, but Chrissy would be the best friend of my life, and would become my wife. I loved being with her, sharing my deepest secrets, fears, and victories. The heart doesn't explain to our minds what love is, it just fills our spirit so full that we can't imagine how we don't burst. She introduced me to two young ones named Caitlin and Connor that showed me further how your heart can stretch further than you can imagine it ever could. Chrissy recently reminded me that, "home," is wherever WE are. She is so right that being at home with the best friends in life is one of the greatest blessings ever.

Whenever I sing the hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," I'm reminded that I met a friend, better yet, a Savior in the midst of life. To realize that Jesus is a friend is an amazing, awe inspiring, humbling, knee buckling, heart filling event in life. Many of my friends don't realize that Jesus not only loves us, but He likes us as well. This friend of mine, has seen EVERYTHING I've ever done, heard EVERYTHING I've ever said, and know EVERYTHING I've ever thought. He still loves me and has never walked away from me. When I've turned my back on Him and His ways, there He was right beside me.

Lord Jesus, make me the friend to those around me, as you've been the friend to me who gave everything to make me know your love.

A Team is a Family. A Family is a Team.

Tonight I had the best time in many moons. Sitting around tables with church members during pie and pancakes with the Pastor meetings for the last few weeks and getting to sit at the table at the Colliers home and seeing the EPCC team and family was the best. Eating great food, laughing, talking, spending time with people that I have learned to care more deeply for, while being cared about and loved by our church family reminded me of something vitally and eternally important:

Can we win the battle? The battle of spiritual slide? Can we remind many, many people that Jesus is bigger than the battles that drag us down? Can we bring in those folks who need to hear how much God loves us?

I don't think so.

I know it!

Thanks to the Colliers, Custers, and McGinniss folks for the family/team dinner!

Let's keep tearing it up so they'll know we were here.

Mulligans and Do-Overs

I preach a lot about the opportunity for moving forward in the shadow of a past mistake. Sometimes, I don't listen to my own preaching. I've been told by a few people that I use sports euphemisms too often but here goes:

When you throw an interception, don't hang your head. Go back out on the field with sharper vision.

When you serve up a homerun, don't cry. Get back to the mound and throw your best stuff.

When you shoot an air-ball, don't shy away from the ball. Seek the pass and look for nothing but net.

When you strike-out, don't throw your helmet. Be calm and know you'll have another at bat.

When you miss a block, grit your teeth and slam it harder.

When you roll a gutter ball, well, you're bowling so you were probably drunk. Aim at the middle of the thirty pens.

When you hit it in the rough, figure it out.

When you miss a putt. Study it harder next time.

Never forget, curling and NASCAR, are truly sports.

Inspire your team. Be you, but, be the best you. Don't let the outside voices become the inside torture. I'm preaching, but I'm listening.

"We don't carry an 'S' on our chest. We just wear a star on our helmet and try to do the best job we can."
-Dallas Cowboys running back Emmit Smith, after rushing for just 69 yards in a season-opening 37-7 WIN over Pittsburgh, 1997.

And oh, I almost forgot. If you score a triple-bogey at Putt-Putt. Quit. Take your colored ball and freaky putter back to the counter and try to beat someone at Galaga or Pac-Man.

Sometimes... A lot of times...

I awaken in the night thinking of my family. I always touch, Chrissy, my wife, LIGHTLY...don't awaken her purposely. I walk the halls of the home and spend time praying. I call my children my kiddos, and someone recently told me how disrespectful that it was to call them such names. Wrong.
I always stop at the door and listen to them breathe, in...out...in...out...Beautiful. I pray that the room is filled with the Holy Spirit that fills them. I can't imagine the power Who was there and is still there always when I baptized them both with God's Spirit filling their hearts. I'm just glad I got to be there, and fill in. Sorry Ms. T. I know I just finished a sentence with a preposition, please don't tell the coaches AGAIN.
I'm so blessed to have the family that I have to call mine even when some yell back at me, tell me, "no," when I meant yes, or don't agree with my thoughts. Even when my kiddos get their own ideas, they're still always in my heart, BIG. That's why I stop every night at their doors, hold on tight and pray harder than I ever understood before I knew those little toots.
They'll grab your heart more than you ever figured, huh?
I thought, I crashed motorcycles, broke bones on football fields and softball fields, lost fist fights, won more fist fights, broke more bones, lost games, blah, blah, blah, blah... But nothing hurt more than seeing my kids cry, hurt, or be sick. They're just amazing.
Someday, I hope they know that their weird Dad, who stood at their door and holding on tight praying for them know I would do anything for them, and prayed to the One who can do anything through and with them. That's my prayer.
I will say, a broken know's hurt's a bunch huh?

The days that lose you....The days you lose

There are days that seem to lose you. You can't find your keys, someone's upset with you, your truck doesn't start, you rip your pants. You know those days. They're the ones that you wish would fly by so that a new, more hopeful day would fill it's place. When you encounter those days in the midst of the maze of the 24 hour delineation period we tend not to value the experience, opportunities, lessons, or much else.
I can think of numerous nights I was awakened by a crying child while mumbling to myself that it would be another sleepless night. As my teen-aged daughter approaches the time to drive, I imagine I'll have a new kind of sleepless night ahead.
That maze of the day I wish would disappear often is the crucible in which we learn the most important lessons, even if we don't want to learn. We learn the twists and turns of life and when to turn left even if we think we're right. It is in the midst of life that we learn to live, and the lessons aren't usually easy to swallow. However, in the maze of life is the One who made us, watching us struggle and stumble, walk and run, even fall. He's right beside us throughout, never leaving us alone, but he does not share our same vantage point. He walks with us, but knows the turns in the maze. Listen.

The funny thing about those days that lose us is how we react. I find that far too often I've lost a day of learning, growing, and changing while I pout about a day that lost me. I complain that it wasn't my fault. So what? I could chalk up the mistake to ignorance. Does it matter now? I could even own up to my faults and still allow the rest of the day to slip by unnoticed while focusing on the past transgressions, what good does that do?

So, when life gets heavy and you encounter one of those days that lose you, don't lose the rest of the day. I've got a prayer that I've begun saying lately that is simple:

Lord help me to move on and beyond.


Simple I know, but for me true and heartfelt. Don't lose the days that lose you, because they're valuable and filled with the promise of new. I wish I knew now how beautiful a babies cry in the night is when I was hearing them then. I guess we live and learn in the maze that is life.