Perspective

It has been an interesting season.

Boy, if those aren't loaded words. Terry Pratchett wrote a book called Interesting Times. I haven't read it yet, but if I understand correctly one of the greatest curses that you can invoke on a person on Discworld (the Yoknapatawpha County of Pratchett's imagination) was that they would live in interesting times - which are always a bit more interesting in retrospect than they are when being lived out. Ask Frodo if his times were interesting, and he would have most likely responded, "No, they were bloody awful." Yet for the Hobbit urchins gathered around him listening to the stories of his adventures they were fraught with intrigue and fascination.

I love the way John Eldredge put it,

Twenty clear days a year - that sounds about like my life. I think I see what's really going on about that often. The rest of the time, it feels like a fog, like the bathroom mirror after a hot shower. You know what I mean. What exactly are you perfectly clear on these days? How about your life? Why have things gone the way they have? Where was God in all that? And do you know what you ought to do next, with a deep, settled confidence that it will work out? Neither do I. Oh, I'd love to wake each morning knowing exactly who I am and where God is taking me. Zeroed in on all my relationships, undaunted in my calling. It's awesome when I do see. But for most of us, life seems more like driving along with a dirty windshield and then turning into the sun. I can sort of make out the shapes ahead, and I think the light is green.
- Waking The Dead p. 5

Yeah, that pretty well sums it up.

Lately I have asked the Lord - at the encouragement of my significant other - what the future might look like for me. Not some sort of crystal ball inquiry, but a real frank discussion with Him about direction and destiny. I was surprised to have some answers and to see some really disparate puzzle pieces put into context with each other. It was really nice to see how these vastly different interests could possibly work together. It was encouraging to see that even pieces that I received years ago were not "misses" but are still a part of the plan.

I won't say that I have the road map, but at least I have a good general lay of the land now. That is comforting. I hope I can remember that when journeying through Mirkwood. All journeys seem destined to pass through its depths, don't they?

I have friends plumbing some of the same depths that I have over the past 20 years. It is hard to see them struggling. I hurt for them, but I am also encouraged by their struggle, for it shows me that the Lord has taken notice of them, and He is in the process of disciplining them to make them more like Himself and to help them love Him better.

So often we look at discipline (at least in the United States) as something that is for those who have done something bad. Yet God's discipline is not like that. See, those whom He loves He disciplines. It is kind of hard to understand until you experience it. Often what God is after isn't some great sin pattern in our lives. The thing that often brings His discipline is wrong thinking and wrong heart attitudes that keep us from knowing Him and loving Him correctly. These are almost never our fault, but are the result of woundings that we receive throughout the course of our life.

It is nice to have a little perspective. It makes the discipline a lot more bearable.

So, to my friends who are hopelessly lost in Mirkwood's haunts (now or in the future) my prayer is that you will quickly discover that you are not alone, that God is right there with you, and that God is GOOD. You aren't as lost as you seem. God knows right where you are, and none of this surprises Him. He's got you right where you need to be. Rest in these truths.

Day 2...

Yesterday I gave you my initial response to the news that "my" church is closing down. I really didn't get to react to things because I had to do some work with my dad. We talked about it, but I didn't have the chance to emotionally deal with it.

Things were kind of that way when my Grandfather died. I really just wanted to lie down for a while and mourn, but I really didn't get that chance. Someone called me just a few minutes after I had lain down on the day he died. Their call was an encouragement and strengthened me, but interrupted the opportunity to mourn a little bit.

Today I got my chance to mourn the decision to close my church. Perhaps in a way I mourned my Grandfather too. I really wasn't productive at all and spent probably 4 hours just sleeping it off. (I don't mean alcohol - it never entered into the picture.)

When I woke up, I got the chance to talk to a friend about things, and I had an email from another friend, and a comment from a friend about this situation. All were beneficial in helping me to get my mind around some of the possibilities that exist around the edges of the paradigm that I was using to evaluate this event.

Later this afternoon I got to talk to other friends and was encouraged by their responses and insights. It was nice that some of my thoughts had been echoed in their minds.

In the midst of my afternoon I was able to spend time with my niece and we were able to have dinner together at Burger King. It was a special time. I really enjoyed being able to do that with her.

When I took her home I was able to talk to my sister, who is also a member of our church. Her comments helped me too. And I have finished my evening off with input from my pastor and several other friends.

In the end I have had some suggestions of things that God may be orchestrating as a result of this very unpleasant situation. I have seen courage in my church family that has encouraged me very much. I have discovered that some of my brothers and sisters are warriors in sheep's clothing.

I still don't have enough information to make a final decision about how I will move forward. I will be spending time with another family from our church tomorrow night which will give me an opportunity to hear what they are thinking. There are 3 other people beyond that that I really want to talk to before I start making any further plans.

The next three weeks I am planning to have a "Greatest Hits" celebration during our worship. I'll be calling folks in the church to get their five favorite songs that we do as I am putting our list together. At least we will be going out with some good music!

So that is all for now. I need to get some sleep so that I can be productive tomorrow to make up for today's period of mourning. I am sure that as things develop you'll be able to read about it here - at least what I'm willing to share! Thanks for reading.

Still Learning

I haven't commented in a little while about how things are going with the website design. I must say that I am happy with the progress that I am making - with the exception that I wish I could do it a little faster. I am becoming more and more proficient with HTML which has been very rewarding. I have been progressing through the tutorials pretty well, although I have taken a little bit of a sabbatical from them to gain some practical experience. I have been helping a friend to develop her website and have been creating some HTML forms for it. I hope that we will be able to publish the site early next week, and I'll give you an address where you can check it out.

Today I am fighting off a cold that has been passed around my family now for weeks. I think that I am still winning, but it is taking a lot of my energy reserves to fight. Hopefully, I'll have the energy and the ability to sing at church tomorrow morning.

Tonight I am heading over to my sister's house to have dinner with her family. I hope they like what I have made. I've made a shepherd's pie. I think that it will be good. I'll report back on it later.

Next week I plan to hit the tutorials again hard. Hopefully I can finish the advanced HTML tutorials and move on into the CSS tutorials. If I can do that I should have most of the tools that I need to begin modifying the Joomla site in earnest. I think that I have figured out enough now to begin collecting the components that I will need for the site. Then I can begin to modify the skin to make it look the way I want it to. I suspect that somewhere along the line I will also have to pick up the JavaScript stuff and the SQL. The good news is that each of these skills that I add will increase my marketability.

I have had some responses to my resume and a good friend has let a lot of his friends know that I am looking, which has turned up some good leads. We'll see if they materialize into anything. I used to think that I knew the direction that God was taking me, but now I really have no idea. I still want to go to seminary, but I don't know if I am cut out to be a vocational pastor. There are a couple of elements to the job description that I am not sure that I am comfortable with - like the deathwatch. Not a job that I think that I would like to do - especially if the person dying isn't saved. And I can't imagine trying to do a funeral for a lost person. What comfort can you offer the family? They most certainly AREN'T in a better place. How dreadful. The only thing that you can do is point the way to salvation - but how do you do that without reminding the family of the terrible consequences that their loved one is facing even at that moment? How tragic.

By contrast, I went to a very positive funeral yesterday. It was for a brother in Christ - a friend of my church - who died. It was very uplifting and encouraging. As I have gotten older, I would much rather go to a good funeral than a great wedding. So often with weddings, that is the happiest moment of the relationship. Cynical, I know, but all too often true. At least with the funeral for a Christian it is only the very beginning of their eternal bliss - something that we can't even begin to comprehend on this side of eternity.

I haven't been paying much attention to the political scene lately - bigger fish to fry, but I was a bit surprised by the outcome of the primary the other day. I didn't expect Huckabee to win by such a large margin, and I didn't expect the 3-way split between the Democratic front runners. I REALLY didn't expect Edwards to do so well and for Hillary to finish 3rd. Looks like it is going to be an interesting lead up to November. I would really hate for John Edwards to win the nomination. He is too good a liar. I think he even believes his own lies. I guess it is a necessary skill for trial lawyers.

Well, I guess that is all for now. I need to go and finish up my shepherd's pie. I'm supposed to be over at her house at 6:00. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Update:

The shepherd's pie turned out very well! It was a big hit.

Long Time, No Write

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. The real estate world is a pretty busy place, and I found that I just couldn't keep up being a full time agent and a closet writer. By the end of the day it was just too much - especially after a nasty bout earlier in '05 with appendicitis.

So, what have I been doing? My dad has retired from the real estate business (lucky him) and is moving on with his well earned life of freedom. That means that the business has fallen to me, and I must admit that it has proven to be more than I want to handle.

I guess when you sit down and analyze everything, and look at the core competencies of what you are doing, and you realize that you absolutely HATE doing about half of those things, that you realize that it is time for a change.

This realization, of course, begs the question, "So, what do I do now?" See that has kind of been the question since middle school. When someone asked me what I wanted to be then, I wanted to be an officer in the US military - preferably a fighter pilot. However, with pretty horrible vision, and not quite making the cut at the Air Force Academy, that dream (forgive the pun) crashed and burned, leaving me with the burning question that has haunted me since: "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

So far, I've pretty well just gone with the flow. Fresh out of college I went into insurance sales. Then I tried software testing. And finally I have given Real Estate a shot. I guess most of these jobs have had some good points - except for insurance. That TOTALLY sucked.

I kind of wish that I had known about career surveys and stuff like that before I went to college. Perhaps then I may have been able to pick a track that would have put me into something more like a permanent career. I have taken a couple of these surveys since I came to the decision to get out of Real Estate. And I have actually been somewhat surprised by what I found out.

It turns out that I am a bit more artistic than I had thought. I mean, you can't be a conservative AND artistic too, can you? Anyway, it has got me to thinking about some possibilities that I hadn't considered. I did look at teaching VERY briefly, but the income from that is less than I'm making now. Even with 2 months off in the summer, that is not an acceptable option. (Even though I think that the teaching part would be pretty fun.) I am considering writing though. I know it is a long shot, but what if I could write the great American novel?

I suppose that means that I need to find something to pay the bills in the meantime. I will probably go back into software testing because I enjoyed that for the most part. I guess time will tell.

So here's to all of you out there who don't know what you want to be when you grow up. I feel your pain!

The Search for Significance

I heard a pastor on Saturday saying that there is nothing sadder than seeing someone who is middle-aged who still can't figure out what they want to be when they grow up. I kind of wanted to smack him. (And he is probably one of my favorite pastors in the whole world.) It was like he was insinuating that there isn't any excuse for not knowing what you want to be or do.

I have been wrestling with that question for years and years and years. It isn't like I haven't been seeking God to figure out what I'm supposed to do. I have begged God many times to show me what I was supposed to become, but have never been given a clear-cut direction. At times I thought my destiny was ministry - maybe even world missions - but every attempt to follow that path has brought me up short. At (almost) 35 years old, the runway isn't as long as it used to be, and I'd really love to be doing the thing that I was created to do.

I guess it all comes down to a question of significance. When I leave this world I want to be able to say that I have made an impact. It is hard to see any impact or any prospect of one when it seems like I am constantly starting over from zero every 5 years or so. Yeah, you build up a good bit of wisdom through all of the experiences, but how do you make an impact?

I look at Ronald Reagan and think of how he transformed this world and wonder if I will ever be able to make that kind of a difference. Then again, whose measuring stick am I using? Does my definition of significance match God's? All I can hope for is that somehow He is going to get me from point A to point B and somehow get me to accomplish everything that He has planned for me to do in the process. God help me!