Self Aware

I think the greatest gift we can give to the people around us is to be self aware. I can learn scripture and quote from Romans better than Paul, but if I've never dug into the darkness and light of my own heart... cue the clanging bell.

There are a few questions I think we should all ask ourselves:

Who has God created me to be?
Knowing our areas of strength is crucial, but it's more than just knowing our gifting. We are each unique creatures with unique abilities to touch the lives around us. Understanding and accepting our unique wiring sets us free to engage in whatever setting, church, work or neighborhood.

What are my limits?
The difficulty in answering this question is we seldom deal with it honestly. The needs we see may be so great we overextend. Or our insecurities prohibit us from accepting challenges. A balanced understanding of our capabilities and insecurities combined with the difference between what's stretching and what's exhausting can be a lifelong struggle.

What are my areas of struggle?
We all have hangups, or more plainly, pet sins. Stress, exhaustion, loneliness, pain can trigger all kinds of poor choices. What are they? What are my triggers? Why? If I hate myself for doing the same thing over and over, at some point I should stop and ask, where it comes from?

Whose am I?
This is really the most important question. Is there really a God who loves me? So often we gain our self-esteem from the three questions above, what I do, my weakness and my failures. None of those things will tell me who I am. Understanding my intrinsic value gives me the freedom to dig into the other three questions without fear.

For a long time I didn't like questions like these, or at least the answers they revealed. I can still struggle with them. But as I'm understanding more clearly that I have been created, the way God wanted me to be, with all the beauty and struggle that comes with it, and he loves me just as I have been created, it gives me the confidence and humility to dig further inside.  

Yippee!

There's nothing quite like coming home from a long day at work and being greeted by a three year old. Arms go up, cheers erupt, hugs are catapulted and weariness melts away.

A welcome home from a dog is almost as good, but isn't quite the same. Even a good cat can make you feel welcome, but it always feels like they have an agenda.

Nancy and I have started cheering for people when we see them. I'm not sure how it started and we've never really talked about it. It just sort of happened. We don't do it all the time, but just at random moments throughout the day.

Marcus and Kelsie come home from work, we cheer. Andrew stops by for a visit, "Yippee!" Someone shows up for work, church, the car rental company, we celebrate.

I have to tell you, it freaks people out.

"What was that about? Am I late? Did I miss something?"
"No. We're just happy to see you."
"Um... oh. Thanks?"

As we get older, we begin to expect Dad to come home every night. We believe Mom will always be there. The surprise and wonder of their return wears off and drifts into the mundane.

I wounder what the world would be like if we always greeted the people we love like a three year old. Not superficially, but with genuine excitement for the gift of reconnection. Because we never really know.

If you knew it was going to be the last time you saw someone, how would you greet them? How would you treat them?

Motorcycles and Missions

I've been riding my little Yamaha 250 about three years now. So when a big bike down the street popped up for sale, I decided to check it out. It was a beautiful, custom built Vulcan 1500. I had no idea what I was getting into.

I knew the bike was bigger. I understood that intellectually. And I thought all the riding on mine had prepared me. It hadn't. The weight was so different. The smoothness of the ride was so different. And the power... my oh my, the power. You can do the math, six times bigger, but feeling the math is a whole different story.

Sometimes I think we can treat missionaries the same way I treated that Vulcan. They live in a city, so do I. They work in an office, so do I. Their kids go to school, play sports, get into band, mine too!

So when a missionary returns to the U.S. for a visit or to stay, we can look at their lives and our lives and think, "We're both motorcycles."

And it's true. There are many similarities in our lives and how we live them. But what we miss is the level of "static" can be exponentially higher. Cross-cultural, emotional and spiritual noise is at a level we can know intellectually but is hard to truly understand if we haven't felt it.

A missionary friend in Kenya had a pastor say to him, "We do the same things. We're both in ministry. It's just you do it over there and I do it here in the U.S." After a moment my friend said, "That's true. But don't ever imagine the cost is the same."

When we connect with missionaries, when we connect with anyone, we need to remember that our stories may sound similar, but we really don't understand their context. Life, love and loss are all deeply personal experiences. We can only hope to understand when we take the time to set aside our own story and listen. 

Changing Church

Last year sometime, Nancy and I decided we would really embrace a church home. We picked a place and began to plug in. And I have to say it's been... awful.

I don't have nearly as much free time. Instead of sitting on my couch eating ice cream and watching TV I'm at church. OK, I still sit on my couch, eat ice cream and watch TV, but I feel way more rushed.

I've started to like the people there. I miss them when I travel. I worry about their kids, ailing parents workload and financial situations. I've even said prayers for them. Do you realize how much anxiety there is in carrying someone else's burdens?

What's worse is the people there seem to care about me! They ask about my life, how I'm doing and seem to want a REAL answer. It's bizarre.

Our decision to find a church and love it has come with a price. We have had to make different decisions about time, vacations and lifestyle. Entering into the lives of others and sharing our story with them has been a lesson in vulnerability and acceptance.

The decision to love a church, to love people, is always going to come at a cost. What I'm learning though is it has been good for me, challenged me, encouraged me and grown me. I care deeply for those people and something about that has changed me. And it's good. 

Hard Conversations

Nancy and I have had a couple of hard conversations this year. She didn't say it this way, but the bottom line is I haven't been caring for her.

I have a tendency to bounce through life oblivious to how my actions impact her and I can make impulsive decisions without her input. My insensitivity can leave her feeling ignored and unconsidered.

I would never intentionally do or say something to hurt her. Few of us in healthy relationships would. But the problem comes when I quit paying attention, when I don't consider how my actions, attitudes and offhanded comments might impact her.

The greatest threat to a healthy marriage isn't incivility, it's indifference. It's when we become so comfortable we get complacent.

We are constantly changing beings and as a result, there is always a need for study. I need to understand both who she is and who I am so we can better walk together.

The beauty of 27 years together is we could have these conversations in an environment of safety. There wasn't ever a worry anyone would run away. Even in the tension, we're going to wake up in the same bed in the morning.

As difficult as the conversations were, they were the easy part. The real challenge is still in front of me... change. 

You Can Take the Reservation...

Recently, when Nancy and I showed up to pick up a rental car, we were told we'd have to wait at least an hour and a half. Bewildered, I looked around and realized we were surrounded by people, weary from a day's travel, also waiting for their cars.

There were about 30 frustrated travelers wondering why the reservation we had made wasn't being honored. And more were streaming in.

Nancy and I started to laugh. We'd been traveling all day and we were ready to find a hot meal and a warm bed, but we were stuck and there was nothing we could do about it. We started laughing with the people around us too.

We laughed with the lady who's flight had been canceled earlier in the day, the guy who was meeting his boss for the first time and the guy who just kept saying, "But I had a reservation..."

We started cheering for people when their names were called. I remembered this Seinfeld skit, found it on Youtube and played it for everyone in the room.

Finally, an hour and 45 minutes later, when my name was called I threw my hands up and yelled, "I got a car!" Everyone cheered. After I got my keys I ran around the room, giving high fives and yelling, "Everyone gets a car today! Don't give up! You! Will! Get! Your! CAR!"

I think the word Nancy used was "obnoxious" when she talked about it later.

It was awesome!

I realized later, this could have been a totally different experience. If I had been alone and not with my best friend, I would probably have been miserable. But we decided to laugh and that changed everything.

Our attitudes changed. The attitude in the room changed. Frustrated and angry people began to laugh and were encouraged. Not because the situation changed, but because we chose to point out the absurdity of our circumstance.

It was a good reminder that my attitude doesn't only impact me, it impacts the people around me. My mood has "ripples" that bump into others. The impact of those ripples, for good or bad, is up to me. 

Real People

Nancy and I have been spending this week at a conference with people who work to care for missionaries. I've been here before and it has become a craved experience. But I've had trouble putting my finger on exactly what it is about it that feeds me.

I think it’s pain.

OK, I’m no masochist. I’m not looking for pain and I don’t think anyone here is either. But in this group there are some people with a profound richness of faith that humbles me. They are deep and loving and joyful. They are knowing, yet affirming and at peace.

And it’s displayed by people who have experienced and witnessed profound depths of loss and suffering. They are people who have spent years of their lives living with and walking beside people in their brokenness. Still they overflow with hope.

Sometimes I think we don’t believe our own hype. We pray no one scratches too deeply below the surface for fear they may find what’s really in there; a lost desperate person, just trying to connect faith with the realities of a fallen world.

But these people, people who have descended into darkness to rekindle sparks in a shattered heart, a journey no one escapes unscathed, these are real people. Light and love oozes out of them without a hint of pretext or platitude.

Somehow God can use the pain we experience to bring us to a deeper knowledge of him. We all know people like this. Many of us long to be like them. Few of us have the courage to follow them to the cross.