Turning 34, by Will

Another year has passed, and it's been the strangest year of my life. I'm a year older, and my wife made amazing tiramisu for my birthday. I haven't written in months, there's been a lot on my mind, but I've been very unmotivated. Everything going on has made it difficult to process anything because there has been so much to process. When I began thinking about 2020 back in 2013, it was supposed to be a year of change. I had started a job with great benefits, and the plan was to finish school and move on, getting back into a church. 

So much has changed since 2013, and 2020 brought about a change no one saw coming. The year started with CPE, which ended up being a really good experience. It pushed me and helped me grow in areas of my life, and I'm getting ready to start unit 2 of CPE this January. Completing my first CPE unit opened the door for me to be able to pursue a chaplain residency program, I applied, completed the interview, but had to withdraw from consideration. 

The reason for my withdrawal was the inability to take the pay cut due to the on going custody battle. I realized that I have had to fight my ex-wife in court longer than we were married. Still can't share much about it, but we should have an end date in sight (but I've thought that before, so just waiting to see at this point). I'm upset that this has been allowed to go on for so long. I'm upset that my girls are still caught in the middle of this. I'm upset that this has been allowed to impact my wife and new daughter in the way that it has. 

Throw into the on going drain of a custody battle a global pandemic and a presidential election with high emotions on both sides, and a lot of controversy surrounding the outcome. At 34, I realize that I'm tired. 

I'm tired of loosing irreplaceable time with my daughters as the legal process drags on. 

I'm tired of throwing away thousands of dollars in legal fees every year. 

I'm tired of wearing a mask. 

I'm tired of political corruption and career politicians who have forgotten what they were elected for. 

I'm tired of feeling worn out. 

This year of life has been draining, so much has been sucking the life out of me, but this year, I began to intentionally pursue something life giving. I've had the dream to thru hike the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail, and biking across the country on the TransAmerica Trail. My desire to travel over 12,000 miles by foot and bike led me to create Boots and Pedals, following my preparation and training until I get to complete these trails. Learning how to build a social media following has been a new thing for me, but my Instagram (bootsandpedals) and Facebook page (Boots and Pedals) have both grown, and I'm currently in the process of starting a website/blog to further share my journey. 

This past week, I realized that complete my AT thru hike is something I need to do soon. As I've been contemplating where my life is, and where it is going, it dawned on me that this hike is the key to getting my soul back. The logistics of doing this right now aren't clear to me, but I know I need to do this, and I believe that the opportunity is going to present itself within the next few years. 

34 doesn't look at all like I was expecting, planning anything has been hard, but if the next few months bring about the conclusion that they hopefully will, 35 will look different. 

Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11 

  TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!

A House Divided, by Will

I'm going to do my best to keep this from being a political post. This isn't a political blog and I don't want to take it there. The current atmospher of America is more chaotic and, if I'm being honest, slightly terrifying. I'm concerned about the future of my country. The answer is not found in the Democratic party, or in the Republican party. The two parties can't come together to do what is best for the American people they have been elected to serve, and it is bringing about the destruction of this nation. 

The central issue is that America is no longer united. There is so much division, more than I can remember in previous years, and as Jesus said in Matthew 12, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand."

 In 2011, Casting Crowns released their album, "Come to the Well". The second track, "City on a Hill", is one I've listened to a lot in the past several years, and below is an animated video clip with the song.

 

I've been to the city on a hill in Israel, it's a pile of ruins that tourists now walk around and take pictures of. Division leads to destruction, and no one is immune to it. No nation, no church, no organization, no group can survive when there is division.

 America needs to come together; we need to realize what the division is going to do to us as a country. No house divided against itself can stand; no one group is more important or essential to a city (or nation), but all are dependent upon each other. If we don't come together, we will end up like the city on a hill. 

We need to stand strong together, not demanding our own way and agenda, and even in writing that it's hard because my mind immediately goes to my own world view and beliefs and sees the counter viewpoint as wrong. This is not an easy task, overcoming division isn't easy because it means setting aside our own pride and desires to hear another. The more firm we become in our view, the more we refuse to listen and work together, the quicker the end will get here.

I am worried about the future of this country. I am worried about the world my daughters are going to grow up in. I don't want to see America bring about its own destruction. 

 Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11 

  TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!

You're Early Little One, by Will

On October 18, 2019, I was sitting in my chair in our living room when I heard my wife of just under a month get up and go into the bathroom. A few minutes later, the reaction I heard told me the result of the pregnancy test she had taken. A baby was not in our plans for the first year of marriage, but God really does have a great sense of humor. The first doctor she went to gave us a due date of June 20, 2020, but much like her mother, Raya Revere does her own thing.

On Friday, June 5, I was wrapping up the day at work when I got a call from my wife, "Hi, my water broke." That was not the phone call I was expecting, we had just hit 38 weeks, and there were things we still needed to do. I went home, helped my wife get situated, and we began monitoring contractions while keeping the midwife informed. The plan was to do a home birth, and around 1:30 am on Saturday the midwife arrived. Things were moving slowly, but everything was going smoothly. Around 10:15 I was sent out to get an exercise ball to try and help the process, and while I was gone, my wife called and said we were going to the hospital.

When we arrived, my wife was at 9.5 centimetres, and within an hour she had delivered, completely naturally, but we didn't get to hold Raya. They began working on her, like they always do when a baby is born, but then they took her out of the room. After about an hour, a doctor came in and told us that she was really sick. During labor, the placenta had torn and in addition to swallowing blood, the bleeding had put stress on Raya and deprived her of oxygen. The doctor told us that the only treatment was to do a 72 hour cooling process that was only available at the main campus of the Cleveland Clinic. This treatment would slow her metabolism and allow her brain and organs to recover. They brought her into the room in the transport cart, and for the first time we got to see our baby girl. She had a breathing tube secured to her face by tape and she was wrapped in some hi-tec bubble wrap that would begin the cooling process.

For 72 hours they lowered her body temperature to 33.5 centigrade, then gradually warmed her back up to normal. While she lay there on the cooling blanket we couldn't hold her, were very limited in being able to even touch her because our body heat could interfere with the treatment. I sat with her at night, and she would grab my finger in her tiny hand. My wife with sit with her during the day, both of us taking in the the numerous wires, tubes, and sensors covering our days old baby girl.

It wasn't until five days after she was born that we were able to hold her, and at that moment I never wanted to set her down. They initially told us that best case she'd be in the NICU for 12 days, we left on day 8.

It's the end of June, really not sure where this month has gone. I haven't slept in a bed since the beginning of the month, making do on small couches in the waiting room when the nurses allowed it, then spending nights in the anti-gravity chair in the Spiritual Care office (we ended up in the same hospital where I had done my CPE unit so the director of Spiritual Care helped me out), and on our couch at home as we rotate nights with Raya duty so one of us can try to sleep (even with this I haven't slept through the night in a month). But we're home, Raya is growing, gaining about 1.5 ounces a day (.5 ounces is what they want). She's alert, taking in faces, her neck is getting stronger as she does her tummy time, and we have our daddy/daughter song.

Raya's name comes from Malachi 4.2, "But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves." (NIV). Raya Revere was born on the 66th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, and began a fight for her life. When the doctor first told us the news and left the room, we prayed and I began listening to the song "King of my Heart." So many people prayed for Raya, hundreds of people I don't know and have never met prayed for my baby girl. Raya is home, God brought healing in her life, and we are waiting anxiously to see the healing He brings through her life.


Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!

This Past Season, by Will

This past week marked the official completion of my first CPE unit. The past four months have been one of the best experiences of my life. It has pushed me in ways that were uncomfortable but necessary, helping me to lower my guard, hold the tension of my emotions, and come to a better understanding of my own feelings. I have responded to 30 deaths from a 5 year old to 94. I've sat with patients who have received news that cancer is terminal, those waiting for lifesaving treatment, and those who simply wanted someone to talk to. I've met some amazing people who have challenged me and helped me grow. This unit has also brought further insight into my own story and the role healing plays in being able to use my story to guide others to their own healing.

It's weird being done, and it brings with it a lot of mixed emotions. I really enjoyed my initial CPE experience, going to class each week and being around people who genuinely accepted me as I was and wanted to see and help me grow was an experience I haven't had a lot of in life, and so Wednesday was something I looked forward to. Then there were clinical hours, and while being stuck inside on a beautiful Saturday wasn't my first choice, the time I spent with patients was always rewarding, because I was with people who needed me at a very difficult or scary time. But then COVID-19 happened, and it changed the process of CPE. Instead of meeting in person, we did class over Zoom. Instead of being able to visit patients, everything was done over the phone. I didn't enjoy the second half as much as the first, but it was in this second half that I actually began to have the biggest personal break through.

Being done with my Unit 1 of CPE is like taking a deep breath after being underwater (to be fair, while CPE was a bit intense, the reality is that everything else going on in my own life and in the world added to the overwhelming nature of it). Having completed this, there is a sense of a burden being removed, there is one less thing on my plate right now. At the same time, there is a sense of accomplishment, I did that. I remember going into the unit feeling overwhelmed and sick to my stomach, I had no appetite and was extremely anxious. I had very little idea what I was getting into, and what I thought I was getting into wasn't actually what I was getting into. I had no idea how I was going to fulfill the assignments for the unit, and I wasn't sure what it was going to look like adding 24 hours a week in class and clinical hours to my full time job and other responsibilities as a husband and father.

I feel like I should say something profound about the state of the world right now. COVID and the role the media and politics have played in it, the state of politics in America and the election this year, riots over racism, but honestly, I don't know that I really have anything to say about it. It's all a mess, the situation is hard, and there is no easy answer or solution, and as much as I hate to admit it to myself, I can't fix this. But one thing I've learned in CPE is that I don't have to. I don't have to carry the weight of the world, I don't have to solve everyone's problems, I'm allowed to be angry about it, I'm allowed to be tired and worn out, I'm allowed to be a human being. I don't have to have all the answers.

The world is a mess, humanity is a mess, and God is still God. I'm learning more about who God is and how He relates to us in times of hardship and suffering. I'm realizing that God doesn't work according to our theology because God exists outside of our theology; His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. As everything happens around us, it's ok to have no answers and it's ok to be angry. It's ok to question God (more on that in a few weeks/months). The key is trust in the goodness of God, and pursuit of our own individual healing. Trust in God, even when He seems absent and silent allows us to hold on to hope. Our own personal healing allows us to help guide others on their own journey of healing.

It sounds so simple, and if I hadn't been through what I've been through for the past half decade I'd say it was just words, but my own journey has been difficult and these are the truths I have found, or am finding to be true.


Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!

Why Is The Best Part of The Church Service Greeting Each Other?, by Aaron

It is Sunday morning, and they walk into the beautiful church building with one kid hanging off of each of their arms and another one running to get to their classroom as service is just beginning. The parents drop off each child into their correct classroom. By the time all of their children are finally in their rooms (sometimes screaming like crazy), the worship team has already started their first of four songs for the morning. The two parents are a little angry, flushed, and trying to prepare their hearts for worship while the first song has just ended. By the last song the parents have finally calmed themselves down and are able to relax a little while they sit for the sermon. This is a story about my wife, my kids, and myself, and this happened for many years every Sunday morning. Does this sound familiar to anyone at all?

After the worship leader ends his final song, an elder or the pastor comes on to the stage to pray. After the prayer, they tell the congregation to “turn around and greet the people behind you”. Each different church congregation performs this slightly differently each week. Sometimes this request to greet others is at the beginning of the service, after worship, and sometimes it is at the end of service. I’ve been to many services and almost all of them have this request to greet each other.

What I am about to articulate in these next few paragraphs is something that I have been thinking about for months and years honestly. What I am going to discuss is not meant to judge or point the finger at anyone or group of people. This is something I feel God wants me to try to articulate for others and really myself. I think I have been avoiding it for a long time. I am hoping that as I write this, that you as a member of the body of Christ will start to ask yourself, why? Why do we do what we do as a “church”?

So let’s go back to the service I started to describe at the beginning. After we are asked to greet those behind us, I want to describe what I have seen for many years. Immediately a smile flows across everyone’s face and things get lively. People run across the room to give Aunt Betty and Uncle Jim a hug. People are laughing and quickly asking how each other’s week has been. People are greeting visitors of the church and even greeting members of the church that they don’t talk too much or haven’t even met. Then after about two or three minutes something happens. Things get serious!! Silence occurs, you could hear a pin drop in the room. Most people lose their smiles, laughing stops, and they put on their thinking and "spiritual hats" as the pastor begins the sermon for 30 to 45 minutes (give or take).

Two questions: 1. does this scene sound a little off to you? 2. Is this what God intends when we gather together as a body? If the answer is yes to those to questions, then I am truly happy for you. I want you to be blessed and I pray God is working in your heart. Unfortunately for me, this scene is so familiar and for many years I’ve ignored how I’ve felt. But for some reason the Holy Spirit keeps nudging me (I need to listen to Him more). What if a typical Sunday gathering was just “greeting the person behind you”? What would that service look like? I believe it would like a lot like 1 Corinthians 14:26 which reads: What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.

Let me create a fictional scene for you! You are at church and someone on stage tells you to turn around and greet the people behind you after worship. You and three other people from your row turn around and start up a conversation with the four people behind you. As you are talking to each other, you find out that one of the couples is having a really hard time with paying the bills the past two months. The Holy Spirit wants you to pray for that couple and the Spirit leads you in a prayer. After that prayer, the Holy Spirit begins working in another person in that group and he tells the group that he has been dealing with lust recently and would really appreciate prayer. So the group begins to pray, but the lights begin to dim and the sermon is starting so everyone sits down. That person needs prayer and the Holy Spirit is leading that part of the church body to pray, but it won’t happen. Why? Because we have to follow the order of the service, even if the Holy Spirit is leading us in a different path that day.

Over the past few months I have been reading about members of the body of Christ that meet like they did in the book of Acts (Acts 2:42-47). The gathering of believers is very different from what we as a body of believers are used to. I am a part of a group that meets online each week and talks about how God is working in our life. We pray for each other, we discuss versus God has put on our heart, sometimes we sing together. Really anything the Holy Spirit has put on our heart to share, the floor is open to anyone. No sermon, no worship service, no church building, just Jesus. I know this may be hard to understand and probably will be confusing. So what am I saying to you as the reader? Start asking God how you can join Him in His work? Let’s just start somewhere. If you feeling like nothing is wrong, then like I said earlier, I am truly happy for you and pray God keeps working in your life and in your congregation. But if you are searching, I would say to first, not ignore it and second to begin searching.

Two very good books I read recently Letter’s to the Church by Francis Chan and Finding Church by Wayne Jacobsen (no they are not paying me). Both of these books are great resources and have a lot of scripture and references that talk about the New Testament Church and how church may look different under the headship of Christ. I’m going to write more about this in my next couple of blogs. As I hear more from the Father, I will write down what I am hearing from the Holy Spirit and what I am learning as I study the Word more. I believe that the Lord is working in the church and he loves his people so deeply and will always respond to them as they call upon his name. Let’s search him out on the subject of the church though. Let’s start loving each other in a different way. Let’s start looking for the work of the Lord whole heartedly. The Lord loves the church so much; and No, I’m not talking about a Building!!
God bless!
Aaron

I Took a Hike, by Will

Last week was an rough week for me. The previous Friday I woke up and found out a friend of mine had suffered a massive heart attack and died the day before. I couldn't believe what I was reading, and spent several minutes searching Facebook to make sure I had really read what I had just read. Josh couldn't be dead, he was so full of life, such an amazing guy, and yet his wife's post was so clear, Josh was gone. I went to work, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Monday I took the day off, I just needed some time to process the reality of what was happening. I went to a familiar trail, one that I have hiked for the past 10 years. I got to the trail-head later than I would have liked, but due to the current pandemic, there was only one car in the parking lot when I pulled in. I had the woods pretty much to myself, I didn't see anyone for almost two hours, and I hiked the slowest hike I have ever walked.

Usually I just get out to cover miles and clear my head, but today I was there to process so many things. The reality of death doesn't freak me out, but this one was close. Josh had been one of the biggest encouragers I had ever met; he believed in me more than I believed in me at times, and even though I hadn't seen him in years, he made an impact on my life. I needed some time just to let reality sink in.

Then there is everything CPE has been bringing to the surface. I've learned so much about myself, which is the point of CPE, and there are so many things I'm wanting to further explore. I've thought about moments in life that have caused pain, moments that have caused me to put my guard up, moments that have made me shut down the part of me that feels and cause me to keep people at arms length. There is a lot of work I need to do in this area, and it's a scary task because of the vulnerability that is required, not simply to undergo the process, but in the way I need to live life as a result of the process.

I walked, one foot in front of the other, covering about five miles in three hours, I've never moved that slowly on a trail. I took in the woods, I know this trail so well, and I was saddened by all of the destruction I noticed. Maybe it was everything that was on my mind, maybe it was the season, but I just noticed so many downed trees, broken branches, and just a mess of tangled tree limbs along the trail. It was a mess, not the normal beauty that this part of Ohio has, and it saddened me, making a somber hike even more dismal. I found myself with a bit of hopelessness.

The world is dealing with a global pandemic. A wife no longer has a husband, four children no longer have their dad. I haven't seen my girls in weeks, the legal process seems like it's going to go on forever, and I'm looking for answers and a ear to hear my concerns over my girls that no one seems to care about. My wife's business hasn't grown like she would like, and I feel very stuck with where my life is at and seems to be going. The woods just added to my feelings of hopelessness, and then I came to spot where I used to water my dog when we would hike together.

There is a small stream the comes from the rock, it pools and then flows down through the woods to a creek in a valley. As I stood an looked into the woods, my eyes caught the green plants beginning to grow from the forest floor. Amidst old fallen trees and the dead leaves, new life was emerging from the ground.

This pandemic will not last forever. The hard times that we are facing now will come to an end. Though life will not be the same, there is hope and life even in the midst of death and despair. After death of winter, spring comes again.


Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!

33 Candles, by T.Y.

On this day, 33 years ago my parents welcomed me into the world. It was the roughest labour and pregnancy for my mother, but finally their first son arrived. I was named after my father, not only carrying on his last name, but his whole name.

Fast forward to the present, I look back at my life and the only thing that comes to mind is, 30-something (bleh). When you are in your early 20s thinking about your invincibility, you are convinced that by the time you are 30, you will have accomplished ‘X’ and by 40 ‘Y’ and possibly ‘Z’, so once you hit 50, you are already in ‘AB’ and beyond.

Then you wake up each new year in your 30s, and well, you have to wake up from your 20-something proverbial dream.

(Just let the somber music soak in …)

Last night, my wife asked me how I was feeling about turning 33 … and well, unfortunately, I was honest. Brutally honest. The kinda honesty that cuts through cold butter without trying (I might have just made that up).

Cliff notes version: Life’s hard, and I am the victim and the culprit.

This is the reason I stopped celebrating my birthdays. I’m a recovering mal-adjusted narcissist. Why a day that will encourage me to look inward? I have every other day for that.

No. Not this day! NO!
Why not? Because people are dying. A lot.

Yes, we are in a global crisis. A Pandemic unlike anything we have ever seen before. It has basically shut down our society. No post-apocalyptic, alien invasion, or Marvel movie could have prepared us for this, as much as we would have wanted them to.

The reality is with so much going on around us, I can’t help, but to remember the words of Moses, the man of God in Psalm 90, to teach us to number our days. It’s sobering.

This day, I am compelled to think about the medical professionals who are risking their lives to save people. I think about those who are most vulnerable to the spread of the virus. I think about our politicians, regardless of how you feel about them, who have tough calls to make; I do not envy their positions. Finally, I think about other countries all around the world, how this is not just affecting America, but virtually the whole planet. Let’s remember all of them in our prayers.

If I could make a birthday wish, it would be that in a year, when I am blowing out 34 candles, Lord-willing (James 5), that I can look back and say by God’s grace, the world rallied together to help each other survive a crisis (not on infinite earths, just our earth). That we experienced chaos on every level of our society, but God healed us as we turned to Him. That we stopped looking inward so we can help others, in the midst of it all.

Such Times and where My Mind is, by Will

Needless to say there is a lot going on right now. We face a global pandemic, as a nation we are preparing for a presidential election, personally I'm getting ready for another round of court hearings, while doing a CPE unit, taking care of a pregnant wife, and trying to wrestle with my own feelings and emotions surrounding everything. I've thought about Frodo and Gandalf's exchange in Moria a lot:

Frodo- "I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."
Gandalf- "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

For my generation (Millennials since I was born in 1986), we have grown up in a world of bad things happening. In 1995, when we were in elementary school, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols committed domestic terrorism, bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City. I remember sitting in the library at school seeing pictures of the aftermath as an 8 year old.

In 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out the mass school shooting at Colombine High School in Colorado. I remember sitting in the middle school cafeteria, talking about it with my friends.

When we were in high school, Osama bin Laden orchestrated the largest attack on American soil in decades, sending planes crashing into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. I remember watching smoke pour from the buildings in Mrs. Andrews' class room.

During college, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. I was in Dr. Williams class, as we were getting ready to listen to an Army Chaplain talk about military chaplaincy when one of my classmates read the news.

In the years right after college, Adam Lanza killed 26 people, the majority of the children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. I wrote a blog offering a prayer for 27 families, trying to wrap my mind about what they were going through.

Now, we are dealing with a virus that has infected nearly a quarter of a million people, shut down countries, and impacted the life of nearly every person on earth.

Those are the big tragedies that my generation has grown up with. Every major stage of life has brought with it a moment of great tragedy and death. This is the world, these are the times, we have been given.

My mind takes all this in, and I weigh it with the struggles in my own life. I'm an 1 on the Enneagram, and the opening line for the One song by artist Sleeping At Last is, "Hold on for a minute, 'cause I believe that we can fix this over time". My mind takes every situation, every bad thing, and goes to what I need to do to fix it.

I need to become a lawyer and work to bring justice back to the legal system, especially for dads.

I need to get into politics, work to establish term limits for congress, and get rid of greedy and self-focused politicians who don't understand the purpose of their office.

I need to become a doctor, figure out the truth of the vaccine debate, and work to help people be healthier.

I need to take on another church, helping them see how far we have come from what God intended, and bring reformation.

I need to build a blog or podcast that reaches the world and helps people be transformed.

I need to fully pour myself into my wife and daughters, being who they need me to be, who I alone can be in their lives.

I need to be more prepared when bad things like this pandemic happen so my family is taken care of.

I need to find time hike, bike, garden, and shoot so I don't go crazy and become useless to everyone.

And then I need to make breakfast.

I shared this with my wife and her words were, "It sounds like you're trying to be God." I shared it with my CPE instructor, and he said, "How does it feel to say all of that?"

I feel very helpless a lot of the time. I feel like there is so much that doesn't work the way it was supposed to work, and that it's up to me to fix it. And that's just an overwhelming feeling, so I let myself waste hours distracted on my phone, and then I get frustrated with myself for wasting time and not working towards World changing reformation. Welcome to my world as a 1.

I know I should say something here about trusting God, about realizing that I'm not God and that I don't have to be, that I've come to the point of surrender and fully trusting Him, letting Him be God, but honestly, it's hard to get there. I've felt like God has abandoned me, or at the very least is just ignoring me, and has been for years. I want to trust God, I want to surrender and let Him carry the weight of the world. I want to give myself grace, realizing I'm good enough and I don't need to earn God's favor or prove my adequacy to anyone, but I don't know that I can. Instead, I find myself saying exactly what Frodo said, "I wish that none of this had happened."

Quitting isn't an option, and today has started out more productive than Thursday's typically do. So I need to keep moving, keep trusting, and maybe I'll begin to give myself grace. Maybe I'll learn that there is nothing to do that will earn God's favor, nothing that will make me more adequate to my wife, daughters, or brothers. Maybe I'll finally realize that I'm enough, and that all I have to do is decide what to do with the time that has been given to me.

Fight the Lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!

I'm Angry, and that's OK, by Will

For the past month and a half I've been a student again; I've been doing a CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) unit, and it's been a really good experience. This unit is a step towards being able to pursue different chaplaincy paths, but more than that, it has proven to be an opportunity for deeper personal understanding, growth, and healing. My second week of the unit, the director of Spiritual Care where I'm doing my unit told me, "CPE is all about you." This was a bit of a shock to me, because my mindset was that it was helping me learn how to be a better chaplain, but in this unit I've learned that self-care, and knowledge of self, allows us to provide better care to others. It is in our own pain that we can relate to the pain of others.

This past week we were supposed to go over the Enneagram, however, since everyone else in my class has had that didactic before, and I'm familiar with the Enneagram, the educator decided to go in another direction to make the unit more beneficial. Initially there was disappointment, I was looking forward to learning more about this from someone else, all of my learning has come from audiobooks, and the songs and podcasts from Sleeping at last, and I was looking forward to learning more about it from an actual in the flesh teacher. Being a 1 in a world with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 is a bit of a challenge at times, and one day I'll probably write a post on my life as a 1, but not today.

Instead of the Enneagram, we talked about anger, and this proved to be a very enlightening topic. Culture sees anger as bad, dangerous, evil, and from a religious perspective, sinful. The reality is, this isn't the case. Anger is a human emotion that is wired into all of us, and if anger is a sin, then God has sinned multiple times.

"Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses" -Exodus 4.14a

"Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, 'O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?'" -Exodus 32.11

"Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp." -Numbers 11.1

"So the anger of the Lord burned against them and He departed." -Numbers 12.9

"So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel" -Numbers 32.13

"All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath." -Deuteronomy 29.23

"therefore the anger of the Lord burned against the sons of Israel" -Joshua 7.1b

The Psalms tell of God's anger; the prophets speak of "the day of the Lord's anger". Throughout the Bible we see God get angry, and as people, made in the image of God, anger is built into who we are. Anger is not a sin. Paul says in Ephesians "Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity." (4.26-27), and God's word's to Cain in Genesis 4.6-7, "Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.'"

Anger can lead to all kinds of evil, but anger in itself is not evil, and we need to stop treating it as if it is. Anger is an emotion, present in God, and anger can bring about a lot of good. It is because people are angry about things that change takes place; people are angry over injustice, inequality, mistreatment of the weak and helpless, and so they rise up and act to do something about it. The question should't be, "How do I keep from getting angry?" or "How do I suppress my anger?" but rather, "What am I angry about and how do I channel that to bring about change?"

Right now I'm angry about the situation I'm in, and what my daughters are being put through. My anger is fed by the fact that I am powerless to do anything about the situation. I'm angry that I'm being punished for something I never did. I'm angry about what my daughters have to deal with. I'm angry.

Anger is not a sin. Anger is not something to be suppressed. Anger is an emotion seen in God, and we, as His image bearers, were created with anger as an emotion. Be angry, but in your anger don't sin.


Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!

Lack of sleep, by Aaron

My family decided to drive up to my in-laws house last weekend to hang out for a few days. We live about two hours from my wife's family, so we normally stay a few days when we drive up. My youngest child is about 10 months old right now and just recently started sleeping through the night. It has been about 3 or 4 weeks since she started sleeping through the night, which has been a great blessing for my wife and I. As most parents already know; when you go somewhere else overnight, you never know how the kids are going to sleep.

We stayed two nights at their home and I felt like I got hit by a semi. The best thing about grandma and grandpa is that they can help us out and give us a break. Trust me when needed as much help as we could get after that first night. The baby went to bed around 830 or 9 that night. We ended up going to bed a little later, but at midnight she woke up screaming. We initially let her cry a little to see if she would put herself back to sleep. She definitely was not going back to sleep, so my wife ended up giving her a bottle. She put her back in the pack-in-play, but the baby still was not happy. I ended up rubbing her back for a few minutes and she finally went to sleep. I want to say throughout the whole sequence we were up for like an hour, but felt like 10 hours. I think I got about 4 hours of sleep that night, because she was rolling around in the pack-in-play, we had a night light in our room which never helps the parents, and i had a hard time falling asleep because it just isn't our bed. Just a long night in general. So needless to say the rest of the weekend was very fun, but I was exhausted by the time we got back home on Sunday.

With three kids we've had many weekends very similar to the last one. Whether it was at my parents house, my wife's family, or our own house it just happens. It takes a few days to get back into the swing of the things. Sometimes it takes more than a few days to get back into our routine, could be days to weeks depending on how crazy life can be. I heard a sermon while I was at my in-laws house, and the pastor was talking about faith. He was in the book of Luke discussing the parable of the blind beggar asking Jesus to heal him (Luke 18: 35-43). Jesus told the beggar that because of his Faith that he was healed and the man got up and started following Him.

As the teacher continued to discuss faith, he mentioned that faith is something that can fluctuate. As he disscussed this fluctuation in faith it really struck a chord. Sometimes our faith is very strong and we feel that close connection with the Lord. It's those times that if we would have called upon the Lord to heal our blindness that we would have been healed because of our faith. There are also times when our faith is not very strong. That doesn't mean Jesus has left us or we are not beleivers, but we don't have the close connection with Him. Most of the time that is on us, we are going through something and we veer away from the Lord and our faith waivers or decreases. It reminds me of that lack of sleep that we experience at times. With that lack of sleep we are almost in a fog. We are just somewhat going through the motions. I go to work because I have to and unfortunatley probably don't perform as well. That lack of sleep can cloud your judgment. Things that normally do not irritate me can very well annoy me because I'm on edge. My wife and I may snap at each other or the kids because of our lack of energy.

With that lack of faith we start asking more questions about the Lord. We start questioning if we hear his voice anymore. We are not seeing the usual fruits of the spirit like we are used to. The Lord is still working and we are not seeing his work as easily or even at all. How do we recover from this lack of faith? The answer is pretty easy honestly. We have to have to get all up in the Lord's business!! Pray and speak to Him more, get in the Word more to find those answers. As you spend time with the Lord, that faith is going to increase and things start to get back into that "normal routine" You start seeing your prayers answered, you start hearing His voice more clearly, your joy comes back, and your peace returns. Life gets back to normal. It's like you got a good night of rest and your energy has returned.

I'm still getting my energy back from the trip last weekend. I am honestly looking forward to relaxing with my family and maybe get a nap in one of these days coming up. Until that rest comes back I will push closer to my family, I will push harder at work to become better. I know that digging in will help me become a stronger individual. I will also push closer to the Lord and look for his activity each day. Whether I have energy or not the Lord deserves my attention. So whether your faith is growing or has declined, push towards Him and not towards other things. As you seek Him more, that faith will start to steadily increase and you will grow in the Lord. So let's get our energy back, I'm tired of this lack of sleep!

God bless!!

-Aaron

Wait, what does the "+" mean?!, by Will

On October 18, 2019, I was sitting in my chair in the living room. I heard my wife get up and, having bought a pregnancy test the previous evening, waited for her reaction. After a few minutes it came, I went into the bathroom, hugged her, and saw the stick laying on the counter with a +, we're pregnant. Needless to say, this was not part of our plan; we had been married less than a month, there were things we wanted to wrap up, things we wanted to do, places we wanted to travel, but now life was forever changed.

In complete honesty, I was excited, being a dad is one of my favorite things, and having been through this before, I adjusted pretty quickly to news. Life is going to be different, priorities have needed to change, and plans get moved, but we're going to have a baby. There is a lot of good in my life. I'm married to an amazing woman, I've got a baby due this summer, and I've got a class starting this week with the Cleveland Clinic to acquire a CPE unit. Yet in spite of all the good, I've been focused on everything that is going wrong.

A lot of my focus since the end of August has been on my daughters and the ongoing legal battle I'm in. Yes, that situation sucks. I'm being punished for something that my ex-wife made up, and I've dealt with the frustration of having no control over my situation or any say in my daughter's lives. It's been rough, and again, the situation sucks, but my attitude hasn't helped.

I've met with a counselor over that past year to help me deal with everything, and last night we talked about detaching. He pointed out that there is a lot of good in my life, something I've known but needed to hear from someone else, and we talked about the power of thoughts. He pointed out that thoughts don't exist anywhere else but in the mind, and that there are people who want to pull us into their chaos, and we can enter their chaos when they aren't present by allowing our thoughts to focus on the chaos they try to pull us into.

For a while, and really intensely over the past four-ish months, I've allowed myself to consumed by the chaos. This has prevented me to seeing the good, seeking, trusting, or believing anything good about God, and has just sucked the life out of me. My wife has been in a similar position, no doubt influenced by my attitude, but yesterday she wrote a post choosing to focus on God and not let Satan win this, because the reality is that he is at the root of this whole thing.

There is nothing I can do about the situation with my daughters, that is in the hands of the magistrate and the guardian ad litem, and as much as I hate not being able to fix it, or seemingly do anything about it, the reality is that it's out of my hands. My choice lies in how I approach life apart from this. I'm always going to be their daddy, nothing will change that, and I'm always going to present and active in their lives, because I'm their daddy. But my life is bigger than them. I have a wife who loves me and wants to do life with me. We have our own family starting soon, and I have a new opportunity to pursue.

I can let myself be consumed by what I can't control, sacrificing everything else as I'm consumed by frustration and anger over the injustice of it all, or I can choose what I allow to have power in my mind. I can fight the lion who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy, or I can become his lunch.

I choose to focus on God. I choose to love and be present with my wife, building our life together, and raising our children, and if/when the situation changes and I get custody of my daughters, inviting them into the safe and healthy environment we've established. I choose to focus on the good, to not allow Satan to have power over what my mind dwells on. I choose to fight the lion.


Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!