Daddy Daughter Date Night - Don't Miss Your Window

I've never been comfortable holding babies, not even my own.  When I was a boy, I had a little "incident" when I was supposed to be holding a baby that pretty much ruined me when it comes to holding babies.  I fumble, a lot.  There are no five pressure points for holding a baby securely that I am aware of.  So, suffice it to say that I'm uncomfortable.  I'm not comfortable with babies at all; they are so tiny and helpless and I am the proverbial "bull in a china shop".  I will always admit that my wife did all of the "heavy lifting"  with the kids.  When we had our first child, it was my wife who was up all night feeding and changing and taking care of them.  Okay, truth be told, she was always the one up with both of our kids, but she is a very light sleeper and I'm dead to the world when I fall asleep.

When my daughter was about 3 months old, Shannon had been getting up every night since Taylor was born and she was worn out.  (My wife requires 12-14 hours of sleep a night or she is downright hostile; I often joke that she'd sleep her life away if I let her.)  So, at about 9pm one night, I told my wife to bring me Taylor and I would hold her while Shannon got some sleep; she accepted the offer.  She brought Taylor and handed her to me and I was nervous; she was just so tiny and precious and I'm so big and clumsy.  I'm sure I didn't look comfortable holding her because my wife kept asking me if I was going to be okay.  I tried to assure her (and myself) that it would be okay.  I got this.  My wife went to bed and there we were, just me and Taylor Bug.  I was worried that I'd drop her, that I would fall asleep and accidentally smother her with one of my man-boobs.  I was so scared that I would do something wrong.  So I just sat there, petrified.  I just stared at her.  She was so beautiful and tiny and her little hand couldn't even wrap around my finger.  I just stared at her for hours.  I noticed after some time that the sun was starting to come up and the first light of the day was starting to break; I hadn't move at all.  I couldn't take my eyes off her.  After the dawn had fully arrived, my wife walked into the living room and found me sitting in the same spot, still hadn't moved, and the first thing she asked was if I had been up all night holding Taylor; I guess it was obvious I hadn't even so much as twitched since she had gone to bed.  I'll never forget that night.

Tonight, some 8 year later, I took Taylor out for a Daddy-Daughter Date Night; I wore a suit, she wore a pretty dress.  We ate at a "grown-up" restaurant, out on the patio, and she had a strawberry daiquiri that was a foot tall.  We talked, we laughed, and I stared into that beautiful tiny face and I thought of that night years before and everything was perfect. There was a time years ago when I might not have taken the time take her out for a little Daddy-Daughter time and I am so thankful for God's Grace and how it has changed my life.  Someone once asked me how I knew there was a God and I answered that I knew there was a God the day each of my children were born because in that moment when you first see them and hear them cry and a kind of love and joy you never knew existed enters your heart, it is only possible that we were created by God, in His image.  It was an emotion I had never felt before and it was so powerful that I thought the doctor would have to slap me; instead she just told me to get a hold of myself; several times she told me that (and I'm not a crier, well, I wasn't a crier).    If someone were to ask me that same question today, I would have a different answer.  I would answer that I know there is a God because last night I was given a chance to fix something that was once broken, to redeem a relationship that I was letting slip away because of the things in me that were broken.  I would say that when I fell on my knees and asked God to show me all my "warts" that He didn't just show them to me, He showed me how to fix them too.  His Grace is so amazing and earth shaking if you just let it into your life.  You've only have a small window in your children's life when you've got their undivided attention and all of their love and innocence before the World tries to take it from them; distract them, tell them parents and Daddy-Daughter Date Nights aren't cool.  I'm just thankful that God showed me that window and His Grace kept me from missing it all together.

A Dad's Prayer

For some strange reason, I felt the need to explain why I write these blogs because I don’t want to seem narcissistic. The hope is that by writing some of these blog entries that someone who reads it might be helped by some of the things I have experienced and that they might see that it is possible to change their life’s path as well. If you think there is any worth in sharing this blog entry with anyone you know, please send them a link to the blog, or print it out and tape it to their TV remote, or email it to friends and coworkers who might benefit by reading it. 

 

My failures as a Dad far out-weigh my successes. There is no “Owner’s Manual” for being a parent and despite all of your friends and relatives advice, nobody really knew how to be a parent before their kids arrived. Even though that is true, some of this parenting stuff should be intuitive for us guys and sometimes we just choose to ignore our nature. It has been previously documented in this blog that I was a very self-centered person. I was self-centered to the point where it became a wall between me and my own wife and children. This was a wall that I built; stone by stone and brick by brick. They didn’t “wrong” me into building it. I built this wall on my own accord and I built because I thought that I had to play the role of the strong and distant father. In my mind, I thought my job as “Dad” was to provide for them, to protect them, and to guide them through life while showing as little real emotion as possible. In my mind, I already had plans for the type of cars I was going to surprise them with on their sixteenth birthdays, I had planned out how they would always have “stuff”, and how they would always have everything their hearts could desire. But I was wrong in understanding what their heart’s desire was. You see, in my mind, I wanted to give them the world, but all they want is to know they have my heart. As the strong and silent father, they have my heart; they always have had it, but as a Dad, I don’t know if I’ve told them they have my heart. When my daughter was very little, I was on the road working away from home a lot; to the point that when I was home, I was a stranger to her. As she’s grown, I’ve still remained somewhat of a stranger, a stranger hidden by this ridiculous wall I spent so much time creating. Recently, when I was working in Washington, DC due to the tough economy and had to be away from my family, I would write these emails to my wife describing how much I missed her and the children and how I couldn’t stand being apart from them. You would think that my wall wouldn’t fit on the plane, but it did and I brought it home with me each and every time. We would go on vacation once every couple years and I’d hang out in the hotel while they went to Disney. I am/was a mess. I’m still broken. I still have this wall. I’ve spent more time and energy trying to be this strong and silent Father than just being a Dad. I’ve watched my “wife’s sister’s husband” bark and yell at his kids and I’ve thought many many times how he was a giant jerk, but his kids were just scared of him, mine don’t know me. Who’s the jerk now?

A month ago, I was working with the Worship Team at LGC for their annual Shine Conference for their Women’s ministry. The conference is a Friday night and Saturday morning of music, worship, and estrogen. Probably a month before the scheduled event, they asked me to play bass for the conference which would require a commitment of 4 or 5 Sundays of rehearsals prior to the actual event. Of course, I jumped at the chance, I love working with the Worship Team and serving at LGC. About a week before the Conference, my wife comes in the kitchen and asks me what I’m doing on that coming Friday because there was a Daddy-Daughter dance at my daughter’s school. They were both on the same night. If you know me, then you know that one of my biggest mantras is DWYSYWD. Do What You Said You Would Do. I had made a commitment to the Shine Conference and it was too late to back out, I never back out, and I didn’t want to back out. I’m still more selfish than I like to admit. That was the end of the conversation. My wife knows how I am/was/were, so she knew not to light the powder keg of DWYSYWD. I forgot about it, the Shine Conference was a hit. Fast forward to this weekend where my wife and I attended a Marriage Conference at LGC which was another Friday night and Saturday morning event. The conference was earth-shakingly good. When we got home that night to a child-less house, we had the best conversations about our marriage and I finally grew a pair and told my wife just how much I want to be the husband and Dad they all deserve. Then she hit with the fallout from the Daddy-Daughter Dance. Apparently, this was a big deal in my daughter’s world and had I been more in-tune I might have noticed that myself. In fact, several times, my daughter had mentioned it to my wife about how she was the only girl at her school that didn’t get to go. Twist the knife, I know, right? Then last Friday the kids all had to bring in 4 or 5 pictures of themselves to make a poster and all of the other little girls had pictures from the Daddy-Daughter Dance. OUCH! Strong and silent Father was not ready for that. I couldn’t get that out of my head. My wife suggested I take her out for a special date night, just me and her to try and smooth this over. You see, my wife is so much smarter than me as well. We got up the next morning and went to the Marriage Conference and all I could think about was, “Do they have a Dad Conference”? After the conference, I drove to Carrollton, and thought about all my mistakes as a parent. I wondered if Hallmark makes a “Your Father’s Sorry He’s A Douche Bag” card. I prayed about it. I asked God how could I be so changed as a man, but still fail as a Dad? What was it going to take for me to realize that I’m blowing it? I’ve been blowing it the entire time.

The answer came and it was that I can’t afford to lose any more time in getting this right. I had built this wall stone by stone and brick by brick, but it needs to come down now before I look back and realize that time has run short. I decided the night before that I was going to be the best husband on the planet and I decided on that drive home that I was going to be the best Dad I can be; no more strong and silent. I walked in the door and went in to my daughter’s room and I asked her if I could talk to her. We sat down on her bed and I put my arm around her and I apologized from the bottom of my heart for not taking her to the Daddy-Daughter Dance. I told her that next year we we’re definitely going and that I’ve cleared the entire month of February on my calendar for her. I asked her if she would go on a date with me in the next couple weeks or days, so she and I could spend some time together and so I can show her how much I love her and that she’s my little princess. We’re going to dress up, look our best, and really make an effort to do this right; I have a lot of work to do. The funny thing is that she forgave me on the spot and loved on me without condition. She didn’t want stuff; she wanted my heart.

This is my plea, this is my prayer for myself and any of you guys who might be blowing it to, even if just a little:

• Love your kids in actions and words; don’t just assume they know you love them. You don’t have to play the role of the strong and silent Father just because that is how you were raised.
• Don’t let your worldly frustrations blind you to the needs of your children to know and feel your love. If you come home from work tired and frustrated because of the day’s events, your lack of career success, or whatever the root of your frustrations are, leave them in the car/driveway. Your kids will love your middle-management butt, when no one else will.
• Build a wall; build a wall with your wife and kids inside the walls and the world on the outside.
• Be intuitive. It’s not just your wife’s job to know when your kids need a little more love on the tough days.
• Be Superman every day. To your kids, no matter their ages, you are Superman, Batman, Prince Charming, and Spiderman all rolled into one. That is a huge responsibility and it takes a strong man to bring it…every day. When you’re tired and they want to play, suck it up Spiderman.
• Invest your time in them. They will bring you the biggest return you’ll ever receive.
• Love infinitely. I have limited time, limited money, limited patience, limited smarts (obviously, see other blog posts), but we all have an infinite supply of love. You never run low or run out of love, so stop stockpiling it, give it away.

If you’re a great Dad, then God bless you. I am not a great Dad, but God has blessed me with this renewed heart and this brand new set of eyes to see all of my warts and He has given me the strength to change. Of all of the changes that have been happening in my life, I feel that this weekend God has spoken into my life and said that there is nothing more important in life than to be the best husband and the best father I can be, like He designed me to be. I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’m excited to get started. I’ve got a very important date coming up, and other than the first date with my wife, this is the most important date of my life and I’m sure I’ll be nervous.

O' What a Year It Has Been

To those who have read some of my blog posts, you know that I’ve been renewed in my faith and it has deeply affected my life in every aspect.  So much so, that I’ve been compelled to write a few blog posts about some of the great things that God has done in my life.  It dawned on me this morning (pun intended) as I drove to the office that it has been one year since I first walked into LifeGate Church in Villa Rica and met some of the people who would help change my life.  It has been one awesome and eventful year and I don’t think any of it would have happened had I not found a home that was welcoming, safe, and lead by people who are genuine in their love of the Lord and their love for His church.

I’ve grown more as a man, husband, father, and friend in this past year than any other span of time in my life and that is because of His Word, the teaching of the Pastors at LifeGate, and the people God has put into my life.  I have seen long-lost friendships renewed, a marriage brought back from the edge of divorce, and a life once thought ordinary shown to be nothing less than extraordinary.  My eyes were opened to all of the blessings in my life that I had never seen for their true worth; for what really matters.  I was broken, lost, and chasing after things in life that had no value other than the value popular culture places on them, but all of that has changed now.

A few weeks back, I wrote a blog about how my marriage has changed over the course of this past year and one of my friends at church, after reading it, commented that he thought Pastor Tony’s Wednesday Night message mirrored some of the points I made in my blog and that maybe Pastor T had read my blog and somehow infused some of those points into his message.  He made the same point to me in front of Pastor T that Sunday after the service and I didn’t realize it at that moment, but on the ride home, I realized that the inverse of his comments were true.  It wasn’t my blog post thoughts and musing coming out of Pastor T, it was his teaching of the Word permeating my life and manifesting itself in so many aspects of my life that it was coming out of me through my blog posts.  I looked back at some of my older blogs and right there in plain text were the sayings, concepts, and teachings of Pastor Tony in every one of them.  All of them straight from the Word; packaged for me to understand, use, and apply to my life.  As I reflected this morning, I was thankful that God showed me to that church lead by Pastor Tony and Pastor Sheryll; He knew the type of people and the type of leaders that I needed to shake me off my path and return me to the path that leads to the life He intended for me.  I like to walk up to Pastor T and say to him, “If I haven’t told you in a while, Thank You”, to which, he usually just thanks me back; I guess some things don’t require a bunch of explanation.

More than any one person at LifeGate, I have spent more time with Matt Shaffer than anyone else and I think there has been divine intention in that as well.  Matt is a quirky guy whose mind is always going in a hundred different directions at a thousand miles an hour.  It is the cut of his snowflake, most assuredly.  He is an exceptionally talented musician and musicians are typically wired a little differently than I find myself to be, but there is not a more loving person on the planet, I am sure.  Matt loves people unconditionally and without reservation.  When Matt meets you and talks to you for the first time, he already loves and cares about you and will just pour that love out onto you like a 3 year old at his first attempt at putting syrup on his own stack on pancakes.  For someone like me, that was a whole new experience.  I didn’t know how to handle it and I assumed it was just a façade; nobody just loves other people they just met like that, are you kidding me, c’mon.  When I first started playing with the Worship Team Matt (and his wonderful wife) lead, I was apprehensive because I was afraid to get a “behind the scenes” look at them, the church, and the Pastors.  I was afraid that once I got a look behind the curtain, that I would see how the gears meshed and discover all that glitters is not gold.  And man, I was watching to, like a hawk, waiting for them to slip up, let their hair down, and talk bad about someone on the worship team or a church member, to gossip about “so and so”, for the Pastors to be mean and demanding when the lights went off and the microphones went silent, but it never came.  Not once, not even a little, not even a “gray” area.  What, are you kidding me?  Nope, it never came and resigned myself to the fact that these people were walkers of the talk and they do so without effort.  A football coach famously once said at a postgame interview when referring to the other team, “They ARE who we thought they were.”  Yes they are.  They are people who exceeded my understanding of what it means to be genuine and Godly.  I love Matt.  I love his quirkiness and everything that makes him the man that I draw so much inspiration from.  When people talk about wanting to emulate others, wanting to have some of what “they” got, I think of Matt Shaffer and how he loves and treats people.  At Thursday night rehearsal when the sheet music from Planning Center is in the key of A and we jump into the first song and everyone but me is in Bb, I smile and laugh, not out of frustration, but because I love the guy and I know when he walks over to me and asks, “Are you playing because I can’t hear you in my “ears’”, that I’m going to say “Yeah” even when I’m not playing at all! 

There are so many inspiring people in my life now, that it truly is God sent.  I was “chatting” with a friend on Facebook late last night and it just struck me how God has put all of these people in my life to help me on this journey and that if we accept Him, we will never be alone in this walk.  It is akin to bowling when they put those inflatable bumpers in the gutters; no matter how erratic we are in our walk, God has lined our path with the people we need to steer us back on course.  I am thankful for all the bumpers in the gutters; I need them often.  I’m thankful for Cheri who teaches me not to be afraid of falling down, but to be fearful of not having the faith to stand back up, to know that doing it on my own is a losing proposition, and that it’s in the tiniest pieces of Grace that God shows you that you are His favorite.  I’m thankful that my wife didn’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and that I’m learning to be a better husband by being surrounded by men who have great marriages.  I’m thankful for great leaders that God has put in place at LifeGate for it is their leadership that has put all of these people in place to build this great foundation and change people’s lives.  On those tough days, just know that what you do, does, in fact, change people’s lives forever.  I would be remiss not to thank all of those people for what they have done for me, my wife, and our family over the past year; you gained a two-fingered tone deaf bass player with no natural sense of rhythm and I gained a whole new life.  I win.  As Abi would say, “Go Jesus”.  So, if I haven’t told you lately, Thank You All.

Building A Better Husband One Day at a Time

About this time last year, I was in a funk.  For the second time in 2 years, I had been laid off from my job and was spending an inordinate amount of time wallowing in self pity and self doubt.  I was completely self-absorbed.  In hindsight, this was nothing new.  The problem with being self-centered is that you're always concerned about "me".  My marriage was pitiful.  Not because we were no longer compatible or "in love" or anything alone those lines.  My marriage was pitiful because it only had one person in it; I was too concerned with "me" to be an active participant in my own marriage.

Even when life was going great, I was not a good husband.  Now in tough times, I was even worse.  Not abusive or violent, that's not something I am capable of, but I was so focused on "me" that whatever I could blame on her, I did.  She didn't love "me" enough, she didn't care enough for "me", she didn't care what I wanted, she didn't support "me", and she didn't understand "me".  I would be sitting at home, unemployed, thinking of all the ways she wasn't serving "me".  This all came to a head one morning in late February last year.  She was up early for work and getting the kids ready and I woke up frustrated and in the mindset of "she doesn't love 'me".  It was one of those hectic morning scenes that we all have where the kids are sleepy, cranky, and crying as we try to get everyone out the door.  But this morning, "me" had had enough and I screamed at her that I wanted a divorce.  Now this had been floating around in "me" brain for a long time, but this is the first time I had actually said it.  We just stared at each other.  I don't think either of us believed what we just heard.

About this same time, I started going to the most amazing little church, LifeGate Church.  That first Sunday, I went because my sister-in-law wanted the family to go to their church for her birthday.  I certainly was not there for "me".  Funny thing happened when I was sitting there listening to the teaching, I started to understand that God wants "me" to have "rich and satisfying life".  At the time, life was anything and everything other than "rich and satisfying".  The pastor taught and I listened; Sunday after Sunday my life was changing.  The more and more I learned about the Word, the more I changed.  The more I changed, the less I was concerned about "me".  The more I hung out with the people from church, the more I saw examples of rich and satisfying life.  The more I read the Word, the more I understood what life was supposed to be about and what God expected from me.  I can't even begin to explain how all of this changed my thinking.  For seemingly the first time in my life, I was putting things in order of importance and the first thing on the list wasn't "me".This was not some over night epiphany and I'm still learning and still working on getting it right which seems to be a lifelong journey.

As things were being put into the proper order, I started to become a better husband.  Better, but still not good.  To fully understand how much of a change this was, one needs to understand what it was like to be married to me.  For 11 years, when I was home and not working in some strange city away from the family, I was a non-entity in the marriage.  I worked long hours and when I came home, I would get a dip of Copenhagen and spend the evening playing Xbox before falling asleep on the couch.  This was 7 days a week.  I didn't take out the trash, help with the kids, clean house, or even clean up after myself.  I was only concerned about "me" and I didn't want to be bothered with those things.  I thought that since I worked 70+ hours a week and my wife worked 3 days a week, that she could handle all of those things without my help.  Besides, "me" was tired and wanted to come home and unwind.  This went on for 11 years.  So, the morning I screamed at my wife that I wanted a divorce may have actually been a moment of relief for her, I don't know, we've never talked about it since it happened.

When God changed the way I think and changed my heart, it changed how I acted and how I felt about being a husband.  My wife hated my 15 year long Copenhagen habit, which was a can a day at that point, and she hated how I spent all day playing Xbox.  So with very little fanfare, I decided to stop doing both of those things and just like that, I no longer had the desire to do either one.  I started to make family a priority.  Instead of being self absorbed, I was focusing on the family; spending my time with them and fixing what was once broken.  Things got better, I was happier and I felt fulfilled being a husband and dad.  We spent time watching TV together and talking more.  I invested time in the lives of my wife and kids and forgot about "me".  I was improving, but still not where I needed to be.

Every night when I come home from work, the first thing I do is take off my shirt (don't worry I always wear an undershirt of some kind) and throw it on the back of a chair.  By the end of the week, it was common for 4 or 5 shirts to be piled up on a chair in the kitchen or strewn on the couch.  Not to worry, my wife is off on Fridays, so she would clean them up and put them in the laundry and clean the pile of dishes that had accumulated during the busy days of the week.  She'd been doing for the last 11 years anyway.  We went out with some friends one night and while eating dinner she was making fun of the way I leave clothes laying all around and while everyone was laughing, I had an amazing realization.  I had been praying for God to show me where I was failing as a husband, and I realized at that moment that I was still driving my wife nuts by not doing the simplest things to make her life easier.  So I decided sitting right there that I was going to start serving my wife more, you know, serve her by not being "me".  For the next 2 weeks, when I came in the door from work, I immediately hung up my jacket in the hall closet and when I took off my shirt, I took it straight to the laundry.  Now, some of you are probably still shaking your heads at me, but we're taking baby steps here people...baby steps.  Along with the shirts in the laundry, I started doing the dishes every night so that dishes wouldn't pile up in the sink.  Unlike in the past, I did this without wanting anything in return, you know, when your husband does something "right" he wants you to shoot off some fireworks or something; at least I did.  So this new behavior for me had been going on 2-3 weeks and she hadn't even mentioned it.  She did thank me once or twice, but I think she was more confused than anything and probably wondering what I was up to or what I had bought that she was going to find out about when the credit card bill arrived.  But I was happy doing it and I liked the fact that she appreciated the new "me".

Last week, I stopped to get gas on my way to work and when I opened my wallet, inside there was a little folded piece of paper.  I unfolded it to find a little note from my wife that read, "I hope you have a great day, [heart] Spud"  (Spud is her nickname I gave her 18 years ago, but that is a topic for another time).  It made my day.  That is the first note she had written to me in probably 15 years; it was the first time I deserved a note in 15 years.  I posted it on Facebook, I was so proud.  I sent her a text thanking her for the note and in it I said that God was making me a better husband and I apologized that it had taken so long.  My life, my heart, and my thinking has changed so much in the last year and it all started when I walked into that little church and listened to the Pastor teaching about the Word.  Through God and His Word, the positive examples of rich and satisfying life from some amazing people at LifeGate Church, and my wife's infinite patience I have started to become the husband she deserves, the father my kids need, and the man God expects me to be...one day at a time.

Can you imagine how much it is going to blow her mind when I start taking out the trash on my own???

A Second Chance

When I was in high school, I befriended this skinny, quirky kid that worked at the local Amoco station across the street from the grocery store where I bagged groceries.  We both drove Monte Carlos; his was a little more scratched up than mine due to an incident with a bug that assaulted him while he was driving down a dirt road near his house or at least that is the story he told his parents the day it happen.  We spent hours and hours hanging out at the Amoco while he was working as I was the new kid in town and never found making friends an easy thing to do.  Since he was at work and couldn't leave, I had a captive audience.  At some point along the way, I must have convinced him that my friendship was worth having and we forged a tight knit friendship and we'd spend the better part of the next decade as classmates, roommates, teammates, and the best of friends.

We moved out of our parents houses right after we graduated high school into this little shanty of a house on the golf course at Fairfield Plantation.  He went off to college at West Georgia and I soon followed after a failed attempt to go off and do my own thing.  More than one time we chased after the same girl; he won most of the time, well all the time, but who's keeping score.  Even through moments when we could have literally killed each other over a girl or some other trivial disagreement, our friendship always made it through.  Even the time he thought it would be a funny idea to wake me up with a very realistic toy snake and found out that I slept with a gun next to my bed and wasn't afraid to point it at people, our friendship endured.  We were inseparable; a ying and yang matched pair.  He was a neat freak and I was the slob.  He arranged his half of the closet by t-shirts, then polo shirts, then long sleeve shirts; my clothes were in a heap on the floor of the closet.  He was outgoing and the life of the party and I was the strong silent type that kept him out of trouble when his mouth wrote checks his butt couldn't cash.

He changed colleges and I feel head-over-heels in love with the girl that would eventually become my wife and for a while we lived separate lives, but before long I followed him to his new college and we lived across the hall from each other in the dorms.  I lived with his family during the summers while working to pay for school.  I gave my life to Jesus in the upstairs bedroom on his stepfathers house in Hampton, Ga.  His mother bought me my first Bible to celebrate the occasion, which I still have to this day.  I loved him like a brother and I thought we'd always be friends.  But funny things happen and some where along this journey, unbeknownst to us, we had built up some animosity, some resentment, and probably a little jealousy and envy.  He was always smarter than me; often correcting my English papers, he was better looking than me and the woman just flocked to him in droves, and he had this engaging personality that was so different from my introverted one.  One day, we got into an argument, feelings were hurt, words were exchanged, but it didn't feel any different than any of the other times we'd gotten on each others nerves or exchanged words, but something was different.  The anger and the resentment never receded and soon we stop talking; he moved out and we didn't speak again for another 12 years.

About 8 months ago, I "friended" his sister on Facebook and she gave me his number; I stored it away in my phone and never thought much about it.  When I was Saved at his house back all those years ago, I never changed my life.  About the same time that his sister gave me his number, on a invitation from a family member, I wandered into this amazing little church in Villa Rica and it would help change my life.  The people of that church and the Word of God touched my life in a way that has changed my heart forever.  Instead of being this bullheaded guy doing life his own way, I now have a relationship with God that shapes my life.  I heard God for the first time and had faith that in His Word there was life; rich and satisfying life.

One day, I was driving home from work and I heard God say, "Call Bill".  I think my initial response was something like, "No".  I was afraid that if I called him it might be awkward.  The last words we spoke were not kind and how do you call someone out of the blue after 12 years.  Again, God said, "Call him".  But this time I had a rebuttal, "No, what if it's awkward or he's indifferent?  I will feel dumb."  "Call him" was the response.  So I did and the conversation couldn't have gone any better.  We talked about wives and children, he leads a Bible study group at his church and I play in the Worship band at our church, and while we only had a few minutes to talk we planned to meet up at our upcoming class reunion.  He said he was glad I called and I thanked God for being so much smarter than me.

My family and I spent yesterday afternoon at his house in Newnan with his lovely wife, whom I love to death, and his three wonderful children.  We laughed, played catch with his son, and the kids jumped on the trampoline.  The wives talked and the children played like they had known each other for a lot longer than a few hours.  We talked, watched football, and ate pizza with a table full of kids and you would never have thought there was a 12 year gap in our friendship.  At one point of the night, he and I went to the local grocery store to pick up some dessert and while we were walking through Publix, he commented that is was funny how here we were after all these years hanging out with each others families.  But you know, that is how I had always envisioned our lives being.  All those years ago, I would never have thought it would have been any different than it was that night.  It was always the unspoken plan to barbeque in each others' backyards, to watch the kids little league games, and to be lifelong friends.

As I sat in church this morning listening to the preacher'n, I took a couple minutes to thank God for being smarter than me, for having a plan for me, for telling me to make that call, for Bill, Ashley, Tripp, Jasper, and Zoee Grace, for "Honk Honk", and for a second chance to make things right.  I didn't know how heavy a burden I had been carrying for the last 12 years until He lifted that yoke from me.  I reflected back on the last 8 months and how so many things have changed in my life and how much more rich and satisfying it really has become.  I don't know often Bill and his family and my family will be able to get together, but I know, thanks to God, that I don't have to worry about not getting a second chance to make things right nor do I have to live with that burden.  Yesterday morning, I sat eating my breakfast next to two men in their fifties, who appeared to be long time friends, and as they passed a business card back and forth, they each had to reach for their reading glasses to see the smallish print as they talked about airplanes and airplane parts, a conversation it seemed they have had many many times, and I thought to myself two things; how cool is that to find a kindred spirit like that to share your life with and man does God know what he is doing or what!

20 Years...Really?

On the morning of my 20 year High School reunion, I awoke at 6:30am, which is a luxury in and of itself these days, and as I walked into the bathroom to shower and start the day, my first thought when looking in the mirror was, "I don't look old, do I?"  I know it doesn't feel like it's been twenty years since I graduated High School but the calendar doesn't agree.  How did this happen?  It's all been such a blur.  First there was graduation in that hot stuffy gym at what was once West Georgia College, then some college here and there sandwiched between Spring Breaks, a job interview, a first date, a wedding, a birth or two (four in some cases), some soccer games, and now this reunion.  It all seems to have been a blip on the radar when one looks back on the last twenty years.

As most men over 30 years old, I have a very distorted self image.  No matter how old I get, how bald I get, or how fat I get, to me, I think I've still got "IT".  I not really sure that I really ever had "IT"when I was 17 or 18, but I am convinced that no matter what it was, it's still there.  At least I have grown wiser in the last 20 years and for the fact alone, I will not try to stuff my self into clothing that I once wore in High School; God bless those of you who still can.  But tonight is not about who we used to be or what we used to look like or act like.  It's not about who's succeeded and who's failed.  It's not about who has and who has not.  No, tonight is about renewing old friendships, looking at photographs of kids and families, meeting spouses for the first time, and reminiscing about the good old days before mortgages and orthodontist bills clouded our thoughts.  Tonight is about taking inventory of our lives from the past 20 years and appreciating the journey, both the good and the bad, that has shaped our lives and made us who we are today.  Grey hairs, extra chins, and wrinkles are just the currency of experience.

Tonight, I get to spend some time with a brother from another mother that I have not seen or, until a couple weeks ago, talked to in over 12 years after we'd been almost inseparable for the better part of a decade.  We got into a huge argument in college over nothing in particular and never spoke again until just a few weeks ago.  We missed each others weddings and the sharing in the joy of the birth of each others' children over an argument I can't even remember.  Through the wonders of Facebook, I friended his sister who gave me his cell phone number; I sat on it for months.  Then one day I was driving home and God just told me to call him, so I did and instead of the call being awkward, it was huge relief of a burden I had carried in my heart for over 12 years.  God is good and he's got a good plan for us.  I'm looking forward to meeting his wife tonight and hearing their story and about their kids; I've got 12 years to catch up on.  Tonight is going to be a good night.

Twenty years where have you gone?  I guess once we take inventory of our lives it will be easier to chronicle those years and understand how they seem to fold away into the wrinkles of our lives.  For tonight, I'm just looking forward to seeing all of these old friends.  I'm looking forward to seeing Cheri and Meredith in person after living vicariously through their week of Facebook posts.  I look forward to thanking Renee for all her hard work in organizing this event.  I hope I get an opportunity to see Mrs. Cetti and complain one more time about that Senior Project that was tougher than anything I ever did in college!  Ha!  It will be fun to see who married whom and what everyone else has been doing with their lives this past 20 years.  Maybe tonight when I get home and look into that mirror again, I'll have the answer to my predawn question, but it really doesn't matter insomuch as the journey has been worth every lost follicle.

Bad day, good night

I had a bad day. Another fourteen hour work day full of problems and complications, no breakfast or lunch, and I couldn't even break away long enough to use the restroom until I left at 6:30pm. All day I had waited on a phone call that never came. Even the things that break the grind of the day seemed to be another source of frustration. By the time I made it to the car for my hour and half commute, I was exhausted, dejected, and out of patience. The perfect remedy for that is, of course, Atlanta traffic.

I hit the road and dialed up a year old podcast that I recently downloaded from the Pastor at our Church. For the first half hour I listened to the teaching and cruised down 85 South without incident, but as I got closer and closer to downtown, the traffic started to increase and with it my frustration. So here I am listening to Pastor Tony teach about the Word and the only sound interrupting that teaching was my voice barking at unsuspecting motorists to “Friggin Move!”. Okay, I cleaned that up, but you get the point. The more I drove, the more frustrated I got and the more I lashed out and interrupted Pastor Tony with my outbursts of anger interspersed with the occasional verbal affirmation of his preaching. Sad, I know. By the time, I hit the Liberty Road, I was in a tizzy; this sort of self-created fit of anger and frustration and my language was horrible. I wanted to wash my own mouth out with soap.

Pulled into the driveway at 8pm to realize that it's Cheerleading night and no one else is home yet, which means no dinner prepared and most likely a few piles of surprise from the German Shepherd. Now I'm mad. In my mind, I'm questioning why I work so hard when it is seemingly play time for everyone else in the household. Why do I work 14 hour days and the wife only works 24 hour WEEKS? My anger and frustration had found a new target. By the time I cut the lights on in the kitchen, I was creating arguments in my head that I wanted to have with her. You know how you have these little mini-arguments in your head where you are both people at the same time? I even had her replies and my retorts going back in forth in my head and I had an answer for everything. I was winning. I was so angry at her that I was just shaking. I was so mad and she wasn't even home yet! I could feel my face getting hot and the heat coming off my bald head. I opened the refrigerator to find a whole bunch of nothing and the cupboards contained the same thing. I thought, “You work three 8 hour days, the least you could do is keep some semblance of food in this house so that when I get home from work I can finally eat something.” If you know me, you know I'm not starving or anything approximating malnourishment, but you could not have convinced me of that at this particular moment.

When you're 6'5” and roughly 330lbs, your fits are loud. I stomped off towards the front door with what sounded like a herd of buffalo in tow. I stepped out into the cool night air and I heard something in me say “You know what this is don't you”, “This is someone letting you know that no matter how much you think you've changed that they still have a foothold in your heart.” The anger and the venom I had been spewing for the last hour or so came from my heart; it's the only place it can come from. Here I was having the teaching of the Word going into my ears, but my heart was full of filth. The worst part is that I was completely oblivious to the struggle going on within myself. My head and my heart were in direct conflict and the filth and crud in my heart was winning.

A couple deep breaths and a conscious decision to change my heart and the anger was gone and the frustrations of the day that once seemed so important were now trivial. I had heard stories about how God keeps on loving you even when you're not at your best or when you're letting the crud still left in your heart rule your thoughts and emotions, but I had never experienced it until tonight. Just then I saw the lights of the rogue cheerio laden Tahoe sweep into the driveway and my heart, now quiet, welled up with joy and happiness. The woman who had been the target of my venom was now wondering why I was standing in the driveway smiling like a giant dufus. The kids rolled out of the car and they couldn't care less why I was smiling, they just wanted to love on Daddy, good day or bad, they have no prerequisites or conditions to satisfy and their love is the best. Now I understand why He loves me, good days or bad, unconditionally, with crud or without. It's the best kind of love.