Mindless Juices

Thirteen years ago on this day, I began a romantic relationship with an amazing woman.  Like anyone our age, we were young.  We were stupid.  We were in love.  We were smitten.  We were dreamers.

But, before I go on, I need to tell you that I write this because it’s important for anyone who’ll care to, to know that I am celebrating today.  And for those who read this, you should know why I’m celebrating.  It’s taken 13 years for me to realize all of the incredible moments that I didn’t realize were so incredible or important at the time.  The best way I could describe it was that I was “sleeping” right through them.  I was oblivious to how important they were to me and to everyone I would touch in my life.  I suppose everyone looks back on their life and can find these moments and have retrospective clarity, but I have a new life with new eyes and I don’t plan on missing the moments still to come “asleep.”  I plan to be awake from now on.  And in this “awakened” state, I want to illuminate you to some of the moments I missed before, but not anymore.

So, we were dreamers.  I had plans to make all of our dreams come true.  I was going to do it all… live the life I dreamed of and, if she would join me, she’d have it along with me.  We’d have success… by every means of the world’s standards, that’s what I’d have.  I knew I could do it.

I know, it’s laughable, right?  So young, so stupid, so naive, so ignorant…

In a few months from now, I’ll celebrate the fact that 13 years ago, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.  It is, by far, the most important way that this amazing woman influenced my life.  She gently led me towards Him through sharing her music with me; Through sharing her faith with me in small bits; And simply by inviting me to join her at a week-long summer camp her in which her church was participating.  It was there that I really heard the Good News for the first time and accepted it and began my journey.

Unfortunately, I had no mentors or support to lead me down the path and immediately began rationalizing and justifying the life I had been living… my sinful life.  I didn’t want to change.  Truthfully, I didn’t change for 13 years.  Not because there weren’t attempts to call me to God’s standard, only because I wasn’t listening, I didn’t hear them, or I didn’t care.  Today, I want to take a moment right here to tell you how a single woman, the one I celebrate today, played her role in my life.  Because, although I was asleep and missed it as it was happening, I look back now and see it all so clearly.  I want you to know it, too.

Perhaps most of the moments I missed were directly related to the fact that God wanted me to have a servant’s heart.  He knew that with a servant’s heart, He’d have clay He could actually mold and work with.  Particularly with our joining of newhope Church 7 years ago,  my wife encouraged me to get involved and serve with my talents.  She supported me.  She joined me in service.  But, I didn’t serve with a servant’s heart.  I served, but I did it more out of a feeling of duty than desire.  I often walked away upset or frustrated rather than joyful or fulfilled.  Numerous times, I can recall expressing those feelings and my wife trying to change my heart.  She tried to make me understand what it meant to serve, especially in the church.  I tried to change… what she said made sense and I knew it.  I honestly did try to change, but it was all me… and only me.  I didn’t have a relationship with God.  I was trying to change an already broken, crippled heart that never wanted to change.  And, now I realize that I never had the power to change it by myself.

Still, in this case, I heard the call, I just didn’t respond the way He wanted me to.  He wanted me to submit and my prideful heart wasn’t even going to consider it.  ”I could do it.  I could change.  I can be a great servant for God.”  The word “I” is the problem with all those sentences.  It almost makes me laugh now at how really lost I was.  It certainly makes me sad.

That same prideful heart is the one that got me into so much trouble.  It refused to lose.  It was always sure it could win.  It was pure passion, unrestrained and wild.  But, again, on numerous times, I can remember my wife shutting  me up with a simple statement.  Just a little something that came from her head or heart that I never considered.  And, suddenly, my passion seemed mis-focused or unnecessary.  I was always amazed at how she would do that.  Unfortunately, while my head was amazed, that prideful heart was hurt.  It didn’t know any better and I could never teach it.  I tried, but I couldn’t do it on my own… what’s worse, I continued to spend years trying to do it alone.

Again, I heard the call.  My passion needed to be tempered.  God even gave me a wife who knew how to do it… mind you, the only person who’s ever been able to do it with such efficiency.  Still, I didn’t turn to Him for help.  Even worse, I let that passion tear across almost all of the relationships in my life.  Perhaps, worst of all, I let it tear across my marriage.  Don’t be fooled by romantic movies… passion always brings other emotions with it and if it brings anything other than love, it can hurt.  Yet again, almost unbelievably now, I still didn’t turn to Him.  I was convinced I could do it all on my own.

Now, I recall this one time where it was my prideful heart that hurt the relationship with my parents and, specifically, my father.  I was so convinced that I could build this life on my own that after just some simple advice, my pride was hurt.  My passion tore out with anger and I broke our relationship.  My father and I didn’t talk for months.  Dozens of people gave me advice and words of wisdom, but it was my wife, who supported me through it all, also finally convicted me of my sin.  In retrospect, it was more likely the convictions she felt about the situation that eventually let me hear the loving words she gave me to submit to the idea of me being wrong.  While it was certainly a victory, it was a single battle in a long war where many more were lost.  Still, it was a victory for God and his obedient daughter, even if she didn’t realize it herself, at the time.  Even then, it took me months to submit.  It simply wasn’t anything I was going to do easily.

Speaking of fathers, in the past couple of years, I’ve had the immense joy of fatherhood.  I’ve also had the immense pressures.  With an untempered heart and a selfish heart, my wife was rightfully concerned about my leadership as a parent, especially when I was a stressed out and/or sleep deprived parent.  Still, she was patient and firm with me, continuing to try to ask me to live up to God’s standards.  This time, it was my brain that failed me.  I simply knew that I could do it right… I had read the books, taken the classes, and the experts were the experts for a reason, and listening to them was what was best.  Simply, failure to do so would equal failing, in some way, as a parent.  Again, it’s almost laughable at how much I had wrong.  It is, again, most certainly sad.

It was here, again, that I heard the call.  God wanted me to know how He loved me as a Father, but I was so caught up in the “right way” to be a parent,  I missed the real right way… using my heavenly Father’s relationship to understand mine to my child’s.  Interestingly, there’s so much learned about the reverse relationships, too.  My wife tried to get me to see just some of that which she got, but, I didn’t want to.  I “knew” better.

So, as the story goes, whatever mess of a life I had built all on my own was built on a foundation of sand.  Every time some of that sand tried to wash away or crumble, I was sure I could get over to it and re-pack it and survive just fine. And, eventually, I’d get it all just right to make those dreams we dreamed years ago come true.  All the while, God was calling me to move into the house He had planned for me, built on solid rock and designed just for me.  Funny enough, it’s simply my dream house… remember the dreams we had?  Well,  God knows the ones we never dreamed and I’m certain His house for me is better than anything I can build on my own.  Moreover, He wanted me to bring my family.  He fully expected me to hear those calls… He used the most important person in my life to call me, why wouldn’t I hear them?  And, I did hear them, but I kept packing sand around the little hut I built.  Worse, I expected my family to live there.

A few months ago, I finally realized the stupidity of my years of playing in the sand.  I finally asked Him for the help I so desperately needed and actually meant it.  He showed up, as promised.  Now, I am committed to always having a servant’s heart.  And, I know what that really means now because my wife tried to teach me for years.  But, moreover, she lived it for years… I need only look at her life to understand it.  Now, I am also committed to having control over my passionate heart… I know God designed me with this deep passion, but the passion in my heart is reserved for doing His work, not my own… a simple result of having a servant’s heart.  But, in actual practice, I try my best to make sure my passion is properly focused to that end and always necessary.  Again, lessons taught to me by my wife, even if she didn’t realize it at the time.  Lastly, I am committed to being a father so that my son’s life will glorify Him long after mine is over.  And the Lord knows I needed to have a servant’s heart and a tempered passion to have a chance of doing that.  And, to bring it home, I have come to see how everything she’s worked so hard for comes together so beautifully for the benefit of our son.

So, thirteen years ago, He blessed me with an amazing woman.  He had a purpose.  He knew He created me with a mind to do what’s the best/right thing and with a deep, intense passionate heart.  He also knew I was wild and broken and I would never get the guidance to become a servant on my own.  He gave me a gift… a woman designed/created with a servant’s heart.  He helped her fall in love with me despite my faults and agree to marry me, I believe, seeing through who I was and to the man God wanted me to be.  She is the only woman I’ve ever kissed with all the passion of my heart and the only woman I want to, even now.  Though I owe the changes of my heart and mind to God, I owe my sister in Christ a gratitude for encouraging me, supporting me, pulling and pushing me towards the path where I just let God in.

So, today, I celebrate my wife and 13 years of having her be a blessing in my life.  Although, I had no idea just how important some moments were then, I realize just how amazing she was in those moments in retrospect.  And, today, I count every one of them as a blessing in my life.  For I am certain, I could not be the man I am today, nor would I be the man I am to become by His plan for my future, nor would I raise the man my son will be someday, if not for her.  And I know she made sacrifices to do it.  So, I hope she’ll know that they were not all for naught.  I love her.  And she may hate me for declaring it so publicly, but I would hope you can tell that I do just by reading this post.  And, if  ever anyone thinks of me as a “great man” (and I pray that if so, it is only because God let’s me do great things in His name and to His honor),  then it is here and now that I say that the woman “behind” me is my wife.

Thank you, Dear.