Tomorrow I’m going to be teaching at church. Often in my teachings I feel inspired to share pieces of the story of my life—and sometimes that will include the story of Malachi and Hope. I love talking about them to people. Early on Mandy and I both felt that their stories would be a testimony to God, and used to touch many people’s lives.
However, there is another side of this issue that I really struggle with. Basically, how much is too much? There are places in my heart, places so deep and precious and painful, that only a few have been allowed to enter. They are sacred places. Places I can go and be. Memories. Snapshots in time. These are holy ground in my heart. They make me feel close to Malachi and Hope on a very deep level. Many of these memories I can only talk about with Mandy.
One time last summer while trying to help someone I shared too much. I talked openly about some of the deepest detailed memories of those times. And it was a bad idea. It sent me into an emotional tailspin for the rest of the day and night, until I finally fell the ground and realized I had allowed someone onto that holy ground that wasn’t supposed to be there. At least not yet. Maybe someday all of these memories will be “open” to others, but right now they aren’t.
So I struggle. I wonder, how much is too much to share? And I also struggle because I want my motives to be pure. I’m not an idiot. I know when I share these stories they will move people deeply. In other words, I know they will be good material for my teaching. And that disgusts me on some level.
I don’t ever want the stories and lives of Malachi and Hope to become “good material.” You know what I mean?
So I struggle. I really do. I’m pulled between wanting to honor their memories through sacred silence, and wanting to honor them through the power of testimony that can change people’s lives.
Tomorrow I’m going to share something I’ve never shared with the church before. A part of my heart. It’s real. And I think I’ll be ok. It’s certainly not the deepest parts. And I really think that the deepest parts would be inappropriate to share with such a large audience. But it is a deep enough part that just planning to use it caused me to spend some time crying tonight. I hadn’t visited that specific “place” in a while.
So I …. struggle :)
I miss them. I really do. It still amazes me how deeply I can miss two people I never had the chance to “know” in the way we think we know people. However, I also feel that I know them on levels that are so deep that they transcend words and shared experiences. And the promise of God is that someday we will be fully known. And that excites me – to fully know them both.
It is so cool, something I never would have expected, is that I have intense fatherly pride for them. I have that for my four living children, but I didn’t know what I would feel or experience with Malachi and Hope. But I really do have pride for them. I am so proud of how their testimony has already touched so many lives so deeply. I know it has.
And tomorrow I pray that as I allow others to tread some sacred paths of mine, that their testimony will indeed touch lives again.
You know, when things go wrong in life, we are often tempted to blame God. I know I have been at many times in my life, and I know that for many it is almost a knee-jerk reaction. I’ve thought some about why this is true, and I think it (in part) comes down to a sense of control. If we can blame God for bad things that happen, then, even though we are mad at God, there is still a sense of order in the universe. There is still a sense that God is in control—even if we don’t agree with what He’s doing.
I think we are uncomfortable with the fact that bad things do happen outside of God authoring them, because that feels almost random and chaotic. But that is closer to truth than the first idea. To be honest, I think that there is a sense of chaos and disorder in the universe. I think that sin, the decision to walk away from the God of order, is really the cause of this chaos.
And furthermore, I think that rather than hiding from that difficult fact, we can embrace it. I might even call that faith. You know? Trusting in spite of our inability to understand?
I feel like that’s a place that I’ve come to in my personal faith. After Hope died, I went through a long process of realizing that somewhere inside me I really believed that I deserved everything to work out well in my life. I was like a spiritual spoiled brat. I felt God asked me at some point—and please don’t hear this as harsh, it was during a long season—why I should demand everything to work out in my life the way I wanted, when so many others did not have that luxury. And I began to realize that my faith was not only centered in wanting to feel safe (falsely so), but it was also selfish. In fact, it wasn’t really faith at all in some ways because it was evidentially based. In other words, I felt good about God and my life if things were going well. But I doubted and got upset when things weren’t. Is that really faith? Faith is trust stripped of evidence and benefits. I mean SURE there will be evidence and benefits, but they cannot be the basis of faith. That’s why Jesus kept saying,”You people are just interested in signs!” They wanted the evidence, rather than trusting the person.
I guess I’m hoping to grow in understanding of this concept of faith. Of learning to trust in the character and intentions and will of God, even when things that I’m pretty sure are not in his character keep happening to me or around me.
I’m super tired right now, so I’m not sure this is even coherent. But I wanted to blog to stay consistent, so Jason and Jessica don’t get mad at me :) Hopefully this makes some sense!
One of my favorite things to do lately is play music with my kids and with Jonathan and Rebekah’s kids. I have, over the years, created a mini-studio in my basement for this very reason. Whenever they come over, we head down to the basement and learn a new song. We actually have begun to have quite an assortment of songs that we can play!
Music has been a major part of our family ever since Samuel was born. I credit him with much of it. He is naturally just a gifted musician. He also has a contagious passion (well, for everything!) for music that makes you want to play. When he was very little he started asking for musical instruments for birthdays and Christmas. Every year. All the time. We have TONS of guitars and toy drums all over our basement now. We have his first guitar too. It is broken into several pieces now because he used to carry it EVERYWHERE. I looked through my pictures some tonight, and here is a little history of him and Elliot growing in music. Then at the end, I have placed a video of Samuel and I jamming out, so don’t miss it!
They were tiny here!! I love Elliot’s socks! I remember these drumsets. Samuel beat this thing beyond recognition. Literally. It’s gone!
These were their first “big boy” guitars. The problem with any toy guitar is they don’t keep their tune. But the boys loved these.
Samuel really wanted an electric guitar. As you can see, it was the same year as the electric drums. He was VERY into music. (Can you see Mathea asleep on the couch?!)
Little Drummer Boy! Still to this day, Samuel will escape to the basement (where we have a real drumset now) and just play. It is so cool to watch him get lost in it.
Oh man! What a stud!
I love this pic for many reasons. I love how cool Samuel looks. I love little Elliot’s head in the drum dungeon. And I love how crazy I look!
As you can see, as they get bigger, their guitars and drums get bigger. And it has been so fun to watch music become such an important part of their lives. In the past couple years, Samuel has especially taken to drums. He has gotten so good, that he and I can actually jam together. He loves to write different parts to songs, and figure out transitions. So, I wanted to post this video, because, well, it is just TOO cute. Listen to what a great beat he has for the syncopated part. He made that up. Also, watch his face. He is LOVING it.
Tonight my goal was to go to bed early. I am very tired and I need to stay up late tomorrow night working on my teaching for Sunday. However . . . I got distracted.
There’s an outside chance I might get to play at one of two benefit concerts that I know of that are coming up soon, and I have had some ideas for songs I’d like to play. One is a song for Malachi and Hope. I had a couple ideas, but I think I found the one. Ironically, after tonight, it doesn’t even matter if I get to play it live. It was definitely worth it.
I found this song, by an amazing artist named Fernando Ortega, and I knew right away I wanted to learn it. I don’t want to give too much away, because I want it to be a surprise if I do get to play, so….we’ll just say it wasn’t well known enough for anyone to have written out guitar chords for it. So I had to figure it out myself.
This is something I’ve never in my life been able to do. I’ve tried it several times, and it always ends in me being totally frustrated. I hate it. It seems like something I should be able to do, but I just can’t make it work.
So tonight I tried again.
I listened over and over again. And I tried to just play the notes on the low E string. When I thought that I had them figured out I realized they were like C#, D#, and weird things like that. I couldn’t even play them to check if I was right!! (Frustration mounts!)
So then I had the idea to transpose to chords that I knew. Amazingly – this worked! After some trial and error (ok maybe an hour or so of trial and error!) I figured it out! At least I think so. I mean, it sounds good to me. Maybe a better guitarist will notice some nuances, but it works for me!
And the best part was, I was actually able to sing this song. There’s something about playing and singing a song on your own, rather than singing along to someone else. It just is powerful. More from the heart maybe? I don’t know. But it was really good for me. It was a really good time to connect with Malachi and Hope, to think about them, to miss them.
Whether or not I get to play this for anyone else, at least I got to figure out my first song. And I’m excited that it was done in honor of my two beloved children who I believe somehow can see me from heaven. I know that learning and singing this song has touched their hearts, and let them know that their Daddy is missing them.
Ok, so I want to write about this, but I’m afraid it will sound (for lack of a better phrase) like I’m tooting my own horn. That’s really not my intention, but I did have an experience this weekend that is, shall we say, blogworthy.
For the last six or seven years, the Eastern Region of the Vineyard USA has gathered its youth groups in two winter retreats—one in the north, and one in the south. About 18 months ago, I was asked to take the leadership of a “task force” that helps support youth pastors in our region, and also plans all the major youth events. Last year our 2 winter retreats grew a bunch and were amazing.
This year, we decided to do something a little more…daring. Over the last year I had heard some talking about how our region has never offered a “large scale youth conference” experience. That sounded awesome, but also seemed like it could feel like just another event to attend. With finances like they are, I need to be sensitive to how many events I schedule for the region.
So, a couple of us started thinking, maybe we should use a vehicle that already exists. Sometime about 5 months ago, I pulled the trigger on this decision. Scrap the two winter retreats, and go to one. One huge winter retreat for all youth groups from Maine to Virginia.
As a youth pastor I talk a lot about living your faith in ways that stretch you and not becoming complacent or comfortable. I hadn’t had a major stretching experience in ministry for a couple months, and this was a big one. It was a major leap of faith. All of us in the region had worries that our numbers would actually shrink because we were asking people to drive further. But in the end, everyone deferred to me. Basically – “Christian do what you think is best, and we’ll support it.” Talk about pressure!
So I went for it. And that leads me to this weekend. Over the past 4-5 months I have done TONS of work on this. Logistic work. Details. Creative planning. Booking. And prayer. Constantly asking myself, “How can I make this experience just blow people away?”
Then on Saturday, the first day, as 730 people filed into this room, it was like seeing my vision fulfilled. I had leader after leader come up to me, almost awestruck at what they were witnessing. During the first meeting, I remember a point where I sat back and just breathed it in.
You know, we have dreams, and we work towards dreams, and goals, and visions. And sometimes these take a really long time to come to pass. And I guess I just realized that wow—it sure feels good when one of these just works out perfectly. You know what I mean? It was so fulfilling. It was one of those “sweet spot” moments where I just felt like, “Yes. This is what I want to do. This is worth it all.”
On top of me feeling that personal fulfillment, I also felt just a very real sense of God’s partnership in all this. I don’t have time to recount all the miraculous ways that God overcame obstacles that stood in my way on this. But really, after a while it was almost laughable. I just began to expect insurmountable problems to arise, and then amazing solutions from God to come just in the nick of time. It was a testimony of God’s faithfulness even in the difficult times.
