I've been really busy this week. I joined a gym again, my efforts to work out at home were NOT working, so I've added going to the gym to my day. Suddenly, I'm am feeling a little overwhelmed. You would think working at home would make it easy to get everything done. Unfortunately, I'm finding the older I get, the more ADD I get, or maybe I'm showing my age and not able to multi-task as well. I find myself getting distracted so easily. And unfortunately I'm not getting distracted by the good things usually. Am I getting distracted by the stack of books by my bed, or the guitar sitting on the other side of the room, or even by putting words down on a page? Not at all. Facebook, Today Show, trawling websites, other junk. AUGH.

I think part of it is my old friend procrastination rearing it's ugly head again. Why oh why do I not seize the day and get things done?

One Pure and Holy Passion

Today we sang "One Pure and Holy Passion" by Mark Altrogge.

Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after you

To know and follow hard after you
To grow a disciple in your truth
This world is empty, pale and poor
Compared to knowing you my Lord
Lead me on and I will run after you
Lead me on and I will run after you

If you've not heard it, find Christy Nockels singing it...her voice has such power and passion. But the words really say it all. I think my favorite line is "Give me one glorious ambition for my life, to know and follow hard after you." I have all kinds of ambitions. Things I want. I want to be a published author. I want to record a CD. I want to get married someday. I want. I want. I want. And in those I wants I almost always forget the most important want...to be like Christ. Forgive me Lord when I let my other ambitions get in the way of the only important one.

Facebook

I don't know what to say...do you think perhaps some people could take a hint?

If I ignore your friend request a million times I could mean I don't have anything to say to you.

This is aimed at one person and one person only. Unless you are him...don't be offended. And he shouldn't be offended. He simply needs to realize that forgiveness and being friends are two completely different things. You're forgiven. However, I have no need to have you in my life. All God's best to you. Now, go away.

Is it coming true?

I ordered what might be my social demise. Netflix can now be streamed wirelessly to the Wii. It's amazing, all you do is put in the disc and instantly you have access to hundreds, probably thousands of movies. So, I don't really have to leave my house again.

I used to teach middle school English. Since I received this disc in the mail, I have been thinking about a story I taught my students. I can't remember the author. It was a science fiction piece, so it's likely it was Arthur C Clarke or Ray Bradbury or Issac Asimov. I really, really wish I could remember the title of it. The story was about how technology had gotten to the point where people never had to leave their houses for anything and they didn't interact with anyone else.

Hmmm...have we gotten there?

And I have a blog why?

I just pulled up my blog and saw that I had last written in here in January. JANUARY??? Obviously my goal to write a post once a week in 2010 has fallen by the wayside.

I started this blog when I was in the middle of some of the craziest times in my life to help process my fears, thoughts and hopes. In a way it was an open prayer journal to God. It was also a way to to let people know what was going on and what God was doing in my life.

I haven't posted at all since January. I haven't written fewer and fewer posts since my walk down the road with cancer and unemployment. Over all the my life in the past months has been quiet. Changes have been smaller in scale, there have been no crisises, my health has been good, my days have been busy, I'm working probably too much again, my finances are stable for the moment. I wouldn't say all my problems are solved, but it's not overwhelming like it was at one point.

Here's the thing I have to confess, I think that my inattention to my blog cooresponds with my inattention to something else, my time with the Lord. I definitely spend some time every day in prayer for "the important things" and most weeks I take the time to prep for Bible Study, but the pages of journal are as empty as the pages of this blog. Even right now as I write this, I am sitting at a table at a conference where I am keeping an eye on the powerpoint presentations someone else is presenting. Have I really been taking the time to have God "search my heart" as the Psalmist says in Psalm 139? Probably not

As I look to the next days, here is my hope, that I will turn back to the days when I was desperate for answers and hope and clarity. I want to return to those days, not particularly to the uncertainty, but to the dependence, to the awareness of my need.

Beauty Will Rise

One of my Christmas gifts was the new Steven Curtis Chapman CD, "Beauty Will Rise." First of all, let me say, I love Steven Curtis Chapman. He is by far my favorite Christian musician. I've grown to enjoy other, newer folks like Chris Tomlin and David Crowder, but Steven is my favorite. I love him because he's an amazing songwriter, a great guitar player, has an outstanding voice and his heart for Jesus is so evident in every single word. He writes of the love, wholeness, joy, hope and peace found in walking with Jesus. I love him because years ago, a friend of mine got his autograph for me at a music conference. With it, I got a bonus, the signature of his then very little girl, Emily. That's the kind of guy he is. I love him because one time when I met him before a concert he signed lots of items for my 9th grade girls Sunday School class. During the concert it all got stolen. I went to the artist signing afterward, he recognized me and he took the time to re-sign multiple things for me even though his handler kept saying "one item per artist." I love him because that same night I got to have a conversation with him afterward and he let me pray over him because I saw the weariness in him at that late hour. I love him because he does stuff like give backstage passes to the girl who was one of his childhood sweethearts (my friend Angela) and her family. I saw him treat her like he just saw her yesterday with genuine love and interest in her relatively mundane life. I love him because he listens to his children and his God. It was that little girl Emily who one day when she got a little older and heard of the plight of orphaned girls in China suggested, no insisted, that the Chapman family adopt.

Steven and MaryBeth who had three teenaged children, Emily, Will Franklin and Caleb, followed God's heart and adopted. Eventually they adopted three little girls, Shaohannah, Stevie Joy and Maria. They started a foundation to help families that wanted to adopt both internationally and domestically. They took God at his word and lived out true religion by taking care of the orphan. They seemed to have the perfect life, a blessed life. On May 21, 2008, it all took a tragic turn. The family had just experienced Caleb (the youngest son's) graduation and Emily's engagement, joyous family moments, when something horrible happened. Will Frankin was pulling into the driveway and accidently hit the youngest child, Maria. Maria did not survive the accident and the Chapman family was thrown into a place they had never been before, a place of overwhelming grief and pain. I still can't imagine. It's hard enough to deal with the loss of a child, but to double it by having it happen accidently by another of your children? It somehow double the grief, doubles the questions.

"Beauty Will Rise" is a picture of Steven's walk through the days following Maria's death. Every single song is full of raw emotion, questions and heartbreak. It's a truly beautiful album, not because of the orchestration or the electronic wizardry of the engineering; it is beautiful because of it's honesty. Chapman's songs in the past have been full of faith, hope and joy. In these songs, the questions and pain sit on top and the hope, faith and joy sit underneath. It's there, there is not despair in these songs, but it is evident that lately the questions and pain have been on the surface of his life. It was recorded it hotel rooms, by lakes, in hotel ballrooms and church foyers (ah the wonders of modern recording) so it is not slick, but it does not need slick. I would suggest that you buy the CD rather than download it, simply to sit and read the liner notes. He goes into detail about where in the process of his pain these songs were born. It will make you cry again.

My favorite songs are "Heaven is the Face," "Just Have to Wait," and "Faithful" and "Jesus Will Meet You There." "Heaven is the Face" is the first track on the CD. It opens with "Heaven is the face of a little girl, with dark brown eyes that disappear when she smiles. Heaven is the place where she calls my name. Says, "Daddy please come and play with me for a while. God I know it's all of this and more, but God you know know that this what I'm aching for. God, you know I just can't see beyond the door." My first thought through my tears was, "Wow, this is going to be a rough journey." Then I came upon "Just Have to Wait" where he says, "I can't wait to watch your brother's face, when he can finally see with his own eyes that everything is okay." "Faithful" proclaims, "You are faithful, you are faithful. When you give and when you take away, even then still your name is Faithful. You are faithful, and with everything inside of me, I'm choosing to believe, you are faithful." "Jesus Will Meet You There" extends the journey out from the Chapman family to others, recognizing that just as Jesus has met them in their circumstances, Jesus will meet you in your moments as well.

I said that you should buy the CD so that you could experience this CD on another level. I will not spoil that experience for you, just believe me when I say that through reading the words and the stories behind them, you see how God has walked with them through this horribly painful year and half.

I said earlier that I love Steven Curtis Chapman and this CD gives me additional reasons to add to my list. As someone who has had what seems to be more than my share of pain in this life, this CD gave voice to things I wish I was able to put into words and music. For someone who hasn't walked that kind of road, maybe it might seem like a place that shouldn't have been gone to in Christian music. I for one though am grateful for the fact that "Beauty Will Rise."

2009 The Year of the Hermit

As I think about 2009 for me I believe I will call it The Year of the Hermit. I don't think that I've ever spent so much time by myself in my apartment as I did in 2009. I know that those of you who have rugrats pulling at your feet long for alone time and are probably jealous of me. I would say don't be, mostly because as I reflect on it, a good deal of it was time misspent.

It started with being in radiation treatments and being jobless. Both of those things tended to keep me to myself. Then came the hours and hours of job hunting. Job hunting has changed dramatically since I did it last, it's all done via the internet and you're lucky if you even have an e-mail exchange with a real person. But, it makes it just as easy to spend time playing mindless computer games as it does seriously look for work. I'd say the job hunting time was about a fifty-fifty split of time well spent and time misspent. Finally in May, a job emerged, but it only contributed to the hermitude (I think I made up a word).

I have a job now where I work from home. So, as I pay down bills and am able to contribute to the family who has so graciously opened up their home to me, I can't say that those hours were not time misspent. I am thankful for my job, even though it is not the desire of my heart. The prospect of being paid for every hour I work brings out any greed I might have in me. It was definitely easier to work at work than work at friendships. It became easy to work tons of hours and drive myself further into hermitdom.

Then there was not quite knowing what to do with myself when it came to church. It's really, really hard to go from being there 24-7 and being in the know, to just being another church member. I chose to remove myself as far as possible. I still went to Women's Bible Study and to services, but I did neither every week. I'm glad that God is faithful regardless of how many times we make it through the door, but it definitely contributed to the Year of the Hermit.

Thank goodness I chose to teach guitar lessons! I think I might have started to look like a hermit, if it weren't for seeing those kids on a weekly basis.

All of this wouldn't have been so bad if I had used my time better. I can't tell you the number of hours I wasted playing computer games or watching re-runs of TV shows that I've seen a million times or Facebook stalking. When I think of how much better I could have used those hours this year, it makes me sad; the songs that could have been written, the blogs that could have been posted, the books I could have read, the exercise I could have done, the time with friends that I could have intentionally spent and most importantly the intentional time in the Word and prayer I denied myself.

So here's to 2010 being the Year of Living. It is a reality of my life that I spend a lot of time alone, but I hereby resolve to use that time better this year. I hope to use it to grow myself, express myself and mostly to love God and those around me.