…About Sunshine & Labor

…About Sunshine & Labor
This morning I came out to the porch early. I made my cup of coffee and sat in the porch swing. I am tired of the rat race I have been running. So, I thought I would steal me a few moments on the front porch swing with a cup of Jo, singing birds and sunshine. What a gorgeous morning! I know I can’t sit here all day. But at this moment, I had better not be disturbed.
You know…it’s really about the sunshine. It makes you feel better. Did you know that Seattle, Washington has the longest rainy season of any major U.S. city? Did you know it has the highest mental depression rate of any major U.S. city? Did you know it also has the highest suicide rate of any major U.S. city? And yes, it is related to sunshine. Sunshine is one of our major sources of vitamin D. You have probably guessed by now that vitamin D helps fight depression. Do you ever feel blah after getting stuck inside the house or office all day?
It’s not just the sunshine, but also the satisfaction of accomplishment. Follow with me here. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. From the time she gets up until she goes to bed, her schedule looks the same. She feels like she spinning her wheels because when she wakes up tomorrow, she will do it all over again. As for me, my job is the same as a broker. I invest in people’s lives. Some days the stock values go up. Some days they go down. I don’t know if I have accomplished anything until I have tracked the investment for 5, 10, or even 15 years! So for me there’s no real sense of accomplishment.
That’s where we help each other out… the laundry. For a family of 7, the laundry is a never-ending mountain of work. And, I do mean a never-ending mountain. Therefore, I have relieved my wife of the monotonous task of the laundry… she is happy. That alone is worth it! Now, this is where I get my sense of accomplishment. Have you ever waded through a week of laundry from a family of 7? It can’t be done!
I am proud to announce that I have conquered a mountain of dirty clothes… and my wife is proud of me. She is happy… yes! Seriously, I can’t begin to tell you the satisfaction I get when I look around the basement and the mountain has been removed. My wife tells me of her sense of satisfaction that she doesn’t have to face it. You see, I think we all have a need to be satisfied with our accomplishments.
I hope that you can accomplish something today or this week. Stick with it until you do, then get outside and soak up some sun even if you live in Seattle (you might have to get a sunlamp). Well, gotta’ go. I just heard the wash machine finish the rinse cycle.

Thoughts On Vacations

I'm sorry. I've been away from my desk for a couple of weeks now. It has been literally impossible to write. So, now I'm back. For a few moments anyway to sit on my own front porch and catch my breath. Wow, it feels good to just sit here a minute. You see over the past two weeks I've taken teens on a 3 day two night canoeing trip and on an over-night trip too a Major League baseball game. At my church we have a school and we are currently doing placement testing for new students. We have had a special baptism service for 8 people. Through all this, our beloved churuch treasurer has had emergency open heart surgery at a hospital 64 miles away. Praise the Lord she came home this Tuesday (9/5/06)
I'm Tired
People say when I go on the youth excursions,"Did you have fun? Was it a nice vacation?" Let me see...running around with 16 teenagers 4 hours away from home... no! it wasn't nice. And you can't use the word vacation and teenagers in the same sentence. It's an oxymoron. In fact most people I know have to go back to work just to get rested up. Know the feeling?
So, I think I'll just sit here on the porch for a minute and ponder...what!? It's the car horn. I forgot something I was suppose to do. That's the other problem with going. When you get back you have to work twice as hard to catch up on the things you didn't get done because you were gone. It makes you wonder why you left in the first place. Oh, well I gotta' go.

Situations

Situations
I’ve been pondering an old theme. As I deal with people on a day-to-day basis, I wonder, "Is it the situations that we find ourselves in that shape us?"
I don’t know how you would answer. However, I do know that you would be foolish to answer quickly without circumspection.
As I ponder this question, many situations come to my mind. I’ve counseled with the pregnant teenager, the disappointed parent, the heartbroken housewife, the angry husband, the frustrated grandparent, the suspicious employee and the grieving loved one (just to name a few). In every case, the pressure from that situation left a mark on the person. No exceptions! At times, the mark is hard to see because the individual is trying to hide it, but it is there. All have markings and scars caused by the squeezing pressures of life. You have yours and I have mine. If the discussion were dropped here, it would be very depressing due to the nature of situations.
Have you ever noticed that some people are controlled by their situation and some people aren’t? The situation of life is applying pressure, and it will leave its mark, but the one who doesn’t get controlled by the situation chooses their response instead of just reacting. I think this becomes a great lesson of life. The situations that God allows us to handle in life will shape us. The difference is will you choose to allow the situation to control you or will you choose to respond to your situation?
In the 1800’s, the Africans brought to America in the slave trade found themselves in a situation that was harsh. They didn’t bring it upon themselves. Nevertheless, they were made slaves. Yet, despite the oppression, certain ones succeeded because they chose a response to their situation. The same is true for Jews in Europe in the 1930’s and 40’s and for South Africans in the 1980’s. Countless stories of inspiration are told about people who chose to respond to their personal situations.
Is there a situation of life that’s gotta’ hold on you, and its whipping you around like a dirty dishrag? What you probably need is a response to that situation. Handle it. Don’t let it handle you.

Time Is a Funny Thing....

Time is a funny thing....

I could start a thousand times with that phrase and come up with some different variation every time. I am amazed by time. Time…an intangible thing that we measure. Lets take a moment and consider the influence of the clock as it runs our society and our lives. Business and retail stores open and close by the measurement of time which in turn dictates working hours. It is how we set appointments and meetings. It runs our diets…i.e  when we have breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack etc. School classes are ran by the clock. The clock dictates when classes start and stop and even awards you a degree when you accumulate enough hours. Church services need to start on time. Woe unto the preacher that goes to long and causes their congregation to miss the brunch specials or the kickoff of their favorite team...which starts at a specific time!
We all have the same amount of time to work with, but there never seems to be enough it. I am always trying to find more time, of course I can’t. And neither can you. I go to bed tired a lot of the time. I wake up tired a lot of the time. While I am trying to go to sleep, my mind is reeling thinking about what I didn’t get accomplished, and how I’m going to make that fit into the next day that already has a time schedule of its own...know the feeling?
The older I get, the more I understand the old saying...
"A woman’s work is from sun to sun
But a man’s work is never done."
Now don’t go ballistic on me. I know I miss quoted that "old saying". However, it doesn’t matter. Man or woman, young adult or retired, once we enter into adulthood, as human beings, we are never done with our tasks.
I knew this guy, Carl, who absolutely amazed me. He laid off from his good, well-paying job. He packed up everything to go to bible college. That’s where I met him. He also attended my church where I met his family. He had a wife and two elementary age children. Carl carried a full load in school and was aggressive about it. I mean he was on his schoolwork like bulldog on a bone! He worked two jobs (I can’t remember if full-time or part-time) to make up for the lost wages of his other job, paying college tuition and supporting his family. He and his family never missed a Sunday in church. Carl was a straight A student. I was struggling to make B’s. He wasn’t any smarter than me, but being older, Carl was more mature and understood about this thing called time. He knew how to handle it much better than me. I remember he showed me some cards he made that had our New Testament Greek vocabulary. He punched holes in the cards on kept them on a ring. While he was driving he would have his wife or kids help him memorize his Greek vocabulary. I think Carl got better grades in New Testament Greek than I did too. I bet his wife and kids would have gotten better grades than me too!
So many things would be different in all our lives if we all would  learn to handle our time better. If you think about it, how we handle our time affects our finances, our diets, our accomplishments, our failures, our dreams and even our relationships, physical and spiritual. It is intentional that I don't give examples. I want you to use your imagination and think...."What would my life look like if I was better at utilizing the time that I have?"
So, instead of wishing for more time (‘cause that’ll never happen) I should learn from my friend Carl and learn how to handle the time I’ve got.

…About Our Children
This morning my 3-year-old crept into my bedroom with the stealth of a rhino. As she climbed upon my chest, I laid there with my eyes closed pretending to be asleep.
"Daddy, are you awake?"
"No"
She took her little finger and began to pry my eyes open. With both my eyes painfully forced open, she shoved her tiny face into mine and ordered, "Wake up!"
God love her. What a start to the day that was.
I love my kids. They are my life. They’re suppose to be. It is no mistake that my world revolves around theirs. They won’t learn if I don’t teach them, and I do mean me. I can’t pass that job off to somebody else. My oldest son, a teenager, asked me, "Is sex really as good as people make it out to be?" I don’t want him getting that answer from anyone else but me!
Some may say I’m over-protective. I don’t think so. There are other parents that feel the same. Not long ago, I spent a week with a couple, Mike and Tina, at a youth camp. They were there because their son was there. They want to be apart of his life. That my friend is called "child rearing", and not enough parents do it.
Think about the amount a time you spend with your kids. Do you see them before they leave for school? What time do you see them when they get home? Do they hang around their friends more than you? Do you even eat a meal a day together? How long has it been this way?
Child rearing, just like a marriage, is work… hard work! It is not for wimps. It takes courage, fortitude and whole lot of love. As I look over the years of different parents that I have known, I think a lot of them just got tired and quit. Don’t do that. Hang in there and guide your children to be the adults that will make you and God proud of them.
If you get tired just think of my 3-year-old. Maybe we could work it out to have her wake you up some morning.