Stay tuned because I think there may have been one or two regrets on that list that surprised you. I may get a chance to explain.
But… maybe not.
You know that part of the story, right? One of those phrases might even be a part of your script right now. You might feel like it’s your next line.
We sang this song in church this morning:
…
I can see a light that is coming
For the heart that holds on
There will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
I will praise you
Still I will praise you
Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did you leave us on our own
You are faithful.
Lord, you are faithful.
….
The woman who was leading worship told us how for two years there has been a little girl in another country that she was trying to adopt and bring home. The little girl had been already calling this woman “mama” for a long time now. The woman said that just 2 weeks ago the news came that the adoption was definitely never going to happen. What was her heart supposed to do now? What about the heart of the little girl who already thought she had become someone’s daughter?
You will notice right away that I have changed the look of the blog at bit. Please give me feedback about that by commenting on this post.
I also have begun to draw in some other writers to contribute under the name “Guest Author.” Some of these will identify themselves and some would rather not. Replying to your comments for these Guest Authors becomes rather complicated because of the… well, I won’t explain it all but the point is that they will usually not be able to respond to your comments except through me (167hours) and I will facilitate that when possible. But please feel free to leave comments for them. They will be read and the rest of us would like to read what you have to say also. So comment away! Please!
-David
In my profession, I work with people making their way through the circumstances of life. They are mostly, in my experience, good people, even honorable people, and very often people I come to respect greatly for the persistent work they have done in the making of their way in life. But, they also, without exception, are hurt people.
Hurts come
The hurts come
Having a brother serving in the Army, a father who served in WWII, and knowing the story of others who come back, I tried in this poem to capture what little I know about battle and the aftermath. My apologies to many of you who are far more knowledgable about combat and post-combat. I suspect it may seem almost childish compared to the awfulness of the actual experience.
In writing it I was surprised to find many aspects which seem analogous to any interpersonal conflict that grows intense enough.
We all have some days that are longer than others. And not in a good way! Thoughts of giving up, giving in, backing down, come at us again and again… even into the night hours. In days (or months) like those, we need to speak words of commitment to our God and to what He is trying to build in us and in the world.
Sometimes these words of commitment to keep going… we can’t even get ourselves to say. They die on our lips. They won’t come out even though in our heart we want to be able to say them. We believe them. But maybe speaking them seems to strain that belief too much.
We need someone else to say them for us. We may even need someone else to believe them for us.
I’ll be in a few of the clips from the special series on relationships that Fox 17 is doing in November. Here is a link to one of them. Online Relationships
Update: for some reason they never ran the series. Don’t know why.
I love the circus, especially the large three-ring circus where there are always at least three shows happening at once. If you love the circus and want to know more about its interesting history and role in popular culture…
this blog post will be of no help at all with that.
On the other hand, I have some thoughts about work and responsibility in marriage. These seem to organize themselves rather nicely into three areas or circles of responsibility.
Let’s not pretend that life is not painful.
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new
When, by chance, your car breaks down, your cell is out of range and you are walking through the woods to find help on a moonless, starless night, with the woman you love beside you…
When neither of you can see a hand in front of your face and she calls out, “Are you there?” because she can’t feel you next to her…
When, for a split second, it crosses your mind to be silent, just for a moment, and then you realize she would NOT think it was funny…
Are you a user-friendly husband?
Having worked for a number of years as a software developer, I can tell you that an application can be the most powerful and ingenious tool to ever be created but, if the user gets frustrated with learning how to use it, it all goes to waste. It never gets the praise it deserves and it isn’t able to accomplish what it was created for. If the application were a person it would doubtless ask for a little more appreciation and respect. But it wouldn’t get it.
Does any of this sound familiar, guys?
In the home we can be so hard to read, or so painful to interact with, that our talents go unappreciated. It’s not that we don’t have anything to offer. It’s just that we are not as user-friendly as we could be. Think about these examples:
What’s happening with my computer? What is it doing?
It’s frustrating, isn’t it, when that progress bar on the screen just hangs there? We know it’s doing something but we don’t know what, or how long it will take, or if we need to keep watching in case it needs some input from us.
Where are you and what are you doing? When are you coming home? These are questions your family needs to know. They are not trying to ruin your life. It just helps them plan their day. Read more…
So your wife has been asking you for a while now to go to counseling… Now what? You may have a few questions about what to expect.
Will the counselor be on her side? What will I be expected to say? What if we get into an argument? What if I don’t like the counselor? How long will I have to go? Is what I say confidential? How will it help our marriage? Will we just fight all the way home afterward?
Let’s take them one at a time.
I have never hunted.
Well, except once at summer camp in the coastal mountains of California when three of us jr-highers decided to go after some rattle snakes with our wrist-rockets. (It was a family camp so I’m really not sure where our parents were.) The camp cook promised he would cook it if we caught it. Yes, it did taste like chicken.
Ok. Now that I’ve defended my manhood…
I have never hunted but I do know what those ugly orange vests are for. You’re out in the wild tuning your ear to the slighted rustle and interpreting it. You’re on the alert because you are in a sort of competition. You win if you can react before your prey does. Your reaction involves shooting and the prey’s reaction involves running.
At some point in human history, someone noticed that under those circumstances we can shoot at something that isn’t really prey, like a fellow hunter. So hunters wear something a little extra, the orange vest that says, “Hey, we’re friends. Remember? Don’t shoot.”
I heard the long waves pound gently against the beach as I walked. I smelled the strong saltwater. I felt the fresh water wash my feet so that sand would not be tracked back inside.
Now, I hear the calm breathing of three children as they sleep in the living room. I listen closely and I still hear the waves pulsing. As the condensation slips away on the window overlooking the ocean I hear the “whispers” of a 11 year old boy playing a 5 year old boy in a game of “Sorry”. The coffee pot drips quietly, steadily, finally producing the smell. The smell of a new morning.
Have I been put in some dark corner where you’ve forgotten about me, Lord? How long until you stumble across me and remember me again? When will you even look me in the eye so I can remember what your face looks like?
Here is how I might try to say what I see written in my Bible. My words are not inspired or based on some vast understanding of original biblical languages. But I have talked to many, many people going through things.
I think this is how I would put it. (It should be pretty easy for you to recognize the passage.)
Here’s a loose modern interpretation of a prayer found in the Bible. Do you know where?
Read more…
An article from a guest writer:
Sometimes it’s a gentle pull, other times the force is enough to lay you flat on your face. The undertow. The pull of the ocean. Ever since I can remember the ocean has been as much of my summer as popsicles, watermelon, and long drives. I have run down the same path to the Atlantic Ocean from our family’s house in South Carolina for years.
I grin as my feet remember the ocean floor, much like a reunion of best friends. The hard sand grows a little softer, the wetness and unknown creatures greet my feet like a handshake. One that lasts only as long as needed. It serves as a mere formality; a simple avenue to the real embrace: catching a wave. It’s simple: give in to the pull, enjoy the first wave, taste the salt, feel the sticky, cool ocean, and repeat. A relationship that never gets old.
I’ve liked the book of James since college. For some reason it has been a section of scripture that I return to again and again. I even remember trying to memorize the whole book once. (It’s one of the shortest books and I’m not sure I ever finished the goal of memorizing the whole thing. Don’t be too impressed.)
So, I was in chapter 2 today and decided I want to ask something of my readers.
Should we still be reading James?
Read more…
Matthew 9:36 (a loose translation based on the sermon this morning)
Jesus was moved (literally “gutted”) because he saw people who were confused (“mind-fogged”) harassed, distressed, rejected and helpless…
as you would expect sheep (vulnerable people) to act if they had no shepherd (one to protect them and bring them to a safe place at night.)
Read more…
I was nineteen, you were twenty-one
The year we got engaged
Everyone said we were much too young
But we did it anyway
We bought our rings for forty each
From a pawn shop down the road
We made our vows and took the leap
Now fifteen years ago
We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for
“I do” are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another I’ve heard
Is a good place to begin
‘Cause the only way to find your life
Is to lay your own life down
And I believe it’s an easy price
For the life that we have found
And we’re dancing in the minefields
We’re sailing in the storm
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for
So when I lose my way, find me
When I loose love’s chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith, till the end of all my days
When I forget my name, remind me
‘Cause we bear the light of the Son of Man
So there’s nothing left to fear
So I’ll walk with you in the shadowlands
Till the shadows disappear
‘Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos, baby,
I can dance with you
Hearing, sight, taste, touch, smell
What would life be like if we only had those 5 senses?
Image via Wikipedia
What about balance and proprioception?
If I closed my eyes I wouldn’t know if I were right-side up or up-side down. I wouldn’t know where my arms and legs were without looking.
What about… emotional self-awareness? I wouldn’t know how I felt about you or how I felt about me. I would have a very difficult time making decisions. (Yes, emotions are essential for making many decisions no matter how logical you think you are. Logic is always in the service of some emotion. ) I wouldn’t feel attached to anything or anybody so I wouldn’t feel loss. I also wouldn’t know if I belonged.
This post is one in a series on Emotional Basic Training. The focus for this article is the emotional skill of self-regard, a concept that includes both our knowledge and our affections. So, it is about what we know or believe and also about what we feel.
Self-regard certainly will have some overlap with things like self-esteem but it is not just self-esteem. The goal here is not just to raise the absolute level of positive self-thoughts although, unfortunately, for many of us there are times when our shame and our injuries warp the picture of who we are, making it difficult to notice, much less “think about… whatever is pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8) regarding God’s creative investment in us.
I want to start a series of posts on the basics of emotional life from a Christian perspective. Basic, not in the sense of easy, introductory, or simple but basic in the sense of foundational, essential, and ubiquitous. Everywhere you look you see them coming into play.
Here’s the list:
I have a few puzzles that sit on a chest in my office. They are mainly the rope and ring type, similar to the one shown in the picture. They’ve all been solved (and then “unsolved.”)
I like to think that they mirror the sort of problem solving we have to do in life. They fall into three categories,
If you can’t view the video try clicking here.
The agnostic believes that the existence of God cannot be known for sure. It’s unknowable. Of course, that position is incompatible with Christian faith. We believe God is knowable because he has made himself known. He lets us know him and reveals himself to us.
But, still there are seasons…
Psalm 13
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
Have you ever been there?
Hardship may come upon us for many reasons.
Job 5:6-8 (New International Version)
For hardship does not spring from the soil,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground.Yet man is born to trouble
as surely as sparks fly upward.
We may bring hardship on ourselves through our mistakes or our own sin. Hardship may be brought to us by others or through the impersonal presence of evil in the world. God may use the megaphone of pain to get our attention.
There is one thing all hardship has in common.
Do you know that verse in Philippians, chapter 4? The one that tells us what to think about?
Here’s the whole verse:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.
Lately, I’ve been realizing how important it is to read beyond the “whatever is true” phrase. “True” is not the only criteria. There’s also noble, right, pure, lovely, etc.. That’s helpful because there are SO MANY things that are true and we need to pick from among them, since our attention and mental desktop are limited resources.
It’s possible that being alone is not just our greatest fear but our only fear.
It could be the active ingredient in our fear of death. It could be the element we empathically resonate with when we fear something happening to our children. Even our fear of rejection seems not so much about the rejection as it is about the imagined result of the rejection – being alone.
Our fear of harm, pain, suffering, damage… these may all be connected to the imagined end product – being alone.
I understand that aloneness is the active ingredient in Hell. Hell is the only place where our fear of being alone can finally come true, making it terrifying beyond anything we have ever felt.
I’ve often told people, “First relax. First don’t be afraid.” But that may not go far enough up stream. Must we deal first with the fear of being alone before we can deal with any fear or anxiety in the general sense?
I want to propose a National Day of Listening. It will involve scalpels, marriage, and the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa María. Who do I talk to about that?
I probably love listening like surgeons love scalpels. A psychologist who can’t listen is like a surgeon who can’t break the skin.
One crucial difference: A surgeon will not have any expectation that, after you leave the OR, you will start wielding your own scalpel. I kind of do… with listening I mean.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God‘s likeness… Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? – James 3:9-11
Lord, I keep track of others’ sins much better than I keep track of mine. I hope that’s okay. But I’m very committed to that seventy-times-seven teaching on forgiveness. For example, I know that Jim, the new guy, has only sinned against me 13 times and Aunt Gracie is at 55… no, make that 56 counting the comment she made during the Easter Egg hunt.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. -Proverbs 13:12
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. -Robert Ingersoll
Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent. -Mignon McLaughlin
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure but from hope to hope. -Samuel Johnson
The miserable have no other medicine. But only hope. -William Shakespeare
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring. -Bern Williams
A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope. -Epictetus
Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily. -Lemony Snicket
A reader asked a question in response to an earlier post and I think the question is important enough to warrant its own post.
Question:
I understand that those types of anger should not happen… but I think that expressing anger is healthy, doing it the right way… Anger is part of the healing process, is it not?
In a previous post I explained that “just letting it out” is not a reliable way to manage anger. I want to continue here with more about anger.
Our emotions offer behavioral suggestions and prepare our body to carry out those behaviors. Anger suggests to us that we actively defend ourselves against some perceived threat. Apparently it’s been rather common throughout the ages to be vulnerable to sin in the midst of that active defending. Paul warned the Ephesians (4:26) about it almost 2,000 years ago. So, our angry behavior may be just plain wrong, even though motivated, in part, by a drive to defend ourselves.
How could that happen? I think much of our mistaken angry responses fit one of the following patterns.
We have all heard anger talked about as if it were people stuffing into a phone booth. It gets more and more uncomfortable and the only way to make it better is to let some out. Get it off your chest. Don’t stuff it down. Let off some steam. Many think of anger management within a pressure-release model. I would like to convince you otherwise.
If you’re interested in keeping track of your mood, here are a few options. All of them are free. Don’t use any of these to determine a diagnosis but just to keep track of how your mood is changing.
You know those times when you don’t even feel like feeling like it?
“It” can be almost anything,
There are many ways the story can play out from there. There are lots of possible responses that may be okay, including just not doing “it.” Let’s assume you have come to the conclusion that you want to change your outlook on things. It’s like admitting that you’ve been taking pictures of your life with your thumb over the camera lens. You know you don’t like the pictures you’re getting. They’re depressing or irritating and I’ll bet that your response to the pictures is starting to get on the nerves of someone around you.
There is hurt all around us.
Yes, there are things to be done, things that might help. But first we need to be willing to just hear about it and be sad. We can’t skip that step.
From the Facebook of a High School student, re-posted here with her permission:
Dear Reader,
As much as I probably shouldn’t say a lot of the following, I’m not hesitating to do so anyway.
I attend a high school like any other high school, really. And just as any other “normal” teenager, I’m surrounded by an environment where the people and teachers are so used to judgment and criticism in the past that they don’t even bother to correct these flaws now. It saddens me to see that my peers think it’s considered weird or stupid to be intelligent. Or do they?
It’s disappointing when you work hard on your school work in classes and at home and end up getting a deathly grade with no encouragement for the next try, nothing at all. Maybe you’ll hear, “Study next time,” or “Pay more attention in class”. Some people are really trying hard in school, but the need their life too. It never made sense to me why most students always seemed to be a little cocky. Now I know why. I’ve noticed I’m slowly starting to become one of those students. That’s not what I want at all.
Yes, we can motivate people by yelling at them. (How else would we explain the existence of Little League?) It does motivate people to do something, but it may not be their best. It may motivate them to hide. It may motivate them to do what it takes to get us to stop yelling. If our goal is to help cultivate a lasting and positive change in someone, we don’t want to start with showing them that we are out of control ourselves. Remember that no matter what the words are that come out, the message of yelling is, “Please, someone calm me down because I can’t calm myself down.”
Fear and anxiety get in the way of relationships. We want to feel safe. We like it when we can relax.
We all know certain people who are easy to be around. We know others whom we would rather not run into. I think most of us would rather be in the first group. So how does that work? Does it have anything to do with monsters under the bed?
If your goal is to whittle away at the foundation of your relationship each time you fight, here are 10 field-tested strategies. They are in no particular order and can be used in any combination you like.
There is one foundational strategy that is not optional. You must hand over control of your emotions to the other person. That way, when you get so mad that you yell, or behave in some other offensive manner, it is only because they have made you so mad. They had better try to keep you calm. If emotions cause you to shut down or get overwhelmed, it is also because they made you feel so bad. Either way, they better be more careful. This is known as the Eggshell strategy.
With that foundational strategy in mind, you are ready to pick freely from the 10 listed below.
We don’t get very far down the road of life without hitting disappointments. Some are like a bug on the windshield, some like potholes, some like a bridge out, and some like being blind-sided.
As children we may first suspect our disappointment is our parents’ fault when we can’t have that sleepover at Jimmy’s. Or, it’s our sister’s fault that we felt such disappointment when “she ate all the Captain Crunch. ” Maybe there was a time when we felt like Santa was the source of our biggest disappointment. To many children, of course, for these to be their only disappointments would be a dream come true.
As we move out of childhood, we are faced with proms, interviews, tryouts, auditions. We have little, everyday hopes about green traffic lights, details working out in our favor, work and school assignments, weather. We have secret hopes about relationships, acceptance, recognition. We have private hopes about marriage, pregnancy, finances, job changes. We have public hopes about recovery, healing, success in ministry or business, college admission. We even have some hopes that are so large and close to the heart that we have never had the courage to say them to ourselves.
I’ve been getting good feedback about the email subscriber option that was just added.
As a way of saying thanks for subscribing and getting your friends to subscribe, I want to send 2 free copies of the pocket-size book, The Other 167 Hours, to the person who becomes the 167th subscriber. That way you can keep one and give one to the person who told you about the blog. For privacy reasons, I won’t announce the names, but I will let you know when we hit number 167. I’ll contact the winner by the email address you provide when you subscribe.
167hours.net is just completing its first year and we are approaching 20,000 page views. Thanks again for reading and telling your friends.
I want to suggest that the only satisfying answer to the question, “Why do you love me?” is, “Because I can.”
This question is different from asking what you like about me, or what initially built an attachment between us. It’s okay to have specific answers to those questions.
I decided to add a nifty little tool, on the side bar to the left, that lets you get email notices whenever something new is posted. Frankly, I don’t mind you stopping by as often as you like just to check for new posts, but life gets busy and if a reminder will help, then it’s just the thing.
You supply your email address and you’ll get a link sent to you announcing each new post. That’s all you’ll get from it, no SPAM or strange emails.
Or, just stop by often.
I think the first of the year is prime time for work frustration and dissatisfaction. People are trying to get used to the idea of going back to work after the holidays, or still resenting the fact that they didn’t get time off over the holidays. There are stresses built into systems and organizations where we work, and there are individual vulnerabilities inside each of us. Improvements in either of these areas can make a huge difference in how we experience work.
The performance of medical staff, for example, seems to improve as the staff are able to address a few basic emotional questions. I want to discuss those questions here. Maybe I can focus on other occupations in future posts.
I want to point out that when I call them “basic” questions, I mean that they are important, universal, and foundational, not necessarily easy or trivial.
What right do I have to be here?
The “impostor syndrome” is that feeling that if other people only knew my faults like I did, I would be “found out” and have to leave. What do I do about the fact that I have faults and short-comings, even bad habits? When taken together as a whole picture, warts and all, am I still acceptable, even valuable here? Or am I just lucky no one has noticed yet? If I have settled this question, I can be properly assertive and focus on the task at hand instead of being anxious.
Boundaries and respect are important in all areas of life and almost always have to be learned from experience. I understand that marriage differs from soccer and since my wife’s shins bruise easily, I really don’t get the two confused very often. But, there are some similarities.
In college, I had the good fortune of being coached by a former member of the Brazilian national soccer team. English was clearly not his first language. He had some key phrases he would repeat, at varying intensities, trying to wring out the last possible bit of meaning from the words. Hand gestures were added liberally to the phrases to provide additional nuances. But the things he could do with that soccer ball!
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