Went camping this weekend with a group from church. It’s amazing how much better worship is when you take the time to build a relationship with your brothers and sisters in Christ through fellowship.

Just A Good Day

You ever have one of those days that is just plain old good. Nothing you can really put a finger on caused it. The stars didn’t align and peace didn’t prevail. The day was just good and felt really content. I had one of those days today. All day I felt like things were just right, not too exciting and not too boring.

I woke up late for work but was unphased by it. I got to work and had a ton to do but was perfectly content. I had a nice lunch with my friend John O. Went back to work and had a project go south but was not sad about. After work I went to the gym and happily killed myself on the elliptical. After the gym I rode bikes with the kids and then I had dinner.

Nothing really exiting happend and nothing really good happend but I have this insane sense of contentness. I know the answer to my plain old good day is God. Today I found a calm center in God and life happend around it but did not phase my center.

Proud of My Little Girl

I took Madalyn to gymnastics last night and watched with very proud eyes as she successfully completed things she couldn’t do a year ago. She is growing so fast. Just yesterday she was a little baby in my arms and now she is a 7 year old ball of energy climbing a rope 35′ to the top with ease, adding and subtracting numbers, reading her own bedtime stories, sleeping over at friends houses, going out to play and checking in and praying over dinner.

Every day I am amazed by what  a tender hearted little girl I am blessed with. For her birthday this year she had her friends bring teddy bears. The bears were donated to the Good Grief Center. A free counseling center for those who have lost someone.

I’m going to wake up someday soon to find that Daddy’s little girl is grown and has a family all her own. Till that day I hope and pray that I can focus on enjoying every second I have with her.

Good To Have Family

It’s so good to have siblings that care enough to share the full measure of their love with you. My sister Mo and my brother Mike are like that. They both reached out to me with very helpful and inspiring emails and I can’t express my gratitude enough. Thank you both so much for your love and respect. It is clear that God has blessed me with a loving family and that is not going to change no matter how angry I get with him.

I can’t wait to see you all later this Spring when we meet in California for Tracy’s wedding. Dad would be so happy and proud of Tracy and Kati. Maybe I get to travel your way before the Spring. God bless you all, I will keep you all in my prayers.

 

Time to Get Rolling

School Begins Again

Well it’s time for school to start again. It was nice having a week off. The new course is BSA310 (Business Systems). I’m not looking forward to this class. The material is not very exiciting and writing business cases for software upgrades is boring at best.

The only good thing about this course is that it get’s me one step closer to my web design classes. Those will fun classes because I’ll get to write some code, which is the aspect of the degree I’m most interested in. Not the high level management stuff.

It should be  interesting meeting new class mates and working with a new learning team. We get 5 weeks to complete an individual project and a team project in conjunction with our normal work load. I’m hoping to maintian my 4.0, so I hope my team mates are motivated.  

“It’s All Yours Lord” and Surrender

 All day I’ve been searching for the answers to my doubt and the fig tree (see “Naked” post). So I’m driving home from a missional church meeting tonight and I here the song “It’s All Yours Lord” on the radio. At first the chorus is annoying me because it repeats “it’s all yours Lord” over and over again, but then it clicked. It is all his. He made everything. He knew the fig tree from Mark 11:12 long before it ever sprouted. He created it, he allowed it’s presence in the world he created. As such he has every right to declare it cursed for not bearing fruit as he called it to. God’s ownership of everything super-cedes our self proclaimed ownership of anything on this earth.

At this point I decide it was time to surrender some of my issues to God. So I came home and started this post. I did a Google search for a nice image on surrender and was rocked to core when God actively used my search to further the thoughts he put in me with song on the radio. The very first image that came up on the search was perfect, so I clicked on it and found the blog pasted below as a result. The author Kevin hit’s the nail on the head for me when he wrote, “We also let God take us through those emotions to a place where our mind and emotions will line up to accept the painful situation.”

Kevin’s post meant so much to me and my personal struggle that I am pasting it below giving much credit to Kevin. If you want to comment on his post follow this link http://kevinmartineau.blogspot.com/2008/06/two-kinds-of-surrender.html. Here is Kevin’s original post.

 

TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2008

    

Two kinds of surrender

Last week in my small group study called“Surrendering to Christ Together” we learned about two kinds of surrender to the Father’s will. They were:

1. Passive surrender: which is the acceptance of what is – an illness, a job loss, a crisis with our children. We acknowledge painful emotions (sorrow, anger). We also let God take us through those emotions to a place where our mind and emotions will line up to accept the painful situation. We don’t “give up” in the sense of despairing, ceasing to look for solutions or ceasing to pray. Rather, we come to a place where we trust God to meet our deepest needs, whatever happens.
2. Active surrender: which is the decision to take action in accord with what we believe God wants us to do, despite risks and costs. It often involves moving from a situation that feels relatively safe to one full of unknowns. It can be harder than passive surrender because we genuinely have the option of avoiding the tough situation. (It’s easier to accept what we can’t avoid than to accept what we can avoid.)

We were asked to think of ways that God is calling us to passive surrender and active surrender. For me, in regards to passive surrender, I have had to let go of some issues and accept them for what they are. In some ways, I had”given up” in these issues and I know that was wrong. I need to accept these issues BUT not cease being involved in looking for solutions. In regards to active surrender, God has been calling me to “step out of the boat” with Him in regards to my involvement in my community. This is a great unknown to me as I have allowed myself to be completely consumed with church life. With this, God is also calling me to take some risks with Him. This is scary and exciting at the same time!

January 16

Naked

Today I’m feeling naked against the storm of emotions I’m experiencing. Nancy showed me a lot of love last night by trying to help me understand some of my questions. When my dad passed I received the lion share of his books. Nancy found a commentary on Mark amongst all the books I received. The exact scripture I’m struggling with was book marked by the outer jacket of the commentary. It appears dad was studying this scripture. I read what the commentator wrote and only found myself angrier then when I started. I’m not sure if my feelings hindered my ability to grasp what was being said. I found the information to be the same as the type of solutions I’ve heard my whole life growing up in the church. Whenever something isn’t currently possible or we doubt that it is the church answer is that the particular scripture was only meant for the apostles. What a bunch of bull.

I’m angry, sad, lost and completely enraged at God. The doubt get’s deeper everyday. I keep seeing things in scripture that anger me. I want answers but none are there or the answer is, “he is God, he can do whatever he wants”. So does that mean God can compromise my free will whenever he wants? Does it mean he made miracles cease after the apostles were gone? Does it mean he could reenact miracles whenever he wants? If so does he selectively choose who gets a miracle? If so what are the qualifications?

I would think a man who has humbled himself as completely as my dad and had dedicated his life to studying, serving, teaching and loving God would meet the qualifications. But I guess God didn’t think so. So dad looses his wife unexpectedly, then his mother and then finds out he has 5 years to live because of some freaking breathing disease called PPH. Okay so we all start adjusting to a 5 year expectancy and God say’s “Fooled yah!” and takes him that same year. What kind of bullshit is that God? Why hell would you do that? Did you think the lost in dad’s family would come running to you? They’ve only grown further from you and nothing good has happened yet. So good job!! God your brilliance is stunning!

I don’t care what others think about this post. I have a right to pissed at God. Haven’t you ever been pissed off at a loved one? It’s all part of the growing pains in a relationship. If God wants my love he’s going to have to take some of my anger, doubt and sadness as well. It’s only fair. We take not only his love but also his wrath, anger and judgment. There are two sides to every emotion. Right now God is getting my unfiltered emotions.

Besides that, if we believe he knows all things, than he knew these thoughts and feelings before I was even able to grasp them. More than that he knew before he let dad die that I would have these feelings. After all he knows the past, present and future right? So this shouldn’t be unexpected by him. He’s a big boy I’m sure he can handle the rage of one lowly human.