Do I feel older?

This is a question that I have been asked a lot by different people in the last five hours or so and one that people often ask out of an awkwardness that people often feel because they don't know what to say, or maybe habit. Regardless. The answer is for the first time, yes!

 I feel older and I don't know how to explain it.

 There has been a significant shift in my heart, an almost settling. Not settling, like settling for the second best, but a settling like a seed into soil. Or at the cost of being cheesy. Like Settlers' (don't know if that spelling is write) into their new land. 

 That is more how I feel than ever before, like finally at the age of 27 I am ready to unpack my bags and stay a while.  Don't miss understand me, not move in for life and stay at this age, how I am now or where I am now forever, but ready to take where I am, who I'm with and where I am headed. Tie it all together and invest, even more than I have in the past.

 Invest in who I love, in who I want to eventually love. Invest in who I am and who I eventually want to be. Invest in who my wife is and who I believe she will be. Invest in children that we may have.

It is obvious to me that what I am saying may sound like commonsense. What I am really saying is that I want to be very intentional about what is ahead. 

Ok, just a birthday morning observation.

It is my 27th B- day and it falls right in the middle of a season of sleepless nights.

I have been working on this one sentence for an hour. I get a letter or two in and then it turns into ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd. because i keep falling a sleep.

Tonight we moved our sunday night gathering from 7:30 to 5 pm, I believe that this will be a great switch for all of us, but seeing as how , I can't hardly get on thought out. I will save it.

K. to tired to write. 

Ciao

The end of May?

 Really? That was fast. May went by way to quickly with a lot of haircuts, a trip to the twin cities, a trip back to Ks., dropping by the old digs in Madison for Aaron's graduation and pretty much not stop motion. Which certainly beats many months previous to this one.

 Summer is right here upon us and soon will be a glance over the shoulder behind us. I can feel my heart waking up to the sensory overload that is the beginning of a summer in chicago.

I pray and hope that we all have an amazing summer and dive into the communities that we are a part of and live life fully alive...

Speaking of... I have a dinner date that is waiting for me. Catch you soon!

Furious Indifference

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All Men Die; Few Men Ever Really LIVE 
05/11/2009

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The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really live. Sure, you can create a safe life for yourself . . . and end your days in a rest home babbling on about some forgotten misfortune. I’d rather go down swinging. Besides, the less we are trying to “save ourselves,” the more effective a warrior we will be. Listen to G. K. Chesterton on courage: 

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

(Wild at Heart , 169) 

You are meant to be...

amazing, beautiful, full of life, creative, wise, sharp and attentive, bearing the image of the Creator of the universe. I hate that this truth is so hard to stomach and that we have to fight to see ourselves as these things. It is part of the battle though. I am talking about the opposite of pride. We are called to be image bearers of God, why are we so afraid of this. Please for the sake of those around you be all that you are called to be. He has come to give us life and life to the full.

This week is off the hook. 

Kimberly and I's week is over the top I will be away at a conference for the beginning of the week and we move saturday and this is only half of the load. You have to laugh, right? I guess that I will just have to pray that I can be extra sharp and attentive.

 

Moving...

out and forward feels good. We just found out that we were approved for this apartment that we were looking at. Its not amazing, but we will be saving a little bit of money. It does have a huge deck and feels a bit like our place in Madison. It feels a bit cleaner than our place now. I don't know how to explain it but it does. In one week we are out. The new place is about half a mile from here so moving should be fairly easy. Thanks to all that will be helping me move.

WARNING... risk of deep pain.

My mom always said 'the problem with loving people so much is that it leaves you vulnerable to experience more hurt.'

This is always a statements that we remember when a life that is close to us is taken and the hole feels bigger than life because we loved them so much. Or a marriage that is in your direct sphere of life is caving in on itself, or a dear one to you says that they are going to kill themselves, and on and on the possibilities of potential pain.

THIS IS NOT AN EXCUSE to not love people for fear of hurting but instead a charge to allow yourself to be vulnerable and press into the lives around you, daring to take the risk of deep pain, deep lose, real soul carving hurt that makes you want to throw-up. 

I am (at the moment) so moved by compassion and so in love with the messiness of real relationships that I care about that I have to see the Lord move. (Us) People are such a wreck without the saving grace of Jesus Christ. How do we not see this all the time. The Savior must be just that, the Savior. I have met very "nice","loving" people in my life and none of them are capable of the kind of love, "real love" that we, each on of us need.

Jesus, may your Kingdom come and You be glorified in lives, marriages and relationships of all kind.

In the end, are we willing to really love people, getting to know them, do life with them and take the risk of deep pain?