the next 48 days.

To say part of me is not a little afraid is to whisper loudly in the hush of sacred grace.

To say all of me is not overjoyed is to withhold praise.

My heart holds quiet all dreams and hopes and smiles reserved for tomorrow, for that day has yet to mature, and still it will.  The future always houses the hope we struggle to see.  We writhe and struggle to be okay, well fit in the burning of today.  Our eyes condition to the dimness of today seeing mostly behind, less of now and even less of all ahead.

I woke earlier than the sun shivering cold in single digit temperatures. Overnight the fire had died down to a pile of glowing ash and the small heater built into the cabin wall had reached a limit. In the dark, I finally crawled off of the sofa and stumbled close to the stone fireplace to thaw. Nine degrees read the thermometer. I remember thinking the morning appropriate and just right, the cabin cold and lonely. Realizing the smoldering heap of ash and coal would provide no comfort, I laced up my boots, added another jacket and double checked my pack for paper and pen. Within minutes the forest surrounded me. Each frigid step forward gave cause for worry.

What if I don’t find Him? What if the moment I’ve been seeking is silent and all calms to being unfair still?

I had come to lose all that was already lost. My mind kept bringing me back to why she died, more particularly, why would He let her. Like a child going sick on a spinning merry go round, each day soured my stomach even more. Death overshadowed life, cooled the warmth of love in my heart and smeared goodness with the ashes of life lost. I found the cabin in hopes God would find me. I didn’t feel found waking that cold morning only the lingering sting of death and anxiety of silence.

So much of my life has been redefined these past three years. I’ve lied, hidden my heart, retreated from friends and kept telling myself God is good, all while a heart war between grace and justice, with tomorrow its price, waged on. Anger flashed in moments worn too thin to be okay. Beneath the surface of my heart made up to look healthy, grief boiled and hissed monologues twisted in truth and pain. Deadlier than my wife dying was the dying of my own heart.

Back in the forest nearly lost that frozen morning I medicated my heart with distance. I sewed my wounds together with words and ideas that sounded heroic and safe but didn’t take faith. Those sutures insulated my heart from the reach of hurt as best as possible. On my shoulders I would carry my daughters away from death into a brighter day. I didn’t need love to be happy then, but my parched heart craved it. Careless words jabbed at God like an ant at the universe while He mostly stayed quiet and close.

In each subsequent sinking day, I learned to swim in the current of God’s unquitting grace. Never have I lived a day when all has been lost. That’s the brightness His love conditioned my eyes staring back into the void to see; a grace strong enough to swallow it all, the good and bad.

He knew then, three years ago at the mountaintop, what I know now.

Grace finds us shivering in the cold of life faded and lifts us higher than the tallest mountain.  Three years removed from losing myself in the cold shadows of the Ozarks, I live a life undeserving of the feeble strength my quick retreating heart holds.  My heart had to die completely in order to belong to any other day than the lost one behind me.

And here I stand, friends, removed and stronger, hand in hand with an amazingly resilient woman whose compassion inspires me and truth challenges me.  Just 48 days from marriage, my heart couldn't be happier.  Marissa and I come from different lives whose paths have curled and bent around roadblocks but managed to merge, spurred by grace's determined touch.  Years from now we may find ourselves thinned by life and struggling to hold on, but grace will not let go.  it is with God that I go and full confidence that I rejoice both in now and every day ahead of us.

I could dream of no one better that I'd rather win and lose in life with, love and laugh with and pursue God's dreams with that this woman who loves me so well.  I'm reveling in each of the next 48 days, a new start arched and framed in beauty and grace.

10 Habits to Break (and NOT live by) :: seriousness.

  I just stood there, my eyes filled with tears colored disappointment.

I expected something different and didn’t take well to the surprise.  My mother confused, bent low and spoke soft as she tried to understand how such a dead ringer of a gift could somehow bring grief to my bothered little soul.  But the other kids laughed and cheered in front of our fellow kindergarteners as they teetered with larger boxes and tore through endless amounts of wrapping paper.  I remember my turn; my eyes scanning the room hiding the ferocity of excitement within finally landed on the box being brought toward me.

The smallest of all boxes was laid before me.  Little primal like chants rose to fill the room buzzing with holiday mania, “OPEN IT! OPEN IT! OPEN IT!” When I did get through the wrapping paper and into the box, I discovered a toy unique and ill fit for the milieu of gifts setting in front of my classmates.  A toy truck, a gun, handcuffs, action hero figures, all seemed so similar and friendly to each other while the prosthetic like E.T. finger with light up tip stood out like a sore thumb - pun, now, delightfully intended.

To this day, E.T. remains one of my all time favorite movies.  As I think back, the alien wrinkled prosthetic finger gift my mother brought to my kindergarten Christmas party was one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received.  I missed the glory of going up to my friends, reciting the line, “E.T. phone home” and pressing the outstretched finger to demonstrate the complimentary light up function.

I was far too serious that day and in many days subsequent.

Life is days passing.  In the coming and going, the rising and falling, the good and bad, each day resembles the many before, but holds its own uniqueness.  Some days require seriousness and focused attention to see it all the way through.  A deadline met demands your consistent effort.  Without it, you don’t make the deadline.  The ability to focus in on project or responsibility typically brings you most of the way to successful completion.  Talent and experience alone can’t get you there dependably.

For every unapprehended dream, you’ll find an artist, athlete and aspiring professional who let go.

In regard to focus, the same holds true for parenting.  Consistency is king and a currency owning far greater value than most things you can give your child.  I maintain a low-grade focus fixed on who I see my daughters to one day be with a simple strategy: short daily prayers.  When I drop them off at school, as I return to pick them up at the end of the day, at bedtime and in the unplanned spaces throughout the day my memory prompts me to, I pray brief prayers for now and all grace needed to get us to then.  This seriousness I have learned to be absolutely vital to my parental effort, if not maintained, I see them only small and bound to now.

Herein lies seriousness’s trickiness in my life, a thin habit in need of breaking.

While all holds true to the necessity of seriousness in our aim for and achievement of success and completion in life, seriousness can also weigh our days unbalanced.  When we heavily focus, we risk losing sight of all else and robotically hone in only on one area.  Prolonged seriousness equals a preoccupied mind with little room for new ideas, inspiration and your best effort.  Like the little kindergartener years back, I easily settle into preoccupied thought leaving me unavailable to the moment and unable to see the bigger opportunity.

This habit rears its intrusive head in my creative life as well as my personal life.  I’m unavailable to new ideas and productive writing when I remain preoccupied in serious thought about the quality of my writing and how it will be read and received.  Likewise, I pull myself to the sidelines of my personal life, parenting included, when I disappear into seriousness on a preoccupied level – life happening right in front of me.

And so here’s the kung fu aggression to the habit of ill-balanced, preoccupied seriousness in my life: laugh and let go.

We can be so engaged in what seriousness reinforces as worshipful importance, that all becomes about us rather than us being alive in the surrounding panoramic.  Instead of a pensive disposition, I’m learning to disengage long enough to belly laugh better and leave fires burning to be more available to all that matters.

they may run :: A DEEPER FAMILY MONTHLY FEATURE

Her eyes, squinted and unfixed, glanced my way, not as to lock in but to demand explanation and confess fear.  It’s toughest when I can do little to intervene and help her.

She’s oldest of the three, all blazing toward maturity.  Before us lies frantic years cresting high in emotionalism and confusing nose dives for no discernible reason.  Teenagers are a mystery of hormonal weirdness.  It’s a stretch of life confounding the most prepared of us parents.  I gaze at my oldest daughter in moments flashing unfamiliar and pray it all sticks and holds together.  The worst part that really cripples me is the understanding that she will disappoint me, break my heart when she pushes me away and says hurtful things.  I pray for her then and teach as often as I can now.  I don’t own control, and to a large degree neither does she.  Out of control, her choices will be tied to insecurity and friends she’ll swear are so close to her.  I’ll wonder in those moments how we got to that point so fragile and ready to break.

I pray He holds His words in our hearts and goes to valiant pursuit when we stray; we, the one, apart from the ninety nine.

“What’s wrong?!  Why are you crying now?” “I don’t know.”

“You must know.”

“I just look so ugly.”

I took a path of less understanding and shot holes through her feelings, reasons why she shouldn’t feel the way she did.  Honestly, the reasons were given to stop her from going too far from me.  I’m a man raising three little girls quickly morphing into young ladies.  My emotional capacity is regularly dwarfed by those little estrogen soaked hearts dreaming in fairy tales and sparkly endings.  When I cry, a recognizable cause stands clearly identifiable, but they cry and move through varying emotions with the suddenness of a jack in the box.

CONTINUE READING AT A DEEPER FAMILY. . .

10 Habits to Break (and NOT live by) :: distraction.

I enter the day on fire already at dawn.

Each one lined up in demanding succession, already laying claim to time not yet, minutes too young to be accounted for, but they are before I even have the chance to live.  We live in some sort of deficit common to most and known by all.  Busy, we all are; some more than others by choice and some sinking in a devouring schedule.

It appears that life demands more at different times.  My schedule is busier now than I can ever remember, and balancing all of it seems more than daunting of a task most days.  Like plates spinning threatening crash and disruption of symphony - items on my calendar, tasks stacked in my to do list, appointments butting up to each other, project deadlines, responsibilities, opportunities, ideas - my days blur and bleed into each other, a monochromatic smear undistinguishable from the one before.

Just the other day, after juggling work meetings, finishing a writing project and coaching my little first grader through addition problems, I asked her if it was really Thursday.  She, matter-of-factly replied, “I don’t know.”  So we were both lost and disappeared back into our work because bath time, dinner and family talk awaited us, impatiently.

You get it just like I get it: we’re all busy, probably more than we should be.

My habit in busyness, distraction.

At the root of busy, I find deeper tension between the struggle for validation and meaning and reverently bowing low to idols of effort and independence.  Rather than reveling in sunset, I’m transfixed by the moving parts on my wristwatch, aware that the day is moving and afraid of being left behind.  So I scurry through the day ping ponging through dinging calendar alerts, scribbled notes and nearly forgotten ideas, all while new ‘things’ pull for attention.  I allow the distraction which devours focus and forwardness.  Lost in diverging moments, distraction splinters my effortful progression and the plates spin unattended, stretching the day endlessly into the next.

I’ve learned much more about myself the busier life has become.  For starters, I’m not as patient as I considered myself to be.  In fact, patience is a forgotten virtue as I speed through the day making frequent unplanned detours - distractions.

Less busy makes little sense, actually, like commanding the day to stop so that you can catch up.  If all I do is try to not be so busy, I get busier trying not to be busy - my life diminishes to schedule reduction rather than meaningful progress into accomplishing dreams and all that truly matters.  My family doesn’t need a less busier me; they need an intentionally present me.

To be clear, busyness isn’t the beast, distraction is.  And prone to distraction typically points to ungrace ruling my heart, a term Phillip Yancey describes as a path chosen lacking grace.  Reduce my distracted heart down beyond the frantic and rotten core issues are uncovered that are far more concerning than the mere pace in which I move through each day.

How I move troubles me.

The chasing after words to be written, the rushing through meetings, the whining about time’s apparent poverty and the weariness of it all give thorough evidence of a fragmented focus continually falling victim to a heart lacking grace and grasping to earn its way in life.  When, in our minds and hearts, we have to earn all that is good, enjoyable and meaningful in life, our focus fragments, dividing day to parts of life rather than simply the pursuit of life good, despite circumstance, and acceptance of grace.

The habit of distraction must be unsubscribed to, let go of, in the acceptance of grace - the reality of God distributing good to those good, and bad.  In light of grace’s freeing reality, my focus can steady on what matters and must be attended to while distractions fit to satisfy a broken, ungraceful heart can be ignored and discounted as muted enemies.

1095.

If memory serves me well, we were all just floating; hollowed hearts recoiled by death’s touch.  You don’t just get over such things.

Year’s from the touch, our hearts still feel tender in moments of our memory’s choosing.  It’s easy to feel captive about what you will and won’t allow yourself to esteem or talk about.  We’ve held a high rule in our home since Marianne’s death, a rule that has held us together tightly in times grief would’ve pulled us apart.  It is always okay to talk about memories of her.  In fact, more than okay, sharing memories is a measured must that keeps gauge of our honest movement through grief and life inexplicably coming undone.

Tomorrow makes three years. What makes grief so precariously hard to track is its random rhythm in our lives.  Out of nowhere a difficult string of days will move in unpredictably - tempers flair, patience flattens thin, arguments stir quick and tears do fall freely.  We are a war torn bunch who sometimes jump at the sound of grief’s return.  Never was it easy, and our memories don’t let us forget that.

Still my daughters hold tightly to those close to them.  Goodbyes are hard.  Each time we leave family after a visit or they leave our house after a few days all together, I recognize their little eyes dim for a bit.  They grow quiet, and they remember the feeling of letting go.  One day, I’ll have a conversation with the women they will be.  I hope to hear sadness their vocabulary struggles to express at times in their young age.  I pray their future expression of sadness will give greater evidence to God’s faithful watch over them in His keeping of their designed destiny.  Then my joy will be touched with wholeness and once again reminded of the fury and mystery of grace.  Maybe I’ll need reminding then.

In poignant eloquence and thoughts collected, too, from the sting of pain, C.S. Lewis observed, “We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.”  

That learned reality is the blessed fruit of pain experienced; to know God because of healing bruises.  Only in that regard, maybe I’m more blessed than some.  Amen and amen.

Memories taking me back three years and some still hold dark insecurities that if given open door could easily overwhelm my trust in God and who He is.  Other memories of saving grace and strength not of my own - from God and family and friends - float atop steady tossing waves and still give passage through grief . . . to the point where I confidently say I am forever healing and not forever grieving.

Grief does burst in and out of life unpredictably.  I think many reasons play culprit to grief’s irrational movement in our lives, but possibly most prevalent to me is life’s fragility exposed in death’s touch.  In a moment all can be lost.  And in that same moment, all can be simultaneously found.

Friends, I count it blessing the three years behind us.  All 1,095 days.  And for as many are ahead, may grace always guide us and trust always bind us.

As Julian of Norwich hollowly spoke to times beyond her, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Let come what may, and I pray both in smiles and tears we remain honest in all things.

As I look about and count rich blessings sprouting and blooming all around, love, marriage, family and tomorrow, I, for a moment, take to blushing at such weakness and frail faith in difficulty.  But then I am corrected by the scars of life's real blow and reminded of the even greater realness of God's hunting grace.

*(artist/image credit: Gillian Carnegie)