“How are you?”—-”I’m ok”

I’ve had that conversation in some form with several people today.  In fact I usually have that same interaction, substitue a small word here or there, every day of my life.

Today I gave the same answer to the same question, but the topic was about someone that I knew who had taken their own life.  This morning.

“How are you?”

“I’m ok.”

I asked the same question to my wife.  So I’m not down on the question and the answer.  It is a sincere gesture and I genuinely appreciate everyone who asked me that.  And I knew what they meant.  It wasn’t casual, but full of great concern.  And my simple response was spoken/texted with gentle gratitude towards those who asked.

Yesterday at church was the first time I had seen this man in a couple of years.  It was odd.  We hadn’t talked in quite a while.  And we used to be very familiar with one another.

He was married to my mom for the last 7 years of her life and was right there next to me when my mom died.  I was maybe the 2nd person he hugged after my mom passed.  My mom’s last request was that I look out for this man and keep in contact with him.  

After her death he and I would text/call two or three times a week.  For some that isn’t much.  For me that is A LOT.  We were never extremely close, but I was concerned for him having just lost his wife. And we had just experienced almost 2 years of watching a woman we both loved lose her life.  Ties that bind.

Certain circumstances came up that this person disconnected himself from myself and my wife and the rest of my mom’s family.  It was his decision.  It was sooner than I had anticipated, but I expected that it might happen at some point down the road.  He was doing the best that he knew how to move on.  And that no longer included talking with me.  

I understood that.  And I wished him the best.  And in that time I had to look very hard at myself and ask myself if I had carried out my mom’s request to the extent that would have made her proud of me.

This morning my wife woke me up with tears in her eyes to tell me that people were pretty sure that this man that loved my mother dearly, had taken his own life.  

We had seen him for the first time in 2 years yesterday.  And this morning…this is what I woke up to.

“How are you?”

“I’m ok.”

I’m not down on the question.  But I need to ask myself some more questions.  It’s totally acceptable and appreciated that people ask me how I am and that I tell them that I’m ok.  However, if I do the same thing to myself then I just bury it into the depths of a heart that is already “beyond cure”.  Jeremiah wrote that a few thousand years ago.  So to prevent me from lying to myself into believing that the only thing that I think about this person’s tragic end to his life is “wow, that’s crazy”, I need to ask a few direct questions.  To myself.  And provide real answers.  To myself (and the 5 people that read this). So that I do not deceive myself as I continue to process all of this.

 

Q: Are you angry at this person for ending their life?

A: It isn’t the prevailing emotion, but yes.  My anger stems from the fact that this person came to church yesterday and sought out my wife to speak to.  We hadn’t spoken in 2 years as a decision that he made.  And we were all OKAY with that decision because we just wanted everyone to grieve in the way that they needed to.  I wasn’t angry yesterday that he came to church yesterday.  I was actually glad for him.  Hoping that he would reconnect with some people and feel a sense of being connected in some way.  But for whatever reason we saw him for the first time in a couple years yesterday and less than 24 hours later he ended his life.  Why did you have to bring me and my wife into this?  Giving us no signs that this was coming.  After not speaking with us for 2 years.  So all day yesterday I thought about you, which really meant I thought about my mom and how her life ended.  And then I was woken up this morning to hear that you had done this to yourself.  Why would you do that to us?

It’s selfish of me.  I know.  And I don’t mean that sarcastically.  I really do know that it is selfish.

 

Q: Did you honor your mom’s last request to watch out for this person after she was gone, really?

A: I hope so.  It was what she asked me to do.  I feel like I did.  When he decided to “move on” with things, I asked people smarter than me if it was the right thing to do to “let go” and let him carry on with his new life.  It wasn’t a knee jerk reaction or simply getting tired of reaching out to someone.  He moved on.  And the best thing that I could have done was wish him well in his life.

 

Q: Are you trying to justify/manipulate your emotional reaction?

A: This morning I did.  I started out this morning trying to minimize my reaction into something very logical:  ”He’s a coward….so I shouldn’t be too sad.  He just didn’t understand life….so I shouldn’t be too sad.  I am not too surprised….so I shouldn’t be too sad.  I haven’t talked to him in a couple of years….so I shouldn’t be too sad.  He was a main reason that my mom and her previous husband got divorced….so I shouldn’t be too sad.”  In reality, those statements are incredibly deceitful on my part.  And I am trying to recognize that before I actually believe any of that.  He had a pretty horrible last 5 years or so.  His childhood wasn’t great.  I often felt sympathetic towards him when he and my mom were married hearing the stories from his past.  So there is no reason for me to try and manipulate my own emotions and in the process justify everything.  That is just deceiving myself and trying to lessen the reality of the situation.  

 

Q: If it wasn’t a “devastating” experience for you, then why did you break down and cry (incredibly hard) mid afternoon while reading a local news website with a short article on his death?

A: Honestly, I wasn’t sure why I was crying so hard.  I think it hit me at that point.  That this human being, that I once was very familiar with and had seen the day before and was physically in great health, had intentionally decided that it would be better to end his life than to go through another day.  That is the saddest decision that anyone could ever make.  And I had never known anyone or known anyone who knew someone who had made that decision and acted on it.  I think that was the point where all of the pain of my mom’s death hit me at the same time.  The realization that although I had lost my mom and he had lost his wife….we went through it together and it was a life-changing experience for me and for him.  And through this same circumstance of my mom’s death, less than 3 years later I was happy and chasing hard after God’s will for my life, and this man had decided to end his.  I cried because it is incredibly sad.  I cried because it brought me back to memories of the saddest moments in my own life where my mom’s body was ruined by a disease.  I cried because 4 of us went to spend a week at a beach almost 3 years ago for my mom’s final days, and only 2 of us are left alive.  I cried because there is no more praying for this man.  And it was his choice.  Which makes is worth crying hard about.

 

Q: Do you feel disappointed with God?

A: Yes.  I can’t help it.  At the same time I am reminded of a quote from Philip Yancey, “It is better to be disappointed with God than disappointed without God.”  I am frustrated that this man had so many devastating experiences in his life.  I am incredibly saddened that God would allow this person to get to the point that they would consider death as an option.  And I am disappointed that I had to be a part of this.  Again, selfish I know.  But we all play the “what if” game from time to time. If just a few things had gone differently, then my mom and her previous marriage would have never divorced.  And I wouldn’t have known of this person who took their life today.  What ifs are worthless.  But I am disappointed that I had to endure another divorce in high school, then have to watch my mom marry a person who I didn’t want her to….only for her to die of cancer….then actually come to be ok with the person she married….only for him to reject our family….and then end his life. Disappointed?  Yes.  Love Jesus more than I did before all this?  Yes.

I watched my mom die.  And through that experience I came to love Jesus and place more trust in him than I ever had previously.  I believe Jesus is constantly whispering “I love you. I believe in you.” every morning.  No matter what news I get when I first wake up.  No matter what city I live in.  No matter if other’s don’t hear the same still small voice.  

I believe that Jesus isn’t shocked by any of my Q’s and A’s, but is glad that I got some of them out in the open.  And in my moments of temporary disappointment His voice will be there in 8 hours as I wake up to face another day:

 

“I love you.  I believe in you.”

 

-Jason

 

 

Passion Without Purpose

“A flood is simply a river with no clear direction.”

The above quote has been changing my life this past week.  When I hear or think the word “flood” there are a lot of things that come to mind, but the overwhelming majority of those things involve raw power.  Images of people fighting for their lives, standing on roofs of houses seconds away from being swept off of their foundation.  Some of the most humbling images I have ever witnessed were from video footage of the most recent Tsunami in Japan.  Watching a 30 foot wall of water destroy an entire city is sobering to say the least, and one of the most frightening things I’m glad to have never experienced first hand.

Going back to the quote…I began to think about my progression through life, growing up from high school, through college, and now as a young married man.  There’s an old song (I can’t remember the name) that has a great lyric.  “..and I know less now, than I knew back then.”  Another way to put it is “the more I learn, the more I don’t know.”  That’s honestly kinda how I feel the older I get.  Its obvious that I have more wisdom now based on having experienced more, but I’m now certain that I don’t know it all and that I’m not there yet (wherever it is that I’m going).  Ask me when I was 20 years old what my greatest asset was and I would tell you that it was my passion.  But now I’m wondering, is it possible that my passion was actually my biggest hinderance?

Passion is like water.  It is arguably the most powerful substance on Earth.  It provides life, sustains life, and people are drawn to it because survival depends on it.  Most early civilazations were founded near water because it provided all their basic needs: nutrients, food, water, and livelihood.  Contrast a river to a flood.  What happens when the most powerful substance on earth is unleashed in an uncontrollable path of destruction?  Once water gets moving its almost unstoppable, and the results are devastating.  The same water that sparkles calmly in front of your eyes on a sunny day at the beach is the same water that destroyed concrete levies in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, subsequently destroying a city.

So why the harsh comparison between water and passion?  Because misdirected or undirected passion can have similar effects.  One of the reasons I love young people (or younger people because i’m only 27) is because they are filled with passion.  They approach all of the world’s problems as if they need to be solved immediately and personally.  Unfortunately, many young people charge forward into new frontiers with no roadmap and no guidance from people that have traveled before them.

I recently compared my younger self to someone who is trying to get to Atlanta so they just start heading North from Orlando, FL.  Its not until I see the statue of liberty that I realize I went the wrong way.  Eventually I get to Atlanta but have to go 500 miles out of my way to do so.  Same end result, but with a lot of time wasted in the journey.

I don’t want to go too deep into this thought in a blog post, but I did want to share the sentence that it boiled down to after a week of wrestling with it…

“If you’re going to follow your heart, make sure you don’t leave your head behind.”

-Aaron

Another Church?

About a month ago I took a trip up to Alpharetta, GA with Jason.  We attended a conference (Drive Conference) on church leadership at a place called NorthPoint Church.  Some of you have heard of this place, but many of you have probably not.  Interestingly enough, I had only been to church once in the prior two months, so I was far from a church leader.  I guess you could say that I went looking for something; I just didn’t know what that something was.  Well I found it…

Northpoint has church plants that they consider strategic partners.  Basically a strategic partner is a church that runs on its own but uses Northpoint’s resources, such as strategy, sermons, and vision.  To make a long background story short, I am now attending a Northpoint strategic partner in Gainesville, FL called Anthem Church.

I’ve been absolutely sure of two decisions in my life.  The first was to marry my bride Katrina.  The second was that I needed to be a part of whatever Anthem Church was doing.  It didn’t take me getting married to figure out that I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with Katrina, and it didn’t take me visiting Anthem to figure out that I wanted to get involved as much as I possibly could.  When you know you just know.  I never thought I could love a Church….but I do.

Some of you know my broken background growing up in church.  It wasn’t terrible by any means; I had a wonderful life growing up.  However, it did leave me with more questions than answers and confused as to whether the Church had any clue who God really was and what they were supposed to be doing (the “Church” I’m referring to is Christians in general rather than an institution).  For the first time in my life I have been able to completely understand and fully immerse myself in the vision of an organization.

 vision – to create a church that people who don’t like church love to attend.
mission – to help lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

The thing I love most about Anthem Church is that it’s clear they believe God is who he says he is.  They don’t focus on the “symptoms,” of the world, rather they focus on the core; “leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.”  It’s the humbleness to say we can’t change people, but we’re happy God is allowing us to be a part of what he’s trying to do in this community.  Almost every church SAYS that, but it’s evident to me that Anthem lives it.  The danger with focusing on people’s symptoms rather than their core is that true healing never takes place.  It’s easier to get someone to stop cussing on Sunday mornings while they are at church than to change someone’s heart and affect their entire being.  The difference is, we are only capable as human beings of treating symptoms; of making it “feel” better.  Until we as the Church realize people need more than that, we will never be truly effective at loving anyone the way they deserve to be loved.

Anyone who lives in Gainesville knows how many churches there are.  I can list several intersections where 3 of the 4 corners have some kind of church.  So the question arises, is another church what Gainesville really needs?  I can’t answer that for Gainesville as a whole, but it is what I needed.  Not just a building, but a group of people committed to loving each other and the community the way God intended…unconditionally.

Fasting

Here is a horrible idea, but pretty funny:

 

 

This is what she looked like before the 123 day water only fast:

I can’t believe she didn’t die.  Seriously.

Anyways, I have always been intrigued by the idea of Lent.

Always thought….wonder if I could do that, or what I would give up.

I’m not trying to diminish when people give up a certain soda for Lent or when they go without an addictive type of candy, but those things aren’t really that meaningful.  I don’t think people drink a Dr. Pepper 3 times an hour every hour they are awake.  If they do, then they should permanently fast before they end up with Type 2 diabetes.

Maybe even Type 1 with that determination.

Jesus fasted for 40 days at one point in his life from food.  Not 123 days.  I don’t know what Skeletor (see above) was thinking.  Not just food, but from everything really.  He spent time secluded from everyone and everything.

He shifted his entire focus on something else during that time.  I wish he had written everything down and we could read that.  Pretty crazy that the Messiah didn’t just take a rest up on a mountain for a short break, but spent over a month away from all of it.

Didn’t the world need him?  Didn’t he know that he was going to die rather soon, so he might as well not waste time?  Was he so worn out that he became selfish in his “fasting”?

The reason that I’m giving Lent a shot this year is because if Jesus did it, than I’d like to try as well.

Same reasoning with baptism…I can’t fully explain from the new testament why Jesus himself decided to be baptized, but he did.

Same reasoning with prayer…I can’t fully explain how prayer works and if god already knows everything than what does it matter, but Jesus prayed.

I’ve never really been taught as much about fasting as I have been about prayer and baptism being a core value to the christian faith, but Jesus did it for 40 freaking days…

So I’m going to try it for the first time.

When I thought about what to put aside for 40 days I knew that food was out of the question.  Sorry, for me that is unattainable.

I thought about something very simple like only drinking water for 40 days, but that seemed too convenient.

I thought about not drinking alcohol for 40 days, but that’s just silly.

So, I’m doing something really cliche and I deactivated my facebook account.

And here are some reasons why.

Facebook, for me, isn’t something I would consider bad.  I love keeping in touch with people that otherwise I would never talk to for the rest of my life.  I like being able to watch hilarious youtube videos that friends post on their walls and I like to talk virtual trash about sports to push my friend’s buttons.  I love seeing pictures and videos of people’s kids.

I use facebook for work.  Recently I had a photoshop problem at my internship that I would NEVER have been able to solve quickly, and a facebook friend told me to send him the file.  He returned it 30 minutes later completely as I had been trying to do on my own for a couple of hours.  I communicate schedules for who sings on what sundays at church completely through facebook.

And when I have nothing else to do I open facebook on my phone several times a day just to see if there is an interesting status update that can pass 30 seconds of time.

Facebook isn’t interfering with my relationship with my wife.  It isn’t hurting my job performance.  And I wouldn’t say that I’m an addict.

But it is a daily part of my life, and for the better.

So, it seems fit that facebook would be an appropriate “thing” to abstain from for 40 days.  I first thought, “well that is pretty lame to just close myself off from the social networking world.” But I still have my phone and email and my voice.  And I can relax because Jesus was waaaaaaaay more of a hermit during his 40 days.

I don’t even like to compare what I’m doing to anything that Jesus did because it seems so silly.

But  maybe when I’ve settled into not clicking the facebook mobile website on my blackberry all day I’ll begin to think more.

Maybe I’ll write more.

Maybe I’ll focus a little bit more.

I don’t really know what to expect because I’ve never given up something that is a part of my daily life for so long.

What I hope is that when I really wish I could post a mobile upload, my thoughts will be turned to something of greater importance.

I am trying not to sound super spiritual here, but I would like to think of Jesus a little bit more throughout my day than I currently do.

And that’s the real reason behind my fasting for Lent.

-Jason

What Would Satan Do?

Description of Lucifer (Satan):

From Isaiah 14:

¹² “ How you are fallen from heaven,
O , son of the morning! Lucifer
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
¹³ For you have said in your heart:
‘ I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
¹⁴ above the heights of the clouds, I will ascend
I will be like the Most High.’

Description of Jesus:

From Philipians 2:

⁵ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus , ⁶ who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, ⁷ but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Polar opposites.

The extremists of both ends.

And their descriptions are incredibly opposite as well.

With our font settings it is hard to notice the bold that I included in the verses.  But look back and notice if you can.

The enemy is described as one who “said in his heart” that he has set out to ascend…

To climb higher and higher and make a name for himself.  He is rooted in an attempt to become “great”.

Then, several books ahead the description of Jesus, the one who is great, is that of a man who is descending constantly.

Humbling himself

Making himself lower…

and lower…

and lower…

You are never more like Satan than when you set out ascend higher and higher and make a name for yourself.

It happens in business.

It happens in ministry.

It happens in relationships.

You are never more like Jesus than when you continually humble yourself and descend.  In every aspect of your life.

Occasionally god will exalt you, as he did with Jesus.  In the next verse in Philipians it says, “therefore, God has highly exalted him (Jesus) and given him the name which is above every other name.”

It’s crazy for me to read the verses from Isaiah and think about the fact that when my head swells and I begin to believe that I am better than/more important than those around me…strangers or my wife…

that is when I am most like Satan.

When we are most like Jesus, we are constantly descending/humbling…

lower…

lower…

lower…

-Jason

One Not Everyone

Galatians 6:9-10:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

“If I let you do it, I have to let everyone do it.”

“If I gave this to you, I’d have to give this to everyone.”

You may have grown up hearing this from your teachers, parents, coaches. They tried to be fair. But is it more important to be fair . . . or to be engaged in doing good?

Often we have people/causes/situations that stir up something inside of our hearts.  We almost immediately feel a connection to them and have a heart to influence that set of circumstances in a positive way.  And sometimes it doesn’t make much sense.  Maybe you and your spouse aren’t marriage counselors, but you have a deep desire to help a struggling couple as they face serious problems in their marriage.

And occasionally you become overwhelmed because your heart is pulled into so many different directions or because you don’t seem qualified to help or because the situation is too big and that leads us to simply sit and watch.

But for the person trying to follow Jesus, just sitting and watching EVERY aspect of everything that sincerely stirs your heart isn’t much of an option.  Really, for anyone.

We want to do a lot of good for a lot of people.  If we could fix every situation, that would be great.

From the verse quoted above:

Paul says to not grow weary of doing good.  We all grow tired of doing good.

You have developed friendships with people who are struggling with things and can’t seem to break the addictions and it is taking an emotional toll on you.  Their addictions are real and your friendship hasn’t seemed to help much in the last couple of years and so what is the point?

You wanted to serve at your church and you decided to help with the little kids.  Every week you wrestle with a few kids and make a craft and occasionally get to the lesson and are barely able to stay awake for the sermon the next hour.  They are just kids.  You are not and you get tired pretty quickly.  It is your day off from work.

You have continually decided against aggressive physical force when it comes to that person you work with who you hate more than anybody ever in your entire life.  You thought if you “killed them with kindness” than you would change them and they would be a little bit nicer, but all that seems to happen is you are growing meaner/colder/angrier and you wonder if you should actually take out a weapon and strike their face with it.

We all grow weary.  But we cannot let it lead us to the point of giving up.

Since we have limited time and opportunity (notice verse above), here are a few things to help us fight off the weariness and temptation of giving up.  You don’t have a lot of time and you aren’t just ignoring the tons of opportunity that is in your face.  You have a little bit of both.

- Do for ONE what you wish you could do for EVERYONE.

Find that ONE family that is struggling that you feel a need to help.

That ONE organization that you feel a strong desire to be a part of and volunteer with.

That ONE area of ministry you feel like you should be a part of.

Spreading yourself incredibly thin trying to positively impact your community is the result of a huge heart, but will lead to weariness very quickly.  Find that ONE thing and invest in it and be prepared to say NO to many other things.  You can’t do it all for everyone and everything.  But you can significantly impact ONE specific situation.

- Go DEEP not WIDE

You have a heart for homeless people.  You have never really done much about it, but you know it is deep inside of you.

Instead of giving $1 to every homeless person on the street (you probably shouldn’t give money to people on the street anyways), find ONE organization or ONE person/family that is struggling with homelessness and make a concentrated effort to impact their circumstances.  Give yourself a chance for deep ministry and find an organization like the Orlando Rescue Mission and figure out how you can spend some of your free time investing in their ministry.

- Go LONG-TERM not SHORT-TERM

Find something you are passionate about being used by God to remedy and go deep with it, narrowing it down to something very specific.

Then commit for the long term.

Andy Stanley talks about at his church if people want to volunteer with high schoolers they give them a 9th grade Sunday school class and they stay with that class until they graduate high school.  He says that most people don’t really care that much for 9th graders, but that after a couple of years of investing those 9th graders will be older and will feel safe around you and will tell you things and allow you to minister to them in ways you couldn’t otherwise.

- Go TIME, not just MONEY

It is easier to write a check for the fund-raising event than to show up for it.  It is easier to donate $25 to that kids mission trip via the offering plate or snail mail or even paypal.  But to donate that $25 AND to have dinner with that kid and get them to talk to you about their trip before they go on it is so much more meaningful to both parties.

MONEY will be a part of your investment into that one thing that you feel passionate about, but TIME must be a bigger part.

Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.

I love the Orlando Rescue Mission.

I love BASE Camp Orlando (children’s cancer foundation).

I can’t give the same amount of time/energy/money to both.

And to live a life that is more satisfying to me personally, I can’t just sit around another year being overwhelmed by all of the problems in the world and wondering what HUGE idea that god will give me to remedy all of it.

So I applied to intern with BASE Camp.  I am a little bit more passionate about it’s cause than the Rescue Mission because it relates to me more personally.  It is not a “christian” organization, but I believe that Jesus has put it on my heart to volunteer with this place for quite a while.

This year, 2011 with the limited time and opportunity you have, do for one what you wish you could do for everyone so that you do not become weary and give up in doing good.

-Jason

Looking Back – Jason

December 2008-

“I am taking a break from church for a while. Please don’t get me wrong…. this is NOT a “The church is so messed up and has ruined my brain and I hate it” kind of thing. This also is NOT “People at church piss me off and judge me and I am sick of it” sort of post either.”

December 2009-

“For me 2009 was month after month, day after day, of subtle and not-so-subtle reminders that for as long as I live I will never again see/talk to/communicate in any way with my mom.

There have been some bright moments, but as I reflect on this year and look back my heart is broken once again.

I am broken once again.”

I typed in my name on google before signing on and the instant search option gave me “jason avera blogspot” when I was only halfway through my name.  So I clicked on my old blog and began to read back through so much of it.  As I read through some of the posts I thought “there is no way I’ll ever be able to write that well again”.  And then others…”that was so immature”.  But the last two christmases were filled with quite a bit of pain.

2008 ended with a lot of confusion about god and god’s relationship to what was going on in my mother’s life.  I was almost still numb to all of it.  I occasionally felt, but hardly ever.  I was so busy being the strong figure that my mom needed me to be.  I don’t regret anything involving how I personally responded to my mom while her battle with cancer happened so don’t bother thinking “it’s ok, you didn’t have to be the strong one all of the time.”

In that year I did.  And it wore on me.

2009 was a year filled with pain.  Every night at work as I served many guests their food and drink I would hide my pain in the soles of my shoes and when I’d get home late at night the blisters would burst and I would let it all out.  It was exactly 1 year ago that I wrote the quote above on my old blog about being broken.

I am incredibly thankful that I wrote so much while going through those tremendously difficult times.  Now that the wounds have become scars I can read through all of that stuff and remind myself that I really did suffer quite a bit and I can more so appreciate where I am today.

When I think about 2010 these are the main things that come to my mind.  Maybe a few years down the road I can look at this list and be reminded of how real it was:

1. This blog marked the beginning of a new era in my life.  The chapter of sorrow about my mom’s death ended last December and I sat down to write in this blog because I was excited to and not because I felt like I desperately needed to confess things hiding deep down.

2. The end of a job I hated.  Our biggest issue in our marriage was due to our work.  You would think working at the same place would allow you to see each other.  Not at McCoy’s Bar and Grill.  If I was single I could handle all of the bull shit that the job threw my way and the thousands of assholes I served over almost 3 years.  But being married, that job was putting a distinctive wedge in between me and Brittany that I could do nothing about.  We didn’t struggle with loving each other.  We struggled with not seeing each other for days, sometimes weeks at a time.

3. Our vacation to Hawaii.  It marked the end of the job we both hated and the end of Brittany’s schooling.  After being away from each other for so often since we had been married we spent 18 nights in a distant paradise with each other and nothing else to worry about.  I will never feel bad about the amount of money we spent on that vacation because of the money we saved by getting free rooms and because we needed it more than you will ever know.  That was incredibly beautiful.

4. Return to “ministry”.  After a rather significant break I began to help lead worship at Summit Church.  When you don’t do something for so long you are more inclined to feel very gracious for an opportunity like I was given by these people.  Crazy thing was, I actually really liked it.  And I met some really great people there that I still talk to. During the summer I was the camp preacher/speaker/teacher/pastor/etc. at a missions camp in TN, even though I was just a waiter back home.  After Hawaii I started an interim position at the church that I had worked at for over 4 years previously.  I came back with the mindset that I’m just here to help and will do whatever is need instead of my old mindset of “I’m right about everything”.  Things work much better now and my opinions seem more listened to and appreciated and asked for now that I’m not constantly saying them with a hint of condescension.

5. Relationships have been given the ability to develop.  Since we got back from Hawaii we have been able to spend more time with each other and with other people.  Tonight our friends cooked us dinner and at the beginning of the year we just wouldn’t have been able to do it with our schedules.  I feel closer to people that I love than I have in a while.  I have started hanging out with people that I haven’t seen in almost 10 years.

Finally, and possibly the most important thing is that this year has been really low key.  I’ve needed a restful year and I have had that.

We have done really well with our finances (not that we’ve made a lot) meaning that we aren’t worried about making late payments on a car or phone or electric bill.  There have been no major financial surprises to throw us into panic mode.

Right before our vacation we were having a bit of a pregnancy scare.  This was at the same time nearing Brittany’s graduation as she walked on Aug 7th and we left on a plane Aug 8th.  We were at my grandma’s house and I was trying to stay positive as we unwrapped the prego test.  We let it sit for a bit and waited for a few minutes in another room.  That is a very vulnerable moment.  I wasn’t ready for her to be pregnant.  She was just finishing school and for the first time we were going to have time as a married couple to be just us.  And we had to drink mai tai’s TOGETHER on vacation!!!

Not prego.

My new job pays half of what my old one did and it is about 100 times more relaxing. I don’t have to worry about getting treated like trash when I do my job.  I work from home, which I love.  I don’t want to do this specific job forever, but at this moment in this year I just needed something that I could spend some time resting in.

After a couple of years of massive roller coasters, 2010 has been a much smoother ride.  I will always love this year in my life.

-Jason

 

The Battle For Christmas

There are verses in christmas songs that are so great:

Truly He taught us to love one another

His law is love and his gospel is peace

Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother

And in His name all oppression shall cease

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we

With all our hearts we praise His holy name

Christ is the Lord, Then ever ever praise we

His power and glory ever more proclaim

His power and glory ever more proclaim

You know the tune.  The lyrics and the notes crash together to make such a memorable and powerful song.

Here is another:

Silent night holy night

Son of God love’s pure light

Radiant beams from Thy holy face

With the dawn of redeeming grace

Jesus Lord at Thy birth

Jesus Lord at Thy birth

The softness of that melody and how they match the thoughtful phrases make me think and feel.

I don’t really enjoy those songs on Thanksgiving evening as I search through the radio stations.  Nor do I enjoy them much in July.

But when the Christmas tree is lit and stockings are hung and the smell of cookies fills the house…

Those songs and verses have great meaning.

Late at night when my wife has gone to sleep I take of my glasses and look at our first real christmas tree.

You see I have always had horrible vision.  I just knew how to get away with it growing up.  I remember being a patrol in elementary school and casey and aaron were looking across the parking area and could read the license tag numbers on cars.  I couldn’t even decipher what state the tags were from.  I knew I had a problem.  It wasn’t until I was taking an eye exam in the 7th grade and they changed the letters around.

The lady uncovered all of the letters after I couldn’t see the bottom few lines:

“Read whatever line is clear for you”

“ummm…the top letter is usually an E, but I think it might be an F this time”

“ok, next line”

“ummm…nope.”

So I take off my glasses and look at the tree because with my regular 20/6,000 vision the lights are very blurry and thus they shine in a different way.  Instead of small little dots of colors, they are large and massively blurry.

And I am reminded of what Christmas looked like when I was a child.

I wish that I could again experience a christmas where there were tree decorations around Lake Underhill.  Where every single store, no matter what it was selling or offering had a large “Merry Christmas” sign visible from the road.

I could blame it on religion.  And the “battle” for christmas.  I could complain about things that said “x-mas” (took christ out of christmas).

I could say it is the Democrats and their tolerance policies that have destroyed the greatest holiday of the year.  Throw in something about Islam.

But this is the truth for me:

Christmas reminds me of my childhood.  I liked christmas time at church WAY more than easter time.  Not because of presents, but because we talked about the story of a baby and not of an execution.  Every aspect of the christmas story offers hope and there is very little room for condemnation or guilt or slapping Jesus in the face with my sins.

The battle for christmas for me is more of a struggle in my mind to remember the innocence of my childhood when I wasn’t so cynical.

when i wasn’t so angry

when i wasn’t so full of myself

when i wasn’t so right about everything and everybody

I look back on old family videos of our christmases and I see a child that isn’t so worn down from the daily grind

And this time of year I look at the blurry lights on the tree and remind myself that just because the innocence of that little boy may be gone

it doesn’t meant that i should be proud to be a grinch.

 

 

The Name Game

Today I went to The Guitar Factory.

It is an incredibly small place that is incredibly amazing.  The dad and son that work there know way too much about guitars and repair them and make custom ones.  And they are seriously cool guys.  There are posters on the wall of John Morrison with his autograph saying “Corey, thanks for oiling my neck today!”

I know that doesn’t make sense if you don’t play guitar, but that is freaking awesome.

Anyways, my friend Kyle told me to go to this place.  While I was looking over all of their pictures I noticed a picture of Kyle hanging up on their wall.  He was playing a show and he was playing a guitar that they had made just for him.

So I said, “you know Kyle Carden?”

And without any further questioning on my part, Corey said something very very close to what I’m paraphrasing:

“Kyle is a good man.  He is more than a customer.  I would consider him to be a good friend to our business and to me and my dad.  He is a guy that I truly feel like I could call at 3am and he would come and bail me out of jail.  He has probably brought more business to our place than I have in the 10 years I’ve worked here.”

I was proud to tell Corey that Kyle was a great friend of mine.  And hopefully I won’t need him to bail me out of jail, but I do know that I can talk to him about pretty much anything and he makes me feel comfortable.

In fact, ever since I have known Kyle (I was 7 years old and he was 14) I have always respected how nice he was to everybody and how comfortable he makes people feel to be around him.

The thing is that Kyle is literally the best singer I know.  He has always kept my head in check because whenever people say, “You sing really well” or something similar I usually think, “If only you could hear my friend Kyle.”

And not just hear him, meet him.  I have played at summer church camps with the guy and he will talk to the smelliest and dirtiest middle school kid and not ever mention how annoying the kid is.

He gives me compliments that are genuine and nice and he has to know how much better he is musically than I am.  Kyle is one of the guys I truly feel honored to call my friend.  Not because of how great he is singing, but because he is so kind to people that I pass off as idiots.  He makes me feel less “proud” to be a jerk and makes me want to improve how I treat people.  That is so rare in my mind which is so cynical at times.

Last weekend I was talking to another friend named Kyle, last name Cox, about what I want people to say about me.  Sometimes I seriously disdain when people say they like my music.  Not because I am ungrateful, but because I hear that so much more than, “I respect who you are.”

When people lose contact with me

When people walk away from my dinner table

When I move away

I want people to say, “I was really comfortable around Jason.”

Maybe because I know how tough it is to feel completely comfortable around people you don’t know so well.  And sometimes around people you do know well.

Proverbs 22:1:

A good name is more to be desired than great wealth, and to be respected is better than silver and gold.

Today I was very proud that Kyle Carden was my friend.  He has a good name with guys who would never show up at the church that he works at.

It inspires me to be something closer to what I feel like I am intended to be.

-Jason

By the Skin of Your Teeth

In 3rd grade, I opened up my report card and saw straight A’s.  My teacher had previously told me that I would not receive straight A’s so I walked up to her desk and said “Mrs. Morehead, I got straight A’s!”  She looked back at me and said “Just by the skin of your teeth boy!”  Of course, the way that story looks in my head is an exhaggerated Sandlot movie style story since I was in 3rd grade at the time, but never the less, I remember it to this day.

Living care free works out for me most of the time, which is not necessarily a good thing, but it makes life interesting.  This weekend was the Florida vs. Georgia football game and Katrina and I met Jason and Brittany in Jacksonville to tailgate and go to the game.  Katrina has been asking me about our plans for the past two weeks (i.e. what hotel we are staying at, where we are tailgating, and how we are going to get tickets) and I have had no answers.  The truth is, I didn’t try to figure any of that stuff out.

Saturday morning we were all sitting at breakfast and a random man walked up to us and asked us if we were going to the game.  We said yes and he pulled out a parking pass and asked “do you guys want this?”  “How much?” we asked.  “No charge.” And then he walked away.  Parking situation solved.  We got to the stadium and walked to gate 1 where we found one of my friends who happened to have an amazing tailgate set up next to the stadium and Gieco had set up a bunch of free games to play all around it.  Tailgating situation solved.  About 10 minutes before the game I saw a girl holding two tickets, so I walked up and asked her how much.  “How much are you willing to pay?” she asked.  I told her that I had $65 in my wallet and her response was “well how about I give you both of them for $45 total.”  They ended up being 10 yard line, 11th row from the field.  Ticket situation solved.  Of course, Florida went on to win one of the most exciting games I’ve ever been to.

I’m not telling this story to make you jealous, I’m telling it because I’ve realized that sometimes being care free works out in our favor and sometimes it doesn’t.

In 12th grade we had a senior project that took us an entire semester to complete, and successful completion was the difference between passing and failing the class and graduating.  When our teacher passed back the graded projects, mine was nowhere to be found.  I asked her why I did not get my project back and her response was because I didn’t turn one in.  To make a long story short, after many parent/teacher meetings, my teacher finally meet with the other teachers and asked what she should do.  Overwhelmingly the majority told her to fail me because my reputation told them I didn’t do it and was trying to get away with a big scam.  At the pleading of my parents she allowed me to spend a month re-working the assignment from scratch and turning it in for no better than a C.  One week after I turned in the new assignment, another student in my class found my assignment stuffed in the middle of hers…graded.  My only requests were that I receive extra credit and that she go back and tell the other teachers that they were wrong about me.

I don’t blame my teacher, and I don’t even blame the other teachers.  I had developed a reputation for working the system.  If a teacher made a test worth 100 points and an essay worth 10 points, I would take the test and not turn in the essay.  My thought was that the point scale didn’t match the expectation or the work involved.  In College I Christmas treed five Clep tests I had signed up for because the surf was really good that morning and I didn’t want to miss out on life.  Its not that I’m irresponsible, its just that I do a cost to benefit analysis on everything, almost to a fault.  If you get a 100 on your test and a zero on your essay, you can still get an A in the class, or at least a B.  I knew that if I waited until the last minute I could get either great tickets to the FL/GA game at a great price, or no tickets at all.  It happened to work out this time.

The problem….

Everyone is a leader, whether you lead a congregation of 1,000 people, hold a Senate seat, or have a family of 3.  People trust leaders to guide them and look out for their best interest.  Sheep will follow a shepard who is care free as long as things go their way.  Its awesome putting someone in charge who is on a lucky streak because you get to benefit from their winnings.   But the problem is, long term leadership is built by making long term good decisions that benefit you and your followers.  When a lucky leader fails, their followers drop them in an instant because the decision making pattern they have set is flawed.  When a long term leader fails, the followers often rally around them because 1) they know their leader has their best interest in mind and 2) they know their leader put in the effort to make the best decision but it just didn’t work out.

Flipping a coin is never a 50/50 chance because you are never in a vacuum with a controled machine flipping it.  Someone who knows which side the coin starts on and how hard to flip it has a much better chance of guessing correctly, and even if they are wrong, they made the right decision.

I’ve always lived care free, but since I’ve started my family and my career, I’ve been trying to merge a care free spirit with good decision making actions.  Its really just a marriage of benefit to risk.  There are some things, like a football game, that are ok to be risky or even careless.  There are other things, like retirement, that need careful planning.  Jumping out of an airplane with a parachute and an instructor is risky…jumping out of an airplane without a parachute is suicide.  Both are risky, but the former involves planning, while the later does not.