Drunk

I've never been drunk.


I don't share that self-righteously, I've just never seen the appeal. Maybe I've been around too many people when they were drunk or heard their next day apologies and regrets.


But, for the last two days, I've seen the appeal. I want to get drunk. I want to drink until I'm not feeling what I'm feeling, until I can forget the last two days, my pain, and my name.


Now I know that Marx would say that religion is its own opiate and that many of you would agree, but it's Jesus that has kept me sober. Jesus whose example shows that reality is better dealt with than avoided. That our plans for escaping the difficult stuff are what really lead to our destruction. 


So, I woke up today and will wake up tomorrow and will face reality, with all its confusion and pain.


But don't be too impressed. Because it's only by Christ's example and Christ's strength that I do it.


Because it's 11:36 and my brain won't rest and there's a bottle of sipping whiskey in the cupboard.


And I really just want to get drunk.

He Made Me Hope Again

Working through a lot of pain and frustration with Rachel today. Was struck when she said, "I had resolved myself to the fact that another child wasn't a part of God's plan for us. And I really was OK. And then...He made me hope again. And now that's just really hard."


I agree. Why get our hopes up? Help me understand.


Our doctor, who really is great, frustrated me today when she said, "The good news here is we know you can get pregnant when we didn't think you could."


I needed her not to say that. I needed her to recognize that there was no good news here.

God Is Good...All The Time?

This is a different sort of blogpost in that I feel the need to spill my guts more than share my thoughts. I tend to think my posts through a bit more, but I need to get this one out.


I also hate that it requires some back story explanation, because I barely feel up to that. What I want to do is shout angrily from my front porch, but this will have to suffice.


3 years ago, Rachel and I decided to try for baby #2, Harry's little brother or sister. Given how easy it had been to conceive Harry, we felt confident it would go as smoothly a second time. It did not. Months passed. A year. And, finally, Rachel's doctor said she doubted that Rachel would ever get pregnant again.


Rachel and I had always said that we would pursue adoption, should something like this situation arise, and took this as a sign that adoption was in our future. We were discouraged to discover that adoption was far more expensive than we had anticipated and, given that our church-planting efforts had meant less money every month and not more, adoption seemed less and less likely a reality.


Through all of this, we prayed. Prayed to know God's will for us, prayed for God to make a way where there seemed to be no way.


And then, 3 weeks ago, we discovered that Rachel was 6 weeks pregnant. We were ecstatic, overjoyed, elated. We celebrated with our friends and talked with our church and with our son about the way in which God can still work miracles and does. The last 3 weeks, we have been walking on air. Just this past week, our church has been studying the last part of the book of James and prayers offered in faith.


Then, last night, Rachel began to have some bleeding. And I started offering prayers in faith. We made an appointment with her doctor for this morning. The sonogram revealed that our baby no longer had a heartbeat.


We are devastated. I know we're not the first people to experience a miscarriage and that many people, some of you who will read this blog, have experienced much worse. Still, we are devastated. We are angry. We are hurt. We are confused. And James 5 reads like a bad joke.


And yet, there's something else that I really need to get out. Within minutes of receiving the news, I felt this compulsion, almost as strong as a voice in my head, to acknowledge, out loud, that God is good.


I ignored it. Screw Him, I wouldn't give Him the satisfaction. But it persisted. A basic knowledge of what is true and a need to express it, despite the circumstances. Hours later, about 10 minutes ago, I broke down and did it.


At church we grew up saying to one another, "God is good...all the time. And all the time...God is good." And I believe it as strongly today as I have any day of my life. But, in some ways, that just makes it worse. That just makes this hurt more.


The subject of this post asks a question, but I know the answer; God is good.  Today, that is making me angry and confused. And, I guess, I'll just have to sit with that and think and feel and pray my way through it. But I also had to stop and acknowledge, publicly, that God is good, even if, today, that leaves me with as many questions as it does answers.


Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Farther Than Most Would Want To Go

"...we need folks who will start churches to help alienated churchgoers ... people who will drop out of church unless somebody forms a more open space where they can survive and thrive spiritually. But no less important - more important, in my opinion - we need church planters who will go much farther than most alienated churchgoers would want to go - to meet the "spiritual but not religious" where they are and form faith communities among them, forming authentic disciples or followers of Jesus..."    -Brian McLaren

Question

James 5:4 states, "Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty."


Sometimes I think we miss the most practical indictments to be had in scripture. Is it possible that the application of this passage to my own life is that I shouldn't pay the guy who mows my lawn only $10 simply because he's too desperate to ask for more? Is it possible that this passage ought to be read that literally?


James 5 is a passage about how the rich oppress the poor. And it's easy to read and write off as "I'm not rich and I'm not trying to oppress anyone." Except that verse 6 of the same chapter reads, "You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you." This isn't just a passage about slave drivers who knowingly kill the innocent, it's about those whose lifestyle of "luxury and self-indulgence" (verse 5) have, unwittingly, brought about oppression and death.


Something to consider as I go through life always looking for the cheapest price on food, clothing, and lawn care. Is it possible that what I'm not paying is causing someone else to pay? Is it possible that what I failed to pay may, one day, cry out against me?