Pain

Pain sucks.

It hurts, stings and like a knife seems like it's only going to sink deeper.  It wrings, writhes, it rips and it wants to stay.

And it sits bringing us to a point of crying, calling out, or maybe even screaming for it to leave. 

It's not fun-never fun.

This past weekend has been a heavy one in our church, full of plenty of hurt, too much pain. So what is there to do in the midst of it? That's a question that is always asked. How do I get over this? Is there ever a way to move past this?

To tell you the truth, I. DONT. KNOW. And I don't think I ever will. I don't think any of us ever will know exactly what to do. But I think that's okay. Sometimes the pain is too much to handle that we don't know what to do.

Our pain might remain. It may build and tears us up or may it grow or lessen. But it's not the only thing that will remain constant.

There is also the One True God.

You might not know what to do or where to go or how to react. You may not get an easy and clear answer of prayer with full understanding and guidelines of what to do but that's not the point. 

The point is that God is there. God will help you along the way. God will ease the pain. 

Remember this in your struggle and especially in your pain.

Because God never forgets about you in the midst of it.

Hope Wins

Here is a little piece to maybe help you or inspire you today that I wrote 2 years ago on Martin Luther King Day.

“Hope Wins”

In the times of your struggles,

In the wight of your pain,

May you not feel like your are wasting away.

There is hope for you daughters & hope for you sons,

Hope that says your soul will not be undone.

Hope that fights far past all of the bleeding,

Hope that defends when life give you a beating.

He comes in the form of being with you at all times,

Even when all sound is as loud as a mime.

He comes being for you, no force stands against

His power & love, so don’t lost this sense

Of having nothing to fear, nothing large nor small,

For this hope, my friends, is the God of all.

Something New

Heard one of the strangest sounds ever today. It was a piece of music and now that I think about it, I'm still trying to figure out what exact entered my ear canal.

It was like hearing pans tapped together so softly while going through an orb of an echoing stream of water.

It. Was. Odd.

I quickly found, I wasn't alone in this this opinion. My daughter, Adella, was making the exact eyebrows-raising, head-tilting, what-in-the-world-is-that-noise face. And a thought popped into my head. We both experienced something for the first time-together.

It was weird sure, but it was new. And it stirred my interest a little bit. Because as I heard it I thought-'what is that?' along with 'never heard anything like that before'.

It is interesting to me because a natural thought of fatherhood is that a man tends to grow in wisdom and gains wealth of knowledge to share with their children. This is true-to a point. Because as my parents told me and as I now know as I'm living it, we haven't been through it all. 

And I'm glad. We still have lots of new things to experience each day we are given.

It's refreshing to know there's still a whole world out there for me and everyone else to discover. One that we can share that same feeling with each other.

We have a chance to experience and see and comprehend something new every single day. That's a privilege. That is something special. And I think that can be a beautiful thing. 

Obviously not everything new is good or even awesome to go through. Sometime it's odd like a strange piece of music that confuses you. Sometimes it's a war or the death of a loved one. But regardless we get that chance to know something new and have experience in it. 

Make it something meaningful. 

Make it something you or others won't regret.

Take in that chance.

And be thankful you are a person who gets to have new experiences.

Stuart Scott

One of my childhood role models past away yesterday after a long bout with cancer. His name was Stuart Scott. Longtime ESPN broadcaster who made SportsCenter fun to watch.

In the 7th grade I thought the coolest thing in the world would be to have his job (after my professional basketball career was over of course). Watch sports, talk about them on tv AND get paid for it!? It seemed like the best gig around.

Now, I have obviously gone a different route in my life with different interests taking over other ones. But I never in a million years would have said that I wanted to be a newscaster or a sportscaster. That just wasn't me. 

But for some reason when this man, with his signature catch phrases like 'Boo yah', 'cooler than the other side of the pillow' and numerous others, came on tv and covered sports news, it was exciting, hilarious and awesome all at the same time. He brought life to the moment.

And I wanted to be like him.

Though, quickly after looking into sports journalism, I realized it just wasn't for me, but still...he was one of those personalities that drew you in. He made you want to mimic him. He made you interested in his trade even if you weren't really interested at first. He had a contagious liveliness when you watched him like no other in his position.

He had an iconic speech this summer where he talked about his fight with cancer and summed up this contagious liveliness he possessed with one quote:

"You don't lose to cancer when you die. You beat it by how you live, why you live and the manner in which you live."

Replace the word cancer with whatever it is that you feel that might be beating you or hurting you and you will see something here. 

There is truth and power in these words for all of us.

May you bring life to each moment.

May you live with contagious liveliness.

May you beat your struggles, pains, addictions and ailments by how you live, why you live and the manner in which you live.

The Will I's

Happy New Year! 

With 2015 here it's time for all the excitement, all the potential of what could happen. Many of us ask all these questions of the possibilities. And many times it comes in the form of the 'Will I's'.

Will I lose all that extra weight? 

Will I finally finish that dream I started?

Will I finally find 'the one?'

Will I stop drinking?

Will I pray more?

Will I go out of my way to love more and care for more through my actions and not just my words?

For me personally, the turn of the new year for the past 2 years makes me a little sad as I miss my old friends from Central Florida as I sit here in the Greater Houston Area in Texas. So I ask 'Will I get to see them soon? Will I form relationships again as close as I was with those people?' 

No matter what goals we might set or what we would like to see happen the 'will' questions are always in the back of our mind whether we realize or not.

And most of the time, what we would like to see happen doesn't. 

We allow the 'Will I's' questions to remain questions. Or if we fail to let ourselves see what we would like to see in ourselves, we might just take the "there's always next year" approach so we end up in the same cycle all over again.

We must leave the 'Will I's' behind.

If you have a heart beating in your chest and two able-bodied feet you do one thing. You say 'I will.'

You keep moving. 

You don't stop. 

You put one foot in front of the other, use the willpower that God gives and you keep moving.

You will.

Using your will to keep going is what allows opportunities to arise. So you might not lose all the weight this year because of unexpected events or you might not have prayed as much as you'd liked to or you might not have spent as much time with your family as you wanted or you might not find those friends that will be there for you until the end of it all.

But as long as you're still alive, you have a chance every moment in any day, month, or year to see new opportunities come and have a chance for it to happen.

Forget the 'Will I's'.

 

Focus on the 'I wills'.

And keep going.