-My Stolen Instinct-

Watching my kids grow and learn is probably one of the greatest gifts I have been given. Seeing them discover who they are and what they are capable of is something I don't think I could ever get enough of. Just the other day I was playing with my 18 month old son and he went running down the hall yelling, "Ahhhhhhh," as I chased him. It occurred to me that he wasn't always able to run down the hall. He learned how to over time and in a series of steps.

 

There is something within us all, as human beings, that causes us to not be content with just laying around when we are infants. God has designed our minds and bodies with an inclination to be mobile. To be on the go. To move forward.  We're not content with just laying there on our back so we learn to roll. When we master that we try and try to lift our heads up until we can finally see what's in front of us. When we realize we can do that we begin to the hard work of pushing our chests off the floor and begin scooting forward.  After this we discover that we can get our legs underneath us as well and begin to crawl. But are we satisfied with that? No, we are driven to stand up tall and learn to walk. We try, and fail, a thousand times but there is something in us that will not let us give up. Finally, we take our first, real unassisted steps. What a great moment that is. Mom and dad may even write the date down so it's never forgotten. But that doesn't matter to us because we're not done yet. Soon we learn to run and then ride a tricycle, a bike, and eventually, learn to drive. Because from day one, there is just something in us that compels us to be on the move.

 

But something happens to us at some point in our lives. We become content and stop exploring our possibilities. When we're children we can be anything. Astronauts, athletes, world leaders and even super heroes. Our potential is limitless. But something happen along the way. We lose that instinct inside of us that longs to be on the go. To move forward. Or maybe we don't lose it. Maybe it's taken from us by our culture. Taken by the masses who have themselves given up and so they tell us we should do the same. It's just the way of the world. Welcome to reality. The sad thing is that these people usually mean well. Their motive is good because they are, "just trying to be realistic." It's all well and good to be "realistic" but it's the dreamers who change the world, not the realists. The dreamer walks on water while the realists watch from the boat.

 

Watching my son run down the hallway has reminded me to be a dreamer again. To reclaim that which was taken from me that I seemed to have let go so easily. To find within me that childhood instinct to be mobile. To be on the go. To move forward. God has a dream for my life and I am convinced that it is an unrealistic dream. A dream that goes beyond the safety of the realists and has me walking in the liquid footsteps of the dreamer. I hope I will muster the tenacity to follow those footsteps. And I hope you will too.

-More Than Just A Sit-Com-

I had a conversation recently about dealing with our hurt. Hurt and pain are interesting phenomenon really. Physical pain has a purpose. It is either letting you know that something is wrong, (like a bone is broken or muscle sprained) or it is telling you that you are growing. I remember when my brother and I were young and he grew 11.5 inches in height in one year's time. I swear I could see him growing. It was during this time that I learned that "Growing Pains" was more than just a teeny-bopper sit-com.

What I remember most is being woken up at night on occasion because my brother was in so much pain he was almost screaming. I, myself, experienced similar growing pains but nothing to the degree of his. I find it interesting that God would wire our bodies in such a way that physical growth would actual cause discomfort and even pain. What I have learned is that the same is true for all types of growth. Emotional, psychological, relational and spiritual growth also hurt in their respective ways.

I remember when I was 18. I had a great life at 18. I was out of High School, I still lived with my parents and therefore had no real bills to speak of, my primary source of income was playing in a band, which I loved, I had several terrific friends and was hopelessly in love with my girlfriend at the time. Please understand, when I say hopelessly in love I mean it. Her names was Rachel, (actual I'm pretty sure that's still her name), and I swore the sun rose and set in her smile. We laughed a lot, and she could fit in to any setting I put her in. My band friends, my church friends, my family, my friends from High School; no matter who we were with, she fit in easily and everyone loved her. I was so enamored with her and was seriously beginning to plan a marriage proposal in the upcoming months. To this day I don't think she realizes how in love with her I was.

Then one day it ended. Actually it probably ended weeks before it actually ended but the long and short of it was that it was over. I can still remember the instant it occurred to me. I could describe the moment with extreme detail and accuracy even now. But as difficult and painful as that moment was, it was nothing compared to the weeks and months that followed.

I was a mess for a long time after that. Not on the outside though. I'm too good at feigning happiness and contentment to display the agony I was truly in. No, on the outside I was just fine. Inside, however, I was a basket case. The loss of joy was such a one-eighty from where I was that my mind and emotions couldn't take it in. I was hurting so much and felt like it would never end. It wasn't long before it began to manifest physically.

I became so sick that I couldn't eat anything. When I did it just came back up within a few hours. I lost 15 pounds in two days and was so dehydrated that my temperature got to 106 degrees. I went to the emergency room where, while sitting in the waiting room, I felt I had to vomit. They let me use the restroom when I told them. I went in and vomited up some stomach acid because that is all I had in my stomach. I remember kneeling in front of my wide mouthed, white porcelain friend offering up the bitter, stinging contents of my stomach. The next thing I can recall is waking up on a gurney with an I.V. in my arm and my body drinking in it's electrolyte contents.

As I recovered alone from my physical illness over the next few days I tried to ignore the real loneliness I felt. It didn't work. So there, in my bed, I began dealing with the hurt I was going through. I decided to stop trying to go around it and start going through it. Suffice to say… it really sucked.

A close friend of mine, Mike, began to help me walk through it. He dealt with my anger, my frustration and my tears better than I could have hoped for. One of his biggest means of contribution was to assist me in discerning when I was just feeling sorry for myself and when I was really hurting. Finally after about four or five months from our Break-up, I realized that I still missed Rachel so much. Mike finally told me to just ask her to get back together. If she said yes then hey, problem solved. If she said no then at least I wouldn't be playing the "what if" game anymore.

So I did. Rachel and I had continued to talk after the break-up and even still hung out every now and then. So one night as I dropped her off I asked if thinks we could start seeing each other again. I said that i knew that there were reasons we broke up but said, "I can get past it if you can." She just said, "Let's talk about this later, John," which I understood to really mean, "No." And so we didn't talk about it later…because there was nothing to talk about. But the next morning I felt better than I had in a long, long time.

The pain and the hurt I went through sucked. Seriously, it was brutal and I don't remember ever hurting that bad before or since that time in my life. But I grew from it. I learned that I could say something like, "I can get passed it if you can." The ability to say and do that made all the difference in the relationships that followed and have impacted my marriage in an immensely positive way even today. I have come to realize that the hurt I was going through at the time wasn't emptiness or loneliness; it was just growing pains. I mean, it sucked and all at the time, but just like my brother wouldn't be 6'4" today if he didn't have his growing pains, I wouldn't be as emotionally or relationally tall as I am today if I didn't have mine.

Incidentally, despite some strange bumps in the road, Rachel and I remain in loose contact even today. We are both very happily married and actually attended each other's weddings. That bit of information really has nothing to do with this post…I just thought it was pretty cool.