Play It Again Sam(my Hagar)

Once upon a time I wrote a little blog for my church group (back when I used to do a weekly email for the group) about how I heard God talking to me through a Cher song.  And I've heard God speak to me through an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati as well.  And I've frequently heard God speaking to me through a Van Halen song.  I searched and searched and cannot find the blog I thought I'd written about this years ago, because some time around the Cher experience is when I think this all came about.

Now, there are those that scoff at hearing God speak to you in any other way than through reading the Bible.  Well, I disagree. I think if you look and listen, you will find God all around you, every day.  You never know when or how or why He is going to send you a message. You just have to be open to it.

On this particular day I was out in my yard pruning the lantanna. Which is not my favorite thing and generally only happens in January or February once the leaves have fallen.  I'm not sure exactly how my head got into this particular place, but I was talking with God and wondering how he could stand the human race most of the time. I mean, good grief!  We are a messed up bunch of people that's for ding dang sure.  Fortunately, God offers us grace and forgiveness and salvation.  Can't get much luckier - or rather, blessed -than that.

So as I'm pruning and pondering and asking God how he can love someone like me, who is certainly undeserving, the Van Halen song "I Can't Stop Loving You" came on and I heard these words:

There's a time and place for everything, for everyone
We can push with all our might, but nothin's gonna come
Oh no, nothin's gonna change
And if I asked you not to try
Oh could you let it be

and 

I can't stop lovin' you
And no matter what I say or do
You know my heart is true, oh
I can't stop loving you

I can't clearly recall, but I think I started laughing a little bit at the fact that at the very moment when I needed something like this, this song came on.  And I truly believe it was God speaking to me. Reassuring me.  Reminding me that no matter what I do, He can't and won't stop loving me.  It was pretty cool.

So now every time that song pops up on my iPod, I stop and smile and listen, remembering that God loves me. Even though I don't deserve it.  And that sometimes, if He asks me not to push and try so hard, can I just let it be.  I'm grateful for God's love and His grace, especially when I have no idea what is going to happen or which way my life is headed (which is basically all the time the past few years, or so it seems).  And I'm grateful that God chooses seemingly strange places and things to use to speak to me. I believe God chooses the avenue that is best for the individual and how He knows He can get through to us.  And he definitely does get through to me in this song.  I dunno... maybe it has something to do with Sammy's hair.  :o)

Disappointment

Hmmm... I've had this post in my head for a few days and I'm not sure if it's better to write right when you have the inspiration or ruminate on it a while and see what comes out a few days later.  Heck, I'm not even sure I know what I want to say anymore.

I was driving to work the other day and thinking that I am coming to the end of the project I adopted to pray about 5 specific things for a year and watch how God works in your life and changes it.  Lately though all I feel when I pray about it all is disappointment. Oh, I never expected all these things in my life to completely change in this year... or maybe I did.  I fully understand that just praying about something doesn't mean it's going to happen.  That to make things happen we all have to pull our share of the weight and can't expect God to wave some magic wand and *presto!* everything is different. I also realize that just because we pray for something doesn't mean it's what is going to happen.  God doesn't give us what we want - He gives us what we need.  But that hasn't stopped my disappointment.  And yes, I've been pulling my share of the weight.  Or at least, I though I was.  I've been doing things or making changes that seem appropriate to following the course of action that I'm seeking.  But maybe it's just not enough.

The day that I was praying about this and thinking these thoughts, I pulled up one of the blogs that I follow at lunch time - Melanie in the Middle - and found this post which spoke to me about what I'd been thinking that morning.  You should just click and go read the post because it's worth it, but in a nutshell it's about positioning yourself to get what you want or where you want to be in life.  It was just what I needed to hear at the time I needed to hear it.

Jump forward to Thursday afternoon (at lunchtime once again) and I'm searching for something with any meaning to me whatsoever to post in my Facebook status.  Since I post status updates way too much, it's a tad bit disconcerting when I come up empty for anything to post.  I often fall back on quotes that I like and that will convey whatever my thoughts are at the time.  This is what I came up with from the movie You've Got Mail. It's from an e-mail that Meg Ryan's character is sending to Tom Hanks's character and again, it spoke to me at the right time:

"Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void."

I have those selfsame thoughts all the time.  I wonder if I am sabotaging myself and my potential successes.  If I set myself up to fail or say I can't do something just because it's hard and takes some effort on my part.  Do I push things aside because I don't think I can accomplish the task.  Do I just not do things because I'm not being brave.

I don't really have answers to all of that right now (or maybe I do and I'm just avoiding dealing with them *hint - that's probably what it is*), but I do know that I have some decisions coming up that are going to require me to make some hard choices.  Or at least choices that seem hard.  Maybe they are really easier than I think and I am simply making things harder than they need to be.  I do that so well you know.  Over think. Over plan. Over do.  But there are changes brewing folks. That much I know for sure.  And when I break it all down, it's really not that God hasn't answered my prayers because He has. In bits and spurts, but nothing totally to fruition and that still frustrates me.  I have seen God at work in my life, but I am still disappointed that time is running out and things haven't come together more. And trust me, that list of 5 things ain't gonna all just happen in the next month.  I know God can do anything and I am definitely not throwing down a gauntlet, but that would be a whole heck of a lot for a month's time.  Regardless, I'm a little sad, a little dismayed, but I've taken it all to God and He knows. I mean, He'd know how I was feeling even if I did not tell Him, so why  not just lay it out.  And I get the hints that it's really not on God, but it's on me to make some decisions and choices and move things forward.  If I'm brave enough.  I guess that's the real deal breaker here.  And I'm not at all sure what the answer is.

Remembering Michael

I've had this post wandering around my brain for the past week and am still not sure just what is going to come out of my fingers as I type.

Last week I played host for an evening to the mother and sister of a friend of mine from high school.  Michael died nearly 2 years ago when he was hit by a car trying to help a cat in the road that had been injured. His mother isn't sure if Michael may have hit the cat and stopped or if he just saw it, but it was his nature to stop and try to help.  She said that no one who knew him was surprised by his actions.  He stopped the car, pulled over to the side of the road and turned on his flashers and got out, with a big flashlight.  But a car saw the flashers and changed lanes, but did not see Michael and hit him.  His mother told us last week that if he did not die on impact, then he was in shock enough that he did not feel pain or suffer.  It's so strange to think of that as a "blessing".

I received a note about a month ago from Michael's mother saying they would be in town last weekend and would like to get together with any friends of his still in the area, so I put the word out and a few friends were able to make it to my house that evening.  His mother was visiting places where they had previously lived - they now live in Colorado - and where she had happy memories of her son  as a means of trying to cope with his death. I can't imagine how you ever cope with the loss of a child, but I hope that this visit with his friends was able to help her in some small way.

All we did was sit in my living room and talk and reminisce about about our high school years with Michael, but it was so nice to hear stories about what he was like as an adult.  I had no idea he'd been married and divorced.  I knew he played lead guitar in a band, but never realized the following the had. His mother gave me a CD of songs he had written. I haven't listened to it yet. But I will.

Before he died, Michael had been seriously considering traveling back across the country with another friend to "crash" our high school reunion (he graduated a year before I and this other friend did).  But he never had that chance.  We raised our glasses at that reunion to our dear old friend and we raised glasses again last Saturday night.

I will never have children to remember me when I am gone one day, but I hope I am fortunate and blessed enough to have some friends out there in the world who will think as highly of me as everyone who knew Michael thinks of him. I am sad that I never got to know the man he was, but I will always smile when I remember the boy that I knew.

There is only one picture that I know of of the two of us together, but I think it's one of the best pictures there could possibly be. So as we approach the 2nd anniversary of his passing this coming September, I will say a little prayer for my friend that he is at peace and that his family will continue to find their peace as well.

Circa summer 1988 at a church youth group Bible study.

Up, up and away

I was out working in my yard today when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I did a double take because I wasn't sure what it was that I saw floating in the sky. At first hasty glance I thought maybe it was large birds which instantly made me wonder what was dead over in one of the neighbor's yards.  Hey, as long as it wasn't the one of the neighbors, I figured it was all good.

Turns out, it wasn't buzzards or vultures or whatnot (though I have actually seen those a time or two a little too close to my neighborhood feasting on some road kill - hey, I had to look... just not close enough to see much), but balloons.  Three bundles of balloons that someone had released into the sky.

found on Google Images

From their low level to the ground I think they were released a street or so over from my house.  But... why?  

Fascinated, I ended up sitting down at the back of my driveway and watching as the three bunches floated up into the sky. Higher and higher. Until they disappeared.  I couldn't seem to help myself. I just sat and watched and wondered.

Wondered who had released them and why.  Did they escape from a birthday party?  Were some children sending out messages into the world with the hope that whoever got their missive would respond from some far off land like England or Australia or Pacoima (which is totally far from my hometown I assure you.  More or less.).  Just what was the purpose of those balloons floating skyward?

I'll never know the answer to that I'm sure, but watching them float away seemed somehow... magical.  Because maybe whoever released those balloons was doing more than simply letting go of a few ribbons and strings. Maybe they were symbolic of letting go of something in that person's life that needed to be released so that they could be released.  Maybe those balloons were really hopes and dreams being set upon the breeze to float skyward and catch flight and carry those hopes and dreams further than that person could do at that moment.  So many maybes and possibilities.

I sat and watched until each bundle of balloons had risen so high into the blue summer sky that they weren't even specs anymore.  And I thought about what hopes and dreams that I may need to cast to the winds and see where they land.  What, perhaps, I should release in order to be released.  And I know when I walk outside tomorrow morning I will gaze up at the dawning sky, for just an instant, and hope that those balloons have reached their destination.  Fulfilled their purpose.  And that I will too.