A Bit Offbeat

I'm doing my reading for the night and found a story of awesome forgiveness that you really don't hear too much about in Sunday School.. probably because it has to do with imminent adultery. The story is found in Genesis 20 if you want to read it for yourself, but it's basically the story of Abimelech, Abraham, and Sarah. Sarah wasn't a great woman, she mistreated her slave Hagar, mother of Ishmael. She was probably what you would call a cranky old woman but one thing she did well was to remain loyal to her husband. This is why she went along with a half-lie (she really was, in a sense, what she claimed to be) that would have led her to commit adultery.

She introduced herself as the sister of Abraham rather than as his wife so that Abraham Gerar would not be put to death because of her. It's unclear what would make him think her status as his wife would lead her to death (maybe she was just a really bad person?) but it seemed to have something to do with Abraham's fear of the Lord, which he just didn't see around him at all in this place. 

Ironically, it was Abimelech who was approached with a death threat. This woman he had just married but had not yet touched, he believed, was simply how she was presented to him. He assumed she was unmarried after he must have found her traveling with her half-brother Abraham. This must have been scary though, imagine just laying in bed one night and then waking up to God telling you you're about to die and that your new wife was already married. He plead innocent (a daring move, to seemingly defy God's prophecy like that) and was rewarded for it. God said that if he returned Sarah that all would be a-okay because Abraham would toss up a few lifesaving prayers for him. If not, he would surely die.

That's the way you don't really think about God striking fearful respect into people. Death threats paired with mercy and grace, it's pretty nice. Ominous warnings always work wonders.

Then Abimelech returned Sarah with a ton of livestock as a gift on the side, maybe as a sorry-for-almost-stealing-your-wife-even-though-it-really-would-have-been-mostly-your-fault-anyway card? He also allowed him to settle wherever he wanted in Gerar, for good measure. Oh yeah, and then he told Sarah he was also going to give her half-brother a thousand silver pieces, which is a lot of money now and was probably a whole lot more back then.

Then God also tossed in an additional prize for Abimelech's faithful obedience, the healing of his wife and slave girls' wombs, which he had closed earlier on account of the taking of Sarah. Closing wombs, whether that means they couldn't have sex or urinate any more or just couldn't have babies.. I'm not really sure. Both must have been torture, but as a guy I guess I can really only understand the former.

So that's a full bible story.

I'll get back to reading now.

You know it's kind of funny how many parallels run between Ishmael of the Islam Nation and Isaac of the Jewish Nation. Both were conceived under extraneous circumstances to Abraham, one to Hagar the Slave and one to Sarah her Master. They both almost died growing up, Ishmael of dehydration and Isaac of sacrifice. God came to the rescue BOTH times, once to save the Islamic people and once to save the Jewish people. Very interesting. 

Just crossed over to Timeline too.. I used that life picture I drew for the cover, hopefully it stays there for a while.

Okay, I really want to explain the story behind it.. it's really close to a perfect model of what I want my life to look like. I figure someone would have asked but no one did haha.. here we go:

The day I got back from Oregon was Friday, March the Second. The trip was full of lots of great times seeing family and friends of the past and present, but also comprised of lots of planning and looking into the present and future. Being back around what I grew up with as the closest thing I've ever had to a long term home sparked some nostalgic and optimistic feelings in me. A morning talk with Bobby got me thinking about planning out my life, as well as to reorganize my priorities to treasure higher that which matters. Certain balls, when dropped, will break. Certain balls, when dropped, will bounce. This kind of imagery was pretty nice, and definitely a solid connection to what's been going on in my home life.

Furthermore, there were a few long discussions with family members regarding the happenings of the present and preparations and ideas for the future. Discussions in my grandpa's living room like so many before took on a whole new meaning over the course of this trip. I realized how my role in it could soon be reversed and passed on a generation, that soon I might have to share some of the wisdom and insight my grandpa has so faithfully imparted upon me throughout the years and continues today. I am so thankful and so glad that my ear has always been open to him, his words have truly helped shape my life. And my relationship with God. I love him so much. Them both.

It's incredible really, but it brings me to the present. On the day of my birthday I got another idea which I still esteem pretty highly, and it's really cool that I got it on my birthday, I think. I would love to be a firefighter, because it has everything I love about the military and nothing that I dislike. Great hours, great benefits, great salary, and all of that matters little when it means I'll have a chance to carry out a duty of servitude and protection. To be a part of something larger. To put my life on the line and run through a burning building to save another. "No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13. With the names for the martyrs, Stephen and Peter, I have much to live up for and a personality to match. Firefighting sounds like an incredible occupation, as long as I don't get stuck just driving an ambulance around. My dad can usually put a damper on things like this, even when he doesn't really know a ton about what he's talking about. 

I thought about doing another job simultaneously, however, to complement the one and address the final side to my mindbodyspirit. I want to spend time as a youth pastor. I think it'd be great to be involved in a successful church's youth ministry, I'd love to be able to pass down the knowledge which has been bestowed upon me by God to raise up others in my stead. I want to make the difference that was made in my life by Velocity.

That'd really me a nice pairing of occupation for me, I think. I love the idea so far and haven't countered any major qualms as of yet.

Now, this finally brings me to the point I've been trying to make. The symbolism of the finger-painting.

The day I got back from Oregon was Friday, March the Second. It had been a somewhat painstaking, disgusting, and miserable day until I left for youth group. I watched Contagion twice on the flight home, once with sleep interludes and once straight through. I woke up at 5:45 and left the house shortly after, three days showerless and without contacts. It was pretty bad. 

Going through the airport wasn't much fun either. It's a painfully slow exit you take when you depart Newark Airport. You walk through what must be thousands of people per hallway and you eventually get to wait outside in frigid weather to the sound of brothers fighting and taxis honking. You get to wait and try the impossible task of finding your ride in the sea of cars. It's not fun either.

Heading home wasn't a blast with Wesley's loud and crazy noises complemented by Jared and Cade's strange duet. I was caught in the middle row and was exhausted, dirty, a bit annoyed, and mostly just trying to think. The effects of the trip were still upon me and I was re-entering my contemporary world. The rest had been a pause, a look through the credits, a sneak peek of multiple endings, and a resting period or refuge from some of life's more hectic areas. It was beautiful and it was over. The world was waiting.

We step in the door and not ten seconds go by before Wesley and Cade are furious at each other for something. Welcome back, home life!

I got cleaned up minus brushed teeth and just waited.

And thought about youth group.

And thought I could use a little light in my day.

So I went and it was great to see everybody again. These were now the estranged friends now reunited. It was a nice break, even if the jet lag did cause me to do some mysterious and inexplicable things. The birthday cake was good though, and the dominoes arranged "HAPPY BIRTDAY!" on the floor for shortage of tiles. It was quaint and it was crazy and it was fun and it was great. I love this place too, but in an admittedly different way. I wish Sarah could have stuck around longer, but she wasn't feeling too good.

Cake shrunk, games played, worship workout rose, and prayer time commenced. Ryan's prayer stations are one of the highlights of his ministry. He does them really well and obviously has the heart to do them right. Or at least set them up to go the way they should.

I kind of did what I felt was necessary with the materials at hand. I don't think it is absolutely the most advantageous to go through the stations the same way as everybody else, because you're either going to end up running through the motions of a step-by-step guide to talking to God or you're going to miss out on something along the way. Everything was meaningful that night, from the flaming candle I realized was much like my life (even in the way it spilled hot wax on my most comfortable pair of jeans) to the breaking of an egg that represented my broken actions as I chucked it into a kiddie pool. However, the most meaningful thing by far, if I still have the energy to document it, was the drawing you'll now see as the cover to my timeline.

We're there yet.

I walked over to the paper with my goal set in mind. I was going to put on this paper exactly what God told me to. I followed every impulse of my spirit and the story goes a bit like this:

I started off with realizing this was going to be a lot more personal, a lot more fun, and a lot more dirty if I did it with my hands. This was to be my life and my goal, I realized. This was to be the answer to my prayer.

It all starts off with myself: the red thumbprint (identity connection, anyone?) towards the middle of the sheet on the wall. When you look at this now, it doesn't look much like a thumbprint because it's not. 

The first thing I thought of was my future wife, with whom I want to be a perfect union, one flesh, and with whom my posterity will be created. She was yellow, simply because that was the closest other color tub by me. She started out to my lower left, for some reason, but then I figured it was both unappealing artistically and symbolically dead. I swirled her into me and myself into her. We would no longer be red and yellow, together, we became orange.

The next thing I drew, I believe, was what any Sunday School pupil would loudly exclaim should have come first. The circled cross to our left. I chose brown for the color of the wood. I circled it and painted it boldly because that's how I want it to be. The focus and bull's eye of my life. The two-way arrow between us represents our eternal connection to one another. The Holy Spirit shall forever be in me and forever shall I follow Jesus step by step.

You see below my wife and I a red line. This means that my relationship shall stay personally one-one-one between her and I and God and I although there will come pressures from the raising of our children.

Through this red line, however, strikes an infinite ray. I want to carry on the good which has been bestowed upon me and the good which I have laboriously acquired unto my posterity, along with my faith and my love. You'll observe that this is orange too, however, and you already know what that means.

Below the orange arrow lies three dots, representing our continued posterity. The "..." is for continuing; its location is for posterity. Am I making any sense?

Together they share the arrow on top of them, but there are also near invisibly painted arrows below each of the dots. Maybe it turned out this way on purpose, because it would make sense with this portion of the analogy. Each member of my future wife and I's posterity, I hope, shall be unified in a common spirit and faith in Christ Jesus ( the top arrow ) as much as they shall have their own personal relationships with Him (the nearly invisible lines.)

You'll notice the end of a flame drifting down out of the top right, which is part of a much larger fire than the one you see here cropped to fit the cover photo job. This represents two things, the first of which is personal and wishful while the other is secondary and obligatory. The first is a haphazard reference to my desire to fight fires one day. The second is my serious desire to want to continue to fuel the fire in which I participate, that of my beliefs, what I have stood up for, and what my lineage and that of my future wife have already accomplished that also must be carried on through my children. Unintentionally, you'll see this line drift down to a point that almost touches my finger. I'm scared that this might be ominously prophetic, and am feeling quite strongly that it might very well be.

Could it be just out of reach? Does it mean that I have to push just a little bit harder? I don't know, but it's important for me to document that this hand was wholeheartedly dedicated to the representation of my life and legacy. It is both my most personal signature and my most useful tool. I pushed hard to put it there, literally, and if the rest of the drawing should fade with the passing of years, this might quite well remain historically.

Welp, that's it! Life's good!

Off to finish my reading now..