Tonight it hit me for the first time. I define myself by what I do for a living. I have no idea who I am apart from my job. To separate myself from my job would be to lose myself. I don’t really know what this strange revelation means or even know what I do with this information. But I do know this-
I am not what I do.
But what I don’t know is-
Who am I?
“Faith is saying I choose to believe in you, God, more than this or that tragedy. I throw myself in utter dependence on you-you alone, a God who specializes in resurrections, a God who brings hope to the hopeless, a God who is a father to the fatherless, a God who was willing to send your Son to a cross to prove you are more powerful than the worst thing evil could do”
- Pete wilson
Wish I believed that more than I do. God I know you have my heart and know it better than I do. I know that right now you seem to be unfaithful, unloving, unjust, and distant because of the circumstances I stand in. My heart is burdened beyond measure but I’m trying to choose to know that my circumstances seem to say one thing about you but time and time again your character has proven to be opposite of what I perceive in the present. I know that your character is always faithful, all-loving, unbelievably just, and near to the brokenhearted.
I want to trust your character and not what my circumstances say about you. Help me.
In honor of a special little boy who was born 11 years ago today here is a letter that I sent to him for a memory book he is getting as part of his bday present. Happy bday Caleb!
My most significant memory of you, Caleb, will always be when you were a month old. You see I hung out with you a lot during that first month but I refused to hold you because I was scared. No one really knew that because I would play it off like it was no big deal when I was asked to hold you. I would say, “not right now,” or “let so-and-so hold him” in order to avoid actually holding you.
When you were born, it was a big deal! It was a huge answer to prayer for your mom and dad. And I too had been praying for you for a long time. When you were born it felt like the world around me changed for the better. It felt like my life was going right for the first time and God had showed up in a big way and i was afraid to mess it up. I thought I could break you if I held you the wrong way, or i was going to drop you, but even more frightening to me was that I knew when I would finally hold you that I would bare a new responsibility in my life to watch over you as a brother and I didnt know if I was ready for that.
But April 11th, 2000 you and I were hanging out and I was just chilling in your room talking and your mom asked if I wanted to take you out of your crib and hold you. I of course said no thanks. She kind of gave me one of her classic “c’mon, really?” looks and then it shifted to a face that showed she was clearly putting the pieces together in her mind. At that moment I knew she had caught on to my scheme. “have you even held him yet?”, she asked. I responded stating my fears and she was great about helping me realize that I needed to get over myself and just hold you.
As she placed your little body in my arms my heart was thumping, hands shaking, and mind racing. But the minute I held you this crazy peace came over me. I knew it was going to be ok. My hands stopped shaking, my heart was filled with an intense love, and my mind was full of dreams of all the things we would do together in the future. I knew I held a gift from God in my arms that day and was amazed at how clearly he answered my prayers. I went home later that day and I couldn’t stop thanking God for you and your special life. I wrote down two quotes and eventually put them in a frame ( that I still have today) with the picture of me holding you that day.
First quote is from Jeremiah 29:11- “For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a hope and a future.”
The other is from a song talking about God answering prayers “Left me not alone when I did not believe, through the darkness you answer me”
It took me a month to hold you, but after I finally did you and I were nearly inseparable. We watched tv together, we played silly games together, you helped me pick up girls at target, we took naps together, we ate Dino nuggets together, we would chase “evil Dr. Zoee” together, we played in the park together, we would “fix” some of your toys when they broke together, we would ride in the “la bamba” and “ice cube” together, and the list could go on.
Things have definitely changed since those days, but 2 things haven’t. 1) my love for you. Through everything I’ve still loved you and consider you my favorite person in the world. 2) that your life still symbolizes that God is still a miracle worker and still answers the prayers of His people. If you ever begin to doubt that God is there, stop and remember that your very life is a clear representation that God is real and active! I love you little bubba.
Love always,
Eron (erwin)
So for the next couple of weeks Brad and I are letting some of the guys in our dgroup lead the lesson. We have let them have the sky as the limit. Yesterday one of the guys showed up with crayons, paper, and took us to BW3. His instructions were simple- color what your soul feels like.
If you know Spencer, but dont really know Spencer, the idea would seem strange. Spenc is a 6-foot-something chunk of football muscle, so needless to say this guy is tough. But those who know Spencer know that he can be an extremely compassionate guy. He is like his dad (who is a guy aspire to be like in a lot of ways), in the fact that he could easily kill you with his pinky finger, but is a big soft teddy bear on the inside. I love how even though i know that about him it still can catch me by surprise sometimes when he breaks the typical football stereotype.
He did a great job leading the discussion following everyone sharing their pictures. I was proud of him and thankful for him making us be real and vulnerable as we colored, but balanced it with the manliness of eating wings. Great job dude!
The flip side of all this—I am not an artist at all, but somehow i was totally engaged in this activity and enjoyed it. I use the term enjoyed loosely, i liked the concept, but not the process. Not because it wasnt a good idea, but because I dont enjoy things i cant do well (ok perfectly…but Im working on lowering my standards for myself, but I’ll save those speculations for another blog) and as I said I am not an artist.
All this said, i did engage with the idea and immediately following the instructions I actually had a visual representation of the color of my soul. The final product wasnt exactly what I pictured because i simply lack the skills needed, but it is a lot closer than any other art endeavor Ive had.
The night ended with me dodging a lot of the specific questions asked, and it was obvious and noted by the group. But its kind of the norm these days and right now I am okay with that. Then I sent the picture and story to Chad, because it seemed like something he would appreciate. The funny thing is that the image has stuck with me through the night and well into this new day…not sure why. hmmm…