Big changes. Big risks. Big fears. Big rewards!

What a week! Oh, heck, what a year!!

The last two weeks, since I found out I’d be receiving funding to attend TCU have been a whirlwind of activity. Trying to get everything lined out – housing, finances, giving notice at work, informing Texas Tech of my decision not to enroll there – was a mad rush. Until this afternoon and evening I’d not yet had the chance to really sit and thing about it all and digest exactly what it means. As I told you in my last post, it was little more than a year ago that I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to attend my own graduation from TTU. Now, I’m about to uproot my entire life, move 100 miles away and embark on the single biggest challenge in my life to date. If this were an amusement park ride, ticket would cost an arm and a leg and not just anybody could ride.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” ~John F. Kennedy

I’m not a huge fan of change. I admit it. I usually like things to stay just as they are, especially if they’re comfortable and easy. The problem with that is that comfortable and easy rarely lead to much fulfillment in life. There comes a time when everyone has to go through some sort of change – some sort of metamorphosis or we will simple wither up and cease to live, if not physically then certainly metaphorically. Change is unavoidable and fighting it only delays its ultimate victory. For good or for ill, change always comes.

That time has come for me and the biggest change of all is not leaving my job, it’s not moving away, it’s not starting graduate school. No, for me the biggest change of all is the risk associated with all of those events. Think about it for just a second: I’m leaving a job making good money and working for and with people I really like. I work less than one mile from my home. I sit on my couch every day and watch The Waltons while I eat lunch. I have no rent and my bills are nominal. Life is pretty sweet. But, the more comfortable I got with this life, the more pronounced the feeling of not being fulfilled became. This year is the year that feeling got to be more than I could deal with. The time came to put that fear of taking a risk to the side and accept the changes coming my way as positives in my life. It feels good and it feels right.

I’m lactose intolerant and I just ate an Eskimo Pie at 9:00pm … heh, how about that?!

You see, I’m embracing risk all over the place. OK, I’m being a little silly now, but the point is the same. Big risks can most definitely lead to big failures, but they can also lead to big rewards. No risk leads to nothing and I’ve been swimming around in nothing for too long. I want to be out in the world and I want to be a part of it. I think I have something to contribute that is uniquely mine. Without sounding overly prideful, I have talents and abilities that many others have not been blessed with. (They, likewise, have some I do not.) If I’m never willing to lay them on the line and risk failure, how can I possibly ever know what it’s like to succeed. I can’t.

I haven’t really received any negative attention about my decision, but their have been a few raised eyebrows and a couple of pointed questions. I understand it. My track record has not exactly been stellar, and other than my successful completion of my undergraduate degree, I don’t have a lot of touchstones to point to as evidence of my willingness to follow-through with my commitments. As with my decision to go back to school in 2008, there are a few people who doubt my ability to see this through to completion. I’m prepared to put their doubt to rest. It is time to change their perspective about me.

There’s not really anything monumental in this post, but it’s something I needed to get down “on paper.” This is what I’ve been thinking about this afternoon. Big changes. Big risks. Big fear. Big reward!

To Hell and Back

“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” ~Don Williams, Jr.

I remember the very day this round of anxiety and depression started. It was almost four years ago exactly. I was leaving one job and moving on to another. On my last day of work I had to return my parking pass to the building management. I rode the elevator up to the 18th floor where their offices were. On the way back down I had an anxiety attack. It was early in the day and I was supposed to work until 5:00, but I never returned to my desk. I walked out the back door of the building, got in my car and left, panicking all the way home. My personal belongings at my desk had to be mailed to me and I didn’t even say good bye to my colleagues. The next Monday I started driving to my new job. I got about fifteen minutes from home, began panicking again and turned around. I didn’t call my new employer — I just never showed up, and that, as they say, is all she wrote.

That was in May of 2009 and that one panic attack took me down a road that would lead to a place that even I had never been. Less than six months from that day I was virtually housebound. Even something as simple as going out to eat lunch here in my hometown was impossible. My anxiety and depression had been bad, but never that bad. I started this blog during that terribly dark time in my life. I started it to give myself some sort of outlet since I had practically no real contact with the outside world. I never really intended it to be anything more than just a journal of my own thoughts and feelings — a way to get the things that were in my head out of my head, but it became much more than that. As time went on more and more people began reading and commenting and encouraging me to press on. Through all of the highs and lows; through all of the ups and downs, they stayed with me. This little blog became a lifeline to me. I believe it helped save my life and that it helped me turn things around and head back into the light.

By the time the anxiety and depression hit I’d been back in school for over a year. I had been doing very well, earning a 4.0 all three semesters since my return. But, when this round hit I believed that my last chance to finish school had come to an end just like every other time. That all changed in the summer of 2010 when I began helping my friend Trent edit and proofread his doctoral dissertation. As we sat in the back room at his mother’s house, papers and books spread all over the room, he talked to me about school. He encouraged me to get back in it and finish. “I think you’d make a great professor,” he said one day. “You should go on and get your PhD.” It was all I could do to keep from laughing, but he was serious. I told him that I wasn’t yet well enough to go back to school and sit in class. He told me that there were several schools that offered degrees online — legitimate schools, not fly-by-night schools owned by corporations. He helped me find the right fit for my situation. Enter Texas Tech University.

Even as I began studying at Tech I don’t think I really believed I could or would finish. My anxiety and depression were still very bad, although not as bad as they had been. I had a job working at the school which finally got me out of the house, but I still couldn’t go anywhere. As a matter of fact, on the day Trent received his doctorate I couldn’t even make it there to cheer him on. I got about half way to Ft. Worth and had to turn around because of a panic attack. So, the idea that I might actually finish a degree still seemed a little far-fetched. Slowly but surely things kept getting a little better and finally, on May 19, 2012 I walked across the stage at the United Spirit Arena in Lubbock, Texas, shook the hand of the Texas Tech University Chancellor and received my undergraduate degree. The mere fact that I made the trip to Lubbock was an enormous leap in my recovery, but being able to sit through the entire ceremony and have my happy day was something altogether more amazing. Remember, it was less than two years earlier that I couldn’t even go out to eat with my mom at the local diner. How could I have imagined that there were even more amazing things to come.

At this point I should take you back to the summer of 2010. As Trent and I talked about my getting back in school and as he swatted a fly with an AK-47 and suggested that I should go on and get a PhD, he told me that he thought Texas Christian University (where he was getting his EdD) would be a good place for me to get mine. Keep in mind that at this point in time not only did I not have an undergraduate degree but I hadn’t even applied for admission to get one anywhere. Somehow, though, his enthusiasm and belief in me where I had no belief in myself led me to contact Dr. Mona Narain at TCU. Dr. Narain is the Director of Graduate Studies in English. I had the audacity to call and talk to her for almost an hour about getting a masters and PhD in English before I had even registered for undergraduate courses. The more remarkable thing is that she actually took the time to speak to me. I can honestly say that from that first conversation some three years ago, I’ve thought about nothing else besides going to school at TCU to do my graduate work.

I first applied for admission in January of last year. My intention was to start my masters degree in the fall immediately after graduation. But, guess what happened? On the day I was scheduled to take the GRE I had a panic attack and couldn’t finish the test. Admission for the 2012-2013 academic year would be impossible. However, the kept my application, letters of recommendation and writing samples on file and told me to apply again this year. This past January I renewed my application fee and took the GRE. I did “ok” but not as well as I’d hoped and scored significantly lower on my GRE than I expect to score. I submitted my scores to both Texas Tech and TCU. Amazingly, I was admitted to both schools. The Tech program is a Master of Arts in Technical Communication and is an online degree. The TCU program is a Master of Arts in English and is not online. As you can imagine TCU is much more expensive than Texas Tech and, unlike Tech, I would have to move to Ft. Worth to go to school. I had a big decision to make and that decision was complicated by the fact that no funding was offered at TCU. I asked God to show me where I needed to be. “Lord,” I prayed, “I’ve wanted to go to TCU for three years, but I can’t without funding from the school. If it is really meant to be, I know you will make that happen.” It did not look good.

I spoke with Dr. Narain on two separate occasions about what my options were if funding did not come through. But, as recently as two weeks ago I had almost made up my mind to go with Texas Tech. It is a great degree program and I already know many of the professors with whom I’d be working. I would be in good stead with a Master of Arts in Technical Communication from Texas Tech. I was on the verge of making that decision final. Until last Tuesday night.

Dear Jason Walker,   Congratulations!  The TCU English department is very pleased to offer you tuition funding for attending our Masters program in addition to admission for 2013-14. 

When the email alert on my iPad went off and I read those words, I literally lost my breath for a moment. My mother, sister and niece were sitting in the living room. I jumped up and practically ran in to tell them the news. Suddenly, the impossible became possible. With the arrival of one email the dream I’d carried with me for three years through the final two years of undergraduate work, through the throes of terrible anxiety, through the beginnings of the end of that dark time in my life was going to come true. God had made a way where there seemed to be no way. In that moment I realized that this journey to hell and back was almost over.

What a difference those three years have made in my life. I’ve gone from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs. When I first talked to Dr. Narain in July of 2010 I was nowhere near ready to venture out. Since that time I graduated college – something many people didn’t believe I’d ever do; I have overcome much of my anxiety and I’ve seen this dream come to fruition. Even now as I write it’s still hard to believe. I almost can’t contain my joy! Through all of the darkness I’ve found a new passion and I’ve found my calling and now I get to put both into practice.

My hope is to focus my work on writing and the healing process. I’ve been given three books as suggested summer reading on the subject. Can you imagine it? I started this blog to help myself heal and over come the anxiety that was ruining my life and now I might actually be doing real work on writing and the healing process. Isn’t God amazing? Isn’t it just like him to use this very darkest time in my life to direct me toward something I didn’t even know existed but now seems so tailor-made and perfect for me. I feel like pinching myself every time I get caught up in the thought of it.

I’ll be moving to Fort Worth on August 1st. I’ve already turned in my resignation at work and my last day there will be July 19th. I can’t describe how I feel except to say that every conceivable emotion is running its course in me right now. I’m so ready for this. It feels so right to me. It feels like everything in my life has been pointing at this very moment in time and I’m only now realizing it. What a feeling! I know I’ve thanked you all before, but I want to thank you again. Many of you have been with me since day one and I can’t tell you how I appreciate it. You are all a part of this and I will never, ever forget to pay you each the respect you’ve earned!

I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next and as soon as I know, you know I’ll share it here!!

Blessings to you all, Jason

 

Lessons In Blue — Chapter 8

Chapter 8 — gods: Our Tiny Invisible Friends

“Every year or so I start pondering at how silly the whole God thing is. Every Christian knows they will deal with doubt. And they will. But when it comes it seems so very real and frightening, as if your entire universe is going to fall apart. I remember a specific time when I was laying there in bed thinking about the absurdity of my belief. ‘God. Who believes in God? It all seems so very silly.’” ~Blue Like Jazz, p. 87

The ‘D’ Word

I’ve written many times before about the times I doubted God. I doubted His ability to work good things in my life and in the world. I even doubted His very existence once upon a time. But, I think the worst of all my doubts was my doubt that God actually loved me and cared about me. I lived quite a few years of my life believing that God hated me. I wrote about that a while back and you can read it here. That really was the worst kind of doubt.

Some people think that doubting God’s existence is far and away the most profound doubt there is. Not me. Think about it: if God doesn’t even exist then you haven’t really lost anything at all. But, to believe God is there and that He hates you is devastating. That’s the doubt I dealt with for many years. I knew God was real because I could see His creation and see Him working in the lives of others, but I couldn’t feel His presence in me and I couldn’t discern any real work He was doing in my life. I truly believed that I had done something so terrible; so unforgivable, that God had turned His back on me and that He hated me. I understand now that doubt was the root of much of the anger and judgement I heaped upon others. It became much easier and much less painful to doubt that God even existed than to doubt His love for me.

I used to think that doubting God would send me straight to hell. That’s how warped my faith was and how warped the teaching I received about God had been. Nothing in scripture indicates that doubting God at times is an unforgiveable sin. In fact, there are many stories in scripture about times when people doubted God and it was in those moments of greatest doubt that the greatness of God was revealed to them. The point I’m trying to make here is that God is not threatened by our doubt. He can handle it. Doubting God in and of itself will not send me (or you) to hell. However, in our doubt we must be careful not to place restrictions or limitations on God and we must also be careful that we are not trying to remake God in our image of Him.

During the time when I doubted God the most I also tested Him the most. I’ve told you before that I bargained with God on numerous occasions to try to get what I thought I needed at one time or another. But, it was during this time of doubt that I asked God not to give me something, but to PROVE something. During this time of deepest disbelief I asked God to prove His very existence to me through some physical manifestation. I told God if He wanted me to continue believing in Him that He would have to earn my belief. Scary, huh?

“…God is not here to worship me, to mold Himself into something that will help me fulfill my level of comfort. I think part of my problem is that I want spirituality to be more close and more real. I understand why people wear crystals around their necks and why they perform change and gaze at stars. They are lonely. I’m not talking about lonely for a lover or a friend. I mean lonely in the universal sense, lonely inside the understanding that we are tiny little people on a tiny little earth suspended in an endless void that echoes past stars and stars of stars. And it’s not like God has a call-in radio show.” ~Blue Like Jazz, p. 92

Alone In A Room With Six Billion People

A lot of Christians are deeply offended by atheists and agnostics. I’m not. I mean, I think there is a fundamental flaw in their logic when they say they don’t believe in ANYTHING. After all, if they didn’t believe in anything then they would be defying their own existence. But, I’m not offended by their lack of belief in God. Why? Because I’ve been at a point where I nearly shared it and the only difference between me and them is that I didn’t take that leap into the realm of disbelief. So, like Miller, I understand. It’s like the old saying that you feel completely alone in a crowd of people. I know that feeling. There’s so much I wish I could share with you about this and maybe someday I will, but for now it’s still just too personal. For now, it is enough to say that I know that really stark, empty loneliness that consumes your whole being.

In a very real way that dark time in my life ultimately drew me closer to God instead of pulling me further away. Rather than losing my faith through that long night of loneliness my faith was strengthened and I believe in God more fervently now than ever. In an odd way I think I needed to go through that time to find out who God really is. I needed that time in the wilderness to learn to rely on God even in the midst of trials and tribulations. Mostly, I needed that time to weed out the arrogance in my life so that in times of great success I don’t forget where that success originated.

I’m going to end this post in a very different way than I normally end my posts, but I feel compelled to write this. I know that someone reading this is going through a time of serious doubt in their faith. I want you to know that God knows that, too and that He is there in the midst even if you don’t feel His presence. I also want you to know that you are not alone. Those feelings are common to many people and I know the pain they cause personally. If you are going through one of those times and you need someone to talk to, please email me. I will be glad to talk with you or just listen to you. You can send a private email to: ibreathedagain@gmail.com and it will come directly to me.

Please don’t lose heart. God is with you, even if you don’t realize it.

Top 5 Words to Delete from Your Vocabulary

This seems pretty obvious, but it’s always worth a reminder. I read this post today and wanted to share it with you.

 

Top 5 Words to Delete from Your Vocabulary.

Lessons in Blue — Chapter 7

Chapter 7 — Grace: The Beggar’s Kingdom

“I was a fundamentalist Christian once. It lasted a summer. I was in that same phase of trying to discipline myself to “behave” as if I loved light and not “behave” as if I loved darkness. I used to get really ticked about preachers who talked too much about grace, because they tempted me to not be disciplined. I figured what people needed was a kick in the butt, and if I failed at godliness it was because those around me weren’t trying hard enough. I believed if word got out about grace, the whole church was going to turn into a brothel. I was a real jerk, I think.” ~Blue Like Jazz, p. 79

Earning My Junior Jesus Badge

I should confess right up front this time: I’m having trouble with today’s post. It’s about God’s grace and I’m not feeling very gracious at the moment. In fact, I’m feeling quite bitter and angry today, but I’ll press on. The first lesson of grace should always be that it is present regardless of our emotions. As Paul says, “Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound.”

Just like Donald Miller, I was once a fundamentalist Christian, too. How I arrived at that mindset is a story so convoluted that I’m not sure I can retell it accurately, but I’ll try to sum it up for you. I grew up Methodist but I went to youth group at a Baptist church. When I attended college at a private Methodist college in East Texas I saw an ugly side of church schools and it made me angry. I left the Methodist church and spent the next ten years or so bouncing back and forth between Baptist and pentecostal churches. I buried myself in the fundamentalist dogma coming from both of those denominations. I became a great finger pointer and earned my Junior Jesus Badge many times over. That all worked great until I realized that every time I pointed the finger of judgement at someone there were three pointing back at me.

I don’t intend to go into a lot of detail about my abandoning the church. I’ve written about it before and there’s no need to repeat it now. What needs to be said about it, however, is that it happened over a long period of time. In addition to the hurtful things that were said to me which ultimately lead to my complete departure four years ago, some years before it had become painfully obvious to me that I could not live up to the standards to which I asked others to live. I demanded sober, somber and sacrificial living and was all too willing to condemn their lack in others, but was not practicing any of those on my own.

It was during this time that the old feelings of God’s wrath and hatred were ginned up in my mind and heart again. When I was a kid I struggled with the thought that I could never be good enough for God to love me and I found myself dealing with those same feelings in my early thirties. I’d spent several years actively seeking to put people’s faults on display in the mistaken belief that this is what it takes to achieve true conversion and loyalty to Jesus. What I found was the sting of my own hypocrisy. It took an entire lifetime of events lived in a single decade to teach me about God’s grace.

Me & The Peterbilt Trucking Company – A Damascus Road Experience

Most of you who’ve been reading my blog for some time now know about the car accident that changed my life forever. For those of you who are new to the blog, here is a link to that story. It’s a bit long, but reading it will help with some background for this part of today’s post. (I can’t believe it will be ten years this December.)

When Paul (Saul) was on the road to Damascus he saw a blinding light and heard Jesus’ voice asking “Saul, why do you persecute me?” When I was on Interstate 35 on the road to Carrollton, TX, I saw the oncoming headlights of an 18-wheeler and heard the deafening grind of its engine brakes and the blare of its massive horn. The end result of our experiences were the same — we learned about grace. Paul learned that Jesus was the messiah and that His sacrifice was to atone for the sins of the world. I learned that grace abounds during the lowest of moments when it seems God is most distant.

As I lay on the couch in my mother’s apartment recovering from the accident and surgery I did so knowing that my life was changed forever. I had nothing. No job, no home of my own, very few material possessions. All of the things I coveted the most in my life before the accident were gone and for a good long while I didn’t know if I’d be able to get them back. I don’t remember being that frightened before or since that time. People kept telling me how blessed I was and how God was looking out for me because I had some greater purpose in life. I didn’t see that for a long time.

Looking back on the last decade I’m able to see God’s grace in my life working in many ways. While it all started on that night in December of 2003, His grace did not become most apparent to me until these last four years. This journey to hell and back with depression and anxiety could easily have killed me. I don’t write that for shock value, I write it because it’s true. It did have very real effects on my physical and mental well-being and either of those could have been fatal. But, through all of that time and all of that anguish, grace was there. Each time I came close to the brink of disaster, grace pulled me back from the edge. Each time I began believing that I would be stuck forever, grace taught me that nothing in this life is eternal. Each time I looked at myself in the mirror and hated the person I saw, grace reminded me that my life was bought with a price.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come. ‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.” ~Amazing Grace, John Newton

Those words are very real to me now. I’ve known them all my life but it hasn’t been until the last few years that I could truly grasp what they mean. God’s grace is an amazing and unexplainable gift. Even as I read the words I’ve written here I know I haven’t come close to doing it justice. I’m still learning to live under His grace instead of condemnation. It’s so easy that it’s hard because our human minds can’t conceive that something so profound could be given freely. Now, if I could only teach myself to give it to others as freely as it was given to me.

Lord Jesus, thank you for your grace. Thank you for a gift that is as boundless as the universe and that costs us absolutely nothing. Help us, O God, to understand that there is nothing we can do to earn your grace, but that all we need to do is let go of our obstinate pride and receive it. Help us also to learn to give grace as we’ve received it. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Lessons in Blue — Chapter 6

Chapter 6 — Redemption: The Sexy Carrots

“Long before I landed in Portland but shortly after my own conversion to Christian spirituality, I experienced periods of affinity with God. I would lie on my bedroom floor, reading my Bible, going at the words for hours, all of them strong like arms wrapped tightly around my chest. It seemed as though the words were alive with minds and motions of their own, as though God were crawling thoughts inside my head for guidance, comfort, and strength. …God was no longer a slot machine but something of a Spirit that had the power to move men’s souls. I seemed to have been provided answers to questions I had yet to ask, questions that God sensed or had even instilled in the lower reaches of my soul. …I don’t think, however, there are many people who can stay happy for long periods of time. Joy is a temporal thing. It’s brief capacity, as reference, gives it its pleasure. And so some of the magic I was feeling began to fade.” ~Blue Like Jazz, pp. 59-60

Jesus & Fiery Bus Crashes

In the spring of 1991, just one year after I graduated high school, an evangelist came to Grand Saline to speak at a youth revival sponsored by a local church. I won’t give the evangelist’s name, but I will tell you that even today, 22 years later, he is still working full-time. He arrived in town a day early and visited the high school. He spoke at an assembly in the gym — this was back in the day before everybody went nuts about things like that in schools — and then he ate lunch with the students in the cafeteria. That was on a Thursday. The next night, Friday night, the revival began.

I did not attend any of the services as I was living in Tyler at the time and was working while attending school. However, my sister and her boyfriend (now my brother-in-law) went with most of the kids in high school and middle school. I don’t remember the specific numbers from each night, but by the time the final service happened on Sunday morning, well over one hundred students had either accepted Christ as savior for the first time or had rededicated their lives to His service. The town was abuzz with the news. The next Wednesday night at the regular youth meeting the facilities were so full that they had to move to the church gym. Much rejoicing was done at the number of young people who’d had such amazing conversion experiences, and it was fun while it lasted.

What I didn’t tell you about those young people making commitments during those services is that there were a lot of tears shed. You see, as almost all of them are prone to do, that evangelist stirred up those students’ emotions with heart-rending stories of other young people who “missed their chance” to accept Jesus into their lives and perished in car crashes or died of drug overdoses or committed suicide. I was told later by a friend who attended that as he neared the end of his message the evangelist had soft music playing in the background. Before long the platform was full of teenaged girls and boys crying and praying and making commitments to God.

It is not for me to question the relationship between other people and God. All I can base my assumption on is the evidence I see. What I saw was that by the time I returned from school that summer and started attended those Wednesday night meetings again, the numbers had dwindled and the people who were there were the people who had always been there. The majority of those students who’d responded to the stories of fiery bus crashes and accepted Jesus in that moment of heightened emotion were nowhere to be found. Many of them had gone right back to the lives they were leading before. Back then I was surprised and disappointed. Now, after my own experiences, it seems like an obvious outcome.

I’ve heard it said that a person should never make a decision when he is sad or angry and should never make a commitment when he’s happy or in love. I think that’s almost the same principle as never go to the grocery store when you’re hungry. Anytime when make big decisions or commitments in moments of heightened emotion there is bound to be a fallout. No emotion is sustainable, whether it is happiness, sadness, infatuation, anger or any other member of the pantheon of human feelings. They all fade over time — even reverence waxes and wanes. So, for any one of us to make such momentous decisions as spiritual commitment in a moment of angst or euphoria is, at best ill-considered and, at worst, dangerous.

There have been instances in my life — even recently — when I made decisions in moments of weakness. They seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but almost without exception seemed stupid in just a short while. At 41 I’ve learned to get over those sorts of disappointments fairly quickly, but 20 years ago they were devastating. When I was younger and made those bad decisions (and there were MANY of them) I would sink into a deep depression at the moment I realized I’d screwed up again. It was extremely hard for me to pick myself up and move on. I know the same is true of a lot of those students who made commitments at that revival. I personally know of several of them whose lives have self-destructed since that time. I’m not blaming it on the evangelist or the revival and certainly not on God, but someone should have seen what was happening and put the brakes on that fiery bus before it ditched again. I think it’s important for all of us to remember that emotions don’t last forever, but some of the decisions we make out of them do.

All decisions, even ones that seem right, have consequences…

The Sexy Carrots

“There once was a rabbit named Don Rabbit. Don Rabbit went to Stumptown Coffee every morning. One morning at Stumptown, Don Rabbit saw Sexy Carrot. And Don Rabbit decided to chase Sexy Carrot. But Sexy Carrot was very fast. And Don Rabbit chased Sexy Carrot all over Oregon. And all over America, all the way to New York City. And Don Rabbit chased Sexy Carrot all the way to the Moon. And Don Rabbit was very, very tired. But with one last burst of strength, Don Rabbit lunged at Sexy Carrot. And Don Rabbit caught Sexy Carrot. And the moral of the story is that if you work hard, stay focused, and never give up, you will eventually get what you want in life. Unfortunately, shortly after this story was told, Don Rabbit choked on the carrot and died. So the second moral of the story is: Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.” ~Blue Like Jazz, pp. 64-76

OK, I really have to be careful with this one, especially since I just posted yesterday about how important it is to stay focused and chase after your dreams, but I don’t really think that’s what Miller is talking about with this little story. I think what he’s talking about are all of those shiny things that we seem to be drawn to no matter how hard we try to avoid them…all of those sexy carrots in our lives.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I seriously considered quitting my job and becoming a freelance writer. Nevermind the fact that I’d received no indication from any publication that they were interested in paying me to write for them. Nevermind the fact that I’d not even approached anyone to ask if they might want to pay me to write for them. No, neither of these things were true. What was true was that I began “hanging out” with some freelance writers on a web site where they would post to a discussion board. It seemed so romantic and so….possible. I even crunched some numbers as if there were numbers to crunch. I bought a book about how to become a freelance writer and I dreamed of the day when I could sit at my desk in my house and write all day long and have lunch with friends and travel at my own leisure….HOLY COW!! Thankfully, I remembered how much I enjoy eating and that momentary flirtation with utter disaster faded away.

The point of me telling that story is to let you know that I know about those shiny, sexy carrots. We all have them floating around us all the time and every now and then one will dangle itself before our eyes just long enough to get our emotions all charged up (uhmm…where have I heard that before) and off track. It’s so easy to be distracted by these things because they look so very good. In the end, though, most of them prove to be just that, a distraction that takes our focus away from what is truly important — our relationship with Jesus and with other people.

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” ~Romans 7:15

Such is the human condition summed up in two sentences, huh? I don’t do what I want to do — what I know I should do — but I do what I know I shouldn’t. I think we all want to do what is right and what is good. I believe that basic human nature is good and not evil. I think that most of us are inherently decent, kind and compassionate, but are influenced by the world in which we live and end up doing silly, stupid and sometimes bad things. We chase after things that look pretty and that seem to be things that will make us happy only to find that, as with every other emotion, happiness fades and so do those shiny sexy carrots. We are creatures of habit and we don’t always learn lessons easily.

Heavenly Father, as we begin a new week we ask Your guidance and wisdom. We humbly ask that You help us make decisions and commitments only after careful thought and consideration and only after seeking You. Lord Jesus, help us calm our emotions like You calmed the waters during a storm and help us chase after You knowing that when we do, our efforts in other things will be honored, as well. Forgive us in our weakness and give us strength to do what which You would have us do. Amen.

Anything Worth Having

Clichés become clichés because there is at least some truth in them. When I write I try to avoid them most of the time because after a while they tend to lose their significance, but I’m about to write one anyway. Are you ready?

Anything worth having is worth fighting for. (AKA: Nothing worth having is easy.)

OK…so, it’s not original to me. Andrew Carnegie said it first (maybe), but I gave you two for the price of one!

When I was in high school I was in band. I played trumpet and I was really good. I won multiple awards and was a member of several honor bands. I never had very much trouble winning whatever music competition I attended. I received a nearly-full scholarship to study music at East Texas State University (TA&M Commerce). Something happened when I showed up for the first day of band practice in the summer – I discovered there were musicians there who were a lot better than me. Not just upper-classmen, but other freshmen, too. It freaked me out! I forgot who I was and I forgot my own ability. I was so badly rattled that I started making a lot of mistakes that weren’t like me to make. I made a really bad first impression and then I made an even worse mistake. After just over one month and one performance at a football game, I quit. I packed up my dorm room and moved back home without even letting anyone know I was going.

That would have been bad enough on its own. If that one instance had been the only time I ever walked away from anything I would have suffered, but it wasn’t. Walking away from that situation started a pattern in my life that lasted over twenty years. Each time I faced a challenge or a new situation where I wasn’t necessarily comfortable I freaked out. Then, I chickened out and walked away. Before I finally completed my undergraduate degree at Texas Tech last May, I attended six different colleges and universities and majored in four different subjects. Without exception, at every one of those schools, each time things became difficult I turned and walked away. It was the easy way out. I knew there was always an escape and I always took it.

When I started work on my last two semesters at Texas Tech in 2011 I knew it was crunch time. I took 13 and 18 hours respectively and it was tough. That old feeling surfaced again. How easy it would have been to simply quit and walk away. But, this time I remembered the regret. I remembered twenty-plus years of walking away and the guilt and shame that followed. I spent over half my life walking away from things that were frightening or difficult and I spent over half my life regretting it. This time had to be different — this time I had to press through the fear of failure and finish what I started. I did and you can read about it here. It was the best day of my life!

I learned something important through all of that. Remember that cliché I wrote earlier? Yeah, I learned that is true. If there’s something I really want for myself I have to be willing to press through fear, accept the possibility of failure and, if it’s important enough, move on to try again. The reward is always worth the risk and the regret is NEVER worth retreat! Lean in, push forward, believe in yourself and keep fighting — trust me, it WILL pay off!

This post is dedicated to someone very special to me — someone I love more than I could possibly explain to you. It’s also dedicated to all of us who have goals, dreams and ambitions. If this is you and you’re facing an obstacle that seems impossible this morning, don’t quit! You will thank yourself for it later.

“I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:12-13