How G.I.Joe Helped Me Become A Writer

The year was nineteen seventy-eight, and I was the tender age of eight years old. Sitting at my desk in that second grade classroom full of boys and girls who were my classmates, we waited for class to start.  

Mrs. Smart, my favorite teacher, and one of the greatest ladies I have ever met to this day, rose from her chair and walked over to the chalk board saying, "Children, today we are going to write a story."  Then she picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote on the black board, "If I could be any toy, I would be...", then turning to face us she instructed us to write this sentence on the top of our papers, and then finish the thought. There were groans from around the room as  my classmates murmured about our assignment, but not from me.  

School was never much fun for me, as I never really got into math, science or even gym for that matter.  But when it came to reading, and writing, these things seemed to make sense to me where everything else didn't.  So, grasping my number two pencil and running my small hands over the piece of paper a couple of times to smooth it down, I began to work.  In my childish handwriting I wrote, "If I could be any toy, I would be..." and then I sat back in my wooden school chair and began to seriously think about which toy I would choose.

I loved toys, (still do actually) and had quite a few of them as a child.  Living in the suburbs, my two brothers and I never lacked for things to entertain us.  Actually one of my favorite activities as a child was spending hours in my bedroom, making up adventures with all of my toys.  So you see I had a great frame of reference when it came to this writing assignment.  As I sat there thinking about which of my toys I liked the most, and would possibly want to be, it hit me.  I would be a G.I. Joe!  I had a bunch of these, and they were like my best friends.  There was always a world that needed saving, and my G.I. Joes were just the guys to do it.

Once I had made the decision about which toy I would most like to be, I got to work writing.  This is what I wrote on that day:

If I could be any toy, I would be a G.I. Joe.  Because the little boy who had me would love me and play with me and drag me through the dirt, and make me fight off the bad guys in this world.  The little boy who had me would spend a bunch of time with me, because I am the best toy ever.

I finished my writing assignment and turned in my paper, filled with the satisfaction of a job well done. It felt almost as if there was something inside of me which had come alive as I penned those words.  The reason is because what I had written that day had not come out of my head, but had come directly from my heart. This was the first time I had created something in this way, and it felt good. 

My second grade writing assignment had given me the opportunity to share just a little bit of who I was as a person, and while I couldn't have expressed to anyone at that time what writing meant to me, now forty years later I can.  Why do you think that I can do that now, when I couldn't have done it back then?  Well, that is because now I have come to realize that I am a writer, and as a writer that's what I do, share a little bit of whom I am.  Plus I'm entering a contest found at http://youareawriter.com and blogging is the avenue I have chosen in which to enter the contest.

Why Didn't I Listen?

I'm pretty sure that we all have asked that question of ourselves at one point in our life or another, I know that I have on numerous occasions.  I was thinking about all of the kids who are graduating this year, and the fact that my daughter is now a senior and the possibilities of her leaving the nest soon, when I was hit with this thought of whether I've instructed her as well as I should have or not.  And as my thoughts went here, I began to remember things that I was told when I was her age. Those thoughts were muddied and took me a few moments to actually remember them because they were from so long ago.


I remembered a man coming to my high school and talking about saving for retirement, and how that we could have a pretty good sum of money if we would just set aside $10 a week.  Well, I didn't take his advice, and now that I'm approaching 50 I wish I would have.  Why didn't I listen?  For those of you who perhaps didn't know, if you started saving $10 a week when you're 20, then by the time you're the age in the left hand column below, you will have saved the amount in the right hand column.  

Age	Capital	Interest	Total
25	$2,600	$170	$2,770
30	$5,200	$700	$5,900
35	$7,800	$1,640	$9,440
40	$10,400	$3.050	$13,450
45	$13,000	$4.980	$17,980
50	$15,600	$7,510	$23,110
55	$18,200	$10,710	$28,910
60	$20,800	$14,680	$35,480

I remember thinking at that time, who's got $10 to set aside?  I've got things to buy and places to go, I can't do without $10 a week.  Of course back then gas was like .55 cents a gallon, and a pack of smokes was like .90 cents.  (Yes I was a smoker back in the day.)  The thing is, I didn't listen, and today I don't have any money in savings.  Why do you think there are so many older people in the work force today?  It's not all because they lost their life savings due to investment fraud.  A lot of them didn't plan ahead, and this is what they are forced to do now.

Proverbs 1:8 says, "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching."  God tells us what to do, but I know that so many of us kind of only half way listened when our parents spoke to us, and then we only heard the parts that we wanted to hear, didn't we?  I know that for me, I didn't always listen.  And I'm like that with God too I think.  I hear Him, when I want to, but when I want to go my own way, I do.  And then when I end up in a place that I don't like, I wonder, "Why didn't I listen?"  Some days I'm just not as grown up as I'd like to think I am.

It's kind of like when you're talking to someone on the phone, and you know that they aren't really listening, how does that make you feel?  I know that if I'm talking to someone, and I realize that they're not really paying attention to what I'm saying, or listening to me, I'll just say, "Hey, gotta go!"  and get off of the phone.  I figure if I'm not worth their time, then why waste it on them.  I wonder if God ever feels that way? Thankfully He said in Scripture, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  (Hebrews 13:5b)

I know that I need to listen more.  I heard it said one time that God gave us two ears and one mouth because we need to listen twice as much as we need to talk.  I am thankful that my Father God listens to me when I talk to Him, but I'm much more thankful that He forgives me quickly when I don't listen, then He guides me in the way that I should go.  And one thing I love about God, is that He will redeem the time that we've wasted.  It's just that's not the best will that God has for us.  He would much rather we listen and learn and live in His perfect will for us.  So listen up kids, if you haven't been paying as close attention to those adults around you, now's the time.  Listen to what they tell you, and to what God tells you, that way you won't have to ask yourself at 50, "Why didn't I listen?"  Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

What's The Deal With Super Heroes?

I'll admit it, I am a geek from way back. I liked comics long before it was cool to do so. Many, many years before the television show "The Big Bang Theory" ever made it popular. I was the butt of many jokes growing up, and have spent way too much money on those colored filled pages. Yet there has always been something about them that just made me love them, and I know that I will until the day that I die and go to be with the Lord.

Last night I went to watch the latest installment in the Marvel movie company's line up of super hero movies; The Avengers.  For those of you who don't know, the Avengers is a team of super heroes made up of characters who for the past several years we have been getting acquainted with each summer by watching movies about their personal stories, something for which I am very grateful to say the least.  It's nice to let my inner geek loose during the summer and enjoy watching the comic book pages come to life in a way in which I never dreamed possible way back in the day.

This morning as I was drinking my coffee and wondering exactly when I would be able to go see this movie again, I began to question what it is that I like about these stories so much?  I mean what is the appeal of super heroes for me?  Could it be the fact that in each of these characters I see something about my own life? It's the human condition that I relate to. (And yes, I realize that Thor isn't human, but he shares in the conflict of emotions for which humans do.)   It's also being called up into a story which is larger than your own personal little story that draws me in, because if I am truthful, that is what I long to be a part of as well.

After all, if you take away the fantastical part of the super hero equation, what do you end up with?  People who face challenges just like us and have problems too. Granted, those problems usually involve world domination or destruction, but then doesn't ours as well?  Whenever I face a challenge in my life, I know that it feels as if my world is going to be destroyed.  I mean the problems that I face always seem to be insurmountable and catastrophic to me, don't yours?  While watching these stories, I see the possibilities, and what could be if I am willing to face the challenges also with a fierce determination, and stick with it and see it through to completion.

None of us were promised sunshine and roses in life, challenges do come.  This is something that I believe everyone understands. And if you don't, then you need to. Life can be rough at times and if you don't understand that, you will wonder why your life isn't as good as the next guy's.  Yet it's not focusing on how rough life can be that is the important thing here, because if you do that, then you end up being one of those Debbie-downers who no one likes to be around.

No, don't focus on the challenges, we need to focus on the solutions to those challenges.  And that is where super heroes have it figured out I believe.  What makes them super is not their powers, not at all.  What makes them super is that they have the ability to see the challenge and then they have the fortitude to face it head on regardless of what happens to them personally.  And if that is the definition of a super hero, then don't we all have the ability to be super heroes?  I think so.

Don't run from the challenges that show up in your life, face them head on with the knowledge that you can and will overcome the obstacles, and you will be amazed as you leap over buildings and take out the things that try to destroy your world. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Kids May Leave, But Love Doesn't

I've entered a new and strange time in my adult life, the time of the empty nest.  That time when the children that you have raised and nurtured begin to leave to find their way in the world.  And much like when I entered that phase of life called "mid-life", this has totally caught me off guard.

It actually hit me the other day after coming home from work and mowing my yard.  I was sitting in one of the chairs on my porch surveying the freshly cut grass and cooling off with a nice bottle of water, when I begin to have images play out in my mind of all those many years and my kids playing at various ages.  The light saber battles, good guys and bad guys,  and endless hours riding wheeled vehicles of all shapes and sizes around our circle drive, one particular memory was of my youngest son Noah riding his little plastic tricycle.  He would "Fred Flinstone" on his trike around the circle drive.  No matter what we did to that trike his little legs just weren't long enough to reach the peddles, and even if they had been, the mechanics of peddling just eluded him at that age.  He would shuffle along the asphalt with a grin on his face and the wind blowing his hair.  It's a good memory for me.

My oldest child Micah is in Australia going to Hillsong College for a year learning everything he can about becoming a worship leader for God, my daughter is finishing up her Junior year of high school and will be spending her entire summer working with futureVision ministries, a local mission's organization, and finding her place in the great story that God is telling, and my youngest son Noah left us too early a couple of years ago due to death.  This leaves my bride and I at home for several months all alone, just the two of us.

There is a funny little movie called "Failure to Launch" which came out a few years ago.  It's the story of a young man who is in his late twenties to early thirties still living at home with his mom and dad, and the parents efforts to get him to move out. Once he does move out, his dad, played by Terry Bradshaw turns his bedroom into a "naked room". Now I've said for years since seeing this movie that I would one day also have a "naked room", and while that has brought many laughs, one of which was at church when my Pastor made mention of it from the pulpit, today actually having the opportunity for it to become a reality doesn't really have the appeal it had before.

And once again feelings have snuck up on me that I never intended to have, nor actually wanted.  I have thought that with the kids gone from the house, it would be nice for my bride and I to have a little "alone time" as Cousin Eddy put it in the movie "Christmas Vacation", but now that it is here, I'm rethinking that.  Not that I don't want to spend as much time with Cheryl as possible, I do.  She is my best friend, but it's like without the kids around we don't know what to talk about or do.  We find ourselves most nights sitting in our recliners watching some show on television, waiting on the kids to call or update their Facebook statuses so we'll know what they are doing.  We've spent so many years with children in the home, it's almost as if we've forgotten what we used to do before they showed up.

And this is the weird part, you'd think that after almost twenty-four years of marriage we'd have it all figured out, but I'm beginning to understand now that you never do get this being married thing "figured out" because marriage is a constant changing and evolving state.  Just when you've figured out how to work together and get along, then kids show up and you are learning a whole new set of things.  You get that figured out after a few years, then they turn into teenagers and a whole new dynamic comes into play.  As you're getting a handle on that one, the kids decide that they like other kids of the opposite sex, and your head goes to spinning.  Then they leave the house, and you're left sitting there wondering what just happened.

I know that this too shall pass, and in time I will come to terms with my kids not being around me all the time. That's probably when the Grandparent phase will hit, and look out there will be new and exciting things for my bride and me then.  Right now my kids are learning about their place in the world, and what God has for them to do with their time on the planet.  After all, that is what Cheryl and I have spent the better part of nineteen years now doing; instilling in them the desire to go and find out.  It's bittersweet though, because as you train them for this, in the back of your mind you really don't ever want them to actually go.  Of course they must, how else will they become the fully functioning people they are to become if they never leave?

Even though I am uncomfortable with this new phase in my life right at this time, I'm comforted with the thought that while my kids may in fact leave the nest, the love I have for them, and they have for me doesn't. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

There's A Storm A Coming!

I woke up this morning in my recliner to my cell phone's texting alert (It's a Star Trek communicator chirping - yes I'm a geek).  Thinking that I was dreaming about someone texting me and wondering who would be doing such a thing at this early hour.  That's when I heard the thunder and the fog in my brain lifted and I got up to grab my phone realizing that it was probably an alert from my local news radio station KRMG.

Finding my phone I quickly tried to focus my eyes so as to read the incredibly tiny images of letters on my cell phone screen and came to realize that we were under a severe thunderstorm warning.  Turning to my television, I found the local station and saw the normal spring weather radar image of Oklahoma with it's various colors indicating the strength of the storms.  After a few moments I realized that there was no fear of rotation in my area, and set about turning off my computer (There was an enormous amount of lighting in the area) and decided to make a pot of coffee.

It's a funny thing to me,  living in Oklahoma and watching how people become so quickly afraid when the weather gets like this.  I'm not saying that anyone who is afraid is wrong in their thinking, but I do wonder why it is that some people seem to fall apart when the storms arrive.  I'm not talking about taking precautions and stuff, I'm talking about when people actually cannot function because of the unknown.

I have always been fascinated by storms, and living in Oklahoma I get the opportunity to watch a lot of them.  I'm reminded of a time when my son Micah was probably about ten, he was at a friend's house when a large storm rolled in, and the tornado sirens did in fact go off.  He and the family he was with gathered in the hallway with mattresses and emergency supplies and began to pray.  After the storm had passed and when I saw him later that night, I asked him if he watched the storm like we usually did at home, and he told me no, that he was so scared, he didn't know what he was going to do.  I remember asking him why he was scared, and he said, "I don't know dad."  And he was really upset then that he'd missed a really cool storm.  I realized then the power that fear has in a person's life.  Micah and I have always sat on the porch and watched the lighting since he was a little bitty baby, and this one time he was scared, and it was because those around him were afraid, and that fear jumped off on him.

Storms are unpredictable that is true, but Jesus is not.  Actually it is said that He is the same, yesterday, today and forever.  (Hebrews 13:8)  And that brings me peace, regardless of whatever I face in this life; storms or any other uncertainty life may bring my way.  Jesus will always be the same, and that is something that we can count on.  The enemy wants us to fall apart when things become tense, he knows that if he can get us looking at the storm instead of Jesus we will fall apart, I mean look at Peter walking on the water.  What caused him to begin to sink?  He was looking at the wind and the waves and not at Jesus.  What about the time the disciples were in the boat during a storm and Jesus was asleep in the back, (I am like Him in this one area, I can sleep through a storm) and they asked Him, "Don't you even care that we are about to die!?!"  Jesus rebuked the storm, and then berated them about their lack of faith.  (I actually think He was upset because they didn't do something about the storm.)

I'm amazed at how people are surprised when the storms of life throw them a curve and they become so unnerved by the fact that something like that has happened to them.  It's as if they believe that because they are a born again Christian they are promised to never have trouble.  I'm pretty sure Jesus never said that, in fact what He did say is that in this life you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.  (John 16:33)  This Scripture used to bother me somewhat, and every time I read it, I would say in my heart, "Well that's good for You Jesus, but I'm still here on the planet and You're not."  After a few years of this, one day the Holy Spirit quickened my heart and said to me, "You are in Me, and if you stay in Me, then you too will overcome the world."  I quickly repented, and said to the Lord, "Oh, yeah that makes sense."

I know that storms are going to come my way, and they will come your way, but it is what we do when those storms arrive that will make us or break us in life.  Prepare yourself, and stay close to Jesus then you will make it when the wind is whipping around you and you are uncertain of the future.  You will probably even be able to lay down and go to sleep without any more worries.  Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Christ Is Risen, Are You?

Colossians 3:1-2 Message “So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.”

Having just passed through the Easter holiday season and its focus on the resurrection of Jesus, I’m encouraged by the thought that as a Christian I am raised with Christ and seated with Him in Heavenly places. Yet do I act this way? No, not always but I am trying. This doesn’t mean that I am perfect, thankfully God never expected any of us to be perfect, but I do try each and every day to live the way Jesus desires for me to live.

Many of us who claim the title of Christian too often however are caught up in the swirl of activity which surrounds us daily; having the latest technology, rooting for the newest reality star or competing in a job market flooded each year with a younger and more eager workforce. And there is nothing wrong with these things; we just shouldn’t put our focus on them more than on the things of God.

The truly hard thing for me, and I’m sure many others like me, is how to balance all of this with my walk with Jesus. So we have to ask ourselves this, “Am I seeing things from Jesus’s perspective?” If your answer is no, then maybe it is time for that to change. I know I know we don’t like that word, change. But change we must, if we are going to grow, and Jesus definitely wants us to grow up as children of God.

So if you need to change, where do you start? A good place would be to get into the Bible on a daily basis. Will this cause God to like you more? No, but you will begin to see the things that God sees and value the things that He values. I recommend that you spend the next thirty days reading each of the accounts of the parable of the soils (Matthew 13:1-23/Mark 4:1-20/Luke 8:4-15) and watch as you begin to understand the things of God in a much better way.

When Jesus came out of that tomb so many years ago, He was the first of many brothers and sisters (us) and has such good things for us, if we will only believe them they can be ours. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Two Years & Time Travel

Today it has been two years since the death of my youngest son Noah. I must say that it really doesn't seem like that much time has past, but it has. One of the strangest things about losing someone who is close to you, is how slow time seems to pass for you, yet it seems as if those around you are moving through time at a much higher rate of speed. It's kind of like that old movie The Time Machine, the original, not the remake. When the time traveler operates his machine, he sees everyone moving around at a high rate of speed even though he himself never moves. The television show The Big Bang Theory had a humorous tribute to that movie in their first season, here is the clip:

While that is funny, in real life this slow passage of time is not. Speaking for myself, there is a part of me that just wishes I was twenty years down the road from this horrible event. At least that way I might have less to deal with, yet I know that is an impossibility, and not the way that God does things. And how many times have I wished that He would do things the way that I would like, only later to find out that if that had happened, it would have had horrible consequences? I guess He really does know best.

You know if I actually had a time machine where I could go back and change the course of those day's events two years ago I would do it in a heartbeat. I miss my son, I hate that what happened to my family happened. But that is science fiction and not reality. Reality is that my son made a stupid mistake and ended his life, and there is nothing that I can do to change that. But I can make a decision as to what I will do now, and that is to live my life. So many times when tragedy happens in people's lives they give up. They stop living, and like the time traveler just sit motionless while the world around them continues to move on. I refuse to do that.

Life is definitely different now that Noah is no longer here, but I cannot sit around waiting for life to begin again. That's like telling a wood burning stove to heat you up and then you will put some wood and fire into it. You would think that a person who talked or acted like that was insane, and you'd probably be right, yet this is what people do every day. They talk about what is going to happen later on, yet never move past where they are right now. And I for one, don't want to be one of those guys.

My life and that of my family's is different now, but God isn't. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. And that is something that I can latch onto, and walk with having faith that Jesus wants the best for me and my family and was willing to go the distance even to His death on the cross to see to it that I have as He said in John 10:10; "Life and life to the full." I choose life, and I choose to live!