Tag Archives: Life

The ‘Y’ matters

Love your neighbor as yourself -Mark 12:31

If people-pleasing were an Olympic event, I’d definitely be standing on the winner’s podium. I have put others before myself for the majority of my adult life and for the most part, I see it as a virtue, something that I can hang my hat on. I nearly always acquiesce to other people’s wants and desires. They are happy and isn’t that a good thing? Wait…what? What do I want? Am I happy? Oh no, that doesn’t really matter as long as others are happy, that’s what matters, and besides, it would be selfish of me to seek my own happiness before others, wouldn’t it?

Thinking of my own happiness makes me nervous. It causes my heart to race, and my mouth to go dry. I’ve actually apologized to God for even entertaining such a, “selfish” thought.

Like a well-traveled antique suitcase, my life’s luggage is stickered with the titles of “people-pleaser”, “Fawn”, “peacekeeper” and, “codependent” and my life’s passport is stamped with “Type 9”, “INFJ”, and “INFP”. If this all sounds like nonsense I’ll leave a few links at the bottom to help make sense of it all. These monikers aren’t necessarily bad things until they are the only things that identify you.

One day I was home alone without a, “honey-do list”. I could do whatever I wanted. The problem was I didn’t know what I wanted. I walked around the house in a circle thinking of what I could do and never did any of them. Eventually, I began to guess what others would like me to do and then, like a good people-pleaser, I did those things. I realized that my identity was based on what I thought others wanted. I was trying to become a mind reader and I was failing at it. My counselor asked me once, “What do you want?” and in response, I just stared at him and after an uncomfortable amount of silence, I declared, “I don’t know.” The honest answer is I probably really do know, but the idea of thinking about my wants is really uncomfortable.

It became scary. I thought I knew who I was. I mean, I’m me, right? I don’t think I’m in the middle of some existential crisis but I think my eyes are opening to the fact that I have been living life for others so fully, that I stopped listening to myself, and even more scary, I stopped listening to God.

A few months ago I was given a book by a church counselor titled, Discover your true self by Jack Ingram. I’ve known for a long time now that God loves me but I didn’t think about how He actually values me. God gave his son to pay for me, that is how valuable I am, and if I have that kind of value, then don’t I matter? Don’t my thoughts and feelings carry weight?

As a people-pleaser, I love the scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself‘. -Mark 12:31. I can do that. I love doing for others. Imagine my world crashing down when it hit me. How can I love my neighbor when I don’t know how to love myself? If I love my neighbor as myself then I’d end up ignoring him and not putting his needs first because that is how I treat myself.

The lie I believed was that to serve others meant I had to neglect myself. Treating myself poorly goes against God’s view of me; someone of immense value, someone worth the death of His son. My father-in-law, told me to live by the acrostic for JOY (Jesus, Others, Yourself.) This at first sounded good and plugged right into my way of thinking until I realized in my version, there was no ‘Y”. For the acrostic to have meaning all three letters must be there. The ‘Y’ matters, I still matter.

This lie of, I don’t matter, and I’m selfish for thinking I do, has built a stronghold in my life. Some days it completely takes me captive till I see myself as a little more than worthless. I had all but stopped writing and doing any type of woodworking. Anything I enjoyed doing was selfish until everyone and everything else had been taken care of.

The good news is God is working on the stronghold. Some days I let him tear it down more than others. He has recently blessed me with tools for my woodworking that I could not afford on my own and He has reignited the spark to write again. Not only am I worth it, but the things I create have value too.

I hope this wasn’t a Debbie Downer for you but an inspiration that you are worth more than you can ever imagine. We will never realize how much we are truly worth until the day we meet God face-to-face. He has given us some good indicators of how he feels about us. Take him at His word and stop believing the lies that are heaped on you by others and the lies we heap on ourselves. You are worth it and you are valuable.

Keep developing yourself and expect more posts from me soon.

Enneagram Type 9: The Peacemaker
Co-Dependency

https://www.16personalities.com/

Peace and…

My five-year-old daughter loves to sing. In a single car ride, she will serenade you with her renditions of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer”, and a finale of “I Love Rock n’ Roll”.

I usually enjoy the entire car seat concert but my love for my daughter’s singing prows isn’t shared by her brother. While she is belting out partially correct lyrics, my son is pleading for her to stop while he holds his hands over his ears next to her in the back seat. His pleading usually ends with him yelling, “I just want peace!”

Working as a peace officer I’ve answered numerous calls where people want me to give them what my title suggests, peace. from the neighbor’s kids with the loud go-cart or from the landscaping crew doing the lawn next door. I even had someone call 911 because a helicopter flying over was making too much noise.

As I began to think through all these incidents and back to my son’s pleading in the car, I began to realize that our cries for peace are masking what we really want, control.

My son doesn’t like what my daughter is singing not because it interrupts his peace, but because it’s not his music and it’s not him singing it. As soon as I put a song on that he likes he will begin to sing along just as loud as my daughter and when she tries to join in, he will shush her. He never wanted peace, he wanted control.

Dictionary.com’s definition of peace is to end hostilities and abstain from further fighting or antagonism. I think we are looking for more than that. Yes, it feels good to not fight but you can have tension and uneasiness and not be openly engaged in an argument or fight.

In the Bible, the word peace is mentioned a total of 328 times. What’s interesting is the word peace in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word, Shalom. While the word peace in the New Testament is the Greek word, eiréné (i-ray’-nay) Shalom means completeness, soundness, and welfare. Eiréné means one, peace, quietness, and rest.

Compare our word for peace today against the biblical definition of peace and you can see a vast difference. It’s not just the absence of conflict but it’s a complete state of being made whole. If your world were to crumble around you, control and worldly peace would fail you. But true peace isn’t only attainable it’s promised to us by God.

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” -John 16:33

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:7

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts you. -Isaiah 26:3

God holds this perfect peace in such high regard He is called the God of Peace ( 1 Thessalonians 5:23) and the Prince of Peace is one of many titles given to Christ in Isaiah 9:6 before his birth.

Next time you yell, “I just want some peace and quiet!”, know you are just wanting to regain control. No one can give you the peace described in the Bible aside from God and once you have it, it is amazing. As a deputy sheriff, a husband, and a father I have been in some crazy and bizarre circumstances and while others are losing their minds, I’ve found myself calm and focused. It doesn’t mean you are immune from stress or the weight of things won’t get to you. Trust me, stress and turmoil feel like they live rent-free in my life sometimes. Daily I have to turn to one or more of the verses above while massaging my temples and closing my eyes to make it through the first part of my day, and I don’t drink coffee, so prayer is appreciated. But what having that inner peace means is you’ll be able to cope better than let’s say Kramer from “Seinfeld” who repeats the mantra, “Serenity now.” when things go wrong. By the end of that particular episode, Kramer loses it as he just bottled up the anger until he eventually blew up. It wasn’t true serenity or peace.

I’ve typed it before, life isn’t easy and sometimes it downright sucks but I want you to know, that even if quiet never comes you can at least have a peace that surpasses all understanding.

I said I’d have a project update coming soon but I don’t. My woodworking tools have sat quietly in the garage while I recover from surgery. So for now I will focus more on writing and will have more to share on that front soon. I hope you all are well and you continue to develop yourself.

Shalom Shalom (Perfect Peace) my friends.

Through

You missed it. The signs and arrows warned you but you were engrossed in your podcast or rocking out to Van Halen while playing air drums. Either way, you missed the signs and are traveling in a different direction than you wanted.

Your head is swaying as you frantically look for some way to change lanes. You use the turn signal (probably for the first time in a while) and honk your horn (probably not the first time in a while) and slam your hand on the steering wheel but it changes nothing. Your GPS announces it’s recalculating your route. The feminine British accent holds an inflection of condemnation you swear you’ve never noticed before. There is no way out, no shortcut to getting back to where you need to be. No, the only way, for now, is straight ahead, and whether it will be a ripple or a tsunami on your day is yet to be seen.

When our circumstances change unexpectedly our first response is to find an escape. A concoction of anger, panic, and fear stirs until like a trapped animal we claw and seethe for our freedom from the unknown. Even Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane prayed to not have to go to the cross and though not unknown to Him, his human desire was for his circumstance to change.

And He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, where He knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done – Luke 22:42

The unknowns are scary. Losing a job, a loved one, or a marriage can seem like your world is crashing down around you. Family and friends may stand with you but ultimately it is you who has to stumble blindly through the unknown and though it feels like a nightmare, it’s not always bad.

Take one step back and breathe. If you can do that you are still alive and if you are still alive you have a purpose. Stop looking for a quick way out. Sometimes the quick way out means we miss out.

It’s uncomfortable for me to allow people to critique my writings. Thinking of you critiquing this post right now makes me cringe. A lot of authors claim to be thick-skinned, and whether true or not, I know I am not among them. If I take a shortcut around having my work critiqued, I could miss out on some excellent advice. Without criticism, I will not grow as a writer, a supervisor, or a dad for that matter.

What is the name

of your valley?

The term shortcuts could be interchanged with the word avoidance. Avoiding hard conversations in the present could make a situation worse later on, and if you know me well enough you know that I’m incriminating myself in this statement. Avoidance is fine when it comes to poison ivy, poisonous snakes, and poisonous relationships but when it comes to people you care about, including yourself, hard conversations have to be had and tough calls have to be made. It may not always go well. It may even get downright ugly but by going through it you will learn something about yourself and those around you. God refines us through tough times. Psalms 23:4 says Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death... It doesn’t say, though I walk around, over, or next to the valley but through the valley.

Fill in the blank: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of_________ I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. What is the name of your valley? bankruptcy, addiction, divorce, or maybe it is death. Sometimes, the best way and the only way is through. How much more deep would our conversations be if instead of asking what are you going through, we asked, what are you avoiding today? Life is beautiful and life is ugly. We all have to go through it. For to side step life is the cruelest thing you could do to yourself, for the reward on the other side could be the best thing you’ve ever experienced. John 14:6 no one comes to the Father but through Me.

Take it from Rocky.

Your bad day is your bad day.

On Mother’s day-night I found myself sleeping on an air mattress in an upstairs bedroom, alone. I know what you are thinking, I must have gotten her a vacuum cleaner or taken her to McDonald’s to celebrate everything she does for our children. Some of you probably think I forgot the entire day completely. Well, you’d be wrong.

I remembered Mother’s Day. In fact, I got her a gift related to one of her current passions. That’s right ladies, I watched and listened to what my wife was doing and gave a gift based on my observations. I’m not one to keep score, but I’d say that is a win in my column, even if the tally marks are heavily skewed in her favor (if you ask her.)

So, how did I end up in solitary confinement? Covid-19. Yep, I’m a statistic, a shade of red ( I hope more Vermilion) in a pie chart. So I stowed away in a non-air-conditioned bonus room on an air mattress. Don’t let me mislead you, I had a full bathroom, a TV, and a computer, it was just hot. I would amble myself downstairs from time to time to raid the fridge or just see what was happening in the rest of the house.

I tried my best to stay away from my family but a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl don’t want to be told, “No, you can’t give daddy a hug, or drink after him.”

But as we all know, when it rains it pours, and so on the second day of my Covid journey the fever and body aches set in, and I wanted nothing more than a hot shower. The hot water heater had its own plans and unfortunately, it did not communicate to me that one of the heating elements was bad and would not be providing me with what I so desperately wanted. Two days later it was fixed and I was enjoying a nearly scalding shower while angels sang hallelujah and doves flew by. Okay, there were no doves, but for those two days, I was miserable. I’d walk by a faucet, turn it on, and hoped the hot water heater’s cruel joke was over; that it had found pity on me and would grant me a trickle of warmth. Maybe It was the fever, but I’ll admit I tried this almost as many times as I’d open the fridge thinking maybe I missed something from when I checked fifteen minutes earlier.

I spoke with others who had gotten Covid and each experience was different. I had a mild case. Low-grade fever, body aches, fatigue, and loss of smell and taste. It wasn’t the worst experience of my life but it is not something I’d want to go through again.

One thing I’ve learned is to never compare your bad day or experience with someone else’s bad day. Not long ago I had a friend ask about my day. I unwrapped the day’s events which culminated in the accidental shooting of a child by a neighbor, and how it was a difficult scene to work. I then reciprocated and asked about her day. She said, “Bad, but not as bad as yours.”

Just because my day involved some pretty horrible things shouldn’t diminish what she was going through. Her day was bad for her. Starving children in China or a raging pandemic doesn’t take the bad out of someone’s day. It can, however, give perspective to your life. Your car not starting is seemingly small when compared to the diagnosis of stage four cancer, but does not being diagnosed with a severe illness make your car not starting any less frustrating?

When someone says they had a bad day, listen. To let someone unpack the events of a bad day could be what they need to make it better.

What’s the worst day you’ve ever had? Did you try to share it with someone and did they listen or try to minimize it?