beauty will rise

a favored music artist of mine, steven curtis chapman, suffered a tragic loss several years ago.  out of his suffering he wrote an album entitled beauty will rise.  in that album there is a song with that same title, a song that god has been using to speak to my heart...to lift me up...to remind me of his promise.

slowly panic turns to pain

as we awake to what remains

and sift through the ashes that are left behind

but buried deep beneath

all our broken dreams

we have this hope

out of these ashes, beauty will rise

as i sit here looking at everything that isnt, like a home that has been burnt to the ground, and begin to pick up the pieces of my life and learn to live without kim, as i mourn the future that i thought we had together, in love at an old age, i have the promise of god that he will make something beautiful of my life.

i do not know what this beauty will entail, i do not know how soon it will show itself to be but i do know a couple things.

i know that god is faithful and always gives what he promises

more importantly though, i know that if god considers what is to become of my life and the life of my boys something beautiful, then by all means, i should consider it the same.  how dare i think i know better than the creator of this universe and the giver of life.

it hurts to be here, it hurts like hell, but at the same time, i am glad to be here because it means i am on the path of becoming something beautiful

picking up the pieces

i have to start picking up the pieces of my life.  i have waited in limbo for a month, hoping that this is all just a nightmare.

but it is not.

i have lost the one person that i care about more than anything else in the world.  anything else

my hope is not gone though, because my hope is founded in something greater than her or i.

today though, i have to learn to live without her.  i have to fulfill my responsibilities without her.  i have to be a dad but i also have to be a mom.  i have to pay my bills.  i have to set my own schedule.  i have to cook meals. i have to clean.  i have to do laundry.

the challenge is in front of me, like it or not, but i will face this challenge head on, and i will conquer it.

i am becoming the leader of my house that i should have always been, and filling these roles is just a small part of it.

168 days

march 6th

one week after ryan's 8th birthday

a few days after the party that was supposed to be the most awesome for him yet

less than 200 hours after he blows the candles out his mother and i will gift him something that will scar him deeper than what has happened so far

he will officially be the child of a divorced couple...and he will have to carry that with him for the rest of his life.

but his story will not end there...in each of these 168 days before, and every day after, i will teach him to be the man that i have not yet been so far in my life.

boys, this is more than a promise that i am giving you...i will live my life as god desires me to and i will teach you how to do the same...i will help you become men.

i am such a nerd

in one of the books i am reading...i am reading a lot more these days by the way...it says responsible men are like christ, who did not let his mother, disciples, or others determine his thoughts, attitudes, or actions.  he was completely plugged into the father, the holy spirit, and the word of god.  that's why he was able to be more like a thermostat, affecting his circumstances, rather than like a thermometer, merely reacting to his surroundings....

this paragraph speaks to me so deeply...jesus was a thermostat not a thermometer...

the reason that this speaks so deeply is because i understand what a thermostat does.  i know there are wires that run to an equipment interface board (wiring hub) or directly to some equipment itself.  i know this thermostat controls what the equipment does because it reads the temperature surrounding it, has a program, and then uses the knowledge that it has and the information that it has gathered to make a decision...a decision to tell the furnace to fire or not...a decision to change the temperature in the surrounding area or not...and a thermostat always acts appropriately...

jesus, please make me a thermostat...

from the mouth of babes

while cleaning their room in the last 10 minutes i have heard the boys singing:

i do, i do, i do believe in you

oh, happy day, happy day.  you took my sins away

god you are faithful, god you are faithful, god you are faithful


thank you jesus for these moments.  i pray for many, many more like them.

a closed spirit

i wounded her enough over our marriage in the little things that she closed her spirit to me. it was a raised voice here, a harsh word there, no encouragement while she struggled, and not valuing her opinion...among so many other things.

i acted in a way that had no repentance of my sins. i did not ask for forgiveness. everything kept building up on each other.

she had to close her spirit to protect herself.

today, i am at the same point...but only if i choose to be...in all situations we have the choice to lead our hearts or to follow them...my choice today is to love kim with all i am and allow myself to be in a spot that i may be hurt again or to act in a way protect myself from her actions and any further pain...

phillipians 2:7,8 says but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

it is possible that i am reading this wrongly, but what i am reading is that jesus took pain after pain for us, all the way to the point of his death...those pains were unneeded pains to him, because he was perfect, and he is god...he did these things as an expression of his unconditional love for us.

i could close my spirit to kim, and i could protect myself from any pain that could be caused by the rejection that is to come if i put myself out there...but how would that be loving her unconditionally...i would be saying, kim, i will love you as long as you do not carry on in your pursuit of your own happiness instead of what god has for you...

jesus has not stopped loving kim despite the choices that she is making. i committed to her that i would love her for better or for worse, essentially that i would love her unconditionally. today, i can choose to have integrity and choose to stand up to my commitment. today, i can choose to love her as i said i would.

and that is my choice...to love. i will lead my heart and not close my spirit to her. this day, and every day to follow, i will choose to love.

a different view

god is faithful to his promises.

that is the view that i want to pursue.

i think ryan said it best 3 weeks ago, the night that i had to tell the boys that mama wasnt coming home and wasnt going to be living with all of us anymore...

3 hours after we started talking and after many tears had been shed and many questions were asked...i was laying in bed with the very somber boys...trying to answer more questions that noah had...

but ryan blessed my heart so much that i started to cry..."but daddy, don't say mama isn't coming home, because god has a special plan for each of us."

god's promises to me are plenty...and he is faithful...

set your minds on things above, not on earthly things colossians 3:2

is she really gone forever

it has been nearly a month since kim filed for divorce. my world continues to be torn apart. the reality of this action is hitting everything...

i have nobody to come home to on certain days anymore. i have nobody to to tuck into bed some nights. i have nobody to sleep next to and cuddle with. i have nobody to share my heart with the way i shared it with her.

all i have is emptiness.

but yet somehow god is going to use all this for his purpose and his glory. he is shaping me right now into what he has always wanted me to be.

i still want to scream though.