Arrival and Departure

Today begins a journey, that is at once both an arrival, and a departure. It's a journey that many men probably take, one of maturation, of actually being and speaking the man we've always known ourselves to be, but have for a thousand reasons, allowed ourselves to subjugate to any number of priorities, exigencies, needs, and desires. You know the ones I mean; career, women, children, money, time, power, ambition, disbelief, rebellion, anger, pain......in short, life. It often gets in the way of becoming our truest selves.

It's said commonly that life is what happens to you while you're making other plans. What that goofy platitude says to me today, is that each moment, maybe even each thought, or at least some of our thoughts, are worth capturing, worth considering, worth sharing, in more than a passing way. Perhaps it's maturity that gives a man a chance to consider, to think more deeply, to stop the need to hide oneself from others, and to hide ourselves, from ourselves. So, no more hiding.

This day is a departure. It's the day I departed from the lost and lonely shores of doubt and distrust. Today, I departed from the little boat filled with an almost lost soul who, finally no longer listening to himself not wanting to fully believe, departed from arguing, against himself, against the possibility of miracles, against the promises of God, and stepped off that pitiful little boat full of holes, and now, finally back on land for a while, has departed from the sand I'd dug my heels into against Him.

This day was also an arrival. I am here now, on the shores of acceptance, beginning to take the first small steps in the most important journey of my life. It is the moment in which I fully realized that there is no real hope without Jesus as the center of my life. I've always had this stupid boat full of "important", "reasonable", "well considered", "highly informed" and "rational" reasons for staying at arms length from my faith. Keeping a knowledge of God in the back of my mind, shielding my heart from Him. I've spent untold hours over the years in this little boat, at first, thinking, and having proof it was a good, solid boat, worthy of any voyage I chose to take. I trusted that boat, and loved it for all I was worth.

One day, not all that long ago, I looked around and noticed I wasn't alone in that boat. I was there, of course, but so is my wife, and our 7 year old daughter. When I realized that I was really not alone in that boat, and that these two beautiful people were there with me, and I had led them into dangerous water, in a boat that wasn't nearly so worthy a vessel as I'd believed and pretended. I began then trying to plug the holes, began and continued arguing against the winds that always seemed to be blowing the wrong way, complaining about the height and might of the waves, or, another time, the stillness of the wind, the lack of what I needed, what they needed. There were no fish, no supplies, no nothing in that boat, just the three of us in scarcely a shell of a boat, and its sails were empty.

I guess a year or so ago, I found a place where I could begin to vent some of those questions, some angry and frightened, some hopeful and believing thoughts and feelings with other Christians. That happened on the internet, oddly enough, I suppose I kind of treated it like a church where nobody knew me, so I could say what I wanted to say, ask what I wanted to ask, pontificate at will. (I like that pontificating, as you'll no doubt see in time.) It's been an interesting time in conversation with those people, Christian and non-Christian alike. There, I'm sure I've been a thorn in their sides, a "holy terror" you might say. Sometimes, creating division, and disturbance, and arguments, sometimes provoking thought, sometimes making an ass of myself. Finally, through the love and grace of a number of really wonderful and caring Christian people who've tolerated me for months now on that site, as well as through my own searching and praying, and prayers of those who care, I've finally turned the corner. I wondered if I ever would.

All of this started a new conversation with my wife, one in which we began to find a way to talk to each other about faith, about belief, and why we'd both been away from the Lord for so long. About what had gone wrong, how unsafe life feels, how little we have, how much we are missing because of my stubbornness and lack of faith. I had to realize that she had simply climbed into my unsafe little boat, right along with me, wherever I was going, she all full of love, faith, and trusting that somehow, I'd get us there. I'm afraid at the time she came into my life, that appearances were deceiving, and she had no idea how out of control, how underpowered, how fruitless that boat had become from that moment forward. Now, she knows. She's watching me, waiting for what's next.

I'll admit it. I've been too proud to ask for help, too proud to admit that I couldn't, and hadn't done it on my own. I've put up a good front, always looking like the captain of my own ship, self propelled, in control, knowing my direction, my destination, and how I would manage it. An apparent captain, merely challenged, not lost, not adrift, not clueless, but it's been a lie. A lie I told myself, told her. I've been too ashamed of not making it.....on my own. A lot of things have happened in the last couple of years, not least of which was a short scare, when Donna had to go to the hospital, As it turned out, everything is OK, but she's had to make some changes in lifestyle. Those changes were, I can now see, the beginning of everything that's come since. We wound up with some hospital debts, and we'll be ok, I know we'll find a way to pay them off, slowly maybe...but we'll get it done. That's not really the point though.....what I've seen is a new course, a new way to go. I see that my daughter lacks the things I ought to be giving her, the life I promised her from the moment she was born while I held her in my arms when her momma was knocked out on the operating table after her C-section. I'm going to keep that promise.

These are only some of the important reasons to make this trip.....and today is both the day of departure, and the day of arrival. All in the moment this morning, when I finally gave up the boat, departed those uncertain waters, and began my walk on solid ground in earnest, not on my own, not in my own direction, but with God leading me where He will have me go.

So, I'll probably be talking more later, about what happened today, and what happens next, the first results of a long difficult night that resulted in this new beginning, this new day, this that can only be described as my surrender to God. I'll also be back-posting some of the writings that will help explain how I thankfully came to be HERE, NOW.

God bless and keep you.

James