I’ll Tell You What…

I wasn’t very sappy until my marriage started falling apart about 5 years ago. I had begun to take my marriage for granted and just assumed that I was always going to be married. What a wake up call I had! Crying about things just wasn’t a part of my life. There was an extremely long period of time in which a tear never touched my face. But when that which I held highest, my family, was threatened by a someone from within my family I found that my tear glands were still active. Very active.

Nowadays I go through times when my emotions are hardened and I couldn’t cry about anything. Other times I find that my tears tend to flow a little easily about seemingly insignificant things. Usually I’m alone when that happens but sometimes it happens around friends and family at church or at the movies. Most of the time I cry when someone is touched in a deep way such as when a need is met. Tonight was no exception.

My son went to his mom’s house to stay the night since I had him on Friday and I decided to watch TV instead of working out. I channel surfed a while and was about to turn it off when I saw a commercial for ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Tonight’s show was about a family that within the past year was close to losing a farm due the death of a husband. I tried to pull myself away because I knew full well that I would bawl like a baby. But I couldn’t and watched the whole thing.

It was amazing. Just the thought of the show was enough to start my eyes watering. I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy night but I hung in there and accepted the inevitable. If you didn’t watch the show then you missed a wonderful example of community love. Here are a some of the before and after pictures from the ABC website:

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - Elcano Family pictures

I cried throughout the whole thing. Nobody was around so I had nothing to lose by not restraining my emotions. The small town this family lived in all pulled together and donated their time and resources to not only build them a new home in a week but also to get the farm business back on its feet. A 6,000 sqft barn was build and filled with donated bales of hay, farm equipment was donated, a new car and truck were given to them and the surrounding farmers plowed and seeded the family’s 20 acres. Oh yeah, Randy Travis also put on a benefit concert to raise money for an education fund for the lady’s children. All of that and much more in 7 days. It was amazing.

I also mourned the fact that the Christian community hadn’t done something like this earlier. After just completing a forty-day campaign called The 40 Days of Community with my wonderful church, that sense of giving to my community is very strong. It’s close to The 40 Days of Purpose, which is based on “the Purpose Driven Life, in that instead of finding out “what on earth am I here for” a church as a group asks, “what on earth are we here for”. It’s a little dry at first because one expects to find out more about who they are in Christ. But what is discovered instead is what our purpose as a local church is. It was an amazing experience especially the home group meeting during the week. The relationships I developed in that group will last because we realize that we weren’t meant to do it alone. We learned that we needed each other’s prayers, encouragement, smiles, hugs of understanding and unconditional love.

Acts 2:44, “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common;” and Acts 4:32, “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them.” come to mind when I reflect on this topic.

Here it is, the 3rd Sunday in June and that means it’s Father’s Day. Tomorrow is the first day of summer. Maybe you’re blessed to have a father who lives near you but I live 1,900 miles away from my parents and that makes treating my dad to Sunday dinner difficult…

That’s not to say that it’s impossible. No, just highly improbable given both of our current financial situations. I would love to be able to give my dad a hug on Father’s Day. It’s been a long time. Ten years, maybe? I can’t remember for sure and it makes me sad that I cannot remember. I do remember the last time I hugged my dad. That was less than a year ago when I flew home for my paternal grandmother’s funeral. I writing about Father’s Day and to me that was Father’s Day.

My dad is a bi-vocational pastor of a small church in Memphis, TX. And as I write this, I know he is preparing the morning message for his congregation. Well, I’m sure he’s already prepared the message so I suppose I should say that he’s getting ready to deliver the message. He has a heart for those people and would love to be a pastor full-time if only he could afford it. If I could support him financially in such an endeavor I would.

I have always wished that my parents were able to come here to New England to see where I live but it’s always been financially unfeasable. I live 1,900 miles away. MapQuest tells me that it’s 29 hours of driving. That sounds about right because back in 1997, at the time, the five of us drove there and back. I saw many parts of the country that I never thought I’d see. Adventures like that can be fun for the whole family (usually) and sometimes straining.

So, what I thought I’d do this year, today, is propose to my dad that I either pay their way up here to spend a few weeks with me. Either by plane or by driving. I know my mom’s not too fond of flying so I’m open to them taking three days to drive up here if they want to take that route. Maybe taking the train would be possible. I doubt they’ve ever done that. Hmmm… Looks like the nearest stations is a few hundred miiles away in OKC. They might have to fly out of OKC anyway. I don’t know. Three days driving, two days riding the train or eight hours flying is up to them. I just want to get them here.

The whole point to this is I want to share my life with my parents and allowing them to experience my part of the country sounds like a good first step. What do you think?

Have you honored your father today?

I remember with great clarity my father’s emotion when Nelle Reagan, my grandmother passed away. Until today I didn’t understand the feeling of loss and pain which comes when a parent leaves you. For this reason I will not be making any public statements at this time…

I pray that as America reflects the passing of my Dad, they will remember a man of integrity, conviction and good humor that changed America and the world for the better. He would modestly say the credit goes to others, but I believe the credit is his.

What I will remember is a man that changed my life. He was always there for me when I needed him. He had a way of putting everything into perspective, and I believe that his determination and perseverance came from his relationship with the Lord. He played an important role in pointing me to God.

I am secure in the knowledge that he is with his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ in heaven. The greatest gift my father ever gave me was the simple knowledge that I would see him in heaven one day.

Mr. Michael Reagan

The Lord puts us in positions at work for reasons that often times only He knows. Our “job” is to be obedient to that job placement and to look for opportunities to serve God in whatever capacity we can. When we become unhappy with work sometimes it is an uneasiness that is placed there by God but more often than not it is because our job has not met our expectations…

I’m at the end of day two of my Sun System Administration Fast Track training. The class is 12 hours a day for five days straight and is designed to be a psuedo-prep course for the Sun Certified System Administration tests.

The class is small, six students including myself, and that makes for great one-on-one instruction. It’s a great class and I’m learning quite a bit about Solaris 9. This knowledge will help me perform my job more efficiently and enable me to provide the kind of support needed for our many users at work.

God has truly blessed me in this area of my life. Before I transferred into the unix sys admin group I was working as a systems engineer with my focus primarily in test. There were times that I hated to go to work and I was constantly on the lookout for opportunities elsewhere. I prayed an prayed for God to lead to another company or just lead me anywhere but up the ladder in systems engineering.

Even though it felt like God was ignoring me and my desparate pleas, He was really was listening to every word I was saying. The Lord heard me when I feeling depressed about my job as well as when I accepting of my position.

And I did finally accept my position at work. I read passages like Luke 3:14, “What should we do?” asked some soldiers. John replied, “Don’t extort money, and don’t accuse people of things you know they didn’t do. And be content with your pay.” I accepted the fact that I was underpaid. My boss and his boss once told me I should have been hired at a level two levels higher than I was. Talk about hard to accept!

Another passage I read was Ecclesiasties 5:19, “Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God.” What a powerful statement that is! Does this mean that only the wealthy can receive this gift? No. All one has to do to see themselves as wealthy is compare what they have to those on the streets or in third-world contries. Americans do not realize how wealthy they really are. We have much to be thankful for.

Another passage was Hebrews 13:5, “Stay away from the love of money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never forsake you.”" We can get so sidetracked with our pursuit of “happiness.” After all, it is an unalienable right “endowed by our Creator.” We slave (or whine) at work day after day for money and nothing else and it amounts to nothing but wasted time. Is that what we were put on this earth for? Absolutely not. At the end of our life we will have accomplished nothing meaningful if our focus was not God.

We must realize that “The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts” (1 Samuel 2:7). Our “security” can vanish in an instant. How many times have we read about large companies laying off hundreds or thousands of employees in a single cut? Look at all those Enron employees. They, and the rest of the world, believed that their company was doing well and that they were secure. They were wrong. Materials things won’t last. Spiritual things will last for all eternity.

God has placed me at my company for a reason. The sooner I accept that the better because living without a sense of purpose will lead to cynicism, depression, bitterness and regret. What kind of life is that? That is living death if you ask me. That is why I have accepted my position with much graditude. There is much to learn and will be difficult but I truly believe that I am in that role for a reason. Whatever it is, I am honored to serve my Lord in this capacity.