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Posts Tagged ‘new life’

Remains #1 …a new creation…

09 Jul

Those close to me are well-aware of my many trials and tribulations. They know of my mental, professional, and legal struggles. They know of my addictions and of my path of recovery.

While this blog initially consisted of random thoughts and observations, I’m now adding a new feature that will chronicle the insights and lessons that I continue to stumble upon as I travel the rather steep and sometimes treacherous path of recovery.

This feature will not be a casual glance in the morning mirror…a glance taken only after the image has been showered, shaved and combed. This will be an intense examination of my “remains.”

Remains are the left-over’s, the remnants and the ruins. To the fraud, the remains are the pressure marks left upon the face when the mask has been removed. To the gambler, the remains are the coins left in one’s pocket after the fortune has been spent.
To the funeral director, the remains are the dead body whose spirit has departed.

But to me…my remains are much more! To me, my remains are the person I’ve admitted myself to be…melded into the person God is allowing me to become. To me, my remains are the mosaic that God is creating out of the broken pieces of my life.

 
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…filling our low spots…

28 Apr

Well the April rains have come to Missouri in a big way! And if April showers bring May flowers, then April downpours bring May floods. We live less than a mile from the Meramec River which seems to flood every spring…and this year is no exception.

Yesterday the Meramec closed the River Road. By this afternoon the river had reached the bottom of our stop sign…and it’s yet to crest.

The Mississippi River is also approaching flood stage, and the Army Corps of Engineers is considering the possibility of breaching the levies in rural areas to protect the more populated cities.

Their logic is simple: If they poke a hole in the levies the water will flow from the river into the lowest lying farm land. Water always flows to the lowest elevation…and fills the lowest spots.

And so it is with God, our Living Water. When we allow our walls to be breached, when we drop our defenses, God flows into our lowest places. Life is difficult for all of us, we all have problems. We have low places, stale and empty spaces that beg to be filled with Living Water.

 
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…back door gratitude…

16 Feb

Over the years I’ve learned that gratitude enters my life from both the front and the back doors. I’ve always been appreciative of my front door gratitudes …the people and situations for which anyone would be grateful. I have a nice home, clothes in the closet, food in the pantry. These are front door gratitudes. I’m thankful for a wife who took our wedding vows seriously, and for children who have made a conscious decision to love and accept me. I have an education and a future. And all these gratitudes entered through my front door.

But I’m also grateful for the many people, situations and blessings that entered my life through the back door. I’m grateful for those friends who chose to stay, when nearly everyone else hurried to leave. I’m grateful for those who decided to love me when I was most unlovable. I’m grateful for the strength that came from exhaustion…for the humility that came from failure…and for the self-esteem that came from embarrassment. These are the gratitudes that entered my life through the back door.

Oddly enough, I’ve learned over time that backdoor gratitudes are the most precious. It is the back door gratitudes that require us to grow through self-examination. It is the back door gratitudes that encourage us to realize our blessings, and to prioritize our values.

Like opportunities, gratitudes knock. But unlike opportunities, gratitudes knock more than once…and they usually knock on the back door.

 
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…God’s anvil…

27 Sep

Blacksmith shops are just that…black. The furnace belches black smoke. The bent, broken, and seemingly useless tools piled in the shop corners are covered with soot from the blacksmith’s furnace. Only the well-worn top of the anvil seems to be unaffected by the blackness.

But the useless looking tools have not actually been discarded; they only wait patiently in the corners…for their time in the blacksmith’s furnace…and their time on the blacksmith’s anvil.

The blacksmith is amazing! He can take a bent, twisted and useless crowbar and return it to its initial shape and purpose. The blacksmith places the crow bar into the furnace and heats it to a red, white hot. Then he places the heated metal on his anvil, and beats the bar until it remolded to its original shape.

Of course it takes time. Of course it takes several visits to the blacksmith’s furnace, and several stays on the blacksmith’s anvil. But in time, the blacksmith will reshape the seemingly useless tool. In time, the blacksmith will salvage what others would have casually thrown away.

There have been times, when my life has become twisted, contorted…and nearly broken. There have been times when I’ve allowed myself to become nearly useless. But God has never taken these times as an opportunity to discard me, to toss me into the junk pile.

There have been times in my life when I’ve felt burnt and beaten…times when I’ve felt painfully alone. Is it possible that those were the times when I was in God’s furnace…or the times when I was on God’s anvil? Is it possible that my most painful times, were when God was correcting my bent and broken self? Is it possible that what I thought was an unwarranted punishment…was really just my time on God’s anvil?

 
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