Scribble Sessions

My handwriting is celebrated as unsteady, shaky sessions that I call “scribbles”.  My sentences often look like a mixture of crooked upper and lower case letters written by a four-year-old, falling diagonal outside of notebook paper lines.

My scribbles remind me of an art form.   My printing is illegible much of the time due to a mild case of cerebral palsy, therefore I must concentrate, to whittle my words, shaping them to clarity against hands that tremor.  These may appear as imperfect renditions upon a page, but they are expressions of me.

Yet scribbles are no longer just written words I use to characterize my penmanship, they have come to mean more, serving as tangible representations, distinguishing marks in how I want to love others and live out my life wholly devoted to Jesus Christ.  The ill-shapen, jagged letters cause me to reflect upon the sentences of my existence; my scribbles are what those specific pages bookmarked as milestones celebrate; they are the segments in life that string chapters together, pointing me to purpose.  “Scribbles” is a life story of intention that carves out a theme of sanctification.  Scribbles inspire me to live outside of predetermined lines; they are what drive me to hope, making me who I am today, what I will be tomorrow.

Scribbles are not the shaky edges from a scratched life that needs to be erased, rather they are the markings whittled out of our own brokenness that are meant to be lived.  Far too many times we worry about the rewriting, of rounding out our letters more precisely, shaping them to fit within the confines of a manufactured script, some manicured society.  After decades of processing life, I have come to understand that the written beauty of God’s redemption through His pursuit of my individual life is a biography of celebration, declaring a holiness that I haven’t earned, the process by which I want to stand out because of God’s grace shown to me through Jesus Christ.  Scribbles become that expression of His love to those around us; it’s an art form.

In 2010, a staff member from a high school ministry in Noblesville, Indiana noticed how I had written the actual word “scribbles” in my own handwriting.  “Scribble Sessions” became the inspiration behind naming their winter camp weekend, and it was through speaking at this camp when I first realized that God had been using scribbles as a theme of sanctity throughout my entire life to shape me, to alter my perspective in how I viewed the world, to change my heart for those who are marginalized, and to show me how my own story was being used to help those who grapple with the angst of brokenness.

2 Thessalonians 3:17 – “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters.  This is how I write.”

The apostle Paul certainly had imperfect circumstances, and through in his own brokenness, God used him significantly to be an influence in his letters to the various people throughout the New Testament; he empowered the Church how to celebrate life, how to become an authentic expression.  This was how Paul wrote; it was how he lived.  He used his life and its distinguishing markings to ignite a passion.

Scribbles are the representations of brokenness, those shattered pieces of our existence that are not meant to confine nor define us, but rather are to become distinguishing markings that fill us with hope.  They are the symbols of our lives that allow us to run free because we have been redeemed through Jesus Christ to be an authentic expression.  Life is an art form, to whittle with words a process that celebrates.  The way I live my life becomes the pen.  How, then, will I chose to write it?

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Left Field Banter

San Diego, CA / June 5, ’11

I sat in seat 4, section 127, row 28. I was in right field just beyond the yellow foul post in homerun territory. I had an uninhibited view, staring out into left field. Amid the crack of the bats and the cheering fans, my favorite thing about being in the ballpark was looking over that left field wall and seeing the Western Metal Supply Company.

Petco Park is located in downtown and is home to the San Diego Padres. I was fascinated by the design of the ballpark and my attention was diverted the entire game. The Western Metal Supply Company was something that did not seem to belong among these grandstands, a manicured baseball field, or underneath the bright lights, and yet somehow it did. Over that left field wall, this renovated brick building was persevered during the construction of Petco Park and stands as a historic landmark within a stadium, now converted into a restaurant, a memorabilia store, and a couple of luxury suites among other things.

The next day I spoke at The Rock Church and I talked about the foolishness of the world compared to the wisdom of God. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). The apostle Paul was compelled to preach this message, yet not with human wisdom, because he did not want the cross of Christ to “be emptied of its power” (1 Corinthians 1:17).

How many times have we heard people describing others as being in “left field” due to perhaps the way that they think or the manner in how they perceive the world around them? And what about us? How many times have we tried to function upon our own wisdom, ignoring those things in our lives that according to our own human standards do not belong? We don’t think about renovated brick buildings in stadiums divided among sections, rows, or seats. We don’t notice the “left field” of our existence per se because it does not blend into our preconceived notions in how things should and ought to be for us. While our focus is elsewhere, we could very well be missing out on the wisdom of God speaking in this regard. We keep stereotyping as foolishness those precise things He chooses to use by His creative design, adding to the context of His experience with us.

I have learned over the years through my own battles that God’s message certainly does not pertain to a health-wealth gospel. Sure, He wants to bless us, but He also does not work on our terms, in our wisdom, but instead calls us to trust, acting out faith through obedience. Life is not about us; it never has been, nor will it ever be. In 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote to those who were “sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy” (1 Corinthians 1:2). We have been more than renovated, Christian. We now stand transformed, new, a people to be used multi-purposely who will and “act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). Paul writes that we have been enriched, that the testimony about Christ has been confirmed, and that we do not lack in our spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 1:5-7).

And yet so many times our “unwelcome” circumstances cause us to buy into lies that manufacture us into people we were never intended to be. It stops our movement and stifles our progression of change. Those inadequacies about us fester and we put on the façade we think is necessary to hide those blemishes. We fail to look beyond the barricades we construct about our lives when something just over that left field wall is standing in our midst, yet we disregard and consider it to be the “left field” of our existence – it is ugly; it is lonely; it doesn’t fit into the status quo; it becomes foolishness.

We don’t gaze into our “left field” often because we believe it does not belong when measured against a worldly perspective, yet it is the wisdom of God speaking in spite of us. He uses our idea of foolishness – ongoing battles, insecurities, and even unfortunate tragedy – to voice the message of the cross to those around us. Our circumstances may seem foolishness to us, yet it is the power of God at work so that we never have room to boast. It isn’t our wisdom. It is His. The irony? God is perfection and His wisdom is infinite, but He chooses imperfection to declare His praises. He uses you. He uses me. He takes our malfunctions to display His power. It is one of my favorite things about His beauty.

I do not consider myself a baseball fan. I do not follow it, I do not like watching it on television, but I will always enjoy being at a game. If I were to pick a team, I might be partial to the San Diego Padres because God simply spoke to me: I sure enjoyed staring out into left field. He reminded me of His power and the privilege I have to serve Him. What walls do you have to look beyond to start your movement of change?

Metropolis

McKeesport, PA / January 13-17 ’11

I reconnected with a family that I had met about seven years ago in Papua New Guinea when I spoke at a missionary school for New Tribes Missions.  Now back in McKeesport, and ministering in a local church in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, the Ryder family remembered my story and invited me out to speak on three separate occasions: I spoke for an overnight junior high event, for a high school retreat, and then at a Sunday evening church service for the adults.

When we came out of the tunnel on the way back from the airport on that first night, the view of downtown Pittsburgh was a spectacular sight.  I was fascinated by the architecture of the bridges spanning the Three Rivers’ area as well as the center of the metropolis towering in front of us – the city was compacted with its milieu of skyscrapers, its bright lights, and the traffic streaming along the city boulevards.  As I reflected upon my winter season of speaking, I thought about my transient lifestyle much like the mentality of the electricity that hums throughout downtown in any major city.

Life is much like a metropolis.  Our culture embraces this buzzing atmosphere where our immediate circumstances consume us: the bright lights of busy schedules make us appear bigger than life; the hype in the purchase of commodities fill our emptiness; the venues of resources distract us; and the magnificent buildings we construct as prominence identifies our security within the realm of the status quo.  We are engulfed into the dynamics of socialization, this myriad of interaction, that has conditioned us to believe that our lives always have to be popping, loud with the traffic of activity, or we equate its absence and lack thereof as though something were wrong with us.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).  One of my speaking adventures during this long weekend was at a retreat for high school students, which took place two hours north of Pittsburgh in a luxurious 40+ – room mansion deemed “The Castle,” and it was here that we looked at the significance of what it means to be a child of God and the importance of being a participant in His Kingdom.  I discussed with the students how we become so saturated by the messages of our culture that we forget who we are, and yet all the while we still seek out forms of false significance, believing lies and becoming chameleons of a generation that would rather fit in than stand out.

A far cry from the primitive tribes found scattered throughout Papua New Guinea, we have somehow abandoned the basics found in preserving a thriving livelihood in exchange for the commerce of a metropolis that affects the economy of our existence.  I reminisced the green hillsides of Papua New Guinea with the Ryder family, the terrain of those dense trees overhanging the pristine landscapes, and I appreciated once again what it was like for me to be in one of the remotest parts of the world seven years ago.  Papua New Guinea was a place that taught me about the essentials in life, opening my eyes as I watched the locals relying on the most basic of necessities to sustain their own livelihood.

I began to process all of this while driving through downtown Pittsburgh.  Reflecting upon my own life, it occurred to me that the imagery of the metropolis before me reiterated a lost significance that makes us long for the essential.  The glamour surrounding a metropolis soon wane, but our hearts are still very much primitive and desires the necessities that matter most; this King we have access to as His children, and the purpose we find from being participants in His Kingdom.

Our true solace is not found from the glitz associated with an electric atmosphere, but rather it is identified in the hush that is frequently missed in a slow-paced world that still remains rural.  May our lives not be engulfed in a metropolis so loud that we forget who we are!

Stick Figures

Crestline, CA / January 7-9, `11

I found myself envious of that innocence that is captured in the heart of a child.  During my first winter camp of the season, I paused to reflect upon those years that seem so long ago.  What ever happened to our stick figures drawn with colorful chalk on the sidewalks?  Where are the forts that we once built?  And what about the trails that kicked up dirt behind us as we raced our bikes upon them?

“I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love…” (Jonah 4:2).  As I taught the book of Jonah to a group of 4^th-6^th grade students, I thought about their perception of God in lieu of their childlike innocence.  Our lives are a narrative held together by the bookends of our existence; we are born, we die.  How we respond to the pages that make up our individual stories in between is the greatest responsibility we have to God and to humanity.  We are people who God doesn’t need, but nonetheless we are a people that He relentlessly pursues.  My sole desire was to speak from this concept, simplifying it into four small lessons that these students could understand.

Whenever the book of Jonah is taught, I oftentimes hear about punishment and the stern consequences for disobeying.  Yet could we also be overlooking the greatest message of all?  Could the book of Jonah really be a message about hope, God’s pursuit of us, and His desire to use everyday common people to carry out His Glory despite our sin?  I want children to appropriately be fearful of the magnitude of God and not be pathologically afraid of who He is.  We worship God who abounds in an unconditional love so that we cease to disobey, instead of making our relationship with God into a religion that is based upon scare tactics.  But do children truly understand the magnificence of such love?

“Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2).  Jonah ran away from God’s command and ended up being swallowed by a great fish.  I ask the question, why was he swallowed?  Why didn’t he just drown?  God got fed up, end of story.  But whether it is a fish or it is a whale that swallowed Jonah, the debate doesn’t matter because God spared his life in favor of death and He used the sea creature as a vehicle for His pursuit of Jonah.  By God’s grace, He wanted Jonah for a specific purpose, spitting him out of a belly to exemplify compassion to a people who were his enemies.

Jonah was God’s man and God wanted him to understand that.  Jonah got angry because all along he knew God’s character and that the people of Nineveh would be saved.  God did the same thing when Jesus died on the cross for each one of us.  While our deeds deserved death, the severity of His sacrifice brought us life.  It was God’s voice.  It was God’s love.  Our sin cannot stand up to the Holiness of God.  My own filth is the gavel swinging down in judgment upon me declaring my destruction, but instead God’s abounding love in Christ is what sets me free.

“And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else” (Acts 17:25).  God doesn’t need us.  God didn’t need Jonah.  Yet God desires to use us, and for whatever reason, He wants a relationship with us.  The book of Jonah is an example of this because oftentimes we run in the other direction from God, yet instead of the story ending, our narrative continues by showing us God’s Providence.  Like Jonah, may we be spit out of the belly of our own woes so that we can be used for what He has graciously purposed for us.  I thank God that He did not give up on me!

I miss the innocence that comes with being a child.  Looking back, I now have a responsibility as an adult to speak Christ by accurately portraying both God as judge and as God of love.  God’s pursuit of each one of us leaves me dumfounded.  We are stick figures, and no doubt are intricately and wonderfully made, but our Maker does not need us.  We worship God simply because of that abounding love that nobody can fathom.  My hope is that these 4^th-6^th students walked away from winter camp with the ability to experience God in some revolutionary way.  God loves the faith of a child.

Baggage Claim

Concord, NC / January 2, `11

I started the New Year speaking at a place that is close to home.  West Cabarrus Church is located just outside Charlotte, North Carolina and is the church that my family has attended for the past several years.  I felt honored to start the New Year sitting in a row with people I love, who have lived life with me, and who have known the journey that I have been on.  There was nowhere else I’d rather be than to begin 2011 with family.

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage” (Psalm 84:5).  This verse makes me think about baggage claim at an airport.  Travelers stand next to conveyor belts watching various pieces of luggage pass by until they identify their own.  They claim what is theirs and once they arrive at their destination they begin to unpack the contents that make up their baggage.  This image of baggage claim causes me to contemplate the perspective this psalmist must have.  “Who have set their hearts on pilgrimage” is a phrase where I perceive the act of traveling as something that is daunting, but the psalmist references the journey as a blessing.

Psalm 84 is a reflection that recounts where this psalmist has been in comparison to his destination and arrival.  Through his personal journey, he focuses upon his hardships and while it is probably easy for him to celebrate his mountaintop experiences, it is interesting that he takes care to document the desert place of his existence.  It is actually through the importance of him talking about the Valley of Baca where he realizes that such a place is his biggest blessing; it opens his eyes and teaches him about what matters most in this life.  The baggage of his journey sparks the due recognition for just how great God is.  “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty.  My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord” (Psalm 84:1-2).  Better is one day than a thousand elsewhere!  (Psalm 84:10)

After praying about what message I could possibly give at West Cabarrus, I was prompted to speak about this psalm of pilgrimage.  This process started to come to fruition a week earlier as I sat on my parents’ front porch on Christmas evening bundled in winter apparel.  I watched the snowflakes settle on rooftops, outline the tree branches, and accumulate on the roadways.  I felt like I was in the midst of a snow globe that somebody had tipped upside down and shaken.  It was a beautiful winter storm and the seasonal change of snow falling became symbolic to me because it generated a sense of expectation: the white landscape was a picture of hope that gave me a fresh start.

“As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools” (Psalm 84:6).  With the journey, there comes responsibility.  What about the baggage we must claim?  We each have our baggage that we drag through life, and depending on the seasonal changes that we weather along the way, there are those times where it feels extra heavy.  My challenge is to claim my baggage as an instrument to be used while the contents within are put where they belong.  Where is my focus?  My weaknesses can actually be seen as a place of springs and a blessing for somebody else.  I do not want to be a desert dweller and let the Valley of Baca consume me, but rather I desire to be one who goes “from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion” (Psalm 84:7).  I want my peace in Christ to propel me onward!

My first speaking opportunity of 2011 turned into a sentimental Sunday because I was close to home.  I was so grateful to be surrounded by family because they have helped carry my baggage those times it seemed too heavy for me.  May 2011 become a time we have the courage to claim our baggage and all the while be a blessing for others as we help carry theirs along the way!

The Fence Post

Wichita, KS / November 12-14, ‘10

This picture of a pier shows imperfection, not to mention that it is a long way from Kansas.  The images are shaky and the backdrop is blurred.  This seascape may not seem to offer much in the way of a photograph.  And though it may be out of focus, its quality is not jeopardized.  While others would disagree and try to take another picture in its place, I find beauty in the distortion.  I can’t change any of my physical limitations, but I can make the most of every one of them.  Even from the smallest of things, such as my hands that tremor while taking photographs, this picture is an expression of me.

I traveled to Wichita and had the privilege to speak about the uniqueness that resounds in each of us.  I challenged high school students on a theme entitled, “Uncommon,” which encouraged them to live out their lives as expressions of God’s love to the world around them.  As I stood in the auditorium, I couldn’t help but notice the bright green and white plastic cups stuffed in the holes of a chain-link fence hanging over the stage.  They spelled out the word, Uncommon, and not only did it give the students a visual for the weekend, but it also provided them with an opportunity for introspection.

When I was asked to speak at this conference for the southern district of Mennonite Churches, I jumped at the invitation.  I have not only wrestled with feeling uncommon throughout my lifetime, but now I was sharing about these personal experiences with the hope that God would have His way and show Himself to each one of us.  If these students ever questioned their place in the world, I could relate.  I saw myself peering through the holes of a chain-link fence because I was fascinated by what I saw on the other side.  I shared that as a teenager I struggled trying to make sense of a world when my entire life changed the day I woke up with a disease.  I wanted to be on the other side of the fence because there I would fit in and the loneliness in being different would not be the chains linking me to isolation.

God grabbed my attention when I stumbled upon 1 Corinthians 1:27-29.  “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”  These verses shifted my perspective: they eventually began leading me to a life of peace; and they became my mission as a speaker.  Those things I once considered foolish; weak; lowly; and despised were seen by God as beautiful expressions.  I was shown that my life wasn’t about me, but rather allowing God to use me to celebrate His glory.  If I lived out life knowing this, there was an undeniable rest and freedom to be me.

I hope God mobilizes each one of us towards experiencing a life of peace.  My picture of this pier is a compilation of shaky images that captures beauty for me, an expression.  We may not feel as though we have anything to give in comparison to others, but we will never know the impact one can have until we discover the art that is found in living.  Whatever picture we instill to others, however small, just might paint a thousand words to describe Jesus Christ for somebody else!  I choose to pick up the brush.

From Kids to Kings

Calaveras County, CA / September 9-14, `10

“Am I pretty?”  Her dad asked while four-year-old Fern was busy pretending to put makeup on his face.  Without batting an eye and in an innocence that comes only from a child, she responded with impeccable timing.  “I don’t see it yet.”  I wanted to fall out of my chair laughing.

I spent five days in Calaveras County which is situated in the rolling foothills of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains.  It is made up of communities such as Angels Camp, Murphys, and Copperopolis, which sound either angelic, like a trendy name for a restaurant, or the perfect setting for a novel.  I was caught up in my surroundings as though time had stood still and my life at home was somehow forgotten.  I spoke on five different occasions to people of all ages ranging from those who were in kindergarten to those who were in their eighties.  The overall theme originated from the mouth of this four-year-old child and on Sunday morning the congregation howled upon hearing the story of Fern and her dad.

From kids to kings and everyone in between, God uses us in ways we may never realize.  Sometimes we may wonder how our personal trials make sense in the larger scheme of things.  We don’t see the purpose of those trials yet, but maybe we are not supposed to see anything because God often demonstrates beauty in the obscure places people find themselves in, reiterating that life is not about us, but rather how we can worship God through the lives that we lead.  Do we trust Him?

In 2 Kings 20, King Hezekiah experienced an illness and Isaiah prophesized that it was going to take his life.  Hezekiah wept bitterly and began to pray for his life to be spared.  While in the waiting period, Hezekiah did not see the purpose of his illness as the outcome wasn’t looking pretty.  God ended up adding fifteen more years to his life, and in Isaiah 38, King Hezekiah writes: “But what can I say?  He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this.  I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul.  Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too.  You restored me to health and let me live” Isaiah 38:15, 16.

“Am I pretty?”  I asked the church to consider where their hearts lie.  “I don’t see it yet” becomes the common response when evaluating the soul.  I wonder if King Hezekiah was proclaiming that through his brokenness he actually found what it means to live.  From kids to kings and everyone in between, God whispers to and through each one of us.  It was paradise to hear God’s voice through His people amid scenery that was fit for a king, but I realized that true beauty was found in the background of His kids displaying contagious faith.  It reminded me, just be still.

When the plane touched back down in Phoenix I thought, what would I do with fifteen more years?

Stop and Stare

I battle with insecurity.  This year I have looked into the mirror and I have stared long enough to contemplate the reflection staring back at me.  Writing a book has been about that process and I am finding that is convenient to not look at all and instead guard an image where I control what others get to see.  Yet as I stop and stare, the reality is that I am still wrestling with me.

Richard Foster writes that “the fear of being alone petrifies people.  Loneliness is inner emptiness.  Solitude is inner fulfillment…”  This year has been about solitude and by not turning away from my reflection I have acknowledged deep rooted themes about my life where the insecurities staring back at me cause me to squirm.

Revisiting the events of my past is liberating, but it is also frustrating.  In the book of Ecclesiastes, I am reminded how there is nothing new under the sun and what is will be again.  It is disheartening at times to view my life in this circular motion.  Does it always have to be this way?  And will I always struggle with insecurity?  After so many years of learning and teaching, one would think I would be more of an expert in trusting God and having the faith that He is in control, but the truth is that the ugly existence of my doubts and anxieties remain.

I am asking difficult questions that reveal answers I don’t want to take into consideration.  For example, is speaking sometimes used to make me feel important and good about myself?  Do I step onto a platform to prove myself that I am somebody?  Do I often loose sight of the gifts and talents God has given me?  Yes.

Writing the story that God has entrusted me with is mentally exhausting and painstakingly slow. And out of all of this, the most important question to ask is do I trust God enough with my life to the point where my reflection is not so concerned about my image, but rather solely focuses upon who God sees me as and how He is molding me into the person He wants me to be.

I am reminded over and over again that if I can hold onto who God sees me as, I am free.   He created me to simply be.  It comforts me knowing that I can live a life unhindered because of God’s love and what Christ has done for me.  I need to trust.  God is moving.

Writing Out Life

Ten years ago, I took a huge leap of faith by quitting a career in social work to pursue something that seemed too good to be true.  I started speaking as my full-time career.  I started Obscure Ministries, a non-profit organization that is a ministry devoted to speaking about Jesus Christ through the use of telling my story.  I can’t believe where God has taken me.  I have traveled to various states and across the world.  I have been blessed to speak to thousands of people and have met incredible individuals along the way.

This past year has been a year of deep reflection.  I am in the process of writing my autobiography.  By writing out my life story, I have had to relive it in ways I never imagined.  Through both speaking and writing, I revisit emotions like doubt, anger, fear, and sadness.  But through writing, these emotions sit with me and cause me to wrestle through them and I find that being distracted from them is more difficult.

Writing my autobiography has been something I have thought about for years.  I finally started working on it in December of 2009.  Through this process, I realized that there is more to writing than one might think.  Who knows?  It could take me years before it is completed, but this is a dream and I am grateful to be on my way in seeing it come to fruition.

Many have supported the idea of me writing my story because they have heard me speak it.  My story is a redemptive one.  I was that kid who struggled in wondering what I had to offer the world, if anything.  Physically, I am limited.  Since junior high, I have dealt with a muscle and nerve disease that has been difficult to cope with and to live through.  In high school, the disease became so debilitating that I was confined to a wheelchair, and during that time people had to dress, bathe, and feed me.

I felt imprisoned by my immobility.  I wrestled with me.  I wasn’t like everybody else.  I experienced common emotions that many people feel everyday, but for whatever reason, I made those emotions exclusive only to me.  I felt useless.  I felt unlovable, ugly.  I was lonely and had this underlying fear that nobody would ever be able to relate to me or my insecurities.

My sense of isolation distanced me from a world that seemed so mobile.  I felt stuck.  Would the world pass me by?  Would I be forgotten?  I worried if I would ever regain the capability to move at all.  Because I looked different physically, I slipped through the cracks, either going unnoticed or because my disability looked so awkward that people stared and made snide comments when they walked by.  I allowed the reactions of others to define my confidence and determine who I was.  As a result, I believed I was a freak.

I wondered about my place in society.  Would I ever amount to anything?  Could I ever become someone?  In college, I experienced a miraculous healing in a P.E. class.  I started to walk again by being involved in swimming two days a week for a couple of years.  Water therapy was so rehabilitating and provided me with such strength that it eventually enabled me to walk.  By moving in water and not fighting against gravity, swimming became the tool God used to help me regain mobility.  And at that point, I was accepting my life confined to a wheelchair.  I thought I would never walk again.  God had other plans.

I worked at Hume Lake Christian Camps for seven consecutive summers.  My time working summers at Hume Lake gave me opportunities that I could never have dreamed.  For example, it was the place I started telling my story to hundreds of high school students every week.  I witnessed how God used my life story to inspire and give hope to students who came to camp.  Many of these students came to Hume broken, and through conversations I had with them after they heard my story, I began to understand that my life journey had purpose.  My challenges not only gave meaning to me, but I realized they were also giving meaning to others.

A person never knows how he or she can be used.  It often requires a painful process.  But God uses our stories as a redemptive process that brings Him glory.  The fruit is not the sprinting to get to the next stage, but true growth is found in walking through the process even when sometimes it seems like a crawl.  I am moving and I thank God for that.  Let God be in your life and He will move you too.  It is a lesson I am learning through the use of my own story.

Stuff of Earth

Boggle and Scrabble are classic games.  I love words; to formulate them; to use them to describe; to consider the sounds of them in how they flow in a sentence structure.  Words are vices for creativity: an individual in marketing coins a phrase, an author is applauded for use of distinctive imagery.

I like word games because you unscramble and make sense of what lies before you.  People are the same way.  It is partly why I chose to major in clinical psychology.  You observe people.  You get to know them: their habits, mannerisms, idiosyncrasies.  You try to walk where they have walked, stand in places where they have been.  And if you do so carefully, you will come to the place where you simply respect, and do not judge.  Behaviors stem from complexities that have been woven and layered throughout their humanity.

I say this because I am an experiment in progress.  I still haven’t figured me out.  I boggle me.  I unscramble to scrabble.  I will spend a lifetime observing and causing myself to laugh.  You think after years of being in this body of mine I would get used to, for example, the stares from others.  Most times I let their gaze roll off my shoulders, but other days I take it in.  Their eyes level me.  It saddens me.  It festers.  I wish they knew me.

I call it the “Stuff of Earth” because it reminds me of this picture that I snapped.  In it, people are offering sentiments, gifts, or themselves through a ritual, a ceremony.  It fascinates me to watch individuals light flames, giving of themselves to something that they deem greater and worthy of worship.

I do the same thing.  And not out of gratitude to Jesus Christ, unfortunately.  My ceremonies are designed to bring me comfort.  Everyday life becomes a series of rituals that make me feel better; minimizes my insecurities; distracts me from things that I could improve upon.  How a drive to a local Starbucks or a new gadget can persuade me to dismiss something such as an awkward glance, seemingly to diminish its power for the sake of an iced vanilla latte!

It makes me wonder whether or not I dealt with everything, or else I would not struggle at the child today who ran away from me as I walked through a restaurant as though I were some monster.  Maybe I was perceived as being contagious – she ran.  Could you imagine if I had followed and sat down beside her?  Or what if I yelled, “Rrrrraaaaaa”?  I might see her one day on Dr. Phil as an adult still trying to cope with a childhood trauma.  This is my twisted mindset.  It could cause damage.  The other kids in the party just smirked at me, shielding audible giggles upon their shirt sleeves.

It makes me tired.  It reiterates that I am a work in progress.  I get down on myself because how other people respond to my disability in public still presents itself as an issue from time to time.  I wish I did not have to stand out causing people to run.  Yet this very struggle is partly the reason that gives me a voice, a heart, a passion to those who are broken.

Of course, I am human.  And I can hear your voices saying everything imaginable.  I write this not to be consoled, nor to point the finger at those who stared.  In fact, I wasn’t so sure about posting this entry for fear that I would be misunderstood.  You really have to know me to understand me.  Otherwise, this post reads English, but its content will remain foreign.

So, how can I effectively deal with my realities?  My desire is that the “Stuff of Earth” would no longer be stuff.  I am merely passing through this earth with hopes that the stuff that trips me up would be minimal.  I have a life to live where I have an opportunity to leave a distinguishing mark, not one that becomes a branded scar.  What are your rituals?

Meddle

 

Classroom doors flew open.

Students crowded empty halls.

Commotion suddenly turned chaos.

Screams reverberated along walls.

 

Monogrammed bags crunched.

Many carried brown paper sacks.

People hurried to disappear.

They dispersed into various packs.

 

Others crammed into automobiles.

Engines revved, windows rolled down.

Carloads of teenagers reeked havoc.

Some ate hamburgers clear across town.

 

I wish I could accurately describe ~

I sat to dine with a high school teacher.

I absorbed every word spoken.

She rang clear like a well-refined preacher.

 

“Salvation must be genuine.

Words can be reckless and fake.

Your witness as a Christian will radiate.

It is the transformation that you make.

 

It isn’t a set of rigid legalism.

It does not involve religious deeds.

The lifestyle is a faith that clings.

Evidence is a soul that heeds.”

 

God uses everyday interaction.

Divine moments never cease to exist.

Her foremost concern sparkled:

Reflect contagious joy as you persist.

 

Medals or metal trophies need no mention.

She talked impromptu to candidly share.

The Spirit responds in love, to meddle.

Live out conversation with undeniable care.

 

~ Chris Simning

 

Crack a Fortune

Kennewick, WA / July 9-21, ‘09

The swish of sound fluctuated as ears popped with a drop in altitude.  Random conversations among passengers translated to muffled words, slur contributing to white noise.  An occasional “ding” chimed.  I heard the mechanical grinding from landing gear being lowered.

Green farmlands filled in the oval window.  The shades of color were inclusive; the symmetrical squares like patches in a quilt; rolled bales of hay; straight plowed rows, meticulous, impressive.  Silos stood as watchtowers with rugged fences outlining the countryside.

Traffic and pedestrians rapidly emerged in the foreground.  Wheels soon hit the runway replacing agriculture with black pavement, boulevards and signal lights.  I shifted gears jolting from harmonic silence back into the boisterous genre of city life.  This was my third visit to Washington, my second to the central portion of the state.

My next two camps took place in the Cascade Mountains.  They were unlike any others that I have ever experienced.  A close friend, Justin, had just moved to Washington with his family in March to become the new junior high and high school youth pastor.  His creativity, combined with his license as a life coach, made these camps revolutionary.

The process began a year and a half ago when the walls in my living room were covered with butcher paper.  There were phrases, sentences, and lone words neatly divided into rows, columns.  To an outsider, the writing draped upon these walls would appear to be incomplete, and nothing but incoherent ink smudges that required deciphering.

Justin put his skills and expertise to use.   The life coaching he did for me was intensive, a rigorous sixteen hours divided over the course of two days.  I was exhausted from this counseling regimen.  Anger was involved.  There were tears.  Weaknesses were displayed.  Strengths were given.  Justin interpreted the writing on the walls.  He cracked a fortune!

So, I was thrilled to be invited to speak, this first string of summer camps Justin had with new students.  His heart to unpack the uniqueness into the people God created them to be was incredible to witness.  These camps focused upon the writing on the wall, life coaching.  After each chapel, students dismissed for an extended time to journal their life segments.

Justin referenced, “suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall” (Daniel 5:5).  “You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand.  But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways” (Daniel 5:23). 

These students needed purpose, not idols.  They needed to honor God: see themes, and categories consistent with their lives to discover talents. These summer camps felt more like workshops.  It was imperative for Justin’s students to comprehend their complexity, transforming such beauty into the simplistic vice of being used far beyond themselves.

God used these two camps – one junior high, the other high school – strategically, and powerfully due to my friend’s obedience to risk the ease of tradition his first year.  Each camp had 25-30 people including staff.  Read the writing on the wall.  Move to live.  It’s a story for humanity.  And, it will crack a fortune.

16 Turns

Hume, CA / June 7-20, ’09

18 years ago, I counted them.  I’m not sure why.  Boredom?  Fatigue?  But from a certain juncture in the road, I noticed the quick, sharp curves, as well as the turns that never seemed to end.  I was working at Hume Lake Christian Camps.  And now, 18 years later, I still find myself…counting!  16 turns.

We drove that slalom of road leading into camp.  The familiar scents of Manzanita plants and fresh pine filled my lungs with nature’s fumes.  And I did not know what to call it that night; a prayer, a thought, or perhaps a brief brush at a dream.  I will never forget unpacking, and while hanging my clothes in the closet, wondering how amazing it would be to not only stay that week, but be asked to speak another.

Speaking schedules at Hume were filled months in advance.  The likelihood?  Chances were slim.  I dropped it, went on my way, and sensed a peace.  Call me selfish!  I needed two weeks at a place I love.  Besides, I was desperate.  I needed the money, and only mentioned that to a few people.  I did not know how I was going to pay my upcoming bills.  2009 marked 12 summers speaking at camps, and 9 years as a full-time speaker.

At church the next morning, the program director approached me to extend an invitation.  “What are you doing next week?  Are you speaking somewhere else, another camp?”  The peace I clutched showed itself strong.  “If not, we would love to have you speak to our high school camp, Ponderosa.”  I told him that I wanted to pray about it.  An ignorant Christian at its finest!  Doubting Thomas?  Did the Holy Spirit just laugh?  Go!!!

“Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life” (Luke 10:25)?  The moment I started walking across the Meadow Ranch lawn, I stepped into another world of summer.  How fitting that my first week of camps began here!  Hume Lake was the place where I regained my independence; held my first job; relearned to ride a bike after being confined to a wheelchair; and spoke about my redemptive life.

The last couple of years I have wondered.  Should I keep traveling?  There have been months where I have just made it financially.  Should I hang my hat and pursue other means?  Should I settle down in a local church and teach?  Is my story becoming too redundant for others to hear?  It all becomes frustrating, disheartening.  Round and round, I go.  And I keep being reminded – this is God’s story, not yours.

It was that second week.  A friend approached me carrying a sealed envelope.  As I sat on the chapel stage, he said, “This is for you!  I am not sure who it is from.  They do not want to be found out.”  I tucked it away and opened it later in my room to find 10, crisp $100 bills.  No card.  No names.  Sitting in the place where I began speaking years ago, I received a double portion to remind – this is God’s story, not yours.  16 turns.

Some many times, I have been that expert in the law.  Life becomes figured out.  Eternal life, but was I exercising faith?  Students came to Hume this summer being experts in the law.  Christianity has become a culture, and not their relationship.  Many only saw the Parable of the Good Samaritan from a distance, spewing verbatim the right answers.  Jesus desires us to go beyond the know – “Do this and you will live” (Luke 10:28).

I did not become a Christian at Hume, but it has been a place God has used to change my life.  It made me realize one of my purposes in this world: speaking.  I owe that to God; and then to my family, youth pastor, and friends who did not give up on me those times I wanted to quit.

Just once.  I want to announce at the fork in the road “16 turns” and watch the subsequent smirks, curious eyes, ever so oblivious to the sentiment.  I want whomever I am with to roll their eyes, let out a respectful, tolerable sigh as if to say, “Get a life, Simning!”  Just once.  I’ll keep looking straight ahead and just start counting.  And underneath my breath, I’ll respond in kind, “if only you knew…”

City on a Hill

Crestline, CA / August 9-14, ’09

I was wedged, stuck in the stampede.  A sea of faces, a maze of bodies, I edged my way through the hyperactivity.  As I ended the prayer, I knew that speaking at six summer camps had concluded.  My final words were spoken.  Emotionally stricken and physically exhausted, I wanted to be alone.  I was done. 

I ducked in and out of moving arms, hop scotching in and around all the jumping and dancing.  The students had rushed the stage when the band started to play their last worship set.  Caught in the middle of their jubilation, I was given high-fives and embraces along the way.  I attempted with any remaining ounce of energy to listen to raised voices speaking to me.  Words got lost competing with the loud speakers. 

I felt like I finished the last final exam of a college semester.  Six weeks gone.  A sigh of relief swept over me.  Nervousness evaporated into thin air as songs to God lifted in praise.  Mental walls that I constructed to help cement scriptures, lodge stories, and to allow analogies to mortar everything together let loose.  Driving away in my Durango would never feel so good once tomorrow dawned. 

For six camps, I have been involved within a city on a hill.  A rush of sounds from laughter; playing games; conversations; and worshipping; camp is a makeshift community.  The world as we know it ceases to exist.  Computerized societies and cell phone leashes no longer distract.  A focus reemerges. 

“…A city on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).  One can never dispute the hand of God moving.  His truth can never be shaken.  His word never returns void.  No, it transforms us, making us salt, helping us to shed light.  “You are the salt of the earth…  You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13, 14). 

I ended my last camp at Thousand Pines.  As for their summer staff, this was their last week of program.  The students represented ages ranging from sixth grade to seniors in high school.  They had never been to this camp nor had the majority ever heard my story – except for a handful, at most 10.  The staff and I shared something in common…to make the most of it.  What a joy this staff, these students, and their leaders were! 

As I broke through the mob of students and rounded the last of the chairs, I walked outside wanting to hide.  I was simply tired.  Spent, I realized the obvious…a city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Their voices rang.  The instruments played.  All within the chapel celebrated.  I welcomed a bit of solitude, sat down, and enjoyed the cool mountain air.  I could feel autumn.  Help us to be that city! 

“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:20,21)

Corridor Alley

I giggle the moment I see it.  Disappearing behind the concrete metropolis, my car descends down a paved slope leading to corridors.  The pale blue horizon meets with the dark blue of the Pacific in the distance.  These ocean shores become treadmills for scenery, a pedestrian hiatus for tranquility.  A broken hourglass shatters the confines of time.

I spend countless hours here…alone.  The smell; the sounds; the feel; the locale allows me to revisit deep impressions upon my soul.  I have walked miles upon this Pacific seaboard throughout the years leaving indentations.  I stroll through my corridors.  The chapters of my individual journey unfold, some trailing behind me, while others are still a work in progress.  Those waves rush in.  And that thunderous noise soundproofs any intruding dialogue from people passing by, setting the stage for my commune with God.  A breeze wraps itself around me.  Seagulls swirl overheard.  A soul is protected, calming a heart that might suggest otherwise.

“I wander through fiction to look for the truth buried beneath all the lies”, begins a song played by the band the Goo Goo Dolls, written and voiced by its singer, Johnny Rzeznik.  I always applaud lyrists who coin a phrase that cannot easily be shaken from my mind.  This one is certainly no different.  I often reflect upon this particular lyric from the song entitled, Before It’s Too Late, first recalling it without even trying.  It describes the depths of me.  Perhaps, it encompasses everyone on some small scale or another.  It is a well thought out, methodical lyric, that will always tickle my intrigue.  It reemerges like a revolving door…and then vanishes only later to reappear.  I wander the seashore time and time again searching, longing, and wondering if there may be something I’m missing.  I wait in anticipation for something more that could happen: a blessing; a miracle, a reprieve, freedom realized.  Do I believe?

What is God up to?  Jesus came to save my soul from sin, dying a gruesome death upon a cross.  Words come up empty every time I attempt to describe the crucifixion.  I have eternal life through this wonderful gift that was never meant for me to repay.  The forgiveness of sins and a connection with an Almighty God destroys that dividing barrier of separation.  It happened all because of love.  It is all due because of His holiness.  God emulated grace in bodily form.  It came in and through His son, Jesus Christ.  Indeed, I know these truths.  They have set me free.

The stirring doesn’t cease.  I think I’m missing something.  For example, what did Jesus truly imply when he told the woman at the well, “but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:14)?  Or when Jesus declares, “then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32)?  Is this why in Ephesians 6 the belt of truth is specified first in the articles making up the armor of God?  Is this knowing of such truth absolutely essential in order for me to be free, to live?  But do I fully know such freedom?  Am I living it out completely?  Am I wandering through a world allowing its societal messages to convince me of a truth when really it is just burying me further into its lies?

I realize that this song by the Goo Goo Dolls is in reference to a love relationship, but isn’t that also my relationship with my Maker.  He loves me.  So, with this inquiry into truth, what does it mean to never thirst?  Or more specifically, Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).  How is that lived out?  After all, the wisest man that ever lived penned “utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).  Everything is just a chasing after the wind.  So in my current world, like that of King Solomon, there must be more in how I am to be used!  There must be more in how I relate to God!  Is there more to this life?  Is there more to my relationship with Jesus Christ?  What does full, abundant life truly mean?

I will keep walking this connecting perimeter with my Lord.  The ocean, for whatever reason, has become that line…I wait, I search, I yearn.  “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1).  The beach has become my hallowed ground, my fragrance, extending limbs reaching.  Those crashing waves pounding the seaboard make the Pacific the noisiest of places, and yet one of the quietest of pathways I will ever know.  So, I will walk.  The ocean sands have become corridors of exploration.  My pressures of life take on a revised, refreshed meaning.  The experience is always a resemblance to freedom, mirroring an image of peace.

I will never know the answers.  I am meant for the sea.  It is my place of true worship.  If people know me, they understand this.  Nature’s seascape has its way with me.  I am home.  I reside in the depths of solitude.  It leads me to my corridors.  It is a stroll of meditation.  It is a jaunt filled with conversation with my Lord.  It is a treadmill that gives life.  The act of being caught up in doing Christian things retreats with the tide, and the heart of simply being a Christian fills any fictitious space.  I wander searching for truth down my corridors that represent my life chapters, my individual journey.

I don’t want my life to be buried in lies shadowed behind a world that subjects itself to protocol, routine, all the while apostatizing through the guise of a silver lining.  Am I a born again Christian who lives life by the apostle’s creed?  I know truth, Jesus Christ, God’s risen Son.  My life is transformed because of it.  I am in a career that proclaims it upon mountaintops.  It has certainly set my free.  This I know.  But do I truly know what it means to never thirst?  Do I understand this possession of abundant life to the fullest?  Or, and quite unbeknownst to me, am I just wandering through a fictitious worldly paradigm that has buried me in lies?

My corridors catapult me into yet another chapter!  “Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway” (Proverbs 8:34).  Truth is speaking!

Just Pause…

It reminded me of being in a gigantic aquarium.  You gawk through the glass at the other side.  And whatever creature you are staring at, they show no acknowledgement to your undivided attention in return.  They just float by, unaware to your perusing.  I was sitting in the airport in Seattle looking through a huge sheet of glass.  I became fixated to the world on the other side on mine.

 

The busyness of air traffic caught my eye immediately.  The airport personnel drove luggage carts and concession trucks.  Lights flickered on the aircraft.  Planes rolled down taxiways to either make an exit into the clouds, or to pull up to a designated gate allowing masses of strangers to disembark.  These passengers would soon enter the world where I was sitting.  They were faces of unfamiliarity.  There were those who appeared tired, some who smiled, and others who were just indifferent as they entered the terminal.  I was curious about where they were heading.  Where did they come from?  What did they consider to be their biggest blessings in life?  What were their curses?  What strengths about themselves would they claim?  What struggles did they need to own?  They, too, floated by with their baggage trailing behind them, or totting cargo slung across their backs.

 

And, I paused…  A few weeks ago, I had the tremendous privilege of visiting the Pacific Northwest, and that on two separate occasions commuting back and forth from home.  I wish I could be an artist painting his masterpiece upon an easel because of the scenery I surveyed.  On those trips, I saw vivid terrain: lush greenery upon rolling hills; pastel colors of wildflowers poking through the earth’s skin; white blossoms hanging on trees ready to explode into new life.  There was the rushing Columbia River that accompanied us, always on our left.  Or, those cascading waterfalls that surprised us at every curve, pouring down crevices embedded within slabs of stone.

 

The past couple of months I have been writing blogs pertaining to segments of my life story.  I’ve entitled it the Segue Series because life is a string of transitions that weave in and out of our existences.  Needless to say, writing these tidbits has been an extraordinary process.  I have not only described them in ink.  I have relived them in heart and in soul.  And frequently, I have had mental collisions with writer’s block along the way.  Either, this is due to my striving to make things absolutely perfect, or it is the emotional content of regurgitating a life lived that becomes overwhelming because you discover cobwebs that linger in places you didn’t notice.  Perhaps, it is a combination of the two.

 

I have been encouraged through listening and dialoguing with friends to simply…write.  So, this is my first post where I am not worried about getting it right – grammatically, or in use of vocabulary (ok, maybe a little).  I am quite positive there are many mistakes in this entry, and even in my previous entries.  No doubt.  Yet, I wonder what would happen if I allowed my mind to drift to explore ideas and concepts in an uninhibited fashion.  What would occur if I just write and put the brush to the easel?  Would my writings be even more polished, colorful, and clear without my obsession to make it rhythmic, or to flow in that precise manner.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the continuance of my Segue Series would be more impactful, poignant without any unnecessary effort I attribute to it.  After all, every entry I have posted thus far has been at least a nine hour process. 

 

Just pause…  There are things that float by me everyday.  My focus is elsewhere when all along the beauty of things unseen is staring back at me.  Worlds always collide.  And, I can easily miss their intermingling.  How about you?

Perforated Lines

I tasted the metallic prongs on the microphone.  My teeth grinded against the steel shoved to my mouth.  My sighs were amplified, obnoxiously exaggerating my heavy breathing through the crackling static that came over the loud speakers.  The hollow, wind-blown thuds interspersed with my parched, smacking lips, filled empty space.

 

The moisture varnished my face.  The track lighting above burned my flesh like a magnifying glass exposed in the sun.  Beads of perspiration clung to the tips of my bangs.  Nobody moved.  Stuck on the edges of seats, my peers morphed into wax figures and porcelain dolls with fixed expressions already chiseled into place.  Their eyeballs remained locked, periscopes targeting upon a subject only to fire back comatose glances that detonated on impact.

 

Shifting my weight upon a defective four-legged stool, I rocked in front of a silent crowd.  It was the first time I had ever been asked to share since my diagnosis.  I tried controlling my feelings on a thermostat dial; dominating the environment either gave me the power to heat things up, or the ability to stuff true emotions by cooling the elements down.  I had nothing to say, yet everything I wanted to scream.  I had not one ounce of optimism to give.  And I loathed the notion of others seeking me out simply because, according to them, I possessed some unique quality of God’s hand on my life.  They sought perspective automatically assigning me to an expertise status in the field of tragic circumstances that happens to good people. 

 

The folding chairs sat atop well-worn, matted carpeting.  The plastic paneling on the walls bulged.  Crumbled pieces of sheetrock periodically fell like stuck commodities hanging in vending machines.  The floors creaked.  Rusted pipes moaned.  Splintered wood frames opened gapping holes to the outdoors.  Thin-like papered panes of glass easily fractured, perforations tearing among a milieu of shattered lines.

 

The High Life house, as it was called, was the high school building at our church.  A decrepit, condemned structure, several students called this home when all else seemed lost.  Ricky matured in his faith here.  Bobby has been a missionary for years.  Many who are currently in vocational ministries first emerged through those rustic doors, and have since spanned the globe igniting others to faith, helping cultivate growth along the way.  I never fathomed factoring into those ranks.  My life was heading to nowhere, a dead-end street where graffiti, abandoned debris, and tumbleweed found company.

 

“Surprise testimonies” originated from 1 Peter 3:15.  The high school staff in our youth group encouraged us to always be prepared to explain the reason for the hope that we have in Christ.  Called upon this one particular day, supposedly at random, I wasn’t ready.  No, I instantly became an exhibit in a museum as jaws dropped.  Attitudes were not ones of mockery, but instead ones of curiosity that were filled with wonder, awe.  This was no longer the Chris they had known.  Elated they did not wake up with this disease, they did not know how to compute such a mystery.  My peers had difficulty adjusting to how this muscle and nerve disease made me look, made me sound.

 

The only thing my peers could do was just sit.  They strived to discover my life as quite possibly it imposed distaste in what that meant for their life.  Sitting in front of them, given this opportunity, what would be my words?  Did I dare express my anger in front of them at who this God was?  Why had He done this to me?  Or, would I continue to look into those blank faces allowing my tears to plummet, letting the carpet absorb my bleating heart sentiments now turned to mush?  Either way, I was raw.  I was real.  Though, I hated being both.

 

No words came.  I could not take the silence, the humiliation any longer.  I felt like a puppet being manipulated by the marionette.  My torsional dystonia was moving me in ways that I could not stop, could not change.  I bolted from underneath the lights, making my escape like a frantic victim in an evacuation process.  I left everything behind wanting to never return, literally running for my life in urgency.  It was catastrophic.  I failed miserably as if the already throbbing shame was not enough of a wound.

 

Those days became irreplaceable.  They made their mark.  In spite of the embarrassment in facing my peers, this ill-favored “surprise testimony” started the ever slow toilsome process of me standing in confidence.  Most of my life, I’ve been encouraged to tell my story through a voice of familiarity.  I am humbled that God has enabled me to resonate with others on a trajectory that is commonplace.  It happens through obscure encounters that we reduce and summarize into what is called life.  These are intersections among humanity’s path that connect all of us be it the small alleys or the many lane freeways in similarity through our experience.

 

I remember being that whimsical boy in that recognizable place; although deficient, filled with cracks, dilapidated.  The street lights reflected off of wet pavement.  The trees hovered over the perimeter.  The sidewalk had uprooted sections.  Weeds sprouted.  Leaves flurried.  The white chipped paint on the outside of the sanctuary skinned itself in layers.  Men grew tired, laboring in making me a wheelchair ramp here.  I became acquainted with the Bible through the kid’s program called AWANA. I confirmed my faith in Jesus Christ in a small room backstage as a high school student.  A steeple hidden among the branches displayed a cross.  Our humble church stood on the corner of Broadway.  And, the High Life building that housed the high school ministry was located just around the bend.

 

It was a community that accepted, nurtured, and loved.  I see why people called it home!

Cinder Blocks

I sat confined in a maroon motorized wheelchair.  It had been five years since the diagnosis.  I had deteriorated quickly.  I looked white as a ghost.  Torsional dystonia reduced me to a mere shell of a frame.  My arms had to go out to be raised.  Hands had to go up to be dressed.  Limbs hung limp at my sides to be bathed.  People lugged me around like a rag doll.  I swallowed a lump in my throat as I had to ask one of the most difficult questions confronting me.  Was I going to die?

 

The black birds congregated on telephone wire.  The cornstalks rustled, rolling out waves to the wind.  A rush of noise oscillated like a fan throughout the fields.  A voice called, distant yet ever so near.  With a raised brow, the farmer stopped.  He hungered after truth.  “If you build it, he will come…”  In the movie, Field of Dreams, a whisper from nowhere emerged from an abandoned cornfield.  It offered the process of healing in exchange for a price to be paid.  Would the farmer adhere, take heed to its beckoning?  Like a child sneaking into a cookie jar, would he cease the plow to express a craving with wide-eyes; reach in to find meaning; dig deeper to experience delicious taste?  The movie spoke meaning to my soul.

 

Likewise, there was another story involving wall-to-wall people.  They waited.  Elbows connected.  Hands brushed against foreign fingers.  Body odors intermingled in a transparent cloud of stench.  Claustrophobic urges taunted the crowd.  Nobody moved.  An invalid lying on his mat possessed a passion for hope just inches away.  His gaze glimpsed the eyes of Jesus.  “Do you want to get well?”  The miracle of the invalid at the pool of Bethesda impacted my entire life.

 

In the Gospel of John, chapter 5, Jesus Christ extended a healing touch that required faith.  Would the invalid respond with haste?  And why, out of all people was only one particular man signaled out, not the masses?  The pool of Bethesda had a mighty, supernatural reputation.  Those blind, the lame, and those paralyzed strategically had themselves positioned upon the banks of the water.  They clutched to the only truth they knew; the first one in after an angel of the Lord stirred it would be restored.  They sat mesmerized, expectant.  They were people who anticipated opportunity.

 

The pool of Bethesda was unlike any other miracle Jesus Christ performed.  There were many more people present in need of divine intervention, a healing touch – not just the one man.  Jesus approached him.  He surveyed the surroundings.  He observed this man lying on his mat.  Jesus learned that he had been an invalid for thirty-eight-years.  Not only did he long for physical transformation, his disability screamed the severity of his plight without uttering a word.  This invalid was desperate for help, dire attention.  His focus wasn’t Jesus.  No, his faith was in Bethesda – but the people kept cutting him off, getting in front of him.

 

I wondered if this invalid’s mentality hid behind cinder blocks.  As years progressed, his heart must have become calloused.  He must have stacked, constructed his own wall, block by block.  Cold to the touch; rough around the edges; his defense mechanisms thick; he built for himself an embittered fortification of isolation.  He frantically coveted change.  And, he was so close to attaining it.  The obstacles just stood in his way.

 

“Do you want to get well?”  It has become the anthem for my life.  Jesus has often whispered it since, reminding me.  This question has revisited me on ocean sands, nudged me upon mountaintops, and accompanied me in the most random day-to-day scenarios.  John was the only Gospel writer to describe the miracle at the pool of Bethesda.  What did it mean to him that he would take the time to include it when Matthew, Mark, and Luke never make mention of it?

 

Jesus asked the most obvious question.  He did not do anything until the invalid was struck by its simplicity, and then grappled over its complexity.  Jesus demanded faith.  At that precise moment, Bethesda faded into the background.  Jesus stood in the foreground, inviting.  He never requested that the invalid rid himself of his mat, either.  No, he took his mat with him.  I wrestled over if that was true of my brokenness, or even more so my convenient mats of reliance.  What was I building?  A wall of cinder blocks?  Or, an unwavering trust?

 

Today, I stand on platforms proclaiming the Good News of Jesus, proselytizing the message of hope for people to get well.  I never imagined motivational speaking as a ministry, a career.  I never dreamed this miracle would revolutionize the purpose to my existence.  It is where movie meets Scripture.  Hearts get stirred when needed the most.  If I trust, obey, and have faith – He will do His work.  He will come.  It may mean that I carry my mat with me.  So be it.  I can still walk, and thus be used.  I choose to get well!

Irrevocable Sound

My skin plastered itself to the vinyl seat.  Every movement sounded like fruit roll-ups being peeled away from saran wrap.  The summer temperature rose above the pavement.  The heat waves wobbled in front of me.  Puddles of water stood on the highway in the distance.  It was the first day of the rest of my life.  I wanted it to vanish like a mirage.

 

The brace harnessed around my neck suctioned in the perspiration.  I wore it as a mere guise to distract from the inevitable.  Who was I fooling?  This spongy apparatus became an irritant like lingering mosquitoes that one bats away to no avail.  It clung to flesh as an adhesive to a wound.  My pulsating bruise clawed much below the surface.  I knew I could no longer hide no matter how hard I tried to disguise.

 

Those Viacom commercials had spun me into a deep depression.  I owed that to being cocooned in blankets upon the hospital bed a few months prior.  The succinct, riveting pitches in their tunes sent chills down my spine.  I correlated those irrevocable sounds to the reality confronting me.  Day-time television pacified me, but those days were over.  And now, the click, click, clicking signal for the final left-hand turn dealt a punch in my gut.  My high school stood on the right.  Flashes of people in my peripheral sped by.

 

I’d rather had face the guillotine.  Societal influences had my head in other ways.  I permitted the few names lashed out to pigeonhole me into a categorization.  I became captive to the perception of others, defenseless in the vicious cycle of mind games.  I could not win.  Defeated, I did not venture a rebuttal.  The key to my self-esteem had been locked, thrown away forever.  The messages communicated.  Labels associated.  I lived in a cesspool of lies.  I floundered in stagnation.  I enabled even misconstrued intentions to get the best of me.  A look here…a nod there…I often misinterpreted what people were conveying.

 

The gears downshifted.  The brakes applied.  The drowned out noises resurfaced.  The music on the stereo boomed.  Voices heard from our rolled down windows came from the sidewalk curb.  My stepfather pulled into the parking lot.  There was nothing to say.  I sat in the passenger seat hoping to melt away.  Mortified, I had started counting down since the beginning of July.  In a blink of an eye, this was now August.  I listened to the bells ring indicating the start of a day, a year, a new life.  I felt like a dead man walking.  How dare I possibly live?

 

The first day of high school plucked me from any routine that provided comfort.  It forced me out of seclusion to being exposed.  The training wheels had disappeared.  On my own without neck braces or other forms of masquerades, this was me.  This was it.  Was I going to walk?  Or would I crumble in fear?  Those questions blasted the rallying cry.  Family and only a few committed friends sacrificed everything to speak love to me.  And for the next six years, I relied on intensive counseling to revive truth back into me.

 

Life is an arduous road.  I knew it before, but my traumatized high school experience heightened it.  That day, I stepped from a vehicle of familiarity into a means that has transported me to other places.  I have faced many dark days, sleepless nights, and hopeless tomorrows.  It has been a long ride.  And then…those irrevocable sounds chime.  They resound, and more often than not I hear them ever so faintly.  My tracks ahead may be muddied at times.  Nonetheless, they still extend into the horizon.

Post-It Notes

“Jimmy!”  My words pierced the silence.

 

Hot tears began to roll down my cheeks.  Deep sobs began to shake my body.  The humiliation terrified me.  I tried everything to prevent it.  I crossed my legs, uttered psychological babble, prayed relentlessly, and pondered happy thoughts.  I flopped like a fish out of water, squirming around to ward off what I knew to be the inevitable.  My efforts did not suffice.  To my demise, diarrhea exploded throughout the insides of my sleeping bag.  My bowels, like firecrackers resounding, left nothing but filth to wallow in.

 

The struggle seized me with fear, put me further into seclusion, and locked me into a world of my own.  Would anybody ever understand my brokenness?  Clearly than ever before, I wanted to be somebody else.  After all, who was I in this feeble, debilitating shell of a man?  What was in store for my future?  I stared into the darkness feeling utterly alone.

 

It had been a glorious day.  Lake Shasta looked smooth as glass against the rustic orange, reddish hue of the dusk.  Our two houseboats sat anchored upon the shores.  The stars now painted the skies.  The dim moonlight shined through the window.  The crickets strummed an ambiance of stillness.  The gentle wake slapped up against the hollow sides of pontoons.

 

Jimmy lay tucked away in a corner oblivious.  It was 3 a.m.  He wasn’t stirring.  His deep sleep, among other things, was something I envied.  Jimmy had known me since the 6^th grade and had witnessed the progression of my muscle and nerve disease.  Regardless, how could I tell him what happened?  Would he think of me differently?  My soul screamed rejection.  My self-worth had already been tarnished, but now the pulsating loudness of self-condemnation continued to rip my spirit into two.  Why had I agreed to go on this trip?  Why didn’t I just stay at home?

 

It was a houseboat trip for high school seniors.  As a youth group, it would be our last.  We sat for hours sharing heart felt stories, laughing one moment, while crying the next.  For me to look into their eyes, it was a group who had seen me in my darkest of hours.  It would be difficult to part ways.  The tears I had already shed at the mention of growing apart became paralyzing.  Some of them were venturing off to college and moving in different directions.  I, on the other hand, did not have that possibility.

 

“Jimmy!”  I ventured again with a bit more urgency in my tone.

 

It seemed like forever.  And then…a beacon of hope registered by a confident whisper.  Jimmy’s voice was slurred and groggy from being awakened.  He called back.  My cue had come.  I stumbled upon what seemed to be eternity.  Jimmy was my rescue.  And yet, I thought twice about uttering anything.  How was he going to deal with this?  Was it my pride making my comatose?  Did shame play a role?  Captive to a wheelchair by this point, I already felt victimized by the clutches of despair.  This night only added fuel to the fire.

 

“Jimmy, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I…had a…an accident,” I managed to muster through intermittent sobs.  The weight of emotion expressed in each syllable was a tumultuous wave crashing down, hitting the core of my being.

 

His voice rang with the assurance that everything was going to be fine.  Jimmy and I were the only ones sleeping in the kitchen area of the houseboat. Everybody else slept up on the top deck outside, or on the front of the boat.  It must have been the intensity of my alarm that sprung Jimmy into action.  The realization for my emancipation came when I faintly heard his footsteps, barely making out his silhouette against the backdrop of a pale-lit moon.  He walked to the front of the houseboat where my youth pastor, Rich, lay sleeping.

 

“Rich?  Hey Rich!  Rich…” Jimmy nudged a shoulder.  “Rich!”

 

“Jimmy?  What is it?  What’s wrong?”

 

“Rich, it’s Chris!  He had an accident.  He’s not doing well.  He is in there crying.  He’s in a fit of rage.”

 

“I’ll take care of it.  Jimmy, thank you.”  Rich assumed the fatherly role.  “You can go back to bed.”

 

“No!”  Jimmy countered.  “I want to help!”

 

“Do you realize what you are saying?  Jimmy, I appreciate your heart.  I like your attitude.  However, I don’t think you will be able to handle it.  I have washed Chris several times and it is not a pretty picture.  It’s gross.  It stinks.  It’s going to be difficult for you.  It won’t be easy.”

 

Jimmy never wavered.  After a few minutes elapsed, he and Rich brought in my wheelchair.  The stench brewing from within the confines of my sleeping bag rushed into open air when the top layer was peeled back.  Inhaling that lingering stagnant smell was more than I could bear.  I gasped like a person struggling for oxygen.  They scooped me out of my soiled sleeping bag and wheeled me until we reached the door of a tiny bathroom.  They dragged me from that point towards the shower stall with my limp legs trailing behind.  And it was Jimmy, my peer, who volunteered to get into the shower with me to clean me up.

 

My head hung low.  Words came up empty.  A friend my age was washing me.  I couldn’t look at him in the face.  My lifeless body was propped against the shower wall with hands holding me up.  Blanketed in mire so profuse, my legs were covered in slimy warmth, a soupy consistency that oozed down my sides.  Jimmy’s nose never flinched.  He did not say anything, yet his actions spoke louder than any megaphone could ever convey.

 

“Thank you!” they said as they put me into a clean sleeping bag later that night.

 

“It was a privilege to clean you up.”

 

I could not decipher the meaning behind their words.  It countered anything but a privilege.  I was stunned and in awe at such loyalty, love.  I saw Jesus in their actions.  It was a beautiful post-it note that I knew would serve as a constant reminder.  I, indeed, would reference it in the days, months, and years that followed.  My life transformed.  It reiterated that I was loved.  God would be faithful.