I sleep not

I was sleeping already tonight. Lukas came by though, along with some tears and some sort of problem he couldn't clearly articulate but I helped him back to bed and he's back to sleep. Lucky kid . . .


I sleep decent enough for the most part. I only mention this because in the 8 or so months since my last post on this blog, enough has happened and is going on in our lives that could keep a guy awake for weeks on end. It's not all bad. It's just that for a guy like me who over-analyzes everything, to not be kept awake at night is a miracle. And by miracle, I do mean nothing short of God's intervention. But tonight I am awake. Some of the things I am thinking about (aka: what has changed in the last 8 months):

The Guatemala mission trip. It was soo good on a number of levels. Was it worth it? Was it worth what? Was it worth the money spent? Was it worth the time? Was it worth bringing my family? I think so, to all of that. We didn't come back with any sort of "call" to missions which we were kind of expecting. I think we were really hoping for some big movement of our hearts cause then it could have made the decision to leave Summerland Alliance Church (SAC) easier.

Was resigning from my Associate Pastor position at SAC the right decision? I am almost certain it was.

I now drive a truck. A 2001 Peterbilt 379 Long Nose with a striaght piped cummins ISX 500hp. Terry, my boss/friend bought it for me to drive. It's the first time I have ever had a truck that was all for me. It's cool that I am trusted and valued enough to have my own truck. It even has my name on the door. A first for me. It's cool and all but at the same time, it is just a truck. And I am not a truck driver. This is important. One of my struggles in life is that I place too much of my identity in what I do for a living and I am working to be free from that. So, again, I drive a truck but I am not a "truck driver" or even worse - a "trucker".

So we are living in a transition. I am no longer a pastor, we moved to a new house across town, I have a different job, life is not the same, there are new challenges, we don't want to live the truck driving life, we are trying to figure out what or next "thing" is and it could be ministry of some sort again, we don't know where we belong (church family), we are still struggling to make ends meet, the list goes on.

Reasons for leaving SAC are long and deserve a post or two on their own - hey maybe this is the start of new life for the blog. Don't get your hopes up too high. But just so you know, the reason was NOT to make more money. Let me clear that up because it seems that that is the impression of most people who don't understand.

Mackenzie is in play school - where has the time gone? He finally can ride his bike! We worked on it this past weekend and he picked it up in no time! That's a bit of a story on it's own.

Should we have bought snow tires this week? Yeah, a good move. I kinda wish I could have afforded nicer rims like Terry (my boss/friend) suggested but on the other hand, who am I to be concerned over the look of my car when a lot of my fellow man can't afford food for tomorrow, let alone shiny rims. Then, maybe I shouldn't have bought the snow tires with that in mind. These tensions become too strong in my head - I don't know what to do with them.

I pulled out the "little legos" today. It used to be something only Mackenzie and I played while Lukas was napping but he is old enought to play now. And oh the fun of it all. Mackenzie likes to play with things that I build while Lukas likes to construct towers and explore the little people, especially the lego men. I loved lego as a kid. It was weird to think that pretty much all my lego is older than my boys. Most of it is probably 20 years old or more. I think I have more memories of surrounding lego than any other toy. Now I get to relive it all, and probably for many years to come.

What would a "failed life" look like? That was what I was thinking about when I was tarping my load this morning. And I have thought about it all day and am thinking about it now. I figure that a failed life would include something about marred relationships - God and people. It would be more about that than accomplishments I think. I think I could be a world changer but live a failed life just as I could be a tarper of loads and live a succesful life. Or maybe I tell myself this because I don't want to feel like I am a failure. More thinking to do on this one, but not know cause I am going to sleep. . .

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