Coffee & Camaraderie Part 2 of 2

For Part 1 click here.

Reason (1) We believe we are sooooooooooooooooooo busy we just don’t have the time for it. I say “believe” because if we really wanted to we could set aside time pretty easily if we truly looked at our schedule. If the president of the United States has time to fill out his NCAA basketball tournament bracket we probably have time to make a phone call. Basically, we’re really not that busy. I’m not talking about weekly coffee conversations or phone calls but once every couple of weeks or once a month? We really can’t spare that to connect with friends?

Reason (2) For some friendships, it’s just not worth the effort. There are certain friendships where no matter how long it’s been since you’ve last talked you simply pick up where you last left off. For others, after some time of absence there’s a sense you’re just not that close anymore. Therefore, it’s really not worth the effort to stay in contact.

Reason (3) Laziness: Let’s just be real. Some people aren’t busy at all but are simply down-right lazy. For those of you too lazy to connect with your friends what kind of friend are you? Relationships take work and responsibly but it’s all worth it because we are created to be relational beings.

Reason (4) Out of sight out of mind: If you don’t see the person you really don’t think about that person. It’s normal for people to think mostly about what’s in front of them. Maybe we should spend more time daydreaming?

Whatever your reason is for not making more of an effort to connect with friends on a meaningful level, just know that it’s lame. My buddy Chris Hunt sent me a text message yesterday saying:

I’m sitting in the 3rd day of class with 3 instructors who have been divorced at least once. Tell your wife you love her and that you’re thankful for her. Make time for a date and love on her . . . praying for you.

That’s what you call a true friend. My wife would absolutely want me to make time to spend with Chris. I’m not talking about making time to go drinking and fill your time with non-sense. I’m talking about making time for friends who will truly make you a better person because they care about the state of your soul. And if you don’t have time to care for your own soul then what do you have time for?

Coffee & Camaraderie Part 1 of 2

When I get up in the morning my lovely wife usually has a cup of coffee waiting for me. Do I really need that cup of coffee? No. I don’t get headaches when I don’t drink coffee but I have a cup anyway because it’s comforting in the morning. My body usually feels like a slab of concrete getting out of bed and every joint in my body is screaming curse words at me. So when I sip that warm cup of coffee it’s a soft blanket over my soul. It’s comforting. That’s why I have a cup. You know what else is comforting? Camaraderie.

I had the opportunity to catch up with Andre, an old Bible college friend, a couple of weeks. We met for coffee and talked about everything we’ve been learning and what the Lord has been doing in our lives. It was a couple of hours of great fellowship. I always leave reflecting on things Andre talks about. He impacts my life every time we talk. We always say, “We need to do this more often,” which is true. It’s difficult given our life stage. We’re no longer goofing off at Bible college with a full day ahead of us to come up with practical jokes to pull on each other. We’re family men with full-time jobs, bills to pay and lawns to mow.

However, when you really start to reflect on how you spend your time throughout the week, you’ll realize you probably have more time to meet with friends than you think you do. This is what kills me. I’m pretty intentional when it comes to connecting with friend-, whether it’s a phone call, text message, and/or email. Some friends call back some don’t. Some friends take forever to call back some call back quickly. Either way, I keep calling. When I finally get a hold of someone, I don’t give him a guilt trip for not calling me back. I just begin the conversation as though they called me back the next day. What usually happens is that both parties are extremely blessed with the time shared.

So, here’s my question: Why is it so hard to connect with friends you don’t see on a regular basis?

Let's answer this question in Part 2, which will be posted tomorrow.

The New Mother’s Day

When I was up in Spokane at my brother-in-law’s wedding a couple of weeks ago, I tried to get over the fact that I wasn’t in LA and actually enjoy myself and the company of friends and family. It mildly worked. The wedding ceremony was at a nice venue and the reception was at the same place. I always enjoy it when the ceremony and reception are at the same place because we don’t have to drive anywhere else. After the ceremony, as the natural progression of the night continued, there was the son and mother dance. I had front row seating for this and was happy for my brother-in-law and mother-in-law. At that same moment, there was a hint of sadness tugging at my heart realizing my mom wasn’t here, and that I never had a chance to dance with her at my wedding.

This weekend is Mother’s day. It’s not lost on me that my mother is no longer here but home with the Lord Jesus. There’s no other place where I would have her be, although I often wish I had one more day with her just to introduce her to my family.

This Mother’s day is also a little different for me,though. My beautiful wife is a mother and it’s not lost on me that I don’t have a gift for her. It felt like 20 minutes ago that I bought her an anniversary gift . Crap! Now I’m in yet another mad scramble. My co-workers are already telling me, “It’s her first Mother’s Day. You better make it special!” No pressure. I’m sure I’ll think of something. I usually do, but not until I hit 9.5 on the Stressed Out scale.

(Wait a second. Let me just send a mass text to some friends asking for ideas. Hold on . . . okay . . . send. Right you still here?)

Reflecting back on my wife’s first year of motherhood, I appreciate her more than ever. Furthermore, I appreciate all good mothers around the world, and especially my own mother and all the things she did for me of which I never took notice. I’ve always found it interesting that the love for my mom has grown throughout the years since her absence. How do you love someone more without them being here? I call it “Retro-Understanding.” This simply means that as you get older, you understand the things people were trying to teach you when you didn’t initially understand the lesson because you were too immature, too dumb, or you were just a complete jack@$$ (or some combination of all three). The most common people giving out good lessons to un-teachable people who only later on “get the lesson” are schoolteachers, coaches, and of course parents. My Retro-Understanding of my mother’s love for me grows as my “jack@$$-ery” lessens. That’s how it’s possible for me to love my mother more even though she’s not here.

But with this new twist on Mother’s Day- namely, my wife now being a mother- I get to focus on enjoying loving my wife in a different manner. There’s an extra day out of the year I get to show my appreciation towards her in her new role that’s not at all easy and often requires being selfless and sacrificial. I guess that’s worth being a little lighter in the wallet and getting stressed out at the last minute (again).

Joelle's First Flight Part 2 of 2

For Part 1 click here.

The flight from LA to SF is about an hour (at most) but the boarding process took about, well, an hour. To further aggravate the situation, once everything was squared away and everyone was ready to take off the captain came on the PA and said, “There will be a slight delay.” Now there are several words that ran through my mind that my wife wouldn’t let me write down here but I’m sure you can figure out that they were of the 4-letter variety. This whole time Joelle was doing okay but the delay was eating into “The baby is okay” time. We knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. The captain went on to try and explain the reason for the delay, but once the word “delay” came out of the speaker, I really didn’t care what the reason was. The airline had promised us a time when the plane would take off and when it would arrive at the desired destination. We had done our part… We arrived at the airport on time and got through the necessary security checks then waited patiently at the gate only to have the airline screw up somehow and delay the flight. I understand there are several variables that come into play, but if airlines were required to refund a prorated rate to people whose flights were delayed my guess is that airlines would all of a sudden run more efficiently.

Anyway, once we FINALLY took off for most of the flight Joelle stayed content and didn’t bother anyone. Yes, I was looking at her like a proud father. Then it was time to descend for the landing. As you know, once the plane starts to descend your ears start popping and aching because of the drop in pressure. For a nine-month old who has never experienced something like this, it can be nerve wracking. Sure enough, my daughter started dropping baby F-bombs with the intensity of a heavy metal rock band. This went on for the entire descent. It definitely was another “Welcome to Parenthood!” moment. Once we landed and Joelle’s equilibrium began to stabilize, she started calming down. That was a rough first flight with my daughter.

During the flights home, however, my baby slept the whole way and was a sweet little angel. I guess she just needed to get over the initial shock of the first flight. Let's hope she won't need drugs in order to get on a plane like her mother-in-law.

Joelle’s First Flight Part 1 of 2

Last week I had the honor and privilege of being a groomsmen in my brother-in-law’s wedding. The only problem was the wedding was happening in Spokane, Washington. I had known this for several months now but I was praying (and hoping) my brother-in-law (Jon) would post-pone the wedding for another few years so my daughter would be a little older than, you know, nine months. It didn’t matter what the reason was for postponing the wedding as long as it was postponed. Naturally the wedding was not postponed so my wife and I had to fly to Spokane with a nine-month-old child – fun times ahead!

I remember when I was single traveling at the airport. I would look at crying children with complete annoyance hoping I wouldn’t get stuck with a seat close to them to hear their crying. Traveling was also fairly stress-free. I didn’t have to worry about a child. Those days feel like a long time ago. Once my wife and I got to the airport, I was immediately stressed out because I kept waiting for our child to blow up. Getting through airport security is stressful enough but try doing that with a crying nine-month old… I felt the single people looking at us with the same annoyance I use to. Welcome to parenthood!

The first flight was to San Francisco, which then would connect us to a flight to Spokane. We boarded the plane, buckled up, and prayed Joelle would handle her first flight okay. If you’ve ever traveled by plane you know the boarding process is always an adventure. There’s always those few people who try and stuff their clearly too big carryon in the overhead compartment and hold up the line (I think my sister-in-law happens to be one of them! ☺). Some of those people even ask for help, “Excuse me, could you help me stuff my over-sized carryon that’s way too big to fit into this overhead compartment? If we keep pushing I’m sure it’ll eventually go in.” Look, I understand that after airlines started charging for extra bags that people started doing this in order to save money. I get it. People are just trying to save money, so I’m not too annoyed by that. I’m just annoyed by the airlines that created this problem.

We can’t forget those people who simply refuse to turn off their electronic devices out of pure defiance. Everyone knows the chance of our device actually affecting the plane’s electronic equipment is rather low. But since there is a slight possibility, the airlines don’t want to take that chance. I get it. So when I see people trying to hide their devices only to be reminded again by the airline staff they need to turn it off, it’s frustrating. You mean you’re holding up the plane because you can’t turn off your device for 20 minutes?

Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

Daddy Daughter Time

Last week was my Spring Break. On one of those days, my wife had some work she needed to do outside the house and asked me, “Could you take care of Joelle?” My reply was, “You mean by myself?” She just gave me the “Of course” look. Hey, it’s Spring Break why not have some daddy-daughter time? Truthfully I was a little nervous not knowing what to expect. The night before, my wife was kind enough to write out the schedule on the board hanging on our refrigerator so I’d know exactly what to do. She knows if she just tells me, I’ll either forget or only be half-listening in the first place while she’s telling me what to do.

The day arrived when I was scheduled to take care of our daughter by myself. I remembered the advice of many to not call it “babysitting,” so I got that thought out of my head. My wife told me, “Okay honey I’m heading out. I’ll call you when I’m on my way home. Just stick to the schedule and you’ll be fine.” My reply was, “Okay.” After she closed the door I immediately checked the schedule she wrote down (It was the first time I looked at it). Joelle already had her breakfast so the next thing on the item was:

10:15 nap – approximately 45 minutes to an hour

It was only 9:15 so what in the world do I do for a whole hour? Wait! There were more notes my wife left me. It read, “You can let her play with her toys in the family room. She’ll do that for about 45 minutes.” I said to myself, “45 minutes! That’s almost an hour! Perfect!” So I took Joelle to the family room and let her play with her toys just like the note told me to do. To my amazement, Joelle kept herself entertained for about 45 minutes as I was reading. How does my wife know these things? As 10:15 approached, I started cleaning up the toys and began to rock her to sleep. When she finally nodded off I looked at the clock and it was . . . wait for it . . . 10:15! How does my wife know these things? I placed her in her crib knowing I had about an hour to catch up on all the important updates in Laker Nation. It was coming up on an hour so I checked the next thing on the list:

11:15 lunch – feed the baby, VERY IMPORTANT!!!

The all caps text immediately caught my eye. I guess feeding the baby is important so I didn’t want to screw this up. My wife already had a bowl of some powered looking stuff with some other liquidity thing I was supposed to mix in, I guess. As you can tell, I didn’t bother reading the labels to find out what contents were in the food. I just did what I was told.

I mixed the stuff in the bowl as my wife instructed then I went to wake up Joelle who looked ready to eat. I sat her down and sat next to her. She knew it was lunch time and was excited to get some grub. I gently spoon fed Joelle while occasionally wiping her face from the mess. Then there was a moment (or a few moments) when I gazed into her eyes and thought about the story of Joseph in Genesis 41:51-52 when Joseph had his two sons:

Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house.” The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

This, of course, was several years after Joseph’s brothers plotted to kill him and sold him into slavery instead where he was falsely accused of sleeping with the boss’ wife, thrown in jail for his trouble, forgotten about for a couple years and then forced to interpret Pharaoh’s dream accurately or be executed (If you read Pharaoh’s dream you’ll know it’s like someone dropping acid at a Jimi Hendrix concert. The best dream interpreters of that day were confused.).

My point being, even though Joseph suffered many troubles and knew the Lord was with him during those difficult times, it wasn’t until he had his kids when he began to forget about those troubling times, “God has made me forget all my hardship . . .” Not only did he forget his hardship but Joseph saw how blessed he was, “For God has made me fruitful . . .” That’s what I felt when I was feeding my daughter and looking into her eyes. All of the trouble I got myself into, the hardship in my own house growing up, the failed relationships and unmet expectations, were all forgotten and I realized how extremely blessed I was at that moment. It doesn’t matter what I’ve been through, it only matters that I’m here now with a future I never thought I would have. Maybe one day Joelle will realize how much she means to me and understand why I do everything in my power to scare all of the would-be boyfriends away.

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff. There’s the rest of the day to get through so let’s get to it. After I finished feeding Joelle lunch, I noticed there was nothing else on the list to do. I thought my wife had forgotten to write the rest of it or something but I quickly figured out I was on my own. Well, if I was going to be on my own, I figured I would go rogue and take Joelle to the supermarket to buy junk food for daddy. I strapped her into the stroller and walked to the supermarket. She was completely content the whole time, just people-watching like she was sitting at the airport waiting for her flight. When we got to the supermarket, I noticed all the ladies smiling at my baby girl with the “Oh, she’s soooooooooo cute” look on their faces. I leaned over to Joelle and quietly told her, “Where were you when I was single?” She just smiled back as though she knew she was cute.

As we were walking back home with the booty of junk food, I kept appreciating the beautiful weather we have here in L.A. It was great to be outside with my daughter enjoying the world together. When we got back home, I quickly hid all of the junk food from my wife so she didn’t scold me and continued to play with Joelle. We read some books and played out in the backyard with Buddy (our dog) until mom finally got home.

The whole time went by in a blink of an eye. I lost track of time and didn’t even know how late it was. The entire time, Joelle didn’t cry once and was a perfect little child. She’s not always like this. But it felt like she knew dad was on his own today and she was going to give me a break. I hope she still feels like this when she’s a teenager.

Not Like Old Times

Last week I had the privilege of attending a College & Career retreat by Cypress Community Church. Honestly, I haven’t been on a retreat for years. It’s usually because I don’t want to spend the money. However, what made this retreat special was the fact that my childhood friend, Dom, was the youth pastor putting it all together. Furthering the uniqueness of the opportunity was that my other childhood friend, Bryan, was preaching at the retreat. I thought to myself, “It’ll be like old times” . . . old times being juvenile behavior, crass jokes, and tons of laughing while we make fun of each other and/or other people.

Here’s where things got a little tricky, at least for me. Dom, Bryan and I got to the retreat site early and prayed for the retreat, the people attending the retreat, and discussed Bryan’s sermon notes. As you can imagine, I was almost immediately disappointed we weren’t screwing around and making fun of each other with the same fervor we once had in high school. There was an epiphany on my part that said, “Hey jack@$$, you’re not in high school anymore.” Somehow I forget this fact. However, this realization changed my mind set. Instead of giving in to old juvenile tendencies, I got lost in getting to know other people, giving suggestions to Bryan for his studies, and trying to give encouragement and advice to different individuals when I had the opportunity. It was like I was a useful adult. It was extremely taxing to be serious and focused. I don’t know how serious and focused people do it on a regular basis. But with the Lord’s strength, I was able to do it for an entire weekend.

After the retreat was over, Dom, Bryan, and I had some good quality time catching up, making fun of each other, and laughing a ton. So all was not lost. I find it interesting to reflect on the current life-stage we are all in and even to think about where we’re headed. I see how important it is to process thinks like, “Am I being a good husband and father?” or “Am I becoming the person Christ wants me to be?” with friends who know you best. If we never self-evaluate we’ll never know how badly we are missing the mark. As human beings, we tend to simply drift towards complacency, indifference, and apathy. If there is not a community around you challenging you to get better at what you’re doing, who is going to push you? I’m blessed to have friends who care that I live my life in a way that honors God and to have those same friends crack jokes about each other and enjoy each other’s company.