I love my family.  I have two loving, supportive parents who have been married for over 40 years.  I have two older siblings, two older sibling-in-laws, a beautiful niece, and four rambunctious nephews (five, when you include my step-nephew).  We’re blessed enough to live within 20 minutes of each other - and even though we don’t see each other nearly as much as we should (given our proximity!), our family gatherings are fun, rowdy, stressful, and entertaining.  (This is where I should mention that my niece is 9, two of my nephews are 8, and the other two are 5ish.  That’s a LOT of kid energy!).

Growing up, our family dynamic was slightly different than most - I’m the youngest kid by nearly 9 years. My experience of growing up was a hybrid of being the “baby” in the family, while also feeling like the only child - since my older siblings were grown up and in college by the time I was entering 4th grade.  The glue holding us together though, were my folks.  Married young, my parents had a couple decades of marriage under the belt when I came on to the scene.  Though they certainly had their ups and downs, they stuck things out (and still do!) and I’ve witnessed their marriage grow and flourish because of it.

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Last week, I met up with my close friend Josh for an impromptu dinner at Wingnuts (highly recommend the Blue Cheese Buffalo Burger, by the way).  Josh and I have been friends for nearly a decade, and have known each other even longer than that.  He stood by my side as I said my marriage vows, and I returned the favor last February when he married his beautiful wife.  

In between those two weddings is a story of a derailed friendship, a divorce, a reconciliation, and a redemption.  For reasons that only became clear after years of reflection, Josh and I ceased to be friends about a year after I was married.  Neither of us could articulate the reasons at the time, and even now that we can, they seem minor and petty.  But the reality is by the time my marriage fell apart, Josh was not the one I called for support and counseling.  Eventually, we did reconnect and over time rebuilt our friendship, learning to provide the support and encouragement both of us needed.  

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One of my responsibilities as a blogger is to start dialogue and conversation on controversial topics.  In order to effectively set up these conversations, it is important that I remain truthful, open, and honest.  In that spirit, I have a two confessions to make.  Here’s the first:  I am a choir boy.  

 

When I was in elementary school, my music teacher, Mrs. Neidringhaus (who, coincidentally, just became my Facebook friend last week), suggested I join a local professional boys choir, The All American Boys Chorus.  Lured by the promise of international travel and missed school days, I auditioned.  I was never really a singer before that moment, but that started a new journey for me as a chorister. 

 

 

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I haven’t written in a while.  In fact, a good friend and regular reader, pointed out that it has been nearly a month since my last post.  I must admit, until I received her email, I didn’t realize that much time had slipped by.  If I was too busy to post before her email, there was no hope of me posting when her email came through - it arrived in the midst of one of my busiest weeks in a while.  I’ve had long hours at work, a one-day weekend  and events stretching me past the 10:00 pm mark every night.  

 

As my week progressed, my “to-do” list for the upcoming weekend grew.  When your life is always “go, go, go”, even looking forward to knocking out the lesser priorities on a day off or two takes on an appealing aura of relaxation.  I fell asleep last night with grand plans of sleeping in (I was exhausted after all!) and then running errands.  God, it seems, had other plans for me, and it started with a headache.

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In church a few weeks ago, my pastor talked about what happens when a person dies within a Jewish community.  The friends and family of those left behind travel to the grieving’s house and simply sit with them.  They don’t make pat comments, they don’t swoop in and try to fix everything, and they don’t come in armed with an array of distractions.  They respect their grief and just sit in silence.  

 

Earlier today, I was watching the movie “Sunshine Cleaning” - a story about two sisters that form a bio-hazard clean up business, cleaning up the messes often left behind when people die.  In one poignant scene, they arrive at a house and find the frazzled widow waiting to give them the house keys.  Amy Adams’ character senses the grief of this old stranger and offers to simply sit with her. She reaches over and clasps the old woman’s hand - just as I imagine occurs in those grieving Jewish homes.  

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Step 1:  Trust God.

 

Immediately, I fell on my knees, sought Him, and went back to church.  My sense of failure sent me there -- love, forgiveness, and restoration kept me there.

 

Step 2:  Find community.

 

Family support was key, as was friend support.  Stepping into community with fierce protectors, of me and my marriage, kept me strong.  And fighting.

 

Step 3:  Remain hopeful.  

 

I remained hopeful, first for our reconciliation.  Then, for my own restoration.

 

Step 4:  Be honest.

 

There was a period of time early on where I couldn’t share what was going on at home.  But hiding that anguish never felt healthy.  I needed to discuss how I felt to get to a new level of honesty about me, about us.

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I was driving around last week, listening to the song “God In You” by the PawnShop kings when this lyric leapt out of the radio, grabbed hold of my heart and refused to let go:

Just ‘cause a voice in your head spoke to you

Doesn't mean God’s telling you what to do

That’s not God in you

 

I immediately felt a pit in my stomach because those words, sadly, hit a little too close to home.  How many times have I manipulated God’s word for my own selfish gain?  How many times have I formulated a plan for my life and then “used” God as a justification to continue forward?  

 

I know I’m not the only one, too.  How many divorces have found a husband and wife at odds - one fighting to leave, one fighting to stay, both convinced they were doing “what God told them to do”, even though they were conflicting actions?  How many people have been pulled into cults - Christian cults and otherwise - simply because they felt a burning in their bosom?

How much violence has been attributed to “following God’s voice”?  How many terrorist attacks?  How many abortion clinic bombings?  

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Love is for losers.

 

Losers fail to recognize the needs of their significant other.

Losers avoid confrontation and bury the problem.

Losers have high expectations that do not match reality.

Losers cut themselves off and figure the relationship out alone.

 

Love is for losers.

 

Losers sacrifice their needs for their significant other, placing their needs above their own.

Losers willingly tackle confrontation, even if they may be wrong.

Losers are willing to let go of their expectations, settling instead for the beauty of reality.

Losers are humble enough to seek wise council from the community around them.

 

Everyone is a loser when it comes to love.  You are either losing the relationship or losing yourself in the relationship.  I don’t know about you, but I identify with both sets of losers.  The first set of losers explains how my marriage died.  The second set of losers paints a picture of what my next relationship will be.  Either I’m seeing my wife through my own personal needs, or I am setting those needs aside to humbly meet her needs authentically.  

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When I was in junior high school, a buddy of mine invited me to join the on campus Christian Club.  Realizing that students who participated in an on campus club got a “go to lunch 5 minutes early” pass, I jumped at the offer.  Our lunch lines were horrendous!  The student-led club was basically a Bible study that met once a week, with the occasional guest speaker thrown in.  I wasn’t raised in the church, but I was struck by the good company and became interested in what the big deal was about God and church and stuff.

 

This buddy of mine then invited me to attend church with him.  So, on Sunday mornings, he would bike to my house and then the two of us would pedal through the morning fog for Sunday services.  It was on one of these treks that my friend realized I did not own a Bible.  A few days later, my friend passed down his own well-worn Bible.  The dedication page was covered in white-out, and over the crusty paste he had written my name as the owner of the Bible and scrawled his name on the “From” line.

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I am no longer a believer.  I haven’t been for quite a while, actually.  I think it started when I was going through my divorce.  So much I had understood about God prior to my divorce was completely turned upside down, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I lived a good life, I went to Church, I prayed, I did all the things young Christians are supposed to do - and yet, when I got married my life fell apart.  I believed that God would reward me for my good behavior.  I believed that because I trusted Him, everything would be all right.

 

What I believed was wrong.  But He wasn’t the problem - it was me.  I succumbed to the typical American brand of Christianity.  In the United States, our consumerist culture wired me to expect God to behave like a vending machine.  

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