She completes me

i'm a tough guy. i don't need anyone. People and relationships mean nothing to me because i am an island. i can do it alone and i can do it better when i am alone. Having someone else in my life just slows me down. If i could just have some peace and quiet with myself things would be so much better.

Who am i kidding? i am smitten. i am in deep smit over my wife. See this picture? This is us on our wedding day. Some people talk about how their wedding day was the beginning of the end for them. That once you say, "I do", you say, "Yes dear" the rest of your life. Thankfully, my marriage to Angela has been the beginning of a great life.

This has all been pushed to the forefront of my mind since we have been apart for four days. i know four days isn't a lot but that is the reason for my post. She completes me. i have heard it said before that you need to be a complete person before you can really appreciate the person you are going to marry. That you need to "figure yourself out" before you can really be in a place to love someone until you can do that. To some extent there is a maturing that each person needs to go through before they can be ready but some people complicate it to much. For me, i was 28 when i met Angela and it was not a day too soon. Looking back, i can see that God had His hand in the whole thing.

My whole life i had been thinking that i was going to be an island for the rest of my life and that if i married that we would be co-habitating and working towards similar but different goals. How wonderfully wrong i was. In reality she and i are working towards the same goal and we are team members trying to acheive that which the Lord has set before us. We work in lock step and if the other is weaker that day the other pulls the weight. She completes me.

Tomorrow, i will drive to pick up Angela, Gloria and Bernadette. i love Gloria and Bernie with all my heart but when i have Angela in my arms again, then i will be complete.

Farewell, Falwell

As many of you know, i am a Jerry's kid. I attended Liberty University for two years from 92 to 94. My experience at this university was a very positive one because of the people i met and the friendships i established. There are some things that happened while i was there that frustrated me, but overall, it was a very good experience.

One of the things that i really enjoy are looking at political cartoons on the internet. What was so frustrating for me was that i went to my favorite politcal cartoon website the same day that Jerry Falwell died and there were already some of the most hateful cartoons published about him. People suggesting that Tinky Winky was going to be in the place of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates and others suggesting that he went straight to hell. Jerry didn't always get it right, i admit, but there were times when Jerry got it right.

One of those times was when a student that i knew was caught at an off campus party drinking alcohol, a big no-no for anyone attending Liberty. The policy was that he would be expelled from campus. Obviously, he didn't want to go home in shame to his parents for a night of bad choices so he found Jerry Falwell pulling up in his black suburban and asked if he could talk to him for a minute. Jerry let this guy into his car and this student proceeded to explain how he made this bad choice and that vowed his commitment to making better choices. Jerry sat there calmly listening to him and when he had finished, Jerry asked for this guys name and said that he would take care of making sure he stayed in school. Jerry did know about forgivness and how to give it unlike what people would have you believe.

As some of you know, i love the band U2. I own almost all of their albums, lots of international recordings and some of their fan club recordings as well. One album i do not own now is Rattle and Hum. During this rendition of "Bullet the Blue Sky", Bono goes off about "some preacher on the Old Time Gospel Hour stealing money from the old and the sick. Well the God i believe in isn't short on cash mister." I understand that there are some predatory "ministers" out there that do prey on the old and the sick but Jerry Falwell, whose show is called "The Old Time Gospel Hour", isn't predatory. He does pass the offering plate and he does ask people to give but he is not one of those preachers that lives lavishly off of what people give him. He lived a very reasonable life, as far as i can tell.

One of Jerry's biggest flaws is railing against gays. Now don't get me wrong, i am not saying that gay is ok but should it be a hill to die on? I was listening to a political analyst on msn talking about the death and legacy of Falwell. He is a rabbi and i assume from his ideas a liberal but he said something that i thought was good. He said that something that Jerry should have been going after much harder as a social ill is divorce and how divorce has ravaged our society and even our churches. He said, "Even if he was able to take homosexuality to zero in Amercia, homes would still be wrecked and laid to waste because of the destruction of divorce in our families." I tend to agree with that statement.

There is something else that follows this same logic that i learned in the financial class that Ang and i are taking. (Yes, you will continue to hear about this financial class for at least 4 more weeks) We were learning about giving and the issue of the poor came up. Check this out from Ezekiel 16:49:

"Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

Um...i don't know about you, but i always thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. But here in Ezekiel he says that Sodom (and persumably Gomorrah) had more issues than just that. Another of their major sins was that they had plenty but gave nothing to the poor and needy. When i read that it hit me between the eyes! Jerry would often talk about the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah and about how they were destroyed because of their homosexuality. I am not arguing that homosexuality was part of their iniquity but you can't ignore what Ezekiel says here about another part of their iniquity being that they did not help the poor. Wouldn't that have been a campaign that Jerry could have championed? Would people have gotten behind him on that?

Without question, Jerry Falwell has left his mark on the political landscape of America forever. Some will remember him as a champion of Christians rights. Some will remember him as a hate monger. I will remember him as a man who challenged Christians everywhere to come out of the shadows and stand up for what they believed in. Not with weapons or force but with the ink of their pen on a ballot. Thank you, Jerry, for helping people stand.

I forget, does God get 10% or 90%?

The hour is late so all of you in "blogger-land" get the benefit of a short post by me. I just got done balancing the checkbook and have been reminded again of a fantastic truth that i have had my eyes opened to lately. Angela and i are taking a course by Crown Financial Ministries about how God wants you to handle your money. It has been extremely convicting and has really tested my view on money in general. Again, it is late so i am not going to throw a lot of verses out there but did you know that there are over 2350 verses in the bible that have to do with money? Crazy, huh? The one verse i will quote is one that we had to memorize for the first week of the class, "Therefore, if you have not been faithful with the use of worldly wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?" Luke 16:11. Pretty heavy, huh? We are to be stewards of the things that God has given to us. Sure, we might own it on paper, but if you believe that "the Earth is the Lord's in all it's fullness" then everything you "own" is God's and you are just taking care of it for him. I have never been one of those Christians that thinks that God wants me to be rich but i have been one of those Christians that thinks that as long as i could sell everything tomorrow and come out ahead i am doing ok. What this course has taught me is that i "should owe no many anything except a debt of love". As i got to thinking about this i realized that i am not able to help people as well when i am a slave to this bank or that mortgage company. I really can't move freely according to His will because part of whatever decision i make will at some point come to how it affects my ability to make my monthly payments on time.

Angela and i are not role models for how to manage your money but we are making a concerted effort to "attack" our debt and eliminate it. As i look around my church like i did this morning, i wonder how many other people in my church have this same issue going on. They have taken on debt for either an essential need or an unnecessary want and now they are saddled with a debt that they are struggling under. Why is it that we are never content? Angela and i have coveted a house near us that is gorgeous. It has been vacant since we have seen it so longer than 4 years. Today there was activity there! We went over to see what we could see and there were the two daughters of the owner getting it ready to sell. We asked if we could take a tour of the place and they were happy to oblige. It was just as gorgeous inside as we had imagined. Built in 1935 by the first woman to graduate from the UW school of architecture, it has a spiral staircase, a library, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, lots of little extras and a beautiful backyard. Yeah, and only $425,000.00! What did we do with that information? We promptly went back and tried to figure out how we could afford that house! Could we? No. Did we keep thinking about it? Oh yeah! The desire for more, bigger and better is so engrained in us and that is the first thing that we need to correct. The desire for "stuff".

As i recall, John the baptizer said, "i must decrease and He must increase". The same is true for me, i must decrease and He must increase. God does not have 10% of my paycheck. He has it all. I am just His steward.