Growth

This weekend, Pastor Ken started his four week preaching series on the topic of "Applause."  Today,  we applauded all local graduates ... from preschool through college.  Next weekend, we applaud all mothers, the following weekend volunteers, and the final weekend, we'll applaud members of the military who have died serving their country.

As we applauded graduates today, Pastor Ken delved into the subject of Personal Growth.  He illustrated how many people use marks on the wall or door to track the progress of growth of our children.  From one day to the next, we may not see the growth, but when we look back months or years, the progress is very apparent.

How am I doing in my spiritual growth?  With tunnel vision, I really don't see any growth in me anytime recently.  However, part of the reason for creating this blog page is so that I may look back in months and years, and see where I stand compared to the past.

I was thinking this morning about graduation, and was stunned and a little depressed to realize it has been thirty one years since I graduated high school.  Comparing who I am now to 31 years ago, the changes in my life are extremely obvious!  Comparing myself to who I was three days ago is not so easy.  

For me personally, it is much easier for me to make comparisons in my life between now, and twelve years ago, when I moved to Ohio.  Although I didn't realize it at the time, God was much behind this change in my life, for that is when the biggest growth spurt started.  

I am blessed to have an extremely close friend (Chris), who knew me prior to me moving to Ohio, and is still extremely close to this day.  A brother type of relationship.  Someone who holds me accountable, who has no qualms as to being extremely honest and tells me as it is.  Someone who can never hurt my feelings, because this friend "has my permission" to be extremely blunt and open with me!

If you were to ask Chris today to compare my life from today to twelve years ago, he would be the first to tell you that I am nearly 100% different, for the better.  He recently reminded me in conversation, that when I moved to Ohio, for the first year or two, I had an extremely big chip on my shoulder.  Not only was I angry at God, but I was angry at the world.  Just shy of three years prior to my moving to Ohio is when Emily was killed in the jet skiing accident.  I had not yet gotten over the bitterness of losing such a beautiful person in my life.  I still think of her each and every day.  But anger no longer exists in that matter.  I no longer blame God and I no longer blame the church for what I considered a lack of compassion.  

During those first two years in Ohio, I was extremely anti-social.  I hated everyone, remember!  But today, Chris will tell you that he loves going to tailgates with me, because although he is shy (to a degree), I will be the first to go up to a total stranger and start a conversation!  

Most people do not know this, for I have never shared this publicly before ... but just two years prior to me moving to Ohio, shortly after moving to Austin, Texas, I swallowed an entire bottle of Tylenol PM, and an entire bottle of Advil.  My intention was to die.  I could no longer handle the pain in my life.  I saw no hope for the future.  For at that time, I had already "experienced God," but no longer had a close relationship with Him and saw no hope for the future.  Severe depression had taken over my life.  I no longer wanted to live that way.

About four hours after I took all those pills, a lady showed up to where I was when I took them.  She later told me that God had been nagging her all day to pay me a surprise visit, and although she protested, she decided to finally obey God and came to visit (although she had no other reason to visit.)  She called 911, an ambulance showed up and rushed me to the hospital, where I was pumped with charcoal (not very tasty at all!)  After that, I figured that Heaven didn't want me, and Hell is afraid of me, so what should I do?  I decided to just take it one day at a time, and I'd figure it out in time.

Today, Hell doesn't want me for a totally different reason!  I am filled with the Holy Spirit, and that makes Satan madder than a dog without a tail!  Heaven not only wants me, I already have an eternal reservation, and know that I am going to be living in a mansion with streets of gold!  But I also know that I am NOT going to show up earlier than when God actually wants me, because Heaven needs time to get all my walls painted Orange and Brown!  Speaking of which, yes, there IS orange, and there is brown, but no black, and no yellow allowed in Heaven!  It's part of Heavens Zoning Laws!  So if you are a lover of that song, "Black and Yellow", you may want to double check your eternal reservations!!  Okay, okay, enough Pittsburgh Steelers joking, well, for now anyway!

How am I doing in the area of dealing with conflict?  Still not perfect, but I would say my biggest growth spurt has been in the past seven months.  That is when a very challenging person accepted my offer to move in with me.  I am being tested and tested and tested almost on a daily basis by this person.  But compared to just seven months ago, the differences are huge!

How am I doing in the area of daily Bible Studying and Prayer time?  Well, let's put it this way.  Two months ago, when I opened my Bible, it creaked.  Almost the same sound as an old door in a haunted house.  Fortunately, when you enter this house, it's not haunted, though!  Light has been shining brighter than I've ever seen before!  I took a trip to the Bahamas once, expecting sun, but it was overcast and rainy while we were there!  Therefore, you can say that life is brighter than the Bahamas!

I joined the social network of Facebook in 2004 originally.  Didn't start using it, though, until 2006.  Occasionally, I will go back and look back at my posts over the past seven years!  "Wow, I can't believe I actually said that or did that" comes out of my mouth frequently when I look back over the past seven years!

So, no ... I do not have lines on a wall or door measuring any physical growth.  I haven't really gotten any taller in the past 31 years (although I HAVE gotten much wider, and the reminders of that are on the waist sizes on any pants or jeans I own!)  But I do have mile markers in my life that I can look back at and say that yes, I've grown!  And there will be many more mile markers ahead, for my growth is not yet complete!