All she asked for was some water (Repostfrom281820)

I was out for a late night jog. These are the only type I get nowadays. With my schedule a wife and five kids you squeeze stuff in whenever you can. This is my alone time, I pop in the earbuds, turn on my Ipod and away I go. Sometimes I pray a bit but usually I just zone out and watch the rain fall in front of me as I run. Tonight was no different I did my usual run saw the usual people out and about and thought to myself as I trotted along , but when I was about 15 minutes away from home I saw her standing on the corner working away. If I crossed the street it would be obvious that I was trying to avoid her so I thought to myself just pass on by and don’t make eye contact, you don’t want to give the wrong idea. So I ran past looking straight through her as if she wasn’t even there. Then as I passed I heard a voice ask “can I please have some of your water?” It was as much a shock to me as it was to her when I stopped and turned around. She asked me again “I’m so thirsty can I please have some of your water bottle?” I handed it to her and told her to take the rest and to keep it. She said thanks and as I left I just said “take care kiddo.” As if we’d been friends for a long time. As I was jogging back home all I could think of was the women at the well. I didn’t have the wherewithal to share Christ with her tonight and who knows if it was my job to do anyways. What I do know is that the water I gave her will only quench her thirst temporarily but the living water that has been given for us all could quench it forever. I like to think that I accept all people and that I don’t judge others, but it’s just not true. Tonight a prostitute taught me that I am no better or more human than she is. I may have a roof over my head a family that I love and all the other stuff that I hold dear but I need that water just as much as she does. We worry about H1N1, the bills that are piling up, getting our way and about our rights being ignored. Yet there are people around us who have no food to eat no water to drink and no idea that anyone, especially God, could love them. I’m not going to be perfect and I won’t always have the right answer but from here on out I know that I’ll always run with an extra bottle of water.

Can't we just be Friends? Again.

So here is the issue. When we first became friends, it was because I truthfully had an interest in you and what was going on in your life. Over time I feel like we’ve lost something. You give me tid bits here and there but I don’t really know “you” anymore. You talk about Politics, what’s new in the media and sometimes but rarely you’ll tell me a funny joke or tell me a story about someone else but what I really want to hear about is you, your life, and what is going on with it.

Maybe that sounds sappy, but for me it’s true. You see at my very core I love people, relationships and community. I have my own political views and my stances on things but for some reason at some time you became a part of my life. Now either part of, or the limits of our relationship, is social Media. I love to hear the things that are going on in your life. Your Relationships, children, passions and joys. I want to be able to celebrate with you a promotion, or a new relationship, to see where you are today in comparison to yesterday. To know when things in life aren’t going so hot. Or when you are experience loss or struggles. When you have questions or just need a bit of prayer, I want to hear.  Oh yeah and if its funny stuff, keep posting that as well. Your sense of humor is part of what makes you.....well you.

Who you dislike or which politician you endorse, well quite frankly I don’t care. I can make up my own mind, hear the same speeches and can even use google myself.

Your causes, now here is the tricky part. I believe that our causes and our passions are often intertwined, but as a friend if you are going to point me to a cause please tell me why it means so much to YOU. Why does something affect you the way it does. Why does it make you change your profile pic or spam us all? What is it about this subject that touches you so.  Whether it’s your faith or your lifestyle. Whether a wrong that needs righting, or a cause for social justice. What does it mean to YOU!

You see I do actually care about you. Whether you like it or not I take the time to pray when I hear things about your life. You see to know me you need to know that being a beloved Child of God is at my very center. It’s just who I am. Yes I’m also a Husband, a father, a Pastor, a friend but ultimately I’m a Bible believing, Christ following dude that doesn’t even pretend to have all the answers, but I know the guy who does!

Now, tell me more about you!!

A Note to My Sons, (On fatherhood)

A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be. ~Frank A. Clark

Hey guys you're too young for this, so put it in the file for now but here is just part of what I want to share with you. You and you're sisters are an amazing gift to Mom and I. God continually uses you to help bring us closer to him. I'm going to share a bit now and hope that it makes sense to you why I'm sharing it with others as well. I pray everyday that you grow to be great men and that God uses you to impact this world for him. That you have an amazing journey and see awesome things, but most of all that someday you too can hold a child in your arms and be able to feel what I felt the first day I met you.

“Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.” 
― John Wilmot

Fatherhood isn't what I expected it to be. Harder? Yes. Challenging? Certainly. Fulfilling? More than words can explain. But what really surprised me is how this thing called fatherhood has been revealing. Being a Dad totally refines the definition of who you are. It doesn't take away from what you were before but rather utilizes those parts of you that you chose to ignore or didn't even know were there. Yesterday I took my son to a dance competition. As we drove there we talked for over an hour. No life changing discussions. No deep questions about life and God but just talked and laughed and enjoyed being together. Well there was one question. He asked “Dad how do you know if a grown up is lying about their age?” To which I simply replied are they male or female?  It took a second to set in and then he giggled uncontrollably for a bit and I'm sure will repeat the joke at least 100 times until a new one comes along. It wasn't to knock women it was just a joke between a dad and a son. We talked about making sure that he did his best at the competition. That he was respectful to his team-mates  his instructors and to the other competitors. What I noticed about this conversation as well as many of the others that I have with my kids is that as a parent and for me as a dad there was this moment where it wasn't all about me but it is about them. God may use me to do lots of things in life. He has already given me the opportunity to see and do so much, but nothing and I mean nothing in this world has been as great a gift as being a Husband to my wife and a father to my children.

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~Rev. Theodore Hesburgh

The key there is first being a Husband to my wife.  I make no claims at being the perfect husband. I'm a 6’2” 260lb, ADHD dreamer who can think big, play hard and throw down with the best of them but without my girl, I’d be a lousy dad and an even worse husband.  She puts up with a lot but stays by my side. Guys, no matter who your wife is, or how different you may be from one another it is your job to love her, to take a step back and look at her in all the beauty and gorgeousness that God created her. She’s not perfect and can probably push any one of your buttons if she chooses. Your marriage may be going great or not so hot, but you have to own your part. In Ephesians 5 Paul writes

 ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.^[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ³³ However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

I don’t know what you hear in this but here is what I’ve realized. If Christ can give up his life for me, can go to the cross for this sinner of mass proportions and can love me unconditionally. If I look to him as someone to emulate, as an ideal to strive toward. Then isn’t it my job to show my children through my relationship with my wife:

1.    How to treat a woman (for my boys)

2.    How a woman should be treated (for my girls)

3.    That there is a God and he loves us all

4.    What is really important in life (it's not all about me)

5.    That I love them no matter what

6.    How to care for others

7.    How to care for our own family and those God will bring into our family.

No, Fatherhood isn't what I expected, it is so much more!!!

Dad, when you were little did you have Special needs?

I came home the other day and my wife says Hey Cory, Char has a question for you. My lil girl comes up to me and in the sweetest voice possible asks “Daddy when you were little, were you special needs?” I didn’t know quite how to take or handle that one but then I looked at her reality. You see my son her older brother has special needs. My brother her Uncle also has special needs and to her as well as the rest of my kids this is just the norm. She was just being curious. Down deep she was wondering if this is something her brother will grow out of. If her uncle, will someday be like everyone else.  We like to say that nobody is normal, that everyone has their differences, weaknesses and strengths but the truth is that those with developmental disabilities are harder to figure out. In a day and age when we are all striving to be treated equally, what do we do with an adult who has temper tantrums and sometimes acts like a 6 year old child? Or a child whose only way to communicate is with his hands using a language we don’t know? A group of people whose advocates are parents siblings and friends because even though they have a lot to say and even more to show they are dismissed because they walk funny or look different or speak with a lisp or speech impediment. We don’t usually know how to handle these things. I admit even as a parent and a sibling I often get it wrong. I baby when I shouldn’t or try to force independence when they aren’t ready. I can become as frustrated as they do when they want to say something but don’t know the words to use. I looked down at my little girl and gave her a hug and just laughed off the question but as I’ve had time to think about it I believe my answer is now yes. You see Char,

I was born into a world that instead of appreciating its differences and celebrating its diversity it exploits it.

It chooses to segregate and divide

instead of educate and align.

It turns its back on good and holy

to look to the wealthy and glitzy.

Those who are beautiful are dismissed

as we write books and magazines on superficial bliss.

My brother and my son are the ones who were born with their eyes wide open.

They see the beauty inside,

the love in one’s eyes.

They know what’s right and wrong

and care not about race, creed, party and so on.

They know they have challenges and they push hard every day.

With a strength that very few know.

Hearing the laughs and the jeers,

the mocking and sneers,

Living in a world that cares more about its rights,

Than what’s right

They put trust in us,

The incomplete, the ignorant, and arrogant.

They forgive us no matter what and love us unconditionally.

They are always there with a smile and a hug.

A better anti-depressant than any drug.

They are the hands and the feet,

The eyes and the ears,

Without them we are incomplete.

Oh to see them as God sees them, as he sees us. Char they, just like you, are an expression of his love.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13:13

The Message (MSG)

Spiritual Gifts

^12-13 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

^14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

^19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

^25-26 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

^27-31 You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. You’re familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his “body”:

apostles
prophets
teachers
miracle workers
healers
helpers
organizers
those who pray in tongues.

But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called “important” parts.

But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

² If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

^3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹ When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Adventure in the ER

So I was planning on going to the movies the other night and then it happened. All parents sense it, that feeling you get early on in the day when you just have an inkling that the plans you had for later just might not happen. We had all just survived the flu bug and I figured I was good to go so I contacted my buddy to go see a flick. But there it was, the ear scratching, I tried to convince myself that it was just part of a cold. There was no fever no cough, really no other signs that he was sick but as the night got on it became clearer and clearer that this may not end up the way I had planned. So I got them all fed and ready for bed. Gave him some Tylenol and headed to the movies. Yeah, not winning father of the year here I know. But I got there and the guilt started to set in. The multiple texts helped the guilt set in but it was there all the same. So I called, and when I heard the voice on the other line, and the voice behind her, I knew that I was going home. Then off to the ER and that is where the adventure begins. The ER in Chilliwack never seems to disappoint. It is always quite entertaining and tonight was no exception. It was packed. We were greeted warmly, temp taken, weighed and then we sat down in the lobby. It didn't take long and then we heard it, “SECURITY, SECURITY” A gentlemen must not have liked what he had been told and proceeded to pound on the glass, fall back into his seat, then pound on the glass, puke on the floor.... Well you get the picture. So I'm expecting Paul Blart and his Segway to come blasting around the corner and save the day but nope, not quite what happened. Two elderly gentleman who before the put their security hats on looked like they had been waiting with the rest of us. In fact I had been worried that we were waiting so long one of them might not make it. Well they jumped up and 5 minutes and 20 feet later they got to this guy and with one shake of the finger he was out of there. They puffed out their chests went back to their seats and for one of them back to their nap as well. Either that or he was pulling the old Clint Eastwood hat over my eyes and pretend I'm asleep move. Well after that excitement and two hours of playing on my iPhone I noticed that my son was finally starting to fall asleep on my shoulder. I was in that critical moment where if I moved I would ruin my chances for the rest of the night so I sat there motionless staring over his head and watching Sportcenter. Then to my surprise I felt something on my other shoulder. I slowly turned my head so I wouldn't wake him up and sure enough the lady sitting next to me was fast asleep on my other shoulder, and even snoring. So I did what any good Dad does I turned my head back and finished watching the highlights of the day.  

As I look back on that night I find it funny that my wanting to go to the movie to escape a bit and to just “be with me” would have robbed me from who I really am. You see God gave me my kids not as a nuisance or a burden, not even because of how responsible he knew I’d be. No he gave them to me so I could realize what it is to be loved unconditionally to be able to comfort them when nobody else can. To learn to see things as they do. To see the “Cops who took down the bad guy!” and to be able to sit in a room full of strangers and just sit and smile at everyone who walks in no matter their race, gender, orientation, or level of intoxication. And to even share a shoulder with a stranger who as I looked over had tears in her eyes and tracks on her arms and who knows how long it had been since she’d had a Dad’s shoulder to lean on. Thanks lil Man for the adventure, and for keeping that smile on your face. If only everyone could see the amazing world that you do it’d probably be a better place.