Today is my birthday.

I’m starting my blog today.

I’m a writer and a pastor and a husband and a father.  I’m ridiculously gifted.

I’m a total trainwreck.

I am the most dysfunctional functional person I know.  I don’t think I’m flattering myself.

I’m a missionary.  I live in a slum in Nicaragua.  There’s a great blog by Jamie, The Very Worst Missionary (http://www.theveryworstmissionary.com/), and I would love to throw down with her to see who is REALLY the worst missionary, but she got to the name first and I don’t begrudge her for it.

I’m happily married for the last 22 years.  My wife and I have been together for 27 years now, if I’m counting from when we fell in love at first sight.  Ridiculously blessed.

I have this relationship with God in which I am constantly reminded that I am loved and adored beyond reason or explanation.  God has given me strange abilities, including that people open up to me.  I mean, folks I’ve never met before stop and tell me their life stories in parking lots, or while delivering propane to my house, or when I’m visiting a museum while they are working.  I’m also compulsive and addiction-prone, I am perhaps the worst forgiver who has made a commitment to forgiving (not optional, as I read it), and I spend about half my emotional energy dealing with the negative thoughts that invade my head.  That Nobel combined Peace-Literature prize I had planned to win hasn’t come my way yet.

I really want to change the world.  I want people to know they are loved and forgiven; I want them to have clean drinking water and jobs that will feed their families (50-70% of Nicaraguans are unemployed, depending on whose numbers you believe).  I want us to stop contributing to the devastation around us.  I want to live consistently.  I want to be the grace that I hope to see in the world.

I also want to play ultimate every chance I get, as long as I can, until my body falls to pieces.

Yeah, it’s a ridiculous life.  It’s mine.  I believe God has grace for the ridiculous.