A Ridiculous Life

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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.

8 thoughts on “A Ridiculous Life

  1. Dobbs

    Maybe they see you and see a man that couldn’t possibly be busy or have anything going on in his life. “Hey, isn’t that the King of Tokyo? We aren’t in Tokyo, so maybe he has time to listen to my whole life story.”

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