Tuesday Mornings

Rachel is doing well. I have always wanted to journal. In fact, I have gone in and out of stages the last 5 years of keeping a diary but it's tough to do consistently when you work 15 hours a day coaching, traveling and recruiting. The reason I say that is because I have nothing to report on Rachel at the moment but I still want to write. It's easier for me to do this than to write in a notebook. I realize there are some things not everybody needs to see; therefore, occasionally I will write something but not post it. So feel free to read, comment and participate in my journey OR just tune in when there is a "Rachel Update."

The highlight of my week is early Tuesday morning. I meet with two trusted friends to talk and pray. I have always had very close friends and I believe that is one of the big reasons I remain faithful. Below is a quote by C.S. Lewis that Mike Cope had on his blog the other day.

"I gave up Christianity at about fourteen. Came back to it when getting on for thirty. An almost purely philosophical conversion. I didn't want to. I'm not the religious type. I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master: but since the facts seemed to be the opposite I had to give in. My happiest hours are spent with three or four old friends in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small pubs--or else sitting up till the small hours in someone's college rooms talking nonsense, poetry, theology, metaphysics over beer, tea, or pipes. There's no sound I like better than adult male laughter."

I have said things like this before. In fact, this quote is a pretty good description of my journey. I've never been one just to accept things without questioning and digging. I have a hard time believing that Noah and his sons actually walked the earth and gathered every animal. Have you ever stopped to think; how did he get the elephants, water moccasins and lady bugs? I bought Abbey a big blue stuffed whale when she was born, but I'm wondering when she grows up if she will really believe that there was a man named Jonah who was swallowed by a whale, spit up and lived to tell about it...her Dad struggles with it. The bible can be a dangerous thing when your brain works like mine. However, this Tuesday morning it will all make sense. I will sit down with my two friends and we will remind each other that, yes, being a Christian is crazy. Some days it makes no sense. We pray to a God that sometimes seems to be so far. Christians that worship at the same place and worship the same God yet one tumor is malignant and the other, well, it's not even a tumor. We read Psalm 22 and then Psalm 23 and wonder what in the world is going on??? We cry, doubt, laugh and worry. But so far we always leave our Tuesday meetings as Christians. We keep on believing the story. We always spend time in the Psalms because that's where we find ourselves. In the same Psalm we see incredible faith and incredible doubt. We see songs of praise and songs of lament. We see dancing before the Lord and the next breath there is crying. Our group relates to the Psalms because it's there where we find our own journey. Tuesday mornings are "holy ground" because we don't study a book or exegete a text, but we laugh, cry, doubt and worry. We decide together to cast our lot with an unseen invisible God. Why? Well, I can only speak for myself. I peeked ahead and read the last Psalm. And after all the confusion, doubt and lament the very last line in the last Psalm says, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." So for now I will...and then I will decide again on Tuesday.