What Was God Thinking?

Several people were sitting around a table at Jon's Main Street Diner talking about their faith. One says to the others, "The issue is obedience. God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of one tree and they couldn't even obey that simple command. It's about OBEDIENCE, plain and simple." The others nodded in agreement; but is it really that simple?

I don't know about you, but I think the top three questions I might have for God when I get a chance to ask Him about this grand experiment called Creation would be:

1. Why did you create that tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; or why didn't you plant it on the opposite side of the globe rather than right there in the Garden?
2. If you wanted that tree there, why didn't you do more than simply tell them they would die if they ate it's fruit? Why didn't you tell them that it would destroy their trust in you; that it would destroy their relationship with one another; that disobedience would result in so much pain and that their descendants would hate them for messing up what would have been a perfect world?
3. (And this is one that, even if God chose to answer, it would make no sense to us and would simply have to be one of those only He will understand.) Was it worth it? Was Adam and Eve's disobedience worth the millions, even the billions, of lost souls condemned for an eternity in Hell?

Your burning questions may differ from mine. I'm no biblical scholar - don't want to be one. I'm sort of a jack of a handful of trades - master of none. But I do wonder what the world and what my life would have been like had Adam and Eve not screwed up.

While I have no satisfactory answer to the last question, I can kinda wrap my mind about a possible scenario that helps to understand the first two questions. Why was that tree in the Garden to start with? The answer raises another question: Was obedience God's ultimate desire from humans? I think there is abundant evidence in scripture where his motivation wasn't our obedience but our affection and our trust - which sort of answers part of question #2.

If God's primary purpose for the tree had been to command our obedience, He must have known up front that fear of the consequences of disobedience (or fear of the Lord) wasn't going to be enough to stop Adam and Eve from taking that first bite. True, neither Adam or Eve had ever learned about fear or death so it was probably an abstract notion to them; but notice how Lucifer uses the truth to deceive them. He told Eve that they would not surely die (the lie), but that they would be like God and know good and evil (the truth). They had had only good experiences with God and it was not wrong to want to be like God, there's no sin in that. But what Lucifer succeeded in doing was to plant a seed of doubt about whether they could really trust God or was He keeping something from them so that He could always be greater than they? At that point, Adam and Eve decided to eat for their own benefit; and as a result, they did know good and evil - that they had been deceived and that God had been right telling them not to eat that fruit.

That leads into the second question: Why didn't God tell them why it would kill them and what the consequences were for the billions of their descendants? Perhaps the answer here is that God wanted their trust so much that He allowed them to betray His trust in order to gain it back. More than that, God wanted their love, not just their obedience. Love and trust - those were God's motivations for creating Adam and Eve. Perhaps only by knowing evil would humans really know goodness. Only by doing it our way could we truly learn to trust God's way.

At first blush, we'd have to say that mankind failed the experiment, if that's all this life is. As far as the third question - was it worth all those souls in Hell because He chose to create that tree?...it's hard for us to reconcile the depth of love God has for every person and His desire that all be saved for a relationship with Him, with the unfathomable consequences of Satan's deceit of mankind. Do I care if Satan burns in a hotter corner of Hell than someone who never got the chance to even hear about Jesus Christ? No - for that soul is someone God loved just as surely as He loves me, or He loved David, or Abraham, or even His only Son.

I think of my older brother who passed away a couple of years ago. He knew about God, but I don't know that he knew Him enough to have a saving relationship with Him. Because I love my brother, despite all his flaws - and they were many, I don't want to think of him being tortured where Satan and truly evil people are. I don't know that Roger is separated from God for all eternity because I never truly knew his heart. But I do trust the heart of my Creator who wants me to call Him Father, who's Son wants me to consider Him as my brother, who's Spirit was given to me freely when I simply asked for Him to come live inside me and to help me learn to love and trust God more and more.

I am no better than my brother, no more deserving of salvation - but I have to believe that it was not simply a matter of fate that I chose to accept God's free gift rather than going with my own plan for my life.

I still struggle with the notion that some choose to turn down His offer of an eternal relationship; and that many more never had the chance to even learn about Jesus Christ and, as we're taught in church, now are eternally separated in a place of hopelessness and despair. Yet I go back to what I do know - that God loves me enough to come to earth to show me the way back to Him. He's met every need I've ever had; He's carried me through life's interruptions when my own strength wouldn't suffice; He's been gentle in His corrections; and He's given me so much more than I could imagine attaining on my own. Little by little I'm learning to trust Him, and as I trust Him I come to love Him more. You can't betray the love of someone you really trust; you can mess up, but you keep coming back because you know they love you and that they will forgive you and welcome you back; and there's no place you'd rather be. What was God thinking? He was thinking of me, and of you, and all who would come to love Him, because He is Love.

War on Wasps

Twice in the past few days, I've been assaulted by large wasps inside my house. I fear these two incursions into my safety zone is a prelude for a mass attack at some point in the future. I have yet to determine their point of insertion into friendly lines, thus a full-scale inspection of the perimeter is in order.

On Saturday evening, while lying in bed talking to my fiance, a large paper wasp (I ascertained its nature by gathering intel online) flew through my line of sight. Immediately, adrenaline enabled me to roll off the bed and crawl through my bedroom door, closing it behind me to trap the enemy and to escape an imminent threat of being injected with venom from its ovipositor - originally designed as a tube for the laying of eggs but reengineered to hold toxins designed for defense and to kill their prey. Twenty-four years in the Army prepared me to defend myself from this airborne assault.

With a sick daughter and a baby in the house, I knew I couldn't simply allow the infiltrator to remain until it founds its egress the same way it got in. Ruling out a broom, which was too flimsy to deliver a killing blow, I opted for a shoe. I cautiously reentered my bedroom, closing the door behind me. All the while, I'm talking to my fiance on the phone - apprising her of my situation in case reinforcements or medivac needed to be called in. Finally I spotted the wasp on the corner of my book case. I struck it with a might blow that caused books to topple over. The wasp, much larger than most I've seen and obviously on some sort of growth hormone or steroids, simply shrugs off the blow and leaps into the air, circles the blades of my ceiling fan and aligns itself on approach in retaliation for my drawing first blood. As it flies in deliberately and slowly, I knock it down in mid-air, demonstrating great hand-eye coordination for someone of my advanced years. It slams to the floor, stunned and angry. I can hear it buzzing; so I bend over and deliver six solid blows. At this point, I observe that the enemy is unable to fly, but is still mobile. As it begins to crawl in my direction, I wonder what it will take to kill this fiend. So I gather all my strength and call on God to help me. I said, "In (slap) the Name (bam) of Jesus (pow)(boom) die you @*@&#&#&*%!" My fiance is cracking up on the other end of the phone.

I sit back on the bed, sweating from exertion. The wasp moves again, though clearly broken. I shake my head, just as Apollo Creed did when Rocky Balboa wouldn't stay down after been repeatedly knocked on his keister. But although I respected the wasp's strength and tenacity, I knew that it was behooving of me to end this stand-off and protect my loved ones, and so that I could go to sleep without leaving one eye open in case this wasp had regenerative powers like David Banner. I took the point of my shoe and pressed it as hard as I could against the wasp, pinning it to the floor, and held it there until the wasp had time to suffocate. I watched until I saw another wing flicker, pounded it until the wasp's body split in two. Then I brought in the vacuum cleaner and sucked up the corpse, then removed the vacuum to the Florida room in case it was bionic like Lindsey Wagner. For only female wasps can sting.

I thought that the first attack was simply the result of a door left ajar too long, but this morning, as I was getting out of the shower, another large wasp flew within inches of my face. I leaped back into the shower, closing the door behind me, but quickly realized that I had three feet of open space above the door through which the wasp could attack. I realized that I could not be in such a confining space.

This time the wasp had caught me in a more precarious predicament. I was naked. Naturally, the first thing I did was to bend over and place a hand over my privates. I knew I could survive a sting to any other part of my body, even to my face, but a sting to my privates would probably be fatal. After all, the wasp's stinger was tiny and its target was perhaps a thousand times larger - or at least I'd like to think so.

Apparently the wasp was wary of me and kept its distance. Perhaps it was the mate of the one I'd slain in combat a few nights previously. Or it could have been the same wasp brought back from the pit of hell to finish what it started. Eventually, I was able to slide by the wasp and rush out the bathroom door, closing it behind to trap the wasp inside. This time I thought I needed the additional reach of the broom so I headed for the laundry room to retrieve one. I'd just started opening the door to the bedroom before I remembered I was naked, and wet. Grabbing a pair of shorts from a chair, I quickly put them on and got the broom. With my privates at least partially protected by cloth armor, I cautiously reentered the bathroom. The wasp was crawling around on the light fixture. I waited until it flew past me and landed on the mirror. It's a wonder it didn't crack when I struck it hard enough to turn over my shaving cream and mousse cans. The wasp, obviously as strong as its predecessor, shrugged off the blow and flew over to the window blinds to recover. At that point I decided that brute force alone wasn't going to rid me of this thing, so I opted to deploy chemical warfare in the form of TileEx Soap and Scum Remover. I followed that with some Clorox mold remover. The fumes almost made me pass out, but fortunately the wasp too was overcome and fell into the tub. I immediately turned on the hot water and grabbed the wand, drowning it for several minutes. Then I followed this with more Tilex and Clorox. I took a respite to shave, all the time watching for any sign of movement. After shaving, I used the corner of an envelope to scoop up the wasp and carry it over to the toilet where I flushed it down the toilet to make sure it was dead. For safety reasons, I closed the lid just in case it was able to find it's way back from death again. The smooth sides of the toilet would prevent it from scaling its walls. At this point, I needed another shower because I'd worked up a sweat. I also thought it couldn't hurt to flush more water down that drain and carry the demon spawn as far away from my house as possible.

It seems as though the chemical weapons are the most effective defense against this enemy. I will be stopping by supply channels, located at Wal-Mart, to obtain some wasp and hornet spray, Sevin dust, moth balls, ant and roach baits and anything else I can use to defend my family and home from invaders. If these precautions don't work, I'm going to call in the professionals; because I'm too out of shape to keep running from these darn bugs.

Time & a Legacy

Last night I attended the visitation for a friend and former National Guard soldier, Charlie David Hobgood. David was 53. Of him, his wife said that he loved his family and he loved the National Guard. Another fellow soldier remarked that David would do anything that you asked of him and never asked for anything in return. He had a weak body, but a good heart. That's a pretty good legacy to leave behind you. David was a character; he would bring to annual training a footlocker full of National Enquirers and Hustler magazines. In his laundry bag would be at least two gallons of Jack Daniels that he'd purchased with his "J, D" money. Any bill that had a J or a D in the serial number went in his pocket for his favorite drink; the rest went to his wife to pay the bills. I'll miss David.

I stood outside the Gentry-Newell Funeral Home in Oxford waiting for other old friends to show up, but they didn't. While I waited I looked across the street at the campus where I attended school from the first grade until I graduated in 1970. Also visible from the steps of the funeral home was the end of the street I'd grown up on, Forest Avenue. It was hard to beleive that a half-century ago I would ride my bike over those same cracked sidewalks on my way down-town to the Orpheum or to my dad's hardware store, Morton's Hardware. As I marveled at how fast time has passed: fifty years when I played on that street, twelve years since I'd retired from the National Guard and last seen David, twenty-seven years since I've last seen the children from my first marriage....I realized that most of my life is behind me...just not the best part.

Thinking back to my youth, I recalled my parents and how they worked hard, sacrificed for my brothers and me, and made sure that we had everything we needed growing up. We weren't one of those overly affectional families. My father worked hard six days a week and would come home and work the garden until dark; go to bed and be back at work at 6:30 the next morning. My mother kept the house, took in sewing and helped relatives put up tobacco in the summers.

If I had to sum up my parents in a couple of words, I guess I'd say that my father (Daddy) was strong and generous. I've seen him hoist two 50 lb feed bags on his shoulders and take them out to the back of a farmer's truck. I've seen him grab a hammer off the wall behind him and chase a knife-wielding robber down the street and cathch him in front of the court-house and beat the hell out of him. I was scared at the time but it's funny thinking back on it. I've also seen him write off a farmer's debt to the store when their crops didn't turn out, and I've ridden with him many times to take vegetables we grew in our garden to the homes of widows and elderly people.

My mother wasn't as outgoing as my father. Where he was witty, she was shy. Two words that would describe Mama are, devoted and cynical. Perhaps I got my own brand of sarcastic humor from the two of them. Mama complained about everything, but she wouldn't quit on people, especially her kids. I never had a birthday party growing up because Mama was too shy to invite people into the house, but many times she would squeeze a little money in my hand that she'd earned from sewing or washing other people's sheets and tell me to go see a movie. Other times I couldn't go out of the yard and if I failed to respond when she called me, a switch was waiting when I got home.

My dad earned $65 a week back then, yet we had a least one vacation every year, often two; he drove a fairly new vehicle every couple of years, and we never went hungry or without clothes for school and church. Mama said it was because Daddy tithed regularly. She also would scold us when we complained about not having something we wanted that my dad worked hard and that he could buy that scratchy, one-ply toilet paper, but instead he bought the good stuff for us - so be grateful!

Like most teenagers, I couldn't wait to grow up and get away from home, even if it meant responding to my draft notice and giving them two more years if they'd train me in military intelligence. My parents never stopped being parents however. When I came home in the early 1970s to the still segregated South with an African wife, they opened their home and let her stay with them while I sought a home at Ft. Bragg. When I was stationed in Berlin, they surprised me for my birthday by flying in. Neither had ever been on a plane, let alone crossed the ocean to another continent. Having no car, we walked or took the bus everywhere we went, pushing strollers because by then there were two children. By the time there were four, and a different wife, my parents made regular trips to Augusta, Georgia to visit us. Mama always insisted on cooking and Daddy always snuck a $50 or a $100 bill in my pocket before they left.

That's something I didn't really think about until last night looking down my old street. My parents always wanted to be part of my life, even when I'd left and started a life of my own. In their latter years both were forced by circumstance to enter nursing homes. My dad lasted six months - he was always strong. Although I would visit and bring Mama, I was never comfortable with the smell of the home or the vacant look my father's eyes had. He knew that it would be a week, maybe two before family would come see him again; and although he never was one to toss around a baseball with his son, he was fiercely proud of my service and that I was the first in the family to graduate from high school. My mother lived to be 93, her mind still as sharp and critical as when I'd grown up. She only lasted a month, and altough we visited her every night after work, I remember the fear in her eyes as we left for our homes. For both my parents, home and family were as important as church and honoring God.

Now that my youngest is a rising senior, soon to be college student and starting a life of her own, I understand why my parents wanted to remain part of our lives. Someone needs to remember those who raised us the best way they knew how. We need to remember those who put their loved ones before themselves, who sacrificed their dreams to help make their children's dreams come true. We need to have someone validate that we did make an impact on this earth when we were alive. That doesn't mean that we never mattered to God, but it's important to us that we matter to those we love.

If I could take my daughter aside and tell her something important that will leave a piece of my legacy behind, it would be to remember the moments, to live this time you have now. The things that irritate her now will seem precious to her later on. What she couldn't wait to flee from will be the place she most longs to return to. The ones who smother her now will be the ones she most wants to hold her when life gets tough. I know that I will always want to be a part of someone who has given me unspeakable joy and purpose; and wherever she goes, she takes a part of me with her. Like David, we might not have as many years as my parents enjoyed on this earth. What we do have is this moment and our memories and the legacy left us by those who walked this life with us for awhile.

God bless Daddy, God bless Mama, God bless David, God bless my little girl. God bless you.

Compensating God

This really should have been written before my "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" post; so if you haven't read either, read this one first and it might help you understand how I got to where I am now.

The Church told us the truth that we cannot earn our way to an eternity with God; that it is by believing in Jesus Christ that we are saved. I understood that truth but still struggled with my obligations to God. Perhaps I was confused by the 'conflicting' teachings that we can't earn salvation, we're little more than slugs saved by grace, and that we owe God everything. That's all true, but it's not everything we need to understand about God's love and grace.

Several years ago I was invited to visit a local church to hear a prophet who was speaking there. Near the end of his message, this prophet pointed to me and said, "God has a word for you." I looked around, hoping he was pointing at someone behind me, but the prophet shook his head and said, "Yes, you in the blue shirt looking around - God has something to say to you." I nodded meekly, steeling myself for a possible rebuke. Lord knows, I deserved to be rebuked...I just didn't want Him to call me out publically. The prophet walked halfway down the aisle and pointed his finger at me and said, "God wants you to know that He has seen all that you have done for Him, but He also wants you to know that it doesn't mean a thing. God is not interested in your service, He wants you to get to know Him as a Father."

I'd never met or heard of this prophet before. Only a handful of people at the church knew me and I know they didn't prep this guy by telling him about what I did back in my own church. That's why I knew it was really God speaking to me through this man. Sometimes people talk through their ass and claim it's God speaking through them, but this guy was right on the money.

For two or three years, I had been a deacon in my church - not through biblical qualifications, but because I was one of the few men who showed up on a regular basis. God used a donkey in the OT, guess He could use an ass who made himself available. Not only was I an usher, but I was a greeter, the janitor, the guy who wrote, printed and folded the weekly bulletins (with some help from my Sunday School class), a Sunday School teacher, I prepared the communion elements, helped paint the church classrooms, and pretty much anything else that needed doing around the church. If the doors were open, I was there; and when they weren't, I had a key to let myself in.

You see, I had been saved back on Father's Day in 1996, and although I knew I was saved by grace, I felt like I owed God something for saving me. Now that I was saved by grace, I felt obligated to compensate God for everything He was doing for me after saving me. After all, He didn't snatch me up at confession, but left me here for a reason, so God must have wanted something from me.

The church, unwittingly, was complicit in my deception. They allowed me to do all those things. After all, if I told them that I was called by God to use my spiritual gifts in administration and helps, then who were they to deny me the right to serve God? Rather, they encouraged me, and when I couldn't perceive God's acceptance and approval of my service, I took their praise as His approval. At one point, I was cleaning the church on a weekly basis and the leadership decided they should pay me for my efforts. I took this as an affirmation that I was on the right path. It wasn't long though before some of the people who used to praise me for cleaning the church for free were complaining about how they weren't getting their money's worth. What used to be a blessing to me turned into a bitter feeling towards those people and I quickly gave up the position as custodian to someone else who needed the money. Then I wondered what I had done to displease God. I never knew if I was doing enough or doing it well enough to merit His approval.

I think it was Micah who said something like, "What can we give to the Lord? Our possessions? Our time and energy? Are those enough?" (I'm paraphrasing here because I'm too lazy to look it up.) "Well what if I gave a dozen rivers of oil; would that be enough? What if I did like Abraham and offered my first-born as compensation for my sins - would that satisfy God?" Micah understood that we can't do enough, nor does God expect us to try.

What God has always wanted is a relationship with those who are created in His image. While I was worrying about keeping Him appeased because Jesus had to suffer and die for my rebellion, God wanted me to treat Him like a Father rather than a task-master. Why is it that we're afraid to get close to Him? Are we afraid He's going to ask us for some hard sacrifice? Maybe we're afraid if we get close He's going to spank us for our sins. Why do we expect Him to be less loving as a parent than we are?

What the prophet said to me didn't change my activities immediately, but the seed was planted. It took a few months before I started letting things go. It took a church split for me to simply quit trying altogether. I don't blame the church for its complicity in my self-deception. There are people like me in every congregation who substitute activity for a personal relationship with Papa. It was the continued support and love of my pastor and his family that helped me see that God has no expectations of me. I'm free to approach Him, and free to shy away. God is gentle.

He's like a kind person who sees a stray puppy and who coaxes it to come get some food, a nice home, and loving care. The puppy, so scrawny you can count every rib, takes a tentative step forwards because it wants what the man has. But if the man makes a move towards the puppy, it shies back because it's been hurt and deceived by man before. The man, though knowing that he offers everything this poor puppy could ever need, also knows that he can't force it to come to him. Either the puppy allows his need to overcome caution, or the puppy chooses to risk the unknown and misses out on something it really wants.

When I truly understood that God's motivation isn't to make my life miserable by demanding everything from me, and that He actually delights in me, then I was able to stop trying to please Him and learn to love Him; and by loving Him I'm able to accomplish more than I ever could trying to compensate Him for all of His grace and mercies in my life. Like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, God has never loved me less - even when I've taken advantage of Him. His love has been constant and His desire has been for me to know His love and to love Him in return.

Nights In Rodanthe

One of my favorite writers, Nicholas Sparks, has another movie coming from one of his novels: Check it out here. http://nightsinrodanthe.warnerbros.com/

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not....

I grew up in the Church. Some of my earliest memories were of tent revivals where a sweating preacher would yell and scream hellfire and damnation. People clapped and shouted "Amen!" amid a flurry of paper fans, provided to them by the local funeral homes. But even though I don't recall any specific sermons growing up, I do remember that there was a lot of emphasis on keeping the Ten Commandments and warning us to avoid those who broke the Law.

In recent years there has been more teachings on grace and mercy, but for the most part when you turn on a TV, you're still assaulted by a God of holy justice; the same God who committed ethnic cleansing in the Old Testament and Who rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and Who threatened humans with the fires of Hell if we didn't love this fierce, righteous, unbending, and quick to condemn us, God.

Then we read the New Testament and see a different God, a God of love, peace, mercy and grace. We're left wondering what happened to God between Malachi and Matthew? Did God repent of His ways and get saved? How do we resolve the conflicting Gods of the Old and the New Testaments? If God is truly schizophrenic, which of Him do I wake up to each morning? It's kind of like a child plucking the petals off a daisy while repeating, "He loves me; He loves me not; He loves me; He loves me not.

I got a raise at work: He loves me.
I failed to pay my tithes: He loves me not.
I met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with: He loves me.
The doctors have given up on chemo and radiation to fight my daughter's cancer: He loves me not.


I spend most of the day wondering whether I'm in God's good graces, or whether I'm a breath away from waking up in Hell. With this concept of God, I'm more like the slovenly steward who hid the talent the Master gave him in fear of losing even that and displeasing the Master. If the only reason I’m even responding to Him is to serve my own self-interest and escape Hell, am I really loving Him or myself?

Having grown up with that kind of theology, it's no wonder that churches are still preaching judgment over love. We're told that God judged America on 9/11, or that He judged New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. I think that most Christians are like me, having learned in churches that focused more on obeying God than on loving Him. Most of us, truth be told, turned to God out of a fear of Hell than out of love for Him. I mean, how can you love someone you can't trust? How can you trust a God who demands that you love Him while dangling you over a fiery pit, and threatens to drop you unless you say what He wants you to say? Didn't Jesus Himself say that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, your soul and all your strength? It seems the church's response has been that the fear of God is equivalent to loving Him.

It’s no wonder that Christians are turning so many away from God at a time when the world needs Him more than ever. They don’t want one more drop of God’s life other than the minimum required to escape Hell. How do we reconcile that God with Jesus who loved us enough to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and forgive murderers, thieves and prostitutes?

Wayne Jacobsen observes that, “We live in a day when millions have made a commitment to Christ and yet so few lives are really transformed by His power. It has been said of this generation that our Christianity is a mile wide but only an inch deep. People claim to know God but show no transformation in their daily lives. We challenge them as hypocrites and attempt to badger them into more righteous lifestyles, but in the end most believers end up as much a part of the world’s ways as their nonbelieving neighbors.”

Recently I picked up a book that's opened my eyes to God's love. I've mentioned it on another post here: "The Shack" by William P Young. If you go to the author's blog, you'll see testimony after testimony about how this book has positively impacted people's lives. It has done the same with me. I now have an inkling of understanding this Father that Jesus presented in the Gospels.

In The Shack, Mack suggests to Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) that he has tried to keep the Law and lead as good a life as possible. Sarayu’s response was, “How’s that working for you?”

I think now that I have a better grasp on how God can love me in spite of my sins and failures. Before Jesus came, we could only see God’s actions and assume He was moved by motivations similar to our own. Jesus presented God as a loving Father, One who is willing to allow His children to sin in order to show them how destructive sin can be. Jesus’ message was not to come to God or you’ll burn in Hell; His message was that God’s kingdom has come near and you can become a participant in it.

Jacobsen goes on to say, “He allows us the consequences of sin, not because He delights in our anguish, but so we can see its devastating effect and run to the only one in the universe who can set us free from them. His wrath against sin was not His rejection of us in anger, but only a reflection of the depth of love that cannot look away unconcerned as sin destroys us. There is no one that God does not love with all that He is. His love reaches beyond every sin and failure, hoping that at some moment they will come to know just how loved they are.”

So here I am, on the cusp of a new revelation of God. Finally understanding that God is not conflicted, but that He has always wanted a personal relationship with me based on love and trust; I feel that it is time to cast off the old cloak of shame and put on this new cloak of belonging to God. Rather than ask you to counsel and save me from some new false doctrine, I ask you to do what Sarayu did when you see me revert to my old religious ways: Say, “How’s that working for you?” With the new life-partner God brought into my life (my fianc'e, Pamela), I look forward to the future and our journey in loving God more.

A Rainy Day at the Beach

Are you ready?
Did it hurt?
Did you feel anything?
Well, did you at least get wet?
Did you do anything yet?
Do you want me to open your legs?
I don’t think they’re supposed to bend that way.
Are you going to eat that?
Would you like some butter on that?
I’m so full.
Thanks for coming.
It was wonderful dear.
Is there an ‘off’ button on this thing?
.
,
.
,
,

And now that you've all blushed, here's the rest of the story:

On Thursday night, Pam and I went to The Lucky Fisherman seafood restaurant, located at Oak Island, NC for dinner. A quick storm came up just as we arrived, with a little hail mixed in, so I dropped Pam off at the door so she wouldn't get too wet. I asked her before she exited the car, "Are you ready?" Pam nodded and dashed up the steps to the restaurant's covered porch. I parked the car and ran through the rain to join her on the 'porch' where other diners waited for seating. I inquired about whether she'd gotten too wet or if she'd been struck by the hail, "Did it hurt?", referring to the hail. She said no, so I asked if she'd even felt the hail, "Did you feel anything?" Again Pam said no. It was pouring down as I dropped her off at the door so I asked her, "Well, did you at least get wet?" I was wiping water from my face and arms. Of course, I'd run from the parking lot, so I'd been exposed to the rain more than she had.

We had taken a seat on the bench outside the restaurant and we noticed some patrons arriving after us going up to a stand beside the door and signing in. I'd assumed that Pam had signed us in and she assumed I had. She looked at the sign-in sheet and back at me and asked, "Did you do anything yet?" I said, "Nope, sorry." and got up to sign us in. We waited about a half hour before they called our name and seated us in a nice quiet corner of the restaurant. We both ordered the "All-U-Can-Eat Crab Legs from the buffet.

Pam had never had crab legs before so I asked her if she'd like for me to show her how to crack the crab legs, "Do you want me to open your (crab) legs?" She nodded and I proceeded to crack the legs and use a kife to extract the meat. After watching me crack open a couple of legs, Pam decided to give it a try. At first she bent the legs sideways as though to break them in half. It required a twisting/pulling motion the way she was doing it, so I said, "I don't think they're supposed to bend that way." In no time she'd perfected the art of breaking open the crab legs and was enjoying them right out of the shell. I pointed to the container of melted butter and asked, "Would you like some butter on that?" Pam dipped a little of the crab into the butter and tasted it, and she smiled.

We made two trips each to the buffet, not counting the trips for crab legs and the dessert. By the time we were done, we were stuffed. "I'm so full" Pam said. The dinner was very nice; the food was great and the company was better. I leaned over and gave her a kiss and said, "Thank you for coming." Pam responded with "It was wonderful dear." And indeed it was a very nice dinner - our first date at the beach. It was a week of firsts: Pam's first trip on an airplane, the first time she'd visited North Carolina, the first time she'd met my pastor and friends at church, the first time she'd seen the ocean, her first engagement ring, which I presented to her the last day we were at the beach.

Upon leaving the restaurant, it was still raining, though much less than when we'd arrived. We jogged to the car and I started the engine. The air conditioner was on the maximum setting and as soon as the cold air assaulted our wet bodies, we began to shiver. I was driving a rental and was unfamiliar with the controls. It took me awhile to find the a/c button, and in the process, I asked "Is there an 'off' button on this thing?!" Pam found it first and turned the a/c off. We drove off, passing a theater on the way back to the condo, so we decided to draw out our date as long as possible by taking in "Get Smart" at the cinema. Although we were full from a great dinner, I still bought popcorn, a large soda and some Skittles for the movie. It was a very nice date on a rainy day at the beach.

Now I understand how someone could assume that two people in love, on vacation at the beach, might make the above statements while engaged in something more erotic than dinner and a movie, but that would be none of your business if we did or didn't say those things behind closed doors.