11/23/2023 0 Comments Home can be as simple as breakfastPost divorce, one of the things I wrestled with a lot was the idea of home. Most of that came from me moving from a house to a small apartment.
For the longest time, I'd return the boys from time with me at my apartment to home. Their home. My former home. And there was a void. A home void. I've come to understand more than I ever did that home is not a physical dwelling. Home is a feeling. A sense. I've come to understand it's possible to live in houses all your life and never find home. And it's equally possible to prepare 3 Thanksgiving morning breakfasts and share them with the people you love most and feel completely at home. This morning, I am thankful for home. I am reminded that God has prepared a home for me. I can get caught up imagining the streets of gold. The mansion on a hill. But this morning I imagine the joy God will feel preparing breakfast for me, and the joy I'll feel eating it with him. This morning I can fully imagine the joy of home. Home.
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When I feel discontent, it is usually because I have forgotten.
I've forgotten my purpose. When your life is about leaning into purpose, you are never lost. Not ever. It's when we start measuring our standing in life by measures other than purpose that discontentment creeps in. Or stampedes its way in. Measures like: Am I where I think I'm supposed to be? Am I where others think I'm supposed to be? Am I as far in life as she is or he is? Am I noticed. Appreciated. Viral. Famous? Some of those things may be of service to your purpose; most are only interested in hijacking it. If you know your purpose, contentment isn't about 'am I there yet?' Contentment is about 'am I being true to my purpose where I am right now?' When I think about my purpose, my purpose is to live out God's light, to encourage human connections that look and feel like that light, and that my love for my boys always looks like my heavenly father's love for me. Maybe that is more than one purpose 😊- but they are intertwined for sure. The thing is, my purpose has no end game. It has no final destination. It only asks, am I being true to that purpose right here and right now. When the answer is no, my life often feels discontent. When I feel discontent, I know the answer. It's my purpose. I need to realign my heart and my mind and my soul with my purpose. Right here. Right now. For that is always the starting point for contentment. Ian had his fifteenth birthday yesterday. Nothing makes a parent reflect more than a kid's birthday.
I found myself thinking, he's growing up to be just like him. I found myself smiling. I'm in the sixth decade of my life. I feel like I am finally growing up to be just like me. I don't want my boys to have to wait that long. That's why I don't have dreams for my boys. I don't have any desire that they have a better life than I have had. I really don't have any desires for my boys at all, other than that they grow up to be just like them. When we have dreams for our kids, it's tempting to make our dreams their dreams. Which makes their dreams largely fueled by pressure and not desire or passion. Pressure that often has them growing up to be someone other than themselves. I had a conversation with a friend at lunch yesterday. I was commenting just how different my boys are as teens than I was. She asked if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I said it's just a thing. It's tempting to want to measure my kids by who I was or am. It's tempting to measure my kids by who I'd like them to be. It's tempting to imagine the course of their life against the map of some course I have plotted out for them. It's tempting, but I don't do it. I don't do it because I want my boys to grow up to be just like them. Not just like me. Not like my desires. A lot of folks out there in the world are struggling today. I think at the root of many of those struggles is too many people have grown up to be just like someone else. They got so busy living a life looking like someone they were supposed to look like and never stopped to discover who they are. So happy birthday Ian. I love you buddy. And I really love that the you I love looks more and more like you every day. Keep being you pal 9/28/2023 0 Comments National Sons day 2023God loves me.
This I know. But not because the bible tells me so. These two do. Elliott and Ian. In all of his power and authority and sovereignty and creativity, God could have chosen any way to write us into his story. He chose to write us in as children. His children. He our father, we his children. He didn't want to be our king or czar or ruler or dictator. He wanted to be our father; he wanted us to be his children. I never wanted children. But isn't it like God to write stories we don't want but ultimately can't live without? Isn't it like God to write a story that says, you will know the kind of love I have for you through the kind of love you have for them. Elliott and Ian. They are the once upon a time in the truest love story I have ever known. Unconditional. Non-judgmental. Kind. Would I have ever really known love at all without them? Isn't it like God to ensure I never have to know the answer to that? God loves me. This I know. But not because the bible tells me so. These two do. Elliott and Ian. 9/11/2023 0 Comments You are so much more than enoughMy (not so) little Ian recently tried out for a higher intensity lacrosse team than he'd been playing on before. The team is designed to push young lacrosse players who may want to play the game beyond high school.
Ian has that as a goal. I can still feel Ian's excitement when he told me he'd made the team. I could hear the "I've made it" in his voice. Yesterday the team had its first practice and Ian discovered "I've made it" is really "it's only just begun." On the way home, Ian told me he knew the other players were going to be more skilled than the players he'd previously been playing with. He said he knew SOME of them would be more skilled than him. But, he said, I didn't know how MANY of them would be. The excitement I heard in his voice weeks ago when he told me he made the team was now replaced with doubt. It was now questions. Ian said, I know this is good, it will push me to get better. Sometimes we say things we want to believe without believing them, we say them as consolation. I could hear that in Ian's proclamation. I told Ian this is where he has to be careful. Because the dark side of our minds will start telling us lies. The side that senses when we are down and sees an opportunity to pile on. The dark side of our mind is always looking for the opportunity to sell us two life defeating lies: you are no one and you have no one. Because the day you start believing those two lies is the day you stop chasing anything in life. Sometimes it convinces us to stop desiring life at all. I told Ian that dark side uses comparison as it's biggest weapon. It has us looking around at others and deciding I'm not them, so I am no one. And the moment you start believing you are no one, you'll start believing you aren't worthy of HAVING anyone. I challenged Ian to compare Ian to Ian. I challenged him to compare himself to the awkward and completely non-athletic child he was just six or seven years ago. The child who is now a young man on a team he never could have dreamed of being on back then. I know I sure didn't see it coming. But you did dream it, Ian. You did decide it. And you DID become it. Our brains have a dark side; they also have a light side. A light side with a switch we control. Because every day we get to decide I am someone and I will continue to be someone. And that someone will always look like me even as that dark side tries to convince me the goal is to look like you. And that me - that me will always be enough. Yesterday was national suicide prevention day. It's a day that has deep and sorrowful meaning to so many of my friends. It has deep and challenging meaning to me as well. Because if I'm honest, I've spent a lot of my life battling that war between the dark side and the light side. That battle between 'you are no one' and 'you are you and that is so much more than enough'. I am thankful that although I'm not sure I'll ever fully win that battle, it no longer has the control over me it once did. Because I see the dark side for the liar it is. We all have some people in our lives who need us to help them expose that lie in their own lives. People who need reminded that you aren't them, and I'm thankful for that. Because who you are to me is so much more than enough. Who you are to me is all that I need. You will never have the chance to be someone else. But you will always have the chance to be the most beautiful you that you can be. What a beautiful day today is to discover that. And to become that. There are a few areas in my life where I've thought I tried.
There are a few where I currently think I am trying. But am I? There's a story in the bible in the book of Luke. The story goes like this: Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and TRIED to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this BECAUSE OF the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. I'm reflecting this morning on some areas in my life where I tried until "because of" and then I quit trying. Sometimes "because of" is absolutely a reason to quit trying. But sometimes "because of" is absolutely a reason to try something different. Often when we try and it doesn't work, we think we need to try harder. When sometimes it means we simply need to try something different. Try it from a different place. Try it surrounded by different people. Try it with a different attitude. I know a challenging 'try' in my life the last few years has been being a dad. I am trying to be a good dad. And if I'm honest, there are days I tell myself I'm trying to be a good dad, but BECAUSE I don't live with them anymore, BECAUSE I don't sit at the dinner table with them, BECAUSE I don't get to give them a hug or slap them a high five every day, BECAUSE of what other people think of me the dad, BECAUSE of all of that, I can't be a good dad. There are days I grow weary trying to fight an impossible fight. But the fight gets to feeling impossible because I try to fight it through the lens of what culture and many people other than my sons consider to be a good dad. The men helping the paralyzed man tried to go through the doors of the church because that's where people thought you had to go to find Jesus. When they couldn't get in, they could have turned around and went home and said we tried everything. We tried to get to Jesus the way you get to Jesus and it didn't work. But these men cared about their friend too much to settle for the idea that there is only one way to get to Jesus. They cared too much about meeting a man's need who needed them. So they climbed up on the roof and lowered him to a place many thought the paralyzed man didn't belong. The friends tried something not many friends would be willing to try. (And without offering a spoiler alert, I'll let you know they got to Jesus and Jesus accepted and healed the man.) We live in a world that sometimes equates our failings with not trying hard enough. Yet sometimes we're trying plenty hard enough, even too hard, when we actually need to be trying something different. If you have areas like that in your life, where you feel like you've tried everything, where you're feeling exhausted from all of the trying, consider the possibility that you need to try something different. Consider walking away from the door and climbing up on the roof. The reality is, we can see things a lot clearer from up on the roof. 🤷♂️ If my boys one day come to me and tell me they are getting married, or entering into any sort of permanent committed relationship, I know what I will say to them.
It won't be congratulations. In fact, it won't be a statement at all. It will be a question: "how will you fix it when things go wrong?" That's influenced, for sure, by my own relationship history. For the longest time I've said I'm not good at relationships. The reality is what I've never been good at is REPAIRING relationships. So maybe I wish someone would have asked me that question before I got married. How will you fix it when things go wrong? Maybe it would have helped me discover that I had a lot of experience with relationships in my life, yet almost zero experience with repairing them when they became challenging. Relationships become challenging when feelings and emotions become challenging. Feelings and emotions become challenging when we have no idea what to do with them. Or often times even what the heck they are. If you don't have a history of naming and working through challenging emotions with other people, if you have not witnessed it, if you have not practiced it, because relationships ARE a skill, you will end up doing one of two things. You will run, retreat. Or you will attack, villainize. Most of my life I made up for my lack of relational repair skills by retreating. If not literally running from the relationship, escaping into relationships with something else to distract me from the challenging emotions of a failing relationship. I will also own that I've done a fair amount of villainizing. When you can convince yourself that my challenging emotions are a result of someone else's choices or behaviors, villainizing really just becomes a more complex way to escape. Often times a more hurtful one. I will ask my boys that question before they commit because repairing relationships early in the disrepair is important. Because eventually disrepair becomes disconnected. And once the connection is gone, so with it is a lot of the longing and desire that is the heart and soul and fuel for a repair. I believe we live in a world that is better than ever at connecting. We are a world of mass networking. But what we are failing miserably at is repairing broken connection. No amount of networking can heal the hurt and the damage left in the carnage of mass broken connections. We spend an awful lot of time focused on growing our connections. Maybe it's a good time to shift some of the focus from collecting connections to repairing the ones we have while we still have them. Maybe there is no bigger challenge, because the reality is, "most of us aren't good at repairing relationships." My guess is the repairs start with owning just that. 8/15/2023 0 Comments The Never Ending Life of a miracleSometimes the miracle in the moment is so big it can blind us to all the miracles that will grow from the miracle at hand.
We took a trip yesterday I've wanted to take for a long time. We went to the spot at Carteret General Hospital where nearly 17 years ago I watched a helicopter lift Elliott from the ground into the air and on to a NICU at Pitt Memorial Hospital in eastern North Carolina. By the time that helicopter took off, I had prayed. I'd told God I trusted him. That no matter what became of Elliott's life that day, I trusted him. I also hoped. I hoped like I'd never hoped before. That the baby that came into our lives that morning would be a baby that got to stay in our lives. It's overwhelming to return to a spot and see your teenage son standing in a spot marked by celebration when it appeared more than possible that day the spot would be forever marked by grief. I don't know why I get to celebrate where others grieve. I will never understand that. I do know this, tough. The miracle I took a picture of yesterday was not the miracle I thought I was standing in 17 years ago. The miracle of life that day has sprouted limbs of life I could have never seen coming. One of those limbs is certainly me. Elliott was born that day with what the doctor called little more than a heartbeat. There were many days before Elliott, and there have been days since, when my life has felt like little more than a heartbeat to me. But in many ways, when the doctors and nurses and helicopters brought Elliott to life that day, they forever kept me alive. In bringing his heart to life they forever kept me committed to mine. And then there is Ian in the car. Clueless to this photo session in many ways. But had we lost Elliott that day would Ian have even come to be? It's an important question to me because where Elliott brought the miracle of life Ian brought the miracle of laughter. I mispronounced the name of the movie while purchasing tickets at the theater yesterday. Ian couldn't stop laughing. To this moment I don't know why it was so funny, but I know what the miracle of his laughter does for me. Because laughter at times HAS felt like a miracle. Some of us forget how to do it without miracles. I believe miracles never lose their life. Snapping that photo, I could see just how grand a miracle can grow. Snapping that photo, I could feel just how deep a miracle can go. It's easy to believe that miracles are life. I think I more believe that miracles are seeds. Seeds that God plants; seeds God longs for us to help bring to life. Maybe miracles aren't the answer as much as they are the question: what will you make of me? I am thankful for my 17-year old miracle. I'm excited about the life and laughter that miracle will continue to grow and spread in this world. For miracles don't have an expiration date. They have no boundaries. Unless, of course, we stop seeing them. Two nights ago, Elliott asked me if he could go down to the beach late at night to try to take in the Perseids meteor shower. Then he asked again last night.
My first thought was, dude, you're not old enough to be going to the beach late at night all alone. My second and welcome to reality thought was, oh wait, yes you are. Then Elliott invited Ian to come along. And as challenging as the reality was accepting that I have young men and not boys on my hands these days, the grander reality that these young men like hanging out together was soothing. And these two teenagers, late at night, wanting to go into the night chasing The Perseids? There are certainly more disturbing places for them to venture into. I have to acknowledge they get that sense of excitement for the cosmos and much of all things nature from their mom. I mean, I love nature, but little gets me out of bed after dark to chase it! Little gets me out of bed after dark period!! 😊 Post-divorce relationships can be challenging. Part of navigating that challenge for me is being able to see the beauty in my boys that never would have come without that relationship. And I do see it. I teach and preach and train a lot on the brain. And this idea that a young brain needs to develop in an environment of safety and love to give it the best chance to have a higher-level thinking brain that one day can dream and imagine and see beauty in all of it. Another post-divorce challenge is you can come to believe you've messed your kids up. That they will never feel safe again. Then you hear them rustling around late at night - trying hard not to wake the old man - as they run off to the beach to chase shooting stars. That rustling, rustling the old man invariably hears, it is comfort. Because no matter the damage done, they are chasing their own shooting stars now. And if I'm being honest, they are doing it decades before I ever started imagining what chasing mine might look like. I am thankful for their chase. I am thankful for the comfort that comes to me from that. And I pray every wish they pray on those shooting stars comes true. Just like mine does every time I hear them sneak into the night to chase them. It was late in the day yesterday. The sun had taken its toll on me. The sun, however, doesn't take the kind of toll on young boys that it takes on old men.
And one of my young boys wanted to go fishing. I initially tried to convince Ian that tomorrow might be a better day. We wouldn't be as tired. We'd have more time to get ourselves together. Ian did what Ian always does, he accepted it and said he understood if everyone else wasn't up for it. I know he meant that. I also know inside he was disappointed. The boy loves his fishing. A friend recently told me the heartbreaking story of losing a son many years ago when he was a teen. I could tell how heavily it weighs on her even to this day. Does losing a child ever stop weighing on you even to this day? I wondered what she would give for one more chance to fish. I told Ian let's go. Let's go see if we can catch some fish. (Elliott, on the other hand, said I'm good here in the AC. Maybe the sun does take a toll on young boys after all 😊). The fishing was slow. The catching was none. But I watched as Ian switched out baits and lures and was completely happy to be in the middle of the process even if the outcomes weren't great. I am reminded of that a lot lately. It's the process of parenting that is meaningful. Sometimes the outcomes don't look like we thought they would, but we can always sink ourselves into the process. At least as long as we have that chance to sink in. Finally convinced the fish weren't into being caught today, we walked back to the car. Ian started telling me about this 'first boat' he and a buddy are dreaming of buying when they turn sixteen. Walking and listening to Ian talk about this, I felt like I'd just landed a blue marlin. I've always said I have two goals as a dad when it comes to my influence on my sons. One, I want my boys to come to know and love the God I know and love. There is no better place to come to know and love God than on the edge of a dock looking over some of the most majestic waterway in America. Two, I want my boys to be able to come to me with their hopes and fears and disappointments and dreams. All of it. Yesterday, when Ian was rattling on and on about his future boat and what it would look like and all the work he was willing to do to be able to afford it, I was hearing passion. I was hearing dreams. I was reminded, if you get the chance to sit it out or fish - fish. Maybe you won't catch anything, but maybe you'll hear dreams you've spent a lot of your dad life longing to hear. I don't know if Ian's dream will come true. But yesterday a big one came true for me. And that's a fish story well worth telling. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
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