Confessions

I hate me sometimes.  I know people say that, but I mean it.  And today is one of those days.

I walked into work this morning and found a post-it note on the floor.  I'd written it to myself as a reminder that a close friend of mine was having surgery this morning.  I'd promised to go to the hospital and have prayer with her this morning (even though she tried to talk me out of going).  Still, I'd given my word, and broken it.  My word is all I have.  I've got nothing else.  No talents or skills that the world cares about.  I'm pretty well mediocre and anything I am good at.

Then, to make up for it, I snapped at a friend.  I'm mad at me, and so I took it out on him (I will be apologizing next time I talk to him).

"Big deal.  Nobody's perfect."  Right?  I hate that.  It is a big deal.  I want to be perfect.  No one is harder on me than me.  I'm better than I used to me.  I used to hate me all the time, and everything about me.  I've finally become more comfortable with me, but I still hate me some of the time, like today.

I've also not had a regular devotional time since November.  I'm talking twice a week on a good week.  I work for God, for crying out loud, and I can't motivate myself to turn off the TV in the morning and give him fifteen minutes of my day.  I pray for a living, and don't pray for me.

I hate meeting new people, especially dating, because I'm supposed to talk about me and I have nothing to say.  "I like teaching people about the Bible and was raised in a family where passing gas was a sport."  That's about all I got. 

I've not done well at keeping up with this blog lately.  And that makes me feel guilty.

I hate it when people compliment me, because I feel like it's a lie.  It feels like a slap in the face because I know they aren't true.

I hate it when people run me down.  I've been run down most of my life.  I hate it because I don't need to be told things that I already know.

I don't like spending time with people because I feel like I'm constantly being watched and secretly think that everyone has expectations of me that I'm not meeting.  This was especially true of the girl that I dated for a year back when I was in college.  She had this image of what I should be and when I didn't match that image, she knew right where to stick in a spear to hurt me the worst.

When I went to work with my dad, he used to run me down the whole time I was with him, then come home and tell my mother that I worked really hard and he was proud of me.  That's probably why I hate compliments today.  That was my relationship with my dad.  I loved the him that was around other people, but hated the occasionally abusive him that was at home (he used to lose his temper and hit me when he was mad at anything).

I feel like no one really knows me.  I don't really think that I want them to.

I don't want to get married because to me, a wife is one more person with expectations that I will let down.  Diddo with kids.

Like many men, the reason pornography is a temptation for me is because it is a woman who offers herself to me sexually without demanding anything from me.  And that is why I won't have Internet at home (that and I'm cheap). 

I hate it when people try to cheer me up, because I feel like they only do it because they have to.

Sometimes I wish I could become a hermit so that I'm only letting down me and God.

I feel like a hypocrite.  I hated preaching a sermon on a series from the Beatitudes because it was on having a pure heart and I felt like a fraud for preaching it.  Same with teaching on having a devo time while mine ranks somewhere with the Titanic right now.

I feel like right now that God is trying to tell me that He loves me, that His power is made perfect in my weakness, and I really don't want to hear it.  In fact I'd rather not talk to anyone right now.

I've often used my intellect to keep people at bay with facts.

I sometimes (like today) consider quiting at my church, because I feel like the church would be better off if they hired someone more competent than me.  I've thought that for years.  There were times I almost quit.  The only things that have stopped me is: 1) I'm stubborn. 2) I feel like God wants me here.  3) I'm not good enough at anything to do anything else, nor is there anything else I want to do.

My boss said something to me before (years ago) about being too insecure.  Now I'm insecure about being insecure, and feel guilty for feeling guilty.

I hate making decisions, and the smaller and more inconsequential, the more it's crippling to me.

I want to be something better than myself, but I don't know how or what.

I read books about warriors because I feel like a coward and a failure.  That why I like knights and swords.

I beat myself up for typos.

My life's motivations are love for God, guilt, and fear of failure.  One of those three is the reason behind almost everything I do.

That's enough feeling sorry for myself right now.  I have work to do.

Choose life

There is so much happening lately.  If you've not followed the trial of Dr. Gosnell, I can't blame you.  This is an abortion Dr. that is on trial for multiple counts of murder.  Not just of children, but of one woman as well. 

Many stories have come out in this trial, but one that set it up to begin with was a woman who came into his office, and heard the heartbeat, and decided she wanted to keep the baby.  He said that he wanted to sedate her for further examination, but when she woke up, he had aborted her baby anyway without her consent (so much for "choice").  This guy failed to abort several babies, and after listening to them cry for a few minutes, stuck scissors in the back of their heads.

When asked about all this, he said, "I hope my daughter receives the same treatment that I have given to patients."  Really?  You hope people stab your daughter to death with scissors?  Really?  I doubt it.

I thought people like Gosnell believed abortions should be "safe, legal, and rare."  Gosnell violated all of the three, hence the murder charges.  I know so many people who have struggled to have kids and couldn't.  On my dad's side of the family, eleven of my cousins are adopted.  When a child in conceived, from that moment, that in a unique DNA code that never existed upon the face of the earth, and people chose to extinguish that.  How can it be part of a woman's body when the DNA doesn't match?  Why is suicide illegal, but abortion not?  If someone kills a woman walking into the abortion clinic, they will be charged with two murders, her, and the baby, but it's not murder when she does it.  It makes no sense.

Life is a grand miracle.  Choose life.  Choose life for the unborn.  Choose life for yourself.  Choose not to give into hate like the Boston bombers.  Choose life.

Where is God?

This week has been active.  Boston Marathon bombing.  West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion.  Tornadoes.  Ricen poison in the mail.  Dr. Gosnell infanticide trial.  The questions comes if God is real, how do these things happen?

There are a few things to be said about this, but the bottom line comes down to choice.  When God created everything, he gave Adam and Eve choice, by planting a "tree of knowledge" in the garden.  He warned them that when they ate of it, death and evil would enter the world.  It's the true story of Pandora's box.  They rebelled against God, and there were consequences for their actions.  Death was unleashed.  Evil abounded.  The perfection of creation was marred (which is why tornadoes and out of control fires are a problem).

Since then, God continued to give people choice.  Adam and Eve's son Cain used choice to murder his older brother, just as Dr. Gosnell murdered 40+ infants and madmen created bombs and poison.  We were given choice, and some choose to abuse this precious gift to destroy another gift, life.  Others bully.  Or lie.  Or rape.  Or steal from the poor.  Or any other number of bad things happen because people make bad choices.

So why did God allow choice?  A girl at my church has a Winnie the Pooh doll.  She loves that doll and carries it around.  But does the doll love her?  Of course not.  Why not?  Because it can't.  It has no choice.  God gave us choice because he didn't want dolls.  He wanted us to choose to love.  I choose love. 

I choose to be with the soldier named Tyler who comforted the hysterical woman.  I choose to be with the soldiers, officers, and civilians that ran toward the explosion to try to help people.  I choose to be with the fire-fighters who tried to help in West, Texas.  I choose to be with the tornado victims.  I choose to love.

How about you?

Celeb double standard

I'm sick of the Hollywood exception.  You know, like preaching Global Warming while smoking a cigarette in their SUV.  Or that the White House is closed to the public, but not Justin Timerlake and other washed up musicians.

Or how about that celebs support evil?  Sean Penn went to Hugo Chavez funeral, calling him an innovator while ignoring his crimes against his own people, especially the poor. 

Or why was Dennis Rodman not arrested for violating trade embargoes against North Korea so that he could go visit a fellow madman, who is now trying to bring the world into Nuclear War.

Or how JayZ and Beyonce got visas to Cuba, to engage in illegal commerce with a nation that still gives little civil rights to people of their own race. 

Why?  Because they're "cool" I guess.  Sigh.  I guess I'm just tired of being bossed around by those who sit on top of their pedastals.

Warren family values

What the heck is wrong with people?  Rick and Kaye Warren are famous pastors, people of faith.  Now, I don't particularly like Rick.  I don't agree with him on some things, plus we just have personality differences.  But right now, my heart goes out to the Warren family.  This weekend, they experienced the worst loss someone can experience.  They lost a son.  Worse, they lost a son to suicide.

If you've never known someone who attempted suicide, you are lucky.  Even if unsuccessful, the attempt still leaves you with guilt and pain, always wondering if you could have done more.  Depression is a terrible, impossible thing to struggle with, and doubt will always remain. 

But, thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, the Warren family, while suffering, is under attack.  People are criticizing Rick for the Purpose Driven Life.  They are also saying he deserves to suffer because of his politics.  These cruel, twisted, evil people are crossing a line.  They need to knock it off.  Stop spitting on their son's grave before he's even in the ground.

In the mean time, Jesus said in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are those who mourn."  He also said, "Blessed are you when people hate you because of me."  The Warrens are double blessed.  It may not be a good idea to try to harm those that God has double blessed.  Just saying.

Leave us Alone

So there’s been a lot going on lately that I want to just say “Leave me alone.” There has been way too many people trying to get into my business.

For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is running ads in eight states, not New York, advocating people to call their Congressional Representatives and Senators to get them to pass gun control. Dude, you are the mayor of New York not the United States. You have gun control where you live. What I do, what those that represent me on a federal level do, is our business, not yours. Leave me alone. (I would also be remiss to fail to mention that the commercial featured some of the worst gun safety ever seen.)

Then former funny man Jim Carey released a video against guns, claiming Charlton Heston didn’t go to heaven because he liked guns. Didn’t mention that Heston was one of the early civil rights advocates in Hollywood, you know, before it was cool. The video also featured Ghandi, who once said one of the worst things England did to India was to deny them the right to bear arms. Think about this: Carey is famous for talking from his butt, literally, and for trying to make it illegal for me to vaccinate my kids, despite the fact that more people died from the mumps last year than guns. Hmm… Here’s an idea Jim, why don’t you try to get a career again, and keep your talking rear out of my business. Leave me alone.

Reverend Lyon of St. John’s Episcopal Church said that as a Christian, I have to be racist, pushing “blacks back to the back of the bus.” I hate to tell you, you idiotic psychopath, but it was DEMOCRAT governors that turned the fire hoses on people protesting for civil rights. Who were those protestors? CHRISTIANS!!! Even Dr. King was a Reverend. So stop trying to rewrite history and stop trying to tell me what I’m supposed to believe. Leave me alone.

A Princeton Alumnus sent a letter to all female students telling them that they needed to get married before they graduated. (In that letter, she also said that blue collar people are stupid. For one, some of the smartest people you’ll ever meet are blue collar. You want the guy who fixes you car to be smart. One of the smartest people you’ll meet is a construction worker, who needs to decided how many braces go into your ceiling and at what angles to keep your roof from collapsing when you get three feet of snow.) What is it any of your business when they marry, or who? Leave them alone.

Personally, I believe in freedom. I don’t want the government to tell me to buy Health Insurance, let alone require it after making it more expensive for me to do so. I don’t want overregulation for the sake of giving some government paper-pusher something to do. I’m an American. I want to be left alone, to seek to live my own life.