April 25, 2010

Sending the Discipled

Greetings from the deep end!
Many things have happened since I last wrote. I have been bursting with ideas and thoughts but have chosen to wait so that my loved ones would not be hurt needlessly. At FLC we believe that we are called to three things 1 - reaching the lost, 2 - discipling the saved, 3 - sending the discipled. It is often said that when we teach or when we serve we gain more than we give. My family's current situation is similar. We have lived and served in Sheridan for six years. We have taught, we have fought and we have loved, but most of all we have learned. God set us in a place where we could be discipled through living life and now we are being sent from our home in Sheridan to a new church family in Rapid City SD.

Pam and I have accepted a position at Destiny Foursquare Church as their new full time youth pastors. Looking into the future we see opportunity to continue being discipled and to continue our growth as leaders and family. This time is looked at with a great deal of excitement and happiness when we consider the possibilities for new friends and family but also with a great deal of sadness as we prepare to leave the family we have gained here over the past six years. Sadly, sometimes we are put in positions where we must "practice what we preach". This time we (me, Pam, Xander and Aryll) are the disciples being sent.

April 14, 2010

If I Only Had a Reset Button

Greetings from the deep end!
The Wizard of Oz is a stupid movie. Yea, I said it, The Wizard of Oz is a stupid movie. I'll say it again! The Wizard of Oz.... Seriously, we all have brains and hearts. We may choose not to use them, but we do all have them. Even courage is found more often than not in humanity. What we really should be searching for, what all of humanity really needs, is a reset button.

A friend was over at my house last night and he showed me how to do a battery pull (reset) on my Blackberry without actually pulling the battery. This morning I tried it and of course it worked and saved me tons of time trying to remove my Otter Box case and then pull the battery, then spend six hours trying to get the case to set on it properly again. I am all thumbs, and this phone case is an engineering masterpiece. By that I mean that you need to have an advance degree in engineering to master the use of it. Anyway, I was thinking about how awesome it was to be able to hit three buttons a couple of times and save myself a half of an hour of frustration. As my thoughts raced out of my control I realized that a human restart button would assuredly save much more than a half hour of frustration for the average human each day!

Think of it, feeling groggy? Hit your reset button. Can't sleep? Hit your reset button. Kid's being schmucks? Press their reset button!

Yea, courage is nothing when compared to the awesomeness that would be the human reset button.

Government need reset? We have a button for that. Students acting up? We have a button for that. Getting fed up? You have a button for that.

It would be AWESOME!!! No more groggy head, no more being overwhelmed. Beautiful. Sing with me people! ♪♫If we only had a reset button♫♪

April 11, 2010

Patience. Carrot or Rod?

Greetings from the deep end!
It would seem that I have regained some of my lost brain power as I feel that it is time to take hold of a more difficult topic than my previous posts have contained. I realize that I have spoken of patience in past blogs but that is okay  because today's post deals solely with the recurrence of the "patience" lesson. Today I realized that the more patience one learns, the more patience one needs. That is to say, one always needs a little more patience than they have at present.

This leads me to one very great very, non-patient question; WHY!?! Why is it that as we go through life, growing up that is, we always need more patience. When is enough enough? Never fear my friends, Derick is on the case. My quest for answers to the "why" question has led me to two possible answers regarding the role of the "patience" lesson in life.

First, patience may be as a carrot dangled in front of a horse. I believe that patience may be simply a lesson that a person strives to gain and is thus led through life with the hope of attaining an impossible goal. "Oh, I don't have enough patience with Xander because he just punched me in the face and I yelled, guess I learned a good lesson and won't have that problem again." The next day, "Oh, Xander just punched me in the face four times and I yelled at him guess I learned my lesson and I won't do that again." Three months later, "Oh, Xander just punched me in the face stomped on my nose and broke my toe and I yelled...." See what I mean? It will never end! Sometimes I really feel like that. I feel that patience can never really be achieved but only added to and that it is in deed a goal that will always be heightened just a little higher than I can reach.

The second possibility is that "patience" is a rod shepherding me towards adulthood. In this case, it would seem that before God will allow me to accomplish the things I wish to accomplish and that I believe He wants me to accomplish I must reach a "patience bar" that He has set before me. It often seems that just as I reach a new level of patience in life God rewards me with new levels of responsibility. Not always a good thing, right? Well, not from the sloth perspective. However, from the perspective of a man-in-training, new levels of responsibility are par for the course.

As often happens, as I have been writing this I have come to a third option and one that better fits the scheme. Patience is both a carrot and a rod. It is a carrot when we are too scared to go ahead on our own and a rod when we are more zealous for the future than we should be. That is one of the most awesome things about patience, it can get you what you need and take you where you want to go, depending on the situation.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine 

April 8, 2010

Idiosyncrasies of a Half-Brained Father

Greetings from the deep end!
Three weeks have passed since we have become four. It seems like an eternity. But not in a bad way...well, there is a bad cause for the feeling but it is natural I think. Last night I got home from Youth at about 9:45pm. I had a snack and read some of a book and stayed up hoping that Aryll would go to sleep so that Pam and I could go to bed at the same time. I put the book down at 11:00pm and had planned to go ahead and go to sleep because Pam wanted me to as I had to get up this morning for work. Right after I had put my book down I half rolled over and began to stare at the door. I stared and stared until Pam came into the room. I asked her what time it was and she said it was now 11:30pm! I stared at an open door for thirty minutes! Not only did I stay up until 11:30 and stare at a door (A DOOR!?!) for thirty minutes, but I woke up ten minutes before my alarm at 6:40 this morning.

I have never slept so little as I have since the girl was born. I still function for the most part but if this is growing up, I am not sure I want to anymore. I enjoy sleep; I think it should replace baseball as the national pastime. I actually think that sleep already has become our great nation’s pastime but has not yet gained the title. Growing up is, however, the purpose of my humble little blog, referred to in the title. The "deep end" is referring to my trek into adulthood, and thus justifying this essay as a proper addition to my accounts.

The title of this addition to deep end begins with the word, "idiosyncrasies". Because the word ends in an "s" we know that it is referring to more than one (or multiple) items. The lack of sleep and the zombie like effect it causes are only two of the idiosyncrasies of a new father that I have noticed. Interestingly enough, I have only noticed them this time. I believe that when my son was born, as he made me a true "new father", I was too far gone to notice much of anything. In fact, my earliest memories of Xander's life begin about two months ago. Anyhow, there are a few more issues I have noted, and in no particular order...
  • Twitches, shakes, and knee jerk reactions - These may all stem from one or both of these two causes; lack of sleep and/or the copious amounts of coffee used to combat the other effects of lack of sleep. I guess that really only leaves one option for the root cause of the twitches, shakes and knee jerk reactions - lack of sleep. However, these are still separate conditions from lack of sleep (aka; LOSS - Lack of Sleep Syndrome). 
  • Having the appearance of a long time stoner - As well as being a direct effect of LOSS, having the appearance of being a long time stoner is augmented by the inevitable puke stains acquired from the little one.  
  • The inability to say anything of consequence and the annoying habit of spouting gibberish at random and often inappropriate times - Rather than simply attributing this symptom of new fatherhood to LOSS, I have explored and am leaning toward the cause being three fold. 1.) The mass change within the household a new child brings. 2.) LOSS 3.) The19 month old terror that has decided he wants to be terrible and two NOW! 
  • Being perpetually half-brained - At this juncture, the reader may think to themselves something along the lines of, "Derick, you have always been perpetually half brained!" And that reader may be correct, but I do not believe that I have ever been this half brained. 
  • Prayer life increases - Interestingly enough, and all joking aside, having been at the bottom of the energy barrel for three weeks, I have a better understanding of what it means for God to be strong when we are weak. It doesn't just mean that when we are humble God is strong. I suffer from LOSS but have yet to get sick, or freak out or truly lose my mind, because in the thick of it all, I pray and God continues to make up for my inadequacies. 
I listen to much more aggressive music than most people, and I believe that some of the best music, some of the best, most passionate lyrics come from some of the least likely places. This chorus from Flyleaf's song "Perfect" makes my point perfectly. :)

Perfect in weakness
I'm only perfect in just Your strength alone

Perfect in weakness
I'm only running in just Your strength alone 

April 6, 2010

Iudono waynana nstufff.

Greetings from the deep end!

So, I've been trying to write this one particular story about me being a tech-nerd for about five days now. It was going to be about my new phone and I was going to make jokes about how proud of myself I am that I can be both a tech-nerd and cheap. It didn't happen. I must have written over a thousand words and deleted them all out of frustration because they were neither funny nor were they saying what I wanted them to say. Have you ever tried to say something and "ludono waynana nstufff" comes out? I have. In fact, it wasn't until this morning that I realized that I hadn't updated my Facebook status for over three days. I only change my status when I have something important to say or something particular witty to share. I have had nothing going through my mind since Saturday afternoon.

I don't know what the average person would do in my position but I certainly know what I would do…FREAK OUT!!! So that's what I did. My mother and a friend from Florida talked me down and reminded me that the cause of my current insanity is that I have a newborn baby. Whew, this is normal behavior. Wait a minute!?! THIS IS NORMAL BEHAVIOR!?! Ok, ok. I can accept that, I can accept that I will completely be neurologically shot for a while as a direct effect of having a new kid in the casa. That, however, does not explain the rest of the time. Sure I haven't slept properly since winter camp (four weeks ago) but I should be used to that by now. I'm freaked out here people. I have no idea what to do with myself. Oh well, I guess I'll just hang on Sloopy until my brain comes back. Have a good night people, I am going to go read a good book and take a nap.