Arrowhead

Shhhh...
Be still...

It's bending and breaking and crying for attention.

Imagine that in the palm of your hand you are holding a compass.
You look down and notice that it is methodically completing circles with emphasis at the points directly away and directly to you. It momentarily sticks on you and then the point 180 degrees opposite of you. In and out and in and out. 1 and 2 and 1 and 2. Me then you then me.

Now watch the point of the compass' arrow. Pretend it draws a line as it makes its revolutions. What do you see?

The Circle.

Self discovery and life are often like this for me.
Every point along the circle represents another experience, another lesson, another relationship to learn from. They all have their place. They are all interconnected.


If I may, I'll go further creating another illustration and identify the 0 degree point as myself and the 180 degree point as God. He is Holy and I am not. We are in many ways on the opposite of the circle from each other. If I look closer though, there is a straight line, a narrow road if you will, between He and I. A relationship exists.
To add to this illustration, my outlook or focus on life is represented in the arrow. It is being pulled in multiple directions with the most prevalent being at 180 and 0 degrees. In and out...Him and Me. I think about Him ...how does that apply to me. I'm in need...what direction do I look.

It may sound as if this is a monotonous cycle without a compelling argument to become a part of. I think, however, that if one looks at it from the standpoint of someone lost in the forest of life looking for direction, there is simple application. There is direction, there is hope. There may not be a straight line out as a tree or a rock impedes our path, but sometimes we can climb to the top of these things and find that we gain new perspective of our location and what lies ahead. Not all obstacles are bad.

Hmmm, what's more profound is that He knows this and is part of it all. The path, the rock, the tree, the compass...He has made it all and He uses them to draw us closer. He pulls us. We resist sometimes, but He pulls us again.

Look forward to the time when our compass arrow is stuck at 180 and all hearts, souls, and minds are as well.

The Best Month to Be Born....I thought

There was a time that I thought I had it made. Dont' get me wrong...I still do for the most part. I thought this for many reasons, but one was that my birthday fell in the month of May. What a perfect scenario for a kid. Christmas obviously comes in Winter so you received all your new winter gear then and when May rolled around it was just in time to get the stuff you needed for summer right before it kicked off. I no longer carry this perspective, but let me tangent before I reveal why.

I always felt sorry for the kids who had birthdays in late December and early January. Their parents would more than likely roll the two biggest present getting days all into one. What a rip-off. Of course some parents tried to separate the two, but from my observation it was more of a formality than the truth. Why give a kid twice the presents and spend twice as much when you can conveniently collect the two celebrations together. Honestly, I don't know what I'll do if I have children and they are born in these present depriving months. I think I'll just try my best to plan pregnancy between May and December. Obviously, Christmas isn't all about the presents, but that's not what I'm getting at. Bless the poor children born between Dec. 15 and Jan. 7. Poor unfortunate souls.

Anyway, let me get back to the point. I am fortunate enough to share the same birth date as my grandmother and that has always been nice. She would give me her years when I was younger and I would thus keep her at the ripe old age of 50. It was a good deal. When I was 11 I was allowed to drink according to Grandma's deal. OK...not really. I soon discovered as I got older, however, that many of the families birthdays fall in the month of May. As you can imagine, it wasn't long before everyone started collecting them all together into ONE nice neat celebration.
I know...I sound selfish and honestly I don't care about it that much. The issue is that I'm in a growing church community now and that much of the same is occurring. It's amazing. We have consistently increased the number of birthday parties since February and now we are at May and I'm all birthdayed out. It also appears that many of the B-days will be lumped in with the church picnic. Maybe that's not a bad thing...I don't know. Honestly, I would feel guilty if I had a birthday party all for myself (not that anyone else should feel the same).

All of it is just a little crazy for me. It's tough to know what the solution is in all of this. Of course people want to celebrate your birthday with you, but when they have been to a birthday party (or two) every week for the past three months it gets a little old. I would hate to have to ask people to exclusively celebrate my birthday with me. The corporate solution is the one that appeals to my less selfish and communal side. On the other hand, it would be nice to have ones birthday feel a little special and not conveniently grouped in with 30 other people.

All of this points back to one question. What the heck is it about August that compels people to make babies. There are many explanations to this but I'll only throw one out there and let the rest of you come up with your own answers. BEACH HOUSE