It doesn't feel like riding a bike: Post 1 A.C.

Sorry it's been so long: my world's been rocked a little recently, and I've been tweaking...

So I'm thinking about stuff, and I'm thinking about lists, 'cause I'm a fan of them for some reason, and I'm thinking about my dad. And it occurs to me...

From my dad, I learned that when you're cleaning off the table, you always put the stuff that has to go back in the refrigerator, back in to the refrigerator, first.

From my dad, I learned that taking care of Mom is Job #1.

From my dad, I learned that pulling weeds while walking through mile-long rows of soybeans in scorching heat for $2 an hour is totally worth it because Grandpa's going to take you to get a double cheeseburger and Coke at noon.

From my dad, I learned that you don't push it and order a milkshake when Grandpa is buying the aforementioned burger.

From my dad, I learned that Christian isn't something you do. It's who you are.

From my dad, I learned that when we return to earth with Christ for the Millenium, we will do so on white Honda motorcycles or International tractors, depending mostly on the conversation.

From my dad, I learned that love - and family - means that the computer geek/city boy brother is as much a part of things as the country fried/farm lovin' brothers. And just 'cause he's cityfied doesn't mean he can't do chores.

From my dad, I learned that it's ok to cry.

From my dad, I learned that the wash water to do dishes needs to be as hot as your hands can stand. And the rinse water should be hotter than that.

From my dad, I learned that Christmas is awesome, on all kinds of different levels.

From my dad, I learned not to say the first thing that pops into my head. I never actually knew most of the first things that popped into his head, but I could tell that they rarely made it out.

From my dad, I learned to hate sweet potatoes with a righteous hatred.

From my dad, I learned to value family that has come before me.

From my dad, I learned that loving people is where it's at.

From my dad, I learned to dig books. And having them around.

From my dad, I learned that there are very few realizations that hold a candle to knowing that you're the son of a man who loves God and loves his family.

This is not a complete list, but it's my list.

Dad, I love you.

Check this out

A helpful piece, from the blog of a friend/poobah at Samaritan Ministries

Relational Snapshots from a long weekend

Thursday, June 16

1:00 PM: We (Kristy, the kids, and me) stop at Galesburg to eat lunch. I manage to manipulate Kristy's intense need for a restroom into a meal at Applebee's.

I spend the next 45ish minutes just wondering at my children: the expressions on their faces, their attempts at speaking and showing me things, the sheer delight of things like barbecue sauce.

It's amazing what you'll notice when you've got nothing else to do, and you're not constantly looking around for people you recognize.


3:30 PM: We make it to our destination, the home of some dear friends. The next five hours are a pleasant blur: earnest, enjoyable conversation, grilled bratwurst burgers (a first for me), and my children's unintentional attempts at trashing their beautiful home.

Kristy genuinely enjoyed the time she spent with the lady of the house, and my connection with my friend deepened.

My friend continues to be castigated by lifelong mentors/friends for the very thing that the Bereans were referred to in the Scriptures as noble. I'll never understand that.


10:20 PM: After finally tearing ourselves from my friends' house, we continue on to Cedar River Baptist Camp, where the teens of our church were finishing up a week of camp.

Kristy thought everyone would be in bed, but I knew differently, and sure enough, Pastor Dice was only 2/3 of the way through his message when we showed up.

The staff of the camp include many dear friends, and I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with them. I talked to my friend D___ for what ended up being a couple of hours, about our dreams and where God was taking us. I pray God gives him his heart's desire.

I also got to see my teens. They were tired, as everyone is after a full week of camp, but they were excited about decisions they'd made for God. They were totally stoked to see us, too, which is very cool. 'Cause I was stoked to see them: this is my first year I haven't been there with them, and I missed it a lot.

I also got to see Chris, one of my teens who is a member of the Summer Staff at camp. He looked skinnier, somehow, and burnt to a crisp. But he seemed at peace with what God is doing in His life, and I know that God is using this experience to shape him.

I also got to see my sister and my father, counselors for a full week of camp for the first time in a while. They held up swimmingly: I'm proud of them.

And I found out that, the first summer I miss, they reinstitute the Mud Hike, and Brian loses his shoes in the mud. I'm totally jealous.

----

Friday, June 17

5:30 AM: We finally pull in to home after a trip home made more adventurous by my sleep deprivation. After three hours of driving, a fourty-five minute nap, three Krispy Kreme donuts, two Frappacinos, and a Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso & Cream, we make it.

My family consists of total troopers. I doubt any other wife/chidren would have put up with the kind of running around we did. But it's our life, and it's awesome. It's very cool when they can be with me for it.


5:53 AM: I call the office and leave a voice mail that I won't be in to work. After three hours of sleep Wed. night, and no sleep so far Thursday night, I'm of no use to anyone.


5:00 PM: I wake up.

----

Saturday, June 18

9:00 AM: Between "The Backyardigans" and "Dora the Explorer," Kristy and I decide that it's too much to travel again to my friend Doug's reception for earning his Doctorate. We'd called them the night before, but I was still trying to pull it off. Kristy just wasn't up for it.


12:00 PM: We go to my parents' house for a shindig with my family. Phil and Emily are back from London and back in town, and we're all grilling stuff and just being together.

Both of my grandfathers are here. It's really special that they get to see my children running around them, the way we did back in the day. Both my grandmothers have been with Jesus for years, but I'm blessed to have two grandfathers in good health. I make another mental note that I need to get over to see them more: I'm not sure why it's so hard, but I don't seem to get it done.


1:32 PM: We're celebrating Naomi's birthday, Father's Day, and... oh, yeah, we're pregnant. Shrieks and squeals of delight from the female contingent, gently sarcastic questions, then sincere good wishes from the male contingent.


5:20 PM: Everyone else is loading up to go to the baseball game, and we're packing up to head home. We're saying goodbyes, when my brother Matt gets my attention and looks me in the eye for just a second before saying "I'll see you later." The look says a thousand words, and is worth...well, a lot.

Meemee asks if Trey can go with them to the baseball game. I agree, and Trey gets all excited. I'm thankful for parents who seize on opportunities like that to be with the ones they love.


10:30 PM: Trey gets home from the game. Breathlessly, he tells about the fireworks, about playing with cousins Nick and Ryan and Trevor, about Meemee and Papaw. His eyes just dance with excitement.

----

Sunday, June 19

12:00 PM: I go out on a limb and suggest that we go to a Chinese buffet to eat. It's Kristy's birthday, as well as Father's Day, and I deferred to her desires.

Man, I hate Chinese food.

And the only Chinese buffets I like are the ones that aren't strictly Chinese: you know, ribs next to the egg drop soup, and stuff like that. Which this place said it had, but as it turns out, not so much.

Kristy loved it. Went on and on about how good the shrimp was, how good everything was tasting to her.

Me? Seven - count 'em, seven - sugar biscuits, four pieces of sweet & sour chicken minus the sauce, and two cups of Mountain Dew.


3:00 PM: We're watching the US Open, and Kristy is transfixed. She can't pull herself away.

Who are you, and what have you done with my wife?


7:30ish PM: We attend Bethel tonight: Phil preached, and he and Emily prepared goodies from London for everyone after the service.

I was digging the milk and warm tea stuff. It was good.

I watched Phil and Emily prepare this stuff for everyone, and I thanked God for giving them hearts to minister, to share, to try to give others a taste of what they experienced serving God in a foreign country.

And I was very proud of them.


11:00 PM: The Spurs finally pull out a win at Detroit, and for a moment, all is at peace. :)


12:00 AM: Oh, yeah. We're pregnant.

I dislike the smell of Babel in the morning, Part II: *Poof*

So I have a friend, M____. A serious blogger. Had two blogs, updated at least daily. Used his blogs as places to articulate what was going through his head. Sometimes it was joy; sometimes it was frustration: with family, with themself, with their experiences as a member of a church. Sometimes it was both joy and frustration.

Joystration, as it were.

I check out his blogs, because he's a friend, and I find it helpful to have an idea of what's going through his head. The same reason I started checking out blogs in the first place: I couldn't afford not to know what was really going through my teenagers' heads, and livejournal was where they were talking.

So Monday, I see that he's closed up shop at his blog. This doesn't surprise me much, because I thought it coincided with a trip he might possibly be taking. Then I check his other blog, and he's checked out of there, too.

With a finality that I found disturbing.

No explanation: it felt like the kind of thing someone would write just before killing themselves, or something. I went to find him, because it was final enough, and out of the ordinary enough, that I thought something might be wrong.

Turns out, he'd had a conversation in which the thoughts expressed in his blog were interpreted as disrespect, personal attack, and attack of a ministry.

The conversation was with his pastor.

As I thought through M____'s account of the conversation, I thought of Colossians 4:6: Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. I know M____, and I know that what he wrote was not written with the above mentioned motives in mind. But could he have articulated with more grace? Yes. Could he have seasoned it a little, took some of the edge off? Yes. Should he have worked toward that? Well, according to the above verse, God's pretty clear about the answer to that.

And I hope he will work toward that, because he had some worthwhile things to say. The perspective of anyone is worthwhile, especially one who's trying to follow the way of Christ, however that looks at a particular moment. How can someone move forward if they don't know where they are? How can a brother in Christ help another brother if he isn't talking, at least attempting to articulate what he's going through?

Which leads me to M____'s response to the conversation. He decided that, at least for the time being, if his blog was going to be used against him, he wasn't blogging. Given what happened, the response is at least understandable.

But does that help?

I was reminded of another verse: Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. (Ephesians 4:25) If a person is hiding the truth of his life and his heart, is that lying? If a person is hiding the truth of his life and his heart because of our potential backlash, are we facilitating his life becoming a lie?

How many Christians are living life with a shiny veneer that is lying on the top of some real pain, some real questions, some real...who knows what?, because they don't know - or they're pretty sure they do know - what kind of response they'll get?

Shouldn't we balance our desire for salt-seasoned conversation with the realization that sometimes, people are going to say things in ways that we don't understand? Shouldn't we allow those people to speak truth, and help them from there? If we react in ways that discourage further dialogue, aren't we part of their refusal to put away lying?

One thing I do know: if we don't let them talk, they will stop talking.

Stuff I just can't make up

So I have an account on LiveJournal (another blogging site). I don't generally post there, I just keep up with some of my teenagers and others and comment on their posts.

Today, after commenting, I noticed that I could click on "Random," and it would take me to a random LiveJournal account. That sounded interesting enough, and I hadn't really roamed around on LiveJournal beyond the people I know. So I clicked it.

This was the current entry.


October 1st, 2004
10:31 am - Переход на безлимитный тариф.Как же-шь хорошо! За трафиком я больше не слежу. Фоном качается музычка с бесплатного для меня сервака мп3-шек. Сайтики я теперь скачивать не буду. А зачем? Пусть господа веб-дизайнеры обновляют информацию. А я буду ею пользоваться. (Лишь бы мозги не вскипели - вмещать такое количество информации.) Времени сразу освободилось от лишних действий, что я производил раньше. Ка-а-айф.Говорили, что скорость меня может не устроить. Ха! Очень даже устраивает, даже при постоянном фоновом скачивании. Смешно. Я и так всегда считал, что у компьютера, как и у автомобиля на дороге, самое слабое место - это прокладка между креслом и клавиатурой (мышкой, монитором, рулём). Информация выводилась и будет выводится на экран всё равно намного быстрее, чем даже самый быстрый пользователь сможет её прочесть. И моё утверждение только подтверждается этим.


That's my fortune: the first time I venture out into Blogland, I get a guy who posts in - what is this, Greek? - and hasn't updated in eight months.


----


So the brakes on my car have reached a new level of squeakiness.

By "my car," I refer to the '94 Grand Am that has known my wife longer than I have. She had just bought it when I met her, and I've been jealous ever since.

Anyway, we're basically waiting for the payments on our minivan to get over with already so we can unload my car. It has, literally, 185,000 miles on it or something, and I put a gallon of water in the radiator every other day because it continues to disappear, despite very helpful people in my life replacing the thermostat and the radiator.

The problem is, the thing won't stop running. It just keeps going.

But in the meantime, things are starting to wear out. Of particular note at this moment are the front brakes. Anyone who knows cars knows that the front brake pads are set up to have a sharp metal thing start grating on the rotor so that you'll know it's time to change them. Or something like that.

So this grating thing has been going on for some time. Months, or so. And the normal progression is that when this squeaking sound starts, it's annoying at low speeds, but generally isn't noticeable at highway speeds. It's just noisy once in a while, just enough to let you know to get it done already.

Mine has ascended to the next level of squeakiness: a grating sound that never actually stops. Seriously, I was noticing on my way in to work that, even at 65+ mph on the interstate, I could hear this ice-pick-on-chalkboard sound. Granted, the window was down because I've long since given up on the AC, but still, this was a first.

So I may be forced to actually deal with this situation before I unload the car. I fully expect that, when I do, the following will happen: as I take the front wheels off, my entire brake system will break into "The Hallelujah Chorus," and on the last refrain, disintegrate into dust.

Or something like that.

I dislike the smell of Babel in the morning

So, what was it really like to be part of the whole tower of Babel thing?

What, you've never heard of the whole Babel thing? Here are my Clif Notes:

One of the major parts of the story of God, as recounted in the Bible, is of the great flood that destroyed every person and animal on the earth, except for Noah, his family, and the animals they brought onto the ark with them. So after the flood, people start making a comeback, and their numbers are increasing, and they're getting a little full of themselves.

Being full of themselves, they decide to take on the building of a tower that would reach to God. God comes down to check it out, and realizes that the main reason they can take on this audacious task is because they're united, especially by language. God realizes that, as long as they stick together and are able to communicate, they're not going to populate the whole world, as He wanted: they'll just stick together and do whatever they want.

So, right in the middle of the construction project, God "confounds their language," and suddenly huge chunks of people can't talk to huge chunks of other people.

What was that like?

Can you imagine what it was like to be looking at someone, saying, "I love you," or "You're going to hurt yourself," or "Why are you standing on my prize petunias?" and the person to whom you're talking just not get it?

I can. 'Cause I get a little sense of it in my conversations with pastor types and young people types.

See, I've had lots of conversations lately. I've had conversations with pastor types (more than one, so don't anyone think it's just you, or someone you know) and I've had conversations with young people types (I've only had one, and it's you). By young people types, I am, of course, referring to anyone between, say, 15 and, oh, 29. For the sake of this conversation.

Seriously, I've talked to lots of both, and each group, in general terms, seems frustrated with the other. Pastor types don't get young people types. Most of their conversations about them start with "They just don't understand that..." or "I would have thought they'd known better..." They don't understand why young people types don't just accept the way things have always been done. They don't understand why young people types seemingly overstate things, and seem to always be operating from some degree of depression.

Young people types don't get pastor types. They're frustrated that what pastor types say and do doesn't have any bearing on their lives. Pastor types seem disconnected, uncaring, and unable to provide any direction outside of the omnipresent three-point sermon. Young people types are frustrated that when they don't understand the reason for something, the pastor type's explanation makes it plain that if they don't understand, it's because of their own problems.

Is this a broad brush? You bet, and feel free to elaborate/refute me in the comments. I'm pulling out the broad brush here 'cause I want to get to what's eating at me:

Pastor types and young people types will spend loads of time talking about each other to themselves. But they're not talking to each other - beyond surface level - at all. There is this huge disconnect, and it's a problem - below the surface. They handle pleasantries and the obligatory potluck dinner just fine, but deeper than that, there's a Babel vibe going on.

Now, in evangelical circles, the answer to this issue is to aim a service at young people types, create ministry just for young people types, yada, yada, yada. In independent Baptist circles, that's not usually done, outside of youth group ministry, but even there the youth group is considered part of the body of the church.

And I don't think that should be done. But pastor types and young people types are going to have to learn to communicate with each other at the heart level. Pastor types are going to have to stretch their view of the world, to assume nothing, to get inside young people types' heads and connect with them from the point at which they find themselves. Young people types are going to have to forgive, take care of bitterness that has resulted from past disconnections, and take a chance and be open about what they're really going through.

In the case of Babel, the effect was that the huge chunks of people scattered around the earth. If we don't do something, we're going to have a Babel effect: young people types will scatter from pastor types. Not from God, not from His Word, just from pastor types. In spirit, it's happening - has happened - already. For some, it's happened physically, too.

As it stands, pastor types will continue to be disappointed, and chalk it up to a world getting more wicked. Young people types will find an expression of life in Christ which allows them to walk in His way, or they won't, and they'll be another casualty.

It's time to move toward getting on the same page.

Oh, now I remember...

In the Bible, there are stories where an important event happens, and God wants people to remember what happened. Or they want to remember what happened. So they place an object, and the object is placed for the specific purpose of jogging the memory, if you will.

After God spoke to Jacob in a dream, Jacob erected a pillar of stones at Bethel. After God held back the Jordan River so the nation of Israel could cross, God told them to erect a pile of stones next to the Jordan River. These were for the purpose of remembering.

In the books of the Bible that tell of the earthly life of Jesus, we find that He had a conversation with His disciple, Peter, in which He foretold that Peter would deny knowing Him. When Peter bristled at the thought, Jesus told Peter that before the rooster crowed three times, Peter would deny Him. When the moment of Peter's denial happened, the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered.

In each case, these people remembered, but the memory is more than just a recollection: in a moment, senses relive what it was like to be there, what it felt like, what it looked like, the smells, the emotions, all of it comes racing back in a single moment.

And at the very same time, a very distinct realization of where the present is in relation to that moment comes washing over. The Bible recounts that upon hearing the rooster, Peter wept bitterly, realizing where his present was in relation to where he had been. He was doing the very thing that, in that heady moment with Jesus, he had promised he'd never do.

Herein lies the value of such placements, such objects. In a moment, they snap you back to that moment in time, and give you a sense of what has changed, or not changed.

I thought of this about 3:00 this morning.

I couldn't sleep. I gave up trying about 1, and went into the basement to the room that I designated as my place to study. It had become mostly a storage room for books and other things, but I was determined to reclaim this space. And, like I said, I couldn't sleep.

So I'm sorting papers, throwing away things, stacking, organizing, dusting, and so on. I don't like to hold on to a lot of things I don't need, but sermon notes, and notes of every variety, have been things I've always held on to. I always figure that I'll look through the sermon notes and get ideas for my own sermons. That has never worked, but I keep trying.

So I'm sorting stuff, and I come upon this:



I read this, and in a moment, I was transported to a secluded river bank at a camp in Iowa, where five years ago, I confronted God. I felt the sun filtering through the leaves and reflecting off the water, the urgency in my voice as I pleaded with God for the hearts of my teenagers. I remembered the helplessness I felt as I told God that if He didn't do something, directions of young lives were going to be altered toward apathy, toward their flesh, toward being messed up.

And on that river bank, as I pleaded for the hearts of my teens, I pleaded with God for my heart, too. I told Him I was tired of mediocre relationship, of being a follower of Christ who hadn't bought in entirely. I confessed areas where I had left God out of the picture, where I had committed sin.

And I made promises.

Promises which I had totally forgotten until 3:00 this morning.

I vowed to stop reading the Life section of USA Today? It's been at least a year since I haven't not read the Life section of USA Today. Stop purchasing magazines without Kristy looking through them first? I haven't purchased many magazines, but I'd forgotten about that, too. Unplug the antenna from my TV? Did it for a while, but not recently. First hour of my day to God? It's been a struggle sometimes, sticking God with the leftovers of my day.

Wow. And I can't even explain them away: I wrote them down.

I had to read it twice, just to let it soak in properly. A nice memory of God working in lives turned into a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized where I was at 3:00 this morning in relation to where I had been on July 20 five years ago.

I'm not proud of where I've ended up with these vows, but I'm thankful that God gave me an object that jolted my memory, and that He forgives me when I confess my sins. I'm thankful that I have the chance to remember, the chance to reorient my direction, and the chance to pursue Him with my life.

I remember, God. Thanks for the reminder.


Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man:
And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel:
That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?
Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.
-The Bible, Joshua 4:4-7

OOOh! - intro: Jellyman, offspring. Offspring, Jellyman.

So this is my family:

My wife Kristy. She is amazing. We've been married over eight years, and every day I realize in a different way that she is exactly the person, not only that God had for me, but that God knew I needed. She loves playing the piano and PlayStation and scrapbooking and me!

My oldest, Steven Michael Rowell III, or Trey. He's four. He loves to ride his bike and play basketball with Daddy. He's pretty tall for his age, like Daddy was. He loves to talk, but large chunks of it still don't make sense, which concerns us a little, but I'm confident that part will come along. He's really smart, too.

My middle child is Gracie, my princess. She's three, and she has signed a confidentiality agreement stating she'll be in big trouble if she tells anyone I'm wrapped around her little finger. She loves princessy things, long dresses that poof when she twirls, tiaras, and Oreos. Actually, just the filling of Oreos.

Derek is my youngest. I wrote some about him in my previous entry. His first birthday was in March, and he's a big dude for his age, also. He struggles with excema, which has deprived him of the joy of dairy products for the time being, and relegates all of us to wearing clothes washed in Dreft. Doctors say he could grow out of it in a year or so, and we're praying to that end. He loves to taunt us by taking three steps and falling down, and it's been eight days since his last binky.

These are the most important people in my life. I work at being what God wants me to be for them, because I know if I can't be the husband and father that He wants me to be, I'm not going to be any good as a pastor/shepherd, either.

As you can now see, God's been extremely good in bringing these lives into mine.

So that's what love looks like: for Derek

If the church is supposed to work under many of the same relational dynamics as those of the family (I Timothy 5:1,2 would be an obvious example of the biblical imperative), perhaps part of the breakdown in the relational dynamics of our churches - and our lives as Christians - stems from the breakdown of family relational dynamics around us.

I mean, if you're supposed to intreat an elder as a father, what happens when your father wasn't there? Or he was there, but he belittled you? Or abused you? What if my mother put her desires ahead of her children, and then I become a follower of Christ, and God tells me to intreat older women in the church as mothers?

When some people read that God loves them as a Father, or that they have a Friend that sticks closer than a brother, well...

It helps explain a lot, come to think of it.

And that makes it all the more precious when you get to see, in real life, an example of what the love of family can be. And how it can be a glimpse into what our relationship with God in Christ, and with our spiritual family, can be like.

I thought of all this in the shower.

It was late morning, and the kids and I had shooed Kristy/Mama out of the house to go do scrapbookish stuff or something. We had watched Pooh's Heffalump Movie for the second time that morning.

(Side note: one of the best movie lines of all times comes in this movie. Rabbit tells Roo that he can't go on the heffalump hunting expedition because the whole mission is fraught with danger. After Roo says he can handle it, Tigger reaches down and says, "You just can't argue with a word like 'fraught'." Classic.)

Anyway, my day officially starts when I've showered, dressed, and had breakfast. I've been known to turn down tacos at half past noon, in favor of donuts, because I haven't had breakfast yet. So I sneak away from where Trey, Gracie, Derek and I were watching the movie, thinking I could shower, get dressed, and be around before the movie ended. Bad things of every variety happen when the kids realize that the only parent in the house is indisposed.

As I'm shaving, I hear rumbling along the ground, and I realize that Derek has lost interest in Poohs and heffalumps and is scooting through the house, looking for me. See, it's a known fact that Derek is my boy, not just in the genetic sense of the term, but in the I-don't-want-you-'cause-you're-not-my-dad sense of the term.

So I hear him rumbling toward the bathroom door, and I think to myself, Okay, now if I can get into the shower and turn it on before he gets to the door, he'll realize I'm indisposed and the ensuing kitchen carnage will be light because I'll have taken a quick shower. I thought this, and tried to pull it off, but as I stepped into the shower, I heard the door slam open, and I could hear Derek mentally analyzing the situation. Then he started crying as he realized that I was carrying on a however miniscule part of my life without him.

So, me being the brilliant tactician, I decided to act as if I had heard nothing, and start my shower.

I had a head full of shampoo when I suddenly heard the shower curtain rip back. There was Derek, who now feels better because he knows where I am, but was not expecting water to be part of the equation. This'll work out, I thought. He'll be terrified of the shower water, close the curtain, and that'll be that.

But he didn't. He couldn't even see me, because every time he looked up, his eyes would get pelted with water. It didn't matter: he just stood there, not even crying, just recoiling and gasping a little every time he'd get water in his eyes. His head was soaked, his sweatshirt was soaked, and he just stood there. The whole time it took me to get my shower done, he just stood there.

Because he knew that was where I was.

I turned off the water, dried and dressed, and took Derek to change his sweatshirt (somehow, his pants were completely dry). The whole time, he just looked at me with this light in his eyes, and smiled. And I just looked back at him, and smiled, and thought to myself:

God, I just want to be where you are. I'll do whatever it takes - just let me be where you are.


As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
- The Bible, Psalm 42:1,2