Today is the last day of the class that I have been attending. I've been commuting to the location (65 miles away) every day, so I'm really glad that it's just about over. Since the humidity has finally dropped with the week-long rain gone, I decided to eat lunch outside. I went to Subway and then to an arboretum to sit outside and eat. After I started eating my sub, a chipmunk started running around my table, looking over at me every once and a while. I decided to throw him a small niblet of bread. He immediately picked it up, raised it over his head - to thank me, I'm sure - and chomped down. He must have been afraid that another chipmunk saw him because he ran away to finish his feast. But shortly later he came back for some more.

It was so nice to be outside, in God's nature. Even though I was just up the hill from a busy road, it was great to be in a place of peace where I could refresh my mind from the numbing technical information that I have been listening to all week. Just the short time that I got to spend, it made me wonder why I don't appreciate nature more often. God totally knew what they were doing when they created the world - how much we would need a refreshment. It makes me wonder how often I forsake such a refreshment when I really need it.

As this week ends, I am also pondering if I'll continue to be as mindful of my thoughts and this journal starting next week when I return to work. I wonder if I'll be blocked by distractions or faithful in my work. I hope that I am faithful to our Creator, my Savior, and steady in my faith.

I try to keep up with Donald Miller information and such, and last week, I read an entry that Don himself wrote. Don discussed that he has started to read the Bible straight through using The Message translation. A* bought me The Message translation for me some time ago, and I've read bits and pieces from it. But as I read Don's entry, I realized that I don't think I've ever read the whole Bible. In fact, I know that I haven't. So I decided that I should start, and use The Message to do so.

Last night, I finished reading Genesis. I read more than 4 or 5 chapters at a time. One night I think I read about 20 chapters. It was that easy to read! But I must admit that so far, God is more confusing to me than before. In fact, I'm not sure that God is really defined quite yet, at least in the way that I have already had God defined or have defined Him myself. He refers to himself as "we", so there appears to be a multi-dimensional aspect of God. There is also an assumption that everyone knows who God is, the Egyptian, the Hittites, all of the other people. And God pops up to people rather infrequently, say every 50 years or so, in some cases. The author of Genesis also states when people starting worship God regularly (in Genesis 4 after mentioning the birth of Seth), but he doesn't document how that worship takes place on a regular basis. There are a couple instances of altars being built, but nothing much else.

I learned something new - that angels came down to earth and married humans and produce 'giants'. That is interesting. Didn't know that before. It also appears that God created lots and lots of people and not just Adam and Eve to start humanity. Clearly Cain is scared of other people killing him after God cursed him for killing Abel, so there must be a lot of other people around. It makes the first 11 chapters of Genesis a lot more literature and mythological than a literal representation of what exactly happened. But this makes sense, since everyone who would have been around was dead, either naturally, or by the Flood, right?

It's a lot to unpack, and I wonder if I read it too fast, but I think that God will reveal to me connections as He sees fit for my soul to learn and grow. Something else that I just thought of: if God continually speaks of God in a plurality, why do we restrict pronouns of God to He? Why aren't we refering to God as "They"? Is it because we are predispositioned in a masculine or male-dominated mindset or we have an intellectual disconnect with God being a multi-faceted being? After all, as Christians we are supposed to believe in the Trinity, are we not? An interesting issue. I wonder what would happen if I start refering to the plural pronoun of God in conversations?

Last night, A* and briefly talked about prayer, wondering if we could pose this topic to our small barn church group this week. Though I was completely exhausted from the days events and driving that I did, I said that lately I haven't been praying much at all, especially in the traditional sense. I admitted, however, that sometimes I think my journaling here is prayer, but I wasn't really convinced.

It's hard for me to close my eyes and bow my head and be quiet and think in my head a prayer. In fact, it's hard for me just to be quiet and think. I don't have the concentration to stay focused within myself or my head. That's why I think that my journaling here is more prayer than I realize or give myself credit for. I desire to be closer to God, to understand His will for our lives, especially as it changes with having a baby soon. I desire for my actions to change, and definitely my attitudes about things. I have noticed some changes at times, like more patience or being less in hurry, less competitiveness, and more importance in fulfilling my commitments. But I also think I might becoming more reserved or more nervous about being a father. Apprehensive - that's the right word. I'm not afraid, I'm actually really excited, but I also feeling unconfident that I'll be a good enough father. I imagine this is not atypical.

At the same time, I'm also trying to become more aware of the social issues and missional activities of various followers of Jesus I'm meeting through the Donald Miller fans website or the Burnside Writers Collective. Many of them are different from me, have different viewpoints, but the same love for Jesus. I feel that I have either been sheltered from different views, or I have just been ignorant that there are such views out there. I'm not talking about differences in theology, necessarily, but really social issues like environmental conservation, or a network of Christians who are fed up with the far-right wing agenda, or Christians who would like to see a change in our capitalistic nature that is more nuturing to our entire community.

I have found that the Burnside Writers Collective has been a great resource to learn about new issues. Living simply, living by a "love anyway" motivation, the disclosure that Christian bookstores often sell books that represent conservative politics that has nothing to do with Jesus or following Him or the like. This observation, along with my recent decision to turn off all kinds of "talk radio", has made me realize that I don't really buy into everything the political party to which I'm registered. I am at least more interested in the issues than just because it's the party line. Being pro-life, for example, is one that I've discussed before. Pro-life is really a misnomer in politics when it's only labeled on a candidate who does not support abortions. But how often does that same candidate support the dealth penalty? If so, how is he/she really pro-life? It makes me very aware of using these labels carefully and consistently for myself.

But what all this really means to me is what am I doing, as a follower of Jesus, to care for the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the unborn? How is my lifestyle caring and/or destroying God's creation? I'm sure I'm actually doing both, but I don't really understand all of the ways. Am I adding to an economic culture that is hurting the poor? Am I forsaking the lives of the imprisioned by electing trigger-happy capital punishers? What about war? The questions go on and on...

But the point of all this to me is that there is a lot of things that I am unsure of in what I believe - and by believe I mean think intellectually, feel emotionally, but especially living out. I'm sure that there will be some issues that I feel like could be important, but not important enough for me to live out in a certain way. But others may require some significant change in my lifestyle, my financial habits, and/or our family life. All in all, to be in tune with God, I want to the tune of Tim to be following Jesus in my entire life, loving others as Jesus loves, taking heed that even indirectly, my actions show my love of Jesus.

this I pray...

God of truth and light, shine on me,
a servant afraid of the shadows and darkness.
God of healing grace, cover me
completely in the shelter of your loving hands.

God of forgiveness, free from me
the burdens I carry, these self-inflicted wounds
God of healing love, bandage me
with Your everlasting songs ever on my lips

You are holy, Oh God, ever to be praised!
This song I sing to you, my life by you is changed.
You are holy, Oh God, ever to be praised!
My life I give to you, my life by you is saved.

Save me from my sinful heart, I long to be free.
Hold me in your loving arms, my shelter you will be.

A little more that 3 months from now (most likely) the new life of our family will enter the world. As A* ends her third trimester, we are starting to make those big preparations necessary to welcome a baby. We are looking through catalogs for cribs and changing tables, deciding on the theme of the nursery, the colors of paint, and of course, finances. The last one is a bit up in the air. Do we need A* to work? If so, just part-time? We don't want to put our baby into childcare. Can I work from home some days? It's all very big... and a little bit scary.

In the middle of my heart while dealing with finances is also being faithful in following Jesus. What does it mean if we can't or don't give money away to those in need? We already don't give the 10%? I want to be faithful, but I also want to be sure that I provide for my family's needs. A* and I have tried to live simply, as simply as we can. Sometimes we go overboard, but usually we do a good job.

Like I said, it's in the middle of my heart. A year ago I wouldn't have thought about this for a second. I either would have tried to give what we could to our church or nothing at all. But now, I have trust issues with the church and awareness of other very serious social justice issues, like the Blood:Water Mission. I want to do my part of caring for those in need, but I also want to be a good husband and father. Is it impossible to do both?

I don't want to get into the habit of doing this, but I am posting a journal entry that I wrote because I wasn't at my computer to write it here.

Tonight we wathced the series finale of Everwood after returning from vacation at the shore. Both events, Everwood and vacation stirred up a great deal of emotions inside of me. As A* knows, inside emotions are very difficult for me to deal with. I am not an introspective person. I get lost very easily inside, at which point I shut down internally.

This is why worship is so important to me. Worshipping Jesus is the way for me to allow the Spirit of God inside my heart and fill me with the truth, love, and joy, mercy, passion, and grace that I need to live.

This is why vacation and Everwood are heavy burdens on my heart. Let's start with Everwood first, because it's easier to relate to (you know, since I'm a "postmodern" person and all who likes/needs to be "entertained."

As a show, I identified with various characters and elements. Mainly, Ephram, who had a passion and gift of music, but more so, found life - or new life, throught love. Ephram is not so unlike me. We would both confuse some things as love to be terribly hurt and disappointed, struggle with emotions, and have to wait for our "one" to come back. So it saddened me a great deal that I have watched the last show, realizing that I'll have to life my life without using Everwood as a confirmation of what I should do or say. OK - I'm not really doing that. Really, though, I feel like I'm losing yet another friend from my life. And that is really, really hard to do again.

Which brings me to "vacation." As I said to A* before writing this, it is very hard for me to try to move forward in life when I spent a whole week forced to revisit painful memories of my childhood (teen years). Instead of being ready to be a father and turn 30, I felt like I was treated like I was 18, not yet set free by my parents or their expectations. While I'm certain that my parents aren't conscious that their words/actions were causing painful deja vu inside of me, it does cause me great fear that I'll never escape the sadness that I dealt with growing up. My relief then was independence, which ironically brought on more words that hurt. "This is my other son, the one who never comes home anymore," my mother says if I'm ever introduced. Those words sting me, as if I burned a bridge on my way. I don't think I did - I just took the hint that if I wanted something, I should find my own way. I did indeed want something: I wanted to change. And I have changed.

I was shy, unconfident, ashamed of what I did as activities (orchestra, bowling) and I felt like I had to fit in like a chameleon, and I was always looking for something else in the way of God, faith, and Jesus. Now I'm not very shy, I have some confidence in things, but still generally unconfident about my heart, my emotions. I'm no longer ashamed of what I do, yet I am still looking for more in God, fatih, and Jesus - which is good!

But what I hated back then, in my teen years, was my life. I felt trapped by expectations: of my parents, of church people, of teachers. Expectations that were not my own. As A* and I would sit on the couch on vacation and listen to my mother, I could hear those same expectations, except now A* was trapped, too. "Enough," I would say to my mom - but it did little to calm or cease the sting.

We've been invited to another week of "vacation" next year with just my immediate family. I am seriously considering declining the invitation, even if it is a free vacation. With a new baby, I don't know that I'll be able to deal with the same memories, the same words, the same sadness.

Hate is such a strong word, but I ponder it now as the words of Jesus of how we can't follow him without hating (or losing, as the Message translates) our family. It seems to me, at this moment, that I need to separate myself from that life, the past, which may have an impact on my future interactions with my family, especially my parents. I truly hate a significant part of my teen years, and I don't know how to stop revisiting those memories each and every interaction with my family. But I know that I don't want it to continue anymore!

Today is my last day for over a week that I have to sit in this chair at work. I am going on vacation, leaving the war of work to relax, refresh, and hopefully rejuvenate my soul. I am tired and weary of the battle I wage every day, sometimes with others, but usually within myself. I am planning to continue reading (maybe finish) Searching for God Knows What and hopefully journal about that to share more here.

But I'm looking forward to relaxing, reading, walking, and eating at the beach!