A Letter to Kimberly

Kimberly,

I don't say it nearly enough, but thank you so much for all that you do for me and our family! I am so thankful and blessed to be married to you. I'm sure that you feel taken for granted from time to time, and that's just not fair! And, it's 100% my fault.

When I am on the road, you're at home taking care of all the important stuff. I get to leave work at the end of the day. You, however, don't share the same luxury. You're job never ends!

I owe you so much gratitude that it's not even feasible to understand. I should take you out more, send you flowers (although they are expensive and have a short shelf life!) more often, write little love notes, or just take the kids away more often for an hour or two.

Maybe making it public for all of the world wide web to see will hold me more accountable to all of that. I know you are thinking, "Yeah, right! I've heard this song before!" And, I couldn't blame you for thinking that!

I do want you to know, though, that I am so incredibly blessed to share my life with you! I most certainly got the better end of the deal! When I look at you I see all that's right with and beautiful in the world! I don't know what the Big Man Upstairs was thinking when He put us together. You have some legitimate beef there. I'm glad He did!

I have everything I could ever want or need. A beautiful and loving wife, two amazing children, a great group of people around me, a great job and my health...just to name a few! However, I don't always see it. I'm sorry for that. Hopefully, you will still put up with me!

I love you!

Love,

Ray

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life...

Let's face it...Life sucks sometimes! No reason to pull any punches or sugarcoat it, because sometimes it just sucks! Oddly enough, it was the Bible that reminded me of that today. It also reminded me that despite those "less than stellar" times, you can always find joy! I was leaving the Y this morning and grabbed a folded Bible verse, as I always do, on my way out the door. It just happened to be John 16:33, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” A subtle punch in the face at 9:30 am.

Essentially, it tells us that the fight is over and has been over for a long long time! Jesus paid our debt and took all the worldly pain off of our shoulders on a cross a little over two-thousand years ago. All we have to do is accept it. You have the love of Christ! And that is all you need, really. As Matt Maher sings in Hold Us Together:

It don't have a job, don't pay your bills
Won't buy you a home in Beverly Hills
Won't fix your life in five easy steps
Ain't the law of the land or the government?
But it's [LOVE's] all you need

I also titled this post after the bridge of that song because he notes that "'Cause even in the dark you can still see the light, It's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright..." There may be something going on in your life right now that doesn't seem all that great. And quite frankly, it's nowhere near great. However, there are plenty of things that He has provided for you in your life that you can look toward when you find yourself in one of the many valleys of your life. 

I have bad days. I have days where I just want to lay in the bed and feel bad for myself. I have days where I feel like it's me versus the rest of the world. I have days when I am mad at the world. And, I used to just shut out everything and everyone and hope that someone somewhere would take pity on me and make me feel better. Any happiness that came as a result was only temporary. 

It's joy that I now find and that, my friends, is what will stand the test of time. I can look at my kids and they just shed light on all the darkness! The smile on my wife's face when one of the little knuckleheads does something funny is so worth not wallowing in my sorrow. The sunshine, the deer in the field down from our house, the Andy Andrews' book that I found on clearance at LifeWay, a five minute conversation with my best friend Adam (Pook) Stephenson, and so much more that I would use all of cyberspace to list! Those are all things that he has placed in my life and they have always been there. I haven't always seen them, but as I found myself growing in my spiritual life I have learned that God's grace is sufficient and I don't need to rely on all of those things to get me by. It's amazing how much more I enjoy those things now that they don't control my life. When I do let them take control, which I do more often than I would like to admit, I don't enjoy them nearly as much as I do when I realize Who put those things in my life. 

As the interim pastor at my church, Kevin Ezell, so eloquently says, "Walk, don't wallow!" Sometimes I just have to get off my posterior and take a look at all the wonderful things around me and the love and grace of God to grab the JOY during the not-so-happy times!

Happy Labor Day and God Bless!