Other Side

I'm pretty sure I've never blogged about this.  At least not in any discernibly direct way.  But I'm going to give it a shot.  This blog is primarily a way for me to process thoughts or feelings.  As such, it tends toward the confusing and angry, occasionally the mystical.  But that of course is not all I experience.  It's just that times of clear understanding or emotion don't need processing; they're just experienced.  So I don't write about them.  This other side makes up a significant portion of the contemplative Christian experience, at least for me and for many I read about and talk to.  It's hard to describe, so I'm going to muddle on.

Right now, I'm coming off a brief mild illness.  Just a cold.  But it follows a stressful period and I have received it gratefully as an excuse to rest.  I've been overwhelmed by a sense of peace in it.  Just a deep soul-whisper of "thank you" for bringing me into the rest I could not give myself.  Throughout it I've felt at ease.  I've felt cared for.  The back of my mind has been haunted by strains of music of a gentle love toward me and from me toward my God.

Please know that for me, this word 'God' is loaded very differently than most may use it.  It's like the deepest self-giving love you may feel for a loved one, combined with an awe or respect given a hero or excellent father, and a sublime (look this word up) reverence as if looking into something huge and vast and powerful, yet gorgeously beautiful.  There is nothing of punishment, nothing of justice.

Jody Foster echoes it in Contact when she cries in the fetal position in her journey.  CS Lewis describes it in the Pevensie children burying their faces in Aslan's mane.  It is a safety and a rightness found because of the power sheathed in gentleness, like a small Tarzan baby sound asleep in a gorilla's arms.

This is not why I became a Christian, but it is why I stay a Christian.  This is why I can't accept any form of Christianity that takes away from this.  This is irresistible love.  This is looking into the dark chasm of the universe and finding everything you've secretly hoped for and never even admitted to yourself looking right back at you and smiling with a face that is more human than your own.

Expansion

I am so blessed.  This is a phrase that is hard to say with any real meaning since it is so cleche.  But I refuse to let it be stolen from all usage.  I am blessed.  My household is expanding.  Even as I shed the last vestiges of the American Dream.  Prayers are being answered.  God is meeting my needs in very real and close personal ways.  This is also cleche, but I'm beginning to understand it.

My family has expanded and improved...been touched by glory, even.  My wife is more beautiful to me than ever before.  More desirable and more satisfying.  I mean that.  She is a total package of internal and external beauty.  I find myself staring at her and even notice that the intentionally titillating stuff on TV and movies has no real appeal to me compared to her.  I'm not making this up.  I'm human and do not lie that I have been attracted by this kind of thing.  But recently, I find it holds nothing for me compared to her.

My son is growing and learning to adapt to his new life.  I've always had a hard time connecting with him, but I think we are making progress there.  He might finally be learning to see the real goals of my training and discipline.  And I am ready to be more honest with him about it.  I never thought much good could come from hiding things, even small things like why we tell him to do certain things, or how we budget our money, etc.  And I think he is responding.

I have a beautiful goddaughter whom I love dearly.  She is not merely the kid that I stood next to in some ceremony.  She was imprinted on my heart by God himself.  She is truly beautiful, as she begins to grow up and I can see that she will be a stunning picture of physical beauty, but her heart is tender and sweet.  she thinks often of others first and will be a model for what God intends for a woman to be.  She is beginning to trust this relationship and see her own real value beyond the cheesy self-esteem stuff.  She is lovely and lovable and she is learning how to live in that.

Her mom is starting to accept us as family as well.  We are learning to communicate and help each other in real ways and my hope is that this will continue to grow into an increasingly permanent bond of family.

And lastly, we just recently became godparents to her other daughter!  A brilliantly smart and beautiful teenager who quickly understands situations in a very insightful way.  She is equally modest about her successes and strengths.  Which is so appealing in this age of boasting and self-aggrandizing.  She is physically and emotionally beautiful and so smart, making for a very appealing woman.  My hope is that she will come to understand her value as her sister is learning to.

She was recently added to our family because God started to point her out to us.  We have loved her for a long time now, but finally the time was right to ask her if we could be her family and she was so happy.  As am I.  I have long believed that family is found more in the intentional relation of people than in any other form.  The saying is only part true.  Blood may be thicker than water, but spirit is the strongest bond of all.  I have also long felt a hole in myself that bit by bit, I learned was cut for this very thing.

I don't know how long things last.  I'm sure trials and troubles will come again.  But I also feel confident that I am not in the same place I was before.  God has raised me up.  He has expanded my territory.  Not just my family, but my work, my friends, my finances, my health, everything is now bearing a light of power and glory.  I know that whatever comes, I shall not be forsaken and my God is my strength and my hope.  I hope my reach as Legatus Regni continues to expand to reveal God's glory in this world.  And regardless of that, I will stand by those God has given me as long as I live.

To them I say that they have nothing to fear.  God has answered their prayers.  They may not see it or know it yet.  But I am just the advance runner bringing news of what is to come.  Just wait and see.  And I will be there with you and for you all through everything to come.  This is not my promise.  This is God's promise to you.  I am made for this, so it is pure joy and fulfilment for me to be this gift to you.  In short, I love you.

God did it

I've been saving this up until the entire deal was over and I could safely say so.  Now I believe it is true.  Here's the story.

We bought our house at the tail end of the housing peak.  We were smart enough to avoid the pitfall mortgages and to buy a house that we could afford.  We bought it under value, did lots of work to it, and in a year had it reappraised.  We had gained significant equity which we thought would preserve us during the inevitable crash that everyone with a brain saw coming.  But it didn't.  The values fell so far that we not only lost the equity but the house was valued at less than half what we paid for it.

Now things were still good in that we could afford it.  But the neighborhood, which was not the best in the first place began to slip and we could not sell or refinance.  We were locked into the payment for thirty years.  At the rate of recovery there was no way we could ever make back the money and certainly not within a time frame which we needed to move.

So we debated several things and investigated options and ultimately sat on it until the time seemed right.  Earlier this year, that time hit.  We decided we needed to get out.  Trouble at my son's school, new neighbor issues, the huge albatross of a home investment, family issues all pointed to one thing.  But we knew we had no options before.  but we also know that God is all powerful and works in the world today.  So I asked him to take care of this some way or other.

I called the bank to ask about options, knowing there weren't many for people who were smart enough to afford their homes...why would a bank help someone who could pay?  But they said there were programs for our case.  So I needed a realtor.  My wife knew one who turned out to specialize in short sales, so we signed up with her.  She gave us details about programs and processes and we were in for the haul, expecting this could take nearly a year and cost us money in the end.

But then the bank told us they had a program that was essentially a "no doc" short sale.  We say we need to sell and they work with us to do it.  No financial record search, no haggling, etc.  Our realtor had never had something like this before.  Even her other short sales with far more hardship were slow and painful.

We listed the house and had a buyer in less than a week.  The bank told us how much we needed to get and we had more than that.  It took a few months to work out all the paperwork, etc, but this month we closed the sale, had the balance of debt written off, and even came a way with a nice relocation incentive.  All told about 4 months.

We even found a nice house to rent in a good area with more square footage and for less than our mortgage payment.  I know no one who has had it this easy.  Our realtor doesn't either.  I know others in the process who are struggling through in the typical fashion or through other similar relief options.

I did nothing to make this happen.  I have no special knowledge of real estate, and I am not a holy man.  There is only one explanation for this entire process:  I asked God to do it and he did.  I don't know why he might not do it for other people.  I'm not going to start making theological premises out of it.  Suffice to say it is not by works of righteousness which I have done.  But the credit must go to my God who claims to know and control all things and who promises to give us good things, and he did.