There’s certain times in my week that I love.  Those are times that I look forward to, that I realize will someday go away, and that I try to get as much out of as possible.  They are my weekly regular times with my friends.  Without these times I would know half as much and be twice as bored.  They come at different times throughout the week and in various communicative ways.

Date night with Carie.

An early morning phone call from Garret.

A late night drive back home from a basketball game with Jay.

Sitting in St. Arbucks with Jeff.

Sunday early mornings with Steve and Al.

In the office with Billy.

Watching football with Sean, Steve, or Dave.

Text messages from Brian and Brandon.

Regular long distance convos with Clay.

Occasional Tuesday nights with Deric.

Sunday Mornings @ Fellowship.

Game nights with Steve and Priscilla and Jake.

Friday at Finders Pub.

Hang time with my life group

I not only have these times placed in my calendar, I thrive on these times like Popeye to spinach and Tammy Faye to make up.  I think it’s important to invest in relationships, and to set aside time to pour into others and to allow others to pour into me.  Sure it would be easier and cleaner and require less time to simply keep to myself, but friends are more fun and make me want to be a better person.

Cheers to friends and growth.

I see it in my own life.  I watched, listened, learned, then made decisions in my life based on whether or not I thought they were wise.  But for the most part, while I tend to view their overarching role in my life very positively, I look at specific things more negatively and do my best to be different than them.

I’m talking about parents, and the way we react to them as we get older.  One of the reasons I’ve been thinking about this is because of the growing number of people I hear on a regular basis who claim to do certain things because there parents did it another way, and that didn’t work for them.  Or at least it had an impact on why they made a particular decision.  Of course I also hear the complaints of the churches that “people just aren’t as committed as they used to be.”  I always laugh when I hear this because it has nothing to do with commitment, and more to do with the people who have “committed” themselves in the past.

In the past (and quite possibly, the present) church leadership has asked their communities to do activities and jobs that take up a huge amount of time and effort.  I don’t think this is wrong, except when it seriously undermines time and responsibilities with the family (I should qualify this by saying ‘immediate family’).  The results might not be immediate, but the child grows up resenting the church, and this is clearly not what Christ intended to happen.  I believe Andy Stanley calls it “choosing to cheat.”

In my own life, I love the amount of time my dad put into the church he pastored, but I look at other things that he did in the church and do things the complete opposite, not because he did them at that church, but because I think there is a better way.  Actually, I think he does things the complete opposite now too.

So we have two reasons why children grow up and change the way their parents acted – either they are resentful at the actions of their parents, or they just believe there is a better way.  Do you think there is a difference in the end results of the changes made by those who made them out of resentment and those who made them simply for improvement sake?

I do.

Whenever you make decisions about your future based solely on resentment to the past, I believe you stunt the possibilities God has for you in your life and close opportunities you might have been able to see otherwise.  For instance, I now see clearly that although my dad’s taste in music is less than adequate for a church in 2008, his leadership and people skills are far superior to mine, and I can only hope to learn a portion of where he has gone in his life.  I’m opening myself up to learn some and to improve some.

But their are things that I look at in my life that I can’t believe people did – whether to me or someone I love – and I can’t allow myself to make decisions out of resentment towards an individual or even an organization.

Some of my heroes are people who have overcome (or are overcoming) tremendous odds to become the person God wants them to be.  One person who has recently become a hero of mine (don’t tell her, she might get a big head) is Jenn. She’s also a pastors kid (always a resentment starter) and she works at our local Starbucks (God is good).  In late September/early October, doctors told Jenn, who’s around my age, that she has cancer. If you were to read through her blog in the last few months, you would realize that Jenn is not ignoring her situation or going through life without some serious questions for God, but she’s fighting through her circumstances, asking some hard questions, and freeing herself up to grow through her trials.

Now I don’t know if there are differences in this discussion between whether you go through a sickness or if someone imposes an undesirable circumstance in your life somewhere along the way, but I do know this:  That true heroes are the people who overcome the circumstances they may have gone through – either because of bad decisions of the adults in their lives, an illness we can’t shake, or a freak accident of nature that comes upon us – and fight and fight and fight to come out “shining as gold” on the other side.

2 things before I’m done with this post:
1.  This lady proclaimed me the “King of Hyperlink”  I now see why.  A gift from the king.
2.  My posts were so intense this week.  I’ve got to lighten up.

Last night Carie and I drove with Carie’s sister Jessica to Enfield Ct. where Carie’s dad Tom is staying for the week because of work.  We took the opportunity to go to the Olive Garden, and enjoy an amazing meal.  I was hungry.
One of the more interesting things that happened while we were there happened with Jessica.  She’s a waitress at Via’s Italian Table in Worcester, and so she’s very particular when she goes into another restaurant.  During the course of the evening, she ordered 4 different drinks (not just at Olive Garden, but also at Starbucks):
Red Wine
Bottled water
Cappacino
Cappacino

As you can imagine, her bill was up there, but on to the point of the story.
First of all, our waitress was new and there were some pretty awkward moments throughout the evening.  Like we would ask her a question and she wouldn’t know the answer (this happened several times), or we would ask her for something and she would forget (this happened two times).

I didn’t mind so much, but the last straw for Jessica was when her cappacino didn’t have any foam.  yes feel free to read that sentence again.  No Cappacino.  As you probably know, there are worse things to happen in life and we all had a laugh at the expense of Jessica because it appeared she was taking this personal.  Later on we had to go to Starbucks in order to get a real Cappacino with foam!

I write all this because it makes me think about how much I have as an American, and how I need to treat people who serve me in some way with respect.  I know I’m paying for service, but bad servers not withstanding, I need to treat everyone I come across like I would want to be treated.

Serve first, eat second.

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