The Storage Shed

My story is not unlike a lot of other guys my age; 28 years of marriage, children leaving the house and venturing out on their own, thoughts of "what else". This should be a time of settling in and enjoying the fruit of my labor, a long awaited and planned for rest or at least an easing off of the pressures of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. After one failed marriage, most of my young adult life spent in drug and alcohol abuse, many broken relationships, a couple of business ventures gone sour and a storage shed filled with unresolved emotional baggage, I feel like I'm just now getting started, that all the life behind me has just been a preparation for what lies ahead. Anyway, I've created a list of important statements of sorts, concepts that have halted the way I live my life and have caused me to look outside of myself for understanding.

• We are all at varying degrees of growth.
• Man will endure second best as long as he can control it.
• Waiting is not a bad thing only a hard thing.
• A vessel filled with itself is hard to be filled any further, it must first be emptied.
• My problem is not perfectionism, it's fear of failure brought on by past rejection.
• Sometimes God delays but He never disappoints.
• I've stopped climbing trees that I always fall out of.
• When you fail to reach out to another person with whom your relationship is broken, it shows that they are not important enough to risk further pain.

I'm ready to get started and push on to the end, how about you.

Control vs. Restoration

The hardest thing for me to admit is that I would rather be in control than be restored. I want my relationship with God restored, my relationship with family and friends restored, my original peace and happiness restored, but I want it my way. Come on, you feel the same way. And we must be restored to reach our full potential, to find our purpose (did everyone read the title banner). We say we want all that God has for us and we want to go deeper with Him, but do we really? If it means giving up control and abandoning ourselves to His will are we still willing? Are we willing to let Him dissolve our existence into Him?

A warrior gives his last battle it's due respect. It's only natural that his last act in the arena of battle should be the best of himself.

Carlos Castaneda, "Journey to Ixtlan"