A few years ago I hosted a men’s bible study group and formed an accountability relationship with another guy who later became my best friend of all time. Since then a lot has changed in my life (and his). I’ve remarried, had a second child (who is now crawling all over the place and needing lots of attention), I’ve been promoted at work to a supervisory position and work more (and more stressful) hours than before, and I’ve started back to school (online) to finally finish up my Bachelor’s degree. He’s moved to another city and works a lot, usually on a completely opposite schedule as I am on, so we hardly ever talk.
This past week a conversation I had with another friend reminded me of how helpful it was to my stability of mind and spiritual growth to have those men in my life on a daily or weekly basis, sharing life, sharing accountability, understanding the trials we each were going through because of the common bonds we had. So I’ve started looking into joining up with a men’s bible study group in the area. There are several to choose from but they almost all meet in the early morning and I am about the farthest thing from a morning person as you can find. I’m particularly interested in joining a group doing one of the three Men’s Fraternity studies but I’m waiting on several call-backs on those. In the meantime I was doing some reading online during my lunch break today and came across a quote which kind of blew me away. It was a quote from the book Becoming A Person Of Influence by Jim Dornan and John Maxwell about trusting another person and having them trust you … with their life:
“Back when we were growing up, we heard a lot of stories about the [Niagara] falls and the daredevil stunts people used to pull–like Annie Edson Taylor’s going over the falls in a barrel and things like that. One of the great legends of the town was French acrobat named Charles Blondin who lived from 1824 to 1897. He crossed over the entire width of the falls on a tightrope back in 1859. That must have taken nerves of steel since a fall certainly would have killed him. In fact he crossed the falls several times. He did it once with a wheelbarrow, another time blindfolded, and yet another time on stilts. They say he was quite remarkable. He continued performing even into his seventies.
One of the most incredible feats he performed was crossing the falls on a tightrope while carrying a man on his back. Can you imagine that? I guess just crossing over by himself wasn’t tough enough for him! But as difficult as that feat must have been on Blondin, I can’t help wondering how he got someone to go with him. That’s what you call trust: to climb onto the back of a man who is going to walk more than half a mile on a rope suspended over one of the most powerful waterfalls in the world.
I used to think about that as a kid. What would it be like to see the falls from up on a rope above them? And more important, what person would trust me to carry him across the falls the way that man trusted Blondin?”
The quote got me thinking a lot about trust. I can say with absolute certainty that I’ve never trusted anyone any where near that much. It’s a difficult thing to trust someone so completely that your life is (literally or figuratively/emotionally) in their hands. Not so much because you fear the “death” but because you fear the crushing defeat that they might not be as trustworthy and/or understanding as you had hoped they would be. As much as I miss (and someday soon hope to start getting back into) the on-going accountability of a men’s group, I wonder if I’ll ever reach the point in any relationship outside of that with my Savior in which I can trust someone enough to truly bare my soul and journey with them to the other side.
In the past, I’ve not posted to my blog very often, and I’ve saved it for whenever I have something deep and (usually) spiritual to talk about. I’ve been terrible about blogging lately because I haven’t really felt like I had anything deep or particularly spiritual to comment on. I also was tired of dealing with my old blogging software (ExpressionEngine).
Well, today begins a new era. I’ve dusted off the old blog, threw-out ExpressionEngine, installed WordPress, tediously imported all my old blog posts and comments, and dug around in the guts of the web server for a long time to make sure that all links to posts on my old blog still work on my new WordPress blog.
So here we go…the new and improved RavenBrook.net. We’ll see if it gets any more attention from me than my old blog did.
As I drove to the gym tonight I was listening to my Warren Barfield CD. In his song Beautiful, Broken World, one part of the lyrics got me thinking:
If you never knew an enemy,
Oh, could you understand,
The worth of a friend?
While I think he is right that it takes having an enemy (or at very least a period of not having any friends) to really come to appreciate the value of friendship, I think it takes a whole lot more to come to understand the quality of a friend. I don’t think you can really know that until you have laughed, cried, played, worked, doubted, and worshipped with someone. Sixteen years ago in college I had a classmate who at the time I would have called a friend. But when we graduated, I fully expected to never see her again. But the Lord brought us back together here in Springfield about five years ago and since that time we have shared the experiences of life that have exposed the qualities of true friendship. I’m grieving with her this week a terrible and tragic loss, and the only thing that makes it sound bearable is knowing that — like me — she has several friends who have been tested and proven to be true and that she knows the Peace that passes all understanding.
Up until about the year 2000, I don’t think I really even started to comprehend how deep a relationship could go between friends. And until 2003 or 2004 I head never really had what I would now call a true friend. There were always the people I liked to talk to or hang out with or play games with or go to concerts with, but friends that I could share even my doubts and fears and sorrows with came much later in life. If you’ve only had “friendly aquaintenances” up until now I would like to encourage you to find a true friend — someone you can be open and honest with, someone you can share life’s ups and downs with, because sooner or later life will hit you broadside with something you can’t handle on your own — and all but your true friends will be gone.
Today I’ve been listening to Shawn McDonald’s new album Roots on NewReleaseTuesday.com. One of the tracks is called Clarity. Ahh, yes, I could use some clarity today. The interviews I’ve been conducting haven’t been going all that great. The list of the home-improvement projects that need to be done before things completely fall apart is endless (but the bank account and available time to complete them with are not). Decisions need to be made in how to handle my various new responsibilities with my new job. And then there is the issue of child rearing. I’ve been reading a couple of books the last couple of evenings. One refers to this process as training and the other as shepherding. Both (along with some recent behaviors at home) make me seriously wonder if we’ve let some issues carry on too long to resolve them now. It sure would be nice to have some clarity and directions in all these areas. But as Indeed magazine reminded me this morning, it’s not as-if I’m in control anyway.
I wonder if there is an actual medical “purpose” for scar tissue? I may have to ask my cousin’s (doctor) husband that some time. The Bible tells us that there is a purpose for the (emotional/spiritual) scar tissue of life’s wounds, so I suspect there is in physical scar tissue, as well.
All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 MSG)
I found this passage back in 2005 when I was grieving the loss of my wife and trying to make some sense of it all. There was a blessed young man who had lost his wife a few years prior who came alongside me during that time that helped me keep my head above water. I can’t imagine what I would have done without his shoulder to lean on. This week the passage came to mind again as I spoke to him again for the first time in a while and we both began to lend comfort to another young man who has found himself walking this dark road. It isn’t a short road. The wounds still hurt four years later, even after re-marrying. But the “Father of all mercy”, the “God of all healing counsel” has been faithful these four years. I pray that somehow He can use these scars for His glory.
