"And my only hope is for their daughters to be loved"

I was talking with my friend "Amy" today at work about all sorts of things in life. One conversation led to another which led to another and all the sudden we were talking about "daddy issues". Namely, girls with "daddy issues".

(For future reference, please know that when I say "daddy issues" it is not a sarcastic thing or disrespectful or anything like that. I simply do not know a better way to put it)

There are few things that have broken my heart more than hearing stories of men being terrible fathers. Some, to the point of calling them "a dad" would be doing a disservice to all the other good and present fathers out there. I have met way too many girls in my life, that still suffer from their parents divorce--or rather, an absent father.

My friend "Amy" said that from her experiences with her life (she also had an absent father/man), and meeting other girls that have been in situations like her own, she had come to the conclusion that having a really crappy dad can result in two main traits.

1. The girl becomes clingy. She just wants to be loved, is looking for something to fill the void that her father left--wether she acknowledges this or not. She may tend to give too many guys too many chances.

2. The girl becomes jaded. She does not trust men, and is terrified to put her whole heart into a relationship. She is very skeptical to let herself be satisfied with someone in a relationship.

This was at about 4pm that we had this conversation, it is now midnight and I have been thinking about this nonstop since then. And, to a certain degree, from the girls I have met in my life that have been affected by crap fathers...I think "Amy" is right. We are talking about girls with a mostly absent father here, not all girls that come from divorced homes or anything like that. We're talking about girls without fathers that play an active role in their life.

It breaks my heart more than words can describe to have personally seen some of the scars that have been left on girls's hearts who's father is not active in their life. It kills me that men can be so freaking selfish to leave their beautiful daughters out in the cold, and not give a seconds thought to what might happen to their mentality because of their leaving and their absence.

But I believe that there is healing that can occur, by God, if you let it.

I do not mean to speak out of turn here, but I can imagine that having a father that is not in your life, that left your mother and you and your family, that barely ever calls you, that is basically nonexistent...would be one of the most devastating things that could ever happen to a person. In this case, a girl. Personalities change, grudges are built, wounds are open, nothing is good because nothing ever changes. Nothing gets better in this state of just leaving it all alone and trying to forget it exists.

I believe that, that is where God could intervene if a person were to let Him. With years, I'm sure these once surface wounds of the heart erode into chasms of the soul. Chasms that might make a girl quick to fill the void of her heart with temporary relationships, or chasms that might render a girl so cynical and doubtful of love that she is never satisfied to be with someone. I believe that God can heal these terrible things that those men did to their beautiful daughters.

I believe that letting God's love, grace, and mercy drown the wounds that their fathers left them, they can be made well again. They can learn to fill their void with grace, and peace, instead of relationships. They can learn to forgive, and have grace on their fathers, and begin to be able to simply give love a chance...to give it a chance to put your whole heart into something, and not too be scared to be satisfied with it.

Wounds like this are not something that can just sit unmended and you just wait for it to heal. A gunshot wound to the heart does not just stop bleeding, or close up by itself. It will bleed until there is no blood left.

Find grace. Find peace. Find forgiveness.

Because this is not the way it was supposed to be.

"or the first time I saw a cactus in Arizona--it was a religious experience"- Bradley Hathaway

Last night was one of the most insane nights of my life.

My (now former) band The Kaleidoscope, Brighter got to play at an outdoor show, with a really, REALLY nice dude named Shawn McDonald. The forecast said it was supposed to clear up, as it was raining cats and dogs earlier in the day when we were exploring the town. Needless to say, it did not. And someone, in their infinite wisdom decided we were going to trust the weather people who said it was supposed to clear up by the time the show started. It sort of did...but it was still doing some pretty heavy misting, and the ground was soaked. My TOMS were soaked. My feet were freezing.

As would be the history of our band, wires got crossed, and the sound guy (who seemed like he was having a really, really super awful day) did not realize that we weren't the "typical" rock band and that we needed a lot more than what he thought we did. That was sort of stressful, to have the sound guy...who is basically in charge of you sounding good to the crowd, not really liking you. I digress however.

My mind was filled with a lot of negative thought before we got on stage. Just super burdened, super weighed down. I knew that this isn't good for me to feel like this when I play on stage. Not that I play poorly, but just that I am entirely unable to have that joyful release that I usually do when I played with TKB.

I could sort of see the crowd from behind the stage, as we were waiting to go up, while the local radio station was doing what they do. It seemed like an alright size of people. Then I heard them announce our name and the next thing I knew I was walking up the super slippery wood stairs to the stage. I grabbed my guitar, did a quick tune, and jumped into our first song. About a minute into the first song I finally took a minute to pay attention to the crowd. I was aghast. This is going to sound so, so silly, but I felt like I was playing Warped Tour. There were far too many people out there for me to count. I would hear afterwards that it was easily over 300 people, and quite possibly over 400. This was insane to me.

I knew I had to put on a good show for them, so I attempted to channel the frustration going on in my head through my guitar/my playing. I hated that. I hated that while on stage I could not actually enjoy playing in front of soo many people. I hated that my mind was so bogged down with things that weren't even about the show, and that I was so distracted from it all. It was the worst feeling in the world. I turned to Brian, our drummer, and mouthed several times what kept popping into my head: "I need a religious experience". Any other time I would've told you that playing in front of so many people could've and would've, but tonight it was just noise to me.

I got off stage and was complimented for my energy and how "You were having so much fun!", "You looked so happy", etcetc. That made me feel even worse. That was easily the most dissengenuine performance of my entire life, and people thought I was having all this fun and I was so happy. When really I was channeling super, SUPER negative energy and felt absolutely terrible.

The rest of the night was pretty downhill from there for me. I took off to walk around campus, to not let my negative energy rub off on anyone else. Then I found this little circle, concrete a foot or so off the ground, with a place to sit that circled it. I took a seat on the cold and completely drenched concrete and just stared into the sky. I thought to God, "Give me a religious experience. I feel like hell right now. Give me a religious experience. If you know me, than show me. GIVE ME A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE."

So I sat. I sat in the rain and then mist and then rain for over an hour on that concrete circle. I had no idea what to except. I doubted anything was going to happen. I was born a doubter I think. After an hour had past, I was like "Screw this. Nothing is going to happen, I'm freezing my butt off. I want to go and eat and go home and try and sleep. I want to leave here." I didn't leave though. I just kept sitting. I had no reason to. I knew that nothing was going to happen. I KNEW nothing could happen.

Next thing I know I here someone say "Hi! Do you want an umbrella?" I look up and these two girls were standing outside the circle looking at me.

"No thanks," I said "I'm waiting for a religious experience."

"Oh, we're sorry! We didn't mean to bother you. You thought you might've been praying, but you looked wet so we wanted to see if you needed an umbrella."

"It's cool, I'm fine! And it's no problem at all, who knows, you guys might be part of the religious experience that I'm waiting for."

"What's your name?" one of the girls asked.

I got off my circle and went to where the were, sitting indian style on the concrete still a little elevated from where they were standing outside of the other circle that surrounded the circle I was sitting. We started talking, they started talking to me about "love languages", a concept which I first hear of from my friend Eric. I think it might be a Bible College thing. We kept talking, and they started to address everything that was weighing me down. They didn't know me, they did not have a damn clue what was on my heart, what was going on in my life. Nothing. But they kept bringing up these things that I was thinking. It was insane. Insane. Then we both went our separate ways. Them not having a clue what just happened, me still trying to wrap my head around it.

I thought I just had a religious experience. I thought about this hours and hours and hours. I got very little sleep because of the conversation that took part, and what they said about what was on my heart (mind you, they had no idea what was on my heart...they honestly just kept talking, and I just kept listening). Then I realized I was missing the big picture. The conversation was not the most important part of what happened. The conversation was just an excuse for the event to occur.

What happened was a religious experience. What happened was I told God that I needed a religious experience. And He did. I believe that He used those two girls to talk about what was on mind and heart, to show that He knew what I was thinking and how I felt...that He is not deaf. He let me know that despite all my doubting, He is real, and He showed me.

I could've already gone back to the green room, I could've stayed with the band, I could've stopped elsewhere on campus, I could've just not played the show, these two girls could've not come out of wherever they did for whatever reason they did, these two girls could've talked about the movie they saw last week and how sweet it was, the show could've been moved inside to avoid the rain in which case I would've been elsewhere entirely.

The point is, a million different things could've happened to stop this experience from happening. But they didn't. I believe that God used those two girls, that conversation which was somehow about exactly what was weighing me down, to show me that He loves me and that He is listening.

Everything that was used was like a vessel. The two girls, what was weighing on my heart, the conversation about what was on my heart that they didn't even know about, the weather, "fate", were all vessels to give me what I asked for: a religious experience.

God knew that I was at my wits end. He knew how much I was doubting everything, He knew that I would at times wonder if He even existed. Then God answered that question.

That's not to say that my whole life has been changed, that I now believe everything that all my friends who abandoned me because of my doubts believe, that I have all the answers to all my questions, that me myself have changed...

All I know is that one of my questions was answered before I slipped too far into the dark. All I know is that I asked and was given. I knocked and the door was opened for me. I gave up and was helped. For the first time in my life, I surrendered what I knew and what I thought I knew, all my doubt and cynicism and waited for an answer, and was given one.

And that is all I know.

Bradley Hathaway- Samuel

christianity done gone stupidly

So my friend handed me a fake million dollar bill that someone at her work had been handed by a costumer. I turned it over and read this:

The million dollar question: will you go to heaven when you die? Here's a quick test. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God's name in vain? Jesus said, "Whoever looks at a women to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on judgement day? If you have done those things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in hell. that's not God's will. He sent his son to suffer and die on the cross for you. You broke God's law, but Jesus paid your fine. That means He can legally dismiss your case. He can commute your death sentence. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Then he rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn away from sin) today and trust alone in Jesus, and God will grant you the gift of everlasting life, then read your Bible daily and obey it.

The ice cream employee had been handed an infamous tract, most likely by an extremely right-winged Christian who said something witty when he/she had handed it to the girl. Most likely to the affect of "Here's a million dollars to save your life" or maybe "Here, keep the tip. God bless you."

I read yesterday in the New York Times that archeologists found what was believed to be another chapter in the book of Matthew 2 years ago, and finally have been able to translate a few sentences of it:

And Jesus said unto them, "Don't you dare give people little pieces of paper that try to convince them to be saved by me. I mean...seriously. How stupid do you have to be to do that? Trying to explain Christianity in a little booklet is like trying to explain the biological functions of a bear in one sentence, or trying to explain how to make a MACBOOK PRO out of two sticks and a raccoon hat."

People that evangelize wonder why some people get so offended when they go out and tell people that "Jesus loves you and he died on the cross for your sins, did you know that?". I propose that asking someone that is like asking someone if they knew the sky was blue, or if they knew the story of "The 3 Little Pigs".

The I feel that the majority of people (I'm talking about in America) know the story of Christianity. In fact, they know a lot about different religions. A lot of people know that if you're Muslim you get 40 virgins if you go to paradise, if you're a Catholic you believe that the Virgin Mary is really important, if you're Jewish you aren't supposed to eat certain things, that there's Allah and God, and Mohammed and Jesus, etc.etc. The point is: a lot of people know the story of Christianity, just as they do with a lot of other religions. The tough part of religion is not knowing the stories of each one, but believing the concepts, stories, and teachings of them.

Pyschology 101

Question: Can you get someone (you don't even know) to add to/change/rearrange their belief system and their lifestyle based on any sort of paper handout?

Answer: Of course not you idiot, don't you have any sort of common sense?

If you give someone on the street a Harry Potter book, they might like the story, but they definitely won't believe in wizards based off the book.

If you give someone on the street a tract about Christianity, they might like the story, but they definitely won't believe the message based off the tract.

But if someone saw a wizard in action; making things fly, casting spells that make food appear, making potions that make you look like someone else, then they would be much more likely to believe in magic and wizards.

If someone saw a Christian in action; living selflessly, loving everyone without any sort of catch, trying to better themselves as a person before trying to "fix" other people, showing integrity, living concepts of Jesus Christ, being honest about their life--then they would be much more likely to believe that there is a God that loves them, a Christ that died for them, and salvation to be found.

To my brothers and sisters who are not Christian: I deeply and sincerely apologize for all the ignorant Christians that you have and will encounter that try to sell their religion to you as if it's something that can be marketed. These people are very far away from what (I believe) it means to be a Christian. But, they are stuck in their tradition, in their living life with the blinders on--refusing to think of the consequences of their actions by being so narrow minded and stupid.

To my brothers and sisters who are Christian: I deeply and sincerely ask you to stop handing out tracts to people. If you believe that your God, your Christ, your salvation...can be explained in anything short of a life lived, than you have not even begun to grasp your religion. People should know you by your good works, not by your loud and abrasive words and your small print booklets. You can't "win one over for God" (which by the way, is STILL, TOTALLY, and UTTERLY missing the point) through being door to door sales representatives. Be it at your school, your work, your campus, your friends... no one wants to be gently coerced into buying things. But when you actually talk with someone. Actually get to know someone, actually care (and NOT caring because you have intention of sharing your religion, but care because you truly appreciate them as a person), you would be surprised how open people are. But it takes genuinely caring about them first. This means caring about them without hiding the Bible behind your back, like on some sort of secret mission.

We all want to choose for ourselves, not be bullied or persuaded into being this that or the other. The sooner Christians can understand this, the better it will be.

Oh, be joyful.