Vineyard

Vineyard by Mike Hamilton

This past weekend my wife and I were on a small four day 10th anniversary getaway.  We flew to California and had some time in a house overlooking a beach just north of San Francisco.  There was no TV.  There were no places to eat near by, the road to the house was winding and took a while to get to and from…the trek back to town was the same.  Within moments my wife was rolling the windows down, gripping her seat and asking me to slow down because of her motion sickness.  So we remained at the house most of the time.  And in a house that you rent, with no TV, near nothing to keep you occupied you find yourself actually settling in to relax.  Relaxing settles into relief and then relief finally makes its way to Rest.  We went to bed late, we woke up late.  We ate good food that was bad for us, we had wine, I ate cheese, I failed to put on my jogging shoes other than to go to the hot tub.  By the second day I was wondering if I could go without shaving, forgot my deodorant and sat around a good portion of the day in my shorts…shirtless…sockless…..shaved-less.

Hours into the second day my wife and I were cramming bits of foods into our faces that weren't designed to sustain life.  Popcorn…chocolate….almonds….covered in chocolate….granola….with bites of chocolate…chips, hot sauce, cheese…..and of course chocolate chip cookies, big fat chocolate chips burgeoning out of the cookie.  We took naps, we yawned, we played games.  Then we went hiking in the Muir woods and got "lost".  Our trail was supposed to be 2.6 miles and somehow we failed to realize the "loop" was actually three intersecting trails making a "loop".  Somewhere about the time we surfaced to find a road….a road mind you…..we realized that we were in fact WAY off the trail.  You don't easy find your way outside the Muir Woods and bump into a road.  All I could think of at that point was "Ugh, we are going to have to backtrack the way we came….."  All 1.8 miles of it…..I run half marathons for fun…….and I found myself dreading this 1.8 mile walk through the Muir Woods.

Then our hotel.  We left Muir Beach and made out way up to Healdsburg to visit some friends at a winery.  We check into our hotel and I begin to notice some odd things.  Unfortunately, odd about myself.  I'm miffed that the shower is a European style shower open to the bathroom with no barrier to keep the water from spaying all over the bathroom.  And then there was this odd little window floor to ceiling, maybe 5 inches wide IN THE SHOWER to the OUTSIDE of the hotel.  It was "frosted" but you could still see very clearly a blurred version of a human through it.  And then those dang manufactured floors, clip clop clip clop clip clop, so noisy and the grand finale……a bed so soft and full of down that you sank as soon as you jumped in it.  The bed was too soft.  I keep having to say that in my mind to this day….the bed was too soft.  The window was too ill placed.  The lack of shower barrier was too messy.  The road was too winding.  The hot tub was 35 steps down from the house.  My face was too much to shave.  The hike was 1.8 miles too long.

Then we met our friends.  They bought us a meal and allowed us to partake in a wine tasting and a tour of the vineyards.  And then it hit me….when they said "Yeah, the soil we grow the vines in isn't considered the best soil, it needs to be slightly rocky, shallow in depth, soil which might be considered to be poor to grow other things is perfect to stress the grape vine.  When the grapevine is stressed it will produce smaller fruit and concentrate the flavor and sugars into a smaller cluster of grapes.  Vines that produce lots of big grapes on many big clusters would make for a terrible wine." (I'm taking non-technical non-winemaker paraphrasing liberties here)

I loved our vacation.  Wouldn't have changed a thing honestly.  Though I was struck by how quickly a human can begin to complain when things are comfortable and easy.  Clearly we would not choose to vacation in Palestine during an Israeli siege just to make ourselves grow on vacation.  I think vacations should be so comfortable that you begin to complain about the temperature of your eggs in the morning.  We all need the break.  I just thought it was interesting the contrast God drew for me on this vacation.  Our world is poor soil, it is full of things that should and does at times kill our souls, our hearts, our marriages, relationships, etc.  And any good vineyard owner knows that to create an amazing, robust wine, you must carefully stress the plant, prune it at the end of a season and put it into a climate that allows it to be protected from heat and drought during the growing season (comfort).

Stress it, comfort it, prune it, let it grow.  Stress it, comfort it, prune it, let it grow.  God does this.  The master viticulturist planting us in soil that isn't so great to create a wine that can't be ignored…a wine that can be enjoyed.  We weren't created to live in comfort here.  We were created to give a darkened world a light to look at, a robust thick wine to be savored and enjoyed.  But so often our hearts are so committed to comfort at the cost of anything else, committed more to comfort than reality or relationships or our own families, that we sit ourselves into fertile soil and cast away the pruning shears and demand to be fed with fertilizer and good clean abundant water.  All the while producing huge grapes with no flavor leading to our lives becoming tasteless, pale wines that do not turn a head.  We are bottom shelf wines with screw top lids.  Nothing in the world will even stop to look our way much less want to inquire as to how we became so richly flavored.

We were meant to have seasons, comfort, stress, pain, loss, growth and pruning and in the end a story that we can share that will make others thirsty for more.  The place I sit with my clients isn't "my life has been perfect and yours can be too"….there is not hope in that place.  My place is a place of suffering and brokenness that gives my story meaning.  It gives my story depth and a place from which I can speak and love in ways that I couldn't have if I were sitting comfy my entire life.  I am a man who has many bandages and scars, a limp and a wounded heart…I have been stressed and pruned and grown to the point that I have no choice but to submit to being crushed and served over to a world who might enjoy me and wonder about who made me this way…..that is our calling.

5 things I learned about being a father. . .

5 things I learned about being a father while working as a counselor

by

Mike Hamilton

My entire career as a counselor has been almost exclusively working with trauma clients.  The word trauma covers a vast range of abuses including neglect, physical and otherwise.  As you sit with these amazing survivors you begin to see a picture of a person wounded to the point of being blind to the truth of what God created them to be.  And when you sit with one of these amazing survivors you begin to see a little boy or a little girl who was put into a home without some very important things to help them survive as a person who believes they are valuable, lovable, important, worthy.  The longer I work in this field the better dad I become based upon seeing wounds and fractures of these adult versions of wounded kids.

So I compiled a list, which seems to be the hot blog topic these days…..here are my 5:


1.  Worthy to die for:  Children in trauma based families are put into positions where they are responsible for causing harm to the parents and then responsible for repairing the damage they cause.  Parents are often the victims and use the children's naiveté to manipulate them into giving the parent anything they want to feel "better" or "not sad".  Somehow this fills the parent and often puts them into a position to continue to demand more and more from the child who is desperately incapable and out of control to meet those demands.  Eventually nothing is off limits.  Most of the abuse leads to the child leading a life of feeling dead so that the parents can feel alive.

No child is capable of dying for a parent, not in any way.  A parent is the one who is created to be willing to give up their literal life to save or protect a child.  This also goes towards the idea that once you have a child you are no longer in charge of your own life, your life becomes important for their survival and emotional health as a child.  Dying for your children can be as simple as playing hot wheels car lot salesman with your kids, sitting for hours in a really small chair sipping pretend tea and being willing to give up sleep to hold them when a storm blows through.  You are a vast cistern of pure water to be poured OUT of your heart into theirs, not the other way around.  I always remember like this, my children are not "mine" but I am "theirs".  In no way should I saddle them with the responsibility of making me okay, happy, not lonely, not angry or another "not" category.  I am created to die for them, not the other way around.

2.  Lovable:  Children in trauma based families are not loved.  Some might have a problem with that statement, but I do not talk of some biological "love" we feel for our children, I talk more about the love of a Christ who suffered for us all.  Trauma parents do not do this.  Their "love" is tied to withholding it to get access to whatever they want to strip and rape from their children's emotional cache.  Their "love" is about getting close physically for their own gratification.  Their "love" is about physically bullying a child into conforming to what they want…period.  What the child experiences is so painful that they will forgo love for the rest of their lives, instead asking for an alternative that felt less scary and empty and painful.  For some this was sex or power or being hated or being liked or perfect.  And you will see an adult spend the rest of their lives demanding this instead of being loved…they run towards abusive situations and shy away from a person who would love them well.

Love is not an investment.  Love isn't a blue chip stock that we pour money in and expect a return for that investment.  Love is not a recipe for cookies that we mix up and put in the oven so that we can eat the yummy cookies later.  Love at its best is a man who died on a cross and suffered for those around Him.  Love is Jesus standing in front of a woman who was caught in adultery and telling her that He doesn't judge her.  Love is finding ways that your kids can feel unmerited grace just like the adulteress woman did.  They need to know that you will love them no matter what they do, and during any exchange of discipline or anger you should never make them wonder if in those moments you love them.  Your love isn't a bartering tool for better behaviors, your love is the very thing a child needs in order to grow to believe they are lovable.  Without this ability they will always trade down for lesser things for themselves.  I tell my children many times a week that I am proud to be their daddy, that I am thrilled to get to see them every day, that they are lovable and that I am excited to get to love them each day.  I tell them that they are lovable on their best and worst day, I ask them if they are still lovable after they are disciplined….and I ask them if they are lovable after an amazing day at the zoo.  You must interact with them in this place, this place where they are forced to receive the best thing you have to give them, this place that will force them to write into their hearts a narrative of being loved and wanted to love back.  This charge, to make them know and then to teach them to give love is of utmost importance.

3.  Being Known:  In a trauma based family the child is placed into a situation where they have to give up who they are in order to make their parents okay or happy.  Sometimes you will find children who are hated for being a girl or boy and that child will begin to take on traits of the other sex.  At their very core, at this point, they have been taught that the caregiver hates what they are which speaks partially to who they are.  Parents might hate an intelligent child because the parent might feel inadequate or stupid.  Parents can hate a girl who looks like the parent when they were 4 and being abused.  Children are told to be physically beautiful at the cost of a desire to be a little messy kid, a kid who might be torn to eat with their fingers and play in the mud puddles.  Trauma kids can be told they are fat, ugly, sexy, stupid, told they are athletes, told they are too sensitive, too stubborn, they can be made to believe almost any combination of things that make unhealthy caregivers lash out.  Unhealthy parents can make their children responsible for giving perfection, a perfect kid, a perfect school career, a perfectly clean home. Or just the opposite, they can demand that the child be the black sheep, scape goat, reason for all things that are wrong.  A dumping ground for the parents' rage, dysfunction and self-hatred.

A child isn't a lump of clay for me to mold.  A child is a known person before God knitted them together in the womb.  My job as a parent is to find out who they are and then help them get through life as that person. Ask any parent of multiple children…not two are the same…ever.  The way I play with my tender son might be similar as to how I play with my rough and tumble son.  Sure.  All boys like to wrestle.  But the way I show emotion to my tender son is far different than the way I do with my other one.  I can look my tender son in the eyes and put my nose against his nose and speak of emotions with him.  He cries happy tears, sad tears, fearful tears, he is in touch with a vast range of emotions and he allows me to move into them.  My other son, not so interested.  He is moving, hitting (playfully), dodging and looking away when I talk to him.  He is not and has never been a snuggler.  I should never force him to be.  To know my son is to know him in that way, and he is not to be changed so that I can guilt him into being a snuggler for my benefit.  However that same rough and tumble son will play independently from his brother, with me, for as long as I'm willing to lay in the floor.  Our one on one time is paramount to him feeling connected.  The tender son sometimes needs to play alone, without anyone….why should I change that?  Especially for me?  I know him in that, I enjoy him in that, I hope that he knows or learns that it is okay for him to be that person.  Whether they are bossy or shy, powerful or quiet, hilarious or dry, a leader or a follower, snuggly or independent…..I want to deeply know them so that I can deeply enjoy them……so they can have the experience of?  Being deeply known and enjoyed.

4.  Being Safe:  In a Trauma family, no child knows safety.  Their anxiety is always on high alert to watch for the changing and subtle cues that can warn them of danger within the home.  They are always vigilant, always planning, and often have no concept that they will one day be an adult, 40 years old, living in a house in suburbia someday.  Their world is dangerous and painful and scary, which in their little kid brains will never, ever be different.  They live in constant fear of their caregivers, they live in the tension of the constant fear that some outside person will find out about their caregivers.  They do what they can to get close to the abuser to avoid terror filled situations.  It's almost like the idea of sitting on a German tank invading your town is slightly less terrifying than having that tank move towards you in the street.  Trauma children are masters of finding ways to get close to perpetrators (to be "safe") and to keeping distance from people who would find out (never allowing those who might help get close enough to do so, for fear they will have to face the reality of the abusing caregiver).  They are never safe at home and they are never safe to tell.  Their world is one day after another of wondering how they will survive.

Children need to know they are safe.  I tell my children every day that they are safe in our home.  Is that true?  Sort of.  Could a fire break out that traps us?  Yes.  Do my children need to know that at any point in their lives tragedy can strike and kill them?  Absolutely not.  I can not only teach them that they are safe but I can do what it takes to teach them how to be safe.  My children know what a red flag person is (a person who might ask or try or succeed in touching them inappropriately).  Once my younger child (still a baby at the time) accidentally brushed my older son's private area while in the bathtub.  My older son leaned close to my ear and said "Daddy, I think he is a red flag person".  They listen.  They learned.  They need to know what they should do if this unthinkable happens.  We talk about fire.  We talk about "bad guys".  We talk about the police and firemen as well.  They learn our address, our last names and our phone number.  We talk about finding safe people to help them in an emergency.  We tell them to tell, to share when things don't seem right or have not gone right.  We do not "not ask" because we are afraid of the answer.  They are created to be emotionally safe as well as physically safe.  We try our best to let them be angry, to be sad (very important), to be disappointed (very hard to do), to be happy when we aren't and to have a good day if we've had a bad one.  They get to have their emotions and they are safe (to the point we can humanly make it so) to have these emotions.  It is safe to be touched, hugged or kissed in our home and it is safe to ask for us not to touch them, hug them or kiss them.  We do not make them feel obligated or guilty for choosing to forgo these things.


5.  Not draped in obligation:  Trauma children live the rest of their lives obligated.  They are obligated to "love", obligated to have sex, obligated to be interested in others, obligated to care, obligated to visit, obligated to be in good moods….obligated to take care of others instead of themselves…obligated to think of others instead of themselves….the list of obligations is never ending….and a trauma survivor as an adult will find ways of making something you might want to give them into a obligation for them to receive it.  Nothing in their mind is free of this shackle.  Every interaction with another human will lead to them trying to find out what they are obligated to give or do or think or feel.

No child should be draped in obligation.  Every good thing you will receive from your child will only be that which is not coming from an obligated place.  If I feel like I have to give you a hug and kiss when I get home, I can assure you it will not be coming from a place of love or reality.  I will feel closed and rigid and resentful of your requirement of this.  Now, you might get that hug and say "it was good to hug him"…but it will never be a true intimate, loving embrace.  Children are the same way.  They can give from two places, from a free place from their own hearts out of a desire to give joy or from a prison-like place where they are forced to grind out a statue of emotional stone to hand you in their stead.  If my kids say "no" when I ask for them to sit with me or lay with me or watch with me etc…..I am okay with that.  If they want to play instead of going for a ride around the block, I'm okay with that.  If they want to paint watercolors instead of watching a movie, I'm okay with that.  And because of that, when I do receive from them I know it is from a place of no obligation.  It is real.  It is a place where a little boy really does want me to be there with them and to experience that moment with them, to be there in it, side by side, sometimes nose to nose…


I plan to continue this list over the coming weeks, 5 seemed to be meaty enough for one day's topic….

A Marriage Dying

A Marriage Dying

By

Mike Hamilton

I once sat in a marriage seminar and heard the speaker say something that I couldn't let go of after hearing it.  He said "Your marriage is either growing or dying, there is no in-between….now what are you going to do about it?"  What followed was a list of things that couples could do to breath life back into their marriage.  Notes, lists, love languages, dares, 10 steps, 12 steps, celebrating recovery, couples devotionals, a seemingly endless mass of tools at a couple's disposal to save their marriage.  The problem I have with this is that it supposes that we should keep a bad marriage or a stagnant marriage alive.  It would be like a doctor who keeps adding medicine to a man who is clearly on his way to death, each medical device and pill prolonging the pain of what will eventually be the outcome.  Sometimes a marriage dying needs to do what is inevitable and die.

Am I suggesting divorce?  No.  I am suggesting that God isn't interested in what we have built in his stead.  I am suggesting that God brings many, many, many couples to a place where they say, honestly, "I do not love you".  I am suggesting that God is a God who brings dead things back to life and that sometimes He is waiting for someone to be brave enough to say "Enough is enough", "I can no longer do this", "I will no longer sit and watch this happen".  As a child has to eventually put away childish things and grow up, we in our marriages need to truly ascertain where we are in reality and own up to what we have built on our own, apart from Him and move towards Him in hopes He will help us grow up.  And then decide right there to let it all fall down around us for the sake of a real marriage based in real love with real intimacy.

Here is the scary part, you may have no idea that your marriage is slowly dying.  But if God is interested, and He always is, He will wake you both up to what is really going on in your marriage.  And trust me on this one, He is not interested in helping you limp along by figuring out how to enslave your spouse with your "love language", He isn't interested in a love dare for 30 days, He isn't interested in you and your spouse having sex 30 days out of 30 days to find a good marriage again.  He is interested in real growth that will be about something so far beyond ourselves that the only thing we can do is scramble into some marriage version of door to door combat.  We will be and should be gripped with fear, we will be and should be clueless and confused about any direction other than things can't remain the same and that what we are about to do is from a God who loves to watch old things die away and new things spring forth from ashes and bones.

I can't tell you the number of people I have seen in my office who have been surprised by an a terrible turn in a marriage, out of the blue and have been fully incapable of finding their feet again.  And it's usually because finding their feet amounts to things they can do to patch, repair or smooth over wounds that can't be undone and I think God is not interested in those things working….He is a redeemer and a Redeemer is just that, THE ONE WHO REDEEMS.  A redeemer isn't one who is looking for a rebellion to stay stuck in Egypt.  He doesn't negotiate with what He is about to make His own.

This place is not a place where we can participate in small ways.  If my marriage has gotten to the point of affairs taking place I can not redeem this by writing my wife notes that tell her I love her.  I can't give her gifts that will change her mind about meeting her lover.  The marriage needs a complete reset.  Pushing that button isn't small.  And this post isn't just about affairs, it's about any marriage that has been found dead on arrival and has no chance if something doesn't substantially change.  There has to be a time where you refuse to do what you have always done and do all new things done unto Him.  It isn't about quitting, it's about quitting what you have been doing to be a party to killing your marriage.  Let that old relationship die and begin to live in reality inviting your spouse there.  Refuse to be a party to old patterns inside and outside the marriage.  This takes long hours, arguments and discussions instead of sleep and a hope that all of it is something that God will redeem once you have found the ground of reality.  It is hard work to watch what we have built fall into a dirt heap and to have no idea if it will ever be anything again.

It is hard work dying.  It is harder work over longer time resuscitating what will never be able to breath on its own.  If you stop doing what you have always done what will be waiting for you will either be the reality of a dead marriage that has always been dead….or a dying marriage that God is waiting to redeem.  Walking into this can be scary and sad and lonely, seemingly never ending….but if you find this place you will realize it is the only place where He is waiting and the only place where dead things come back to life.

Loving Kids Well

Loving Kids Well

by

Mike Hamilton

I talk about loving others well in my office all the time.  In fact I think helping others learn how to do this for themselves and others trumps any counseling theory out there.  Period.  The odd thing is, most people confuse this concept as an adult to adult issue.  I love my friends well, I love my wife or husband well, I love my parents who hurt me well, I love people in my church well….but it doesn't seem people ever wonder how to love their children well.  And that is the most important thing we can do as parents.  

As I sit and write this blog my two children have come down stairs about 10 times.  It is now 9:55 PM on a Monday.  Yes, I know this is terrible and they should be punished, taught how to obey, we need to get them to sleep so they can grow, so they can learn, so they can repair their brains and so on.  The list goes on and on.  But honestly nipping this in the bud usually comes out being behavior modification more than loving and teaching.  It is rare that my kids come down stairs, much less 10 times….And when it does I embrace it as a way to show them I'm glad to see them, that I enjoy getting to interact with them, that I want every moment with them I can get and if somehow they have gotten to a stage or a day or a week where they need to do this…so be it.  What they experience when they come down those stairs is what matters.  Connectedness, joy, love, acceptance, safety, value.  I could yell and threaten to punish them if they get up again (which at times as I am human this is what I resort to)….but I'm not sure they accomplishes the most important thing we do as parents.  Love them well.  

You see, if you start with children in an environment of raising them in a safe household, where they hold value and worth, where they know they are loved…often these moments of "disobedience" are more about expanding their world in a safe place.  You would likely not see a child brought up in a home full of violence even dare get out of bed to use the bathroom much less just to see if they could "get away with it" with a smile on their face. When they are 19 these few months of a few times a month of getting out of bed is not going to make them a car thief, a drug addict or an unsuccessful person.  When they are 19, if I handle these moments with rage, anger or contempt….that might precisely be what happens.  Drug addictions, brushes with the justice system and adult traumatic environments are linked to childhood trauma, including physical, sexual or emotional abuses, expressions of rage and a demand of obedience with the absence of love or compassion.  And if they don't end up there?  You will see relational dysfunctions with friends and dating partners, spouses etc.  You end up getting children who obey but harden their hearts to want to be seen, known, enjoyed, celebrated, wanted, loved and safe.  They become hardened little adults who are looking to obey until they get enough autonomy to show you that you didn't have the power you thought you had.  

How do I love my kids well?  I find every moment I can to tell them how important they are, how safe they are and how much I love them, I find moments throughout the day to be tender with them.

I do this with words…"I am so glad I get to see you today", "I'm so glad you are my son", "I enjoy getting to play with you".

I do this with actions…hugging them, kissing them, holding them, sitting with them, playing with them, spending time with them, caring for them physically, emotionally, spiritually.

I do this with connection…I look them in the eyes each time I talk with them, any time i hold them I look them in the eyes, we touch noses, we rub cheeks, I touch their face with my hand and I allow them to do the same to me.

I do this by making their world safe…this goes for boundaries for them, both physical and emotional, I provide safety from the world to the extent that I can, I tell them that there could never be one thing they could tell me that would make me want to leave them, to not love them, to feel that they are bad or distasteful, I also set up rules for them to follow.

I do this by telling the truth…no child should wonder what reality is, we are to help them know it, we are not to be manipulative or self preserving in our interactions with them as that creates a necessity to create our own favorable reality.  I tell my kids the truth (to the level that is appropriate for their age) so they are never confused as to where they stand in the world, with me and within our family.

God is a God of Truth, of Safety, of Compassion, of Rules, of Connectedness, of Words, of Tenderness…of Love.  Loving my kids well isn't about waiting for them to screw up so I can show them they need to do better.  Loving my kids well isn't about yelling when they get up 10 times at night.  Loving my kids well isn't about making them behave well or making them be happy kids.  A well behaved happy kid will turn into an adult that sits in my office for 4 years trying to make sense as to why they hurt so bad inside and their life doesn't work so well.  I want to love my kids in a way that tells them how to love others well, love them in a way that makes them thirsty for more good and less bad….so that they might in the future move more towards the good than the bad.  I want them to feel it and know it and never question they are exactly what they are, valuable and worthy humans who deserve to be loved, known, protected, nurtured and enjoyed.  And in turn I hope they learn how to do that back, to give that love they have received back to me, back to their sibling, their mother, their friends, their future spouse and kids.  Loving others well is the one pyramid scheme worth buying into, love them so they will love theirs.

So, if my children come down an 11th time, now that it is 10:30, I will take a different approach, but it will be just as loving as the others.  I'm glad to see you, give me a hug, I want to kiss your head, come sit with me a moment, now go back and do not do this again.  See you soon, proud of you….glad to be your daddy.  Most times this works on the first, if there is even a first….it works most days when toys are more important than brothers, it works when boys are tired, hungry or grumpy.  And the best part is, when I can't do this and I blow it….guess what I get back?  They love me well in return.  Its a vicious cycle this whole love thing…..

Asleep

Asleep

By 

Mike Hamilton

Other than the cross, the Garden of Gethsemane is one of the most pivotal stories in Jesus' story.  And we all know His disciples were asleep.  In fact, Jesus finds them asleep three times during His moments in the garden.  So there they were, power hungry Peter who always fails, and James and John, the two who asked Jesus to let them sit at his right and left hand in Heaven, asleep.  Three of the most highly trained Biblical scholars of all time on the edge of the most incredible event in history and they are asleep.  I find it interesting that Jesus invited these three men into the Garden with Him.  All three of them offering something to us, 2000 years later…and they did it all while sleeping.  

If we look at Peter, John and James we have a picture of three people who spent three years with Jesus and up until His death, they all three had their own agenda.  We are a people who love to appear as though we have a spiritual mind but honestly few of us want to suffer and most of us want to sleep the rest of our lives to avoid any contact with it.  Jesus came to them once and woke them up, came a second time and left and came back a third time and woke them up again.  Each time Jesus went into the garden He entered suffering and each time He came back out He finds His friends asleep, each person living a different reality than Jesus.  

Peter was very clear about his agenda earlier in their time together when Jesus said "I am going to the Cross" and Peter "rebuked Him".  Peter wanted a crown, a Kingdom setup here where he could be a "co-king" with Jesus.  James and John were very clear about their own agenda as well when they asked if they could be at the right and left of Jesus in Heaven.  When Jesus spoke to Peter (after His resurrection) He made it clear that Peter would be lead away and die while suffering.  This is His invitation to all of us, die for others and to suffer...but sadly we are all asleep like the disciples.  We love comfort, we love to choose our own agenda and live that out, we love to be in control of our own hearts and lives, we love to control those close to us….what we do poorly is to be awake enough to want to enter into the reality of suffering with someone we love much less into our own.  

Cancer.  That wakes people up.  Car crashes.  Death of a child.  Financial ruin.  Divorce.  The list is as long as it is deep.  People who come into my office often ask for me to make things better, to make things easier, to relieve pain.  It is natural for a human to seek to sleep and find comfort rather than to enter into their own suffering.  In fact most people don't even want to be around those they care about when they are going through painful things in their lives.  But I'm not sure helping us find relief is what God is calling us all towards.  He promises us Rest and I have seen many people in my office who choose to enter into the suffering of their past or present stories and find radical change and life altering Rest.  People who wake up and walk into their own garden to sit with a cup of suffering in front of them, this is where we will all find Rest, Life, Joy, Freedom, Grace, Mercy, Transformation, Redemption.  Jesus sits in front of the most painful moment of His life which will lead Him to the most Rest after He submits to it.  

My job as a counselor isn't to bring relief…we do that on our own.  The most stressful moment in Jesus' life and his disciples are crashed.  They entered into relief, Jesus into suffering.  The looked away from the suffering, didn't pray, avoided it all, were in denial about what was happening around them.  Clients come in the same way and my job is to help them wake up.  My job is to help them see what has always been true, what they have been running from and to enter into the reality that has always been there.  I have to be encouraging, loving, gentle, but always mindful that relief should never be my goal.  To sit with someone who is hurting and hurt with them, to sit with someone who is full of fear and be safe for them, to become a place where a wounded, shredded person who has been in the garden their whole life can show up and have a person love them there…that is my job.  To the degree that they enter their stories as you see the disciples begin to do AFTER they were asleep in the garden, is the degree of Rest, Life, Joy, Freedom, Grace, Mercy, Transformation and Redemption they will experience in their current lives.  

If your life takes a hard turn remember it is natural (in a fallen sense) to scramble to find relief, to want to ignore it, to make it go away.  But always keep in mind that there is a deeper invitation for you and if you will enter, you will wake up and if you wake up you will never be the same again.  Those who do this, those who take this path often report that it is lonely, that they are surrounded by sleeping people in their families, their churches, their marriages, their jobs….but once on that path it is undeniably a place of Life. 

A Parent's Charge

A Parent's Charge

by 

Mike Hamilton

We will blow it as parents.  Please get this through your head if you are a parent.  We...will...blow...it.  And here is a shocker, I think done correctly (haha) blowing it might actually be a great thing to show your children.  Please understand that in this post that I am not speaking of abusive actions by the parents.  I am speaking of parents who don't do parenting well.  If we are humble people who want to live in reality, we must all admit that we fit in that category.  You would not believe how often I have heard my clients tell me "I'm a better dad than my dad" or "I would never parent the way my parents did".  I'm not sure we are on the right track as a parent with this in mind.  I'm not sure that God has placed children into our care for us to be "better parents" or "perfect parents".  Without a doubt I have seen "perfect parents" do enormous damage to their kids and never admit it due to their blinding pride.

It would serve you well to put away these old notions of bettering your parents because your focus begins to be more about that and less about finding and admitting where you have "blown it".  It will be one of the greatest days in my fathering career when I get to sit down with my older children and ask them how I have hurt them.  It will be one of the most bonding, awkward, anxiety producing, intimate moments I will every have with my children.  To hear their words, their hearts, their perception of what I have done to destroy the tender hearts God gave them.  I hope to have no defense, no rebuttal, no walls, that I will be present and open and powerless as I invite them into a deeper relationship with me. The mistakes are piling up already in those "Dad of the year" moments when you are worn down, anxious, tired, mad, hurried, distracted, annoyed.........you know those moments when you are most fallen and human.

My son Ben was potty trained very early (had to compete with his older brother).  One day I took him to a park to throw rocks into the creek and play around in the trails.  As soon as we pulled up Ben told me "Daddy, this is where you were a meany pants".  Ben was about 2 years, 8 months at this point.  I asked him what he meant.  "When I peed in my pants, you yelled at me and wouldn't let me throw rocks" he said.  Ugh.  I had forgotten about that shining moment which had lots of situational excuses tied to it...but honestly, I had just blown it and I never told him that was about me.  The time he was speaking about?  7 months prior.  He was barely older than 2.  I will forward this blog post to his therapist when he enters counseling at age 22.

My response?  I sat him down and grabbed his face turning his eyes directly at mine.  His powerful blue eyes, he has always been able to just stare right back into mine.  I found tears and communicated in a way that an almost 3 year old might understand.  I'm sorry I made you feel bad.  I'm sorry that I was mad.  I'm sorry that I made you think you had to be perfect.  Now, 10 years from now, if we go back to that same park...and if he happens to be able to recall that day, my response will be somewhat different.  "I'm sorry I hurt you, I would love to know what that was like for you, I want to know how I've hurt you.....I hate that I made you feel stupid and powerless and small and hated...when honestly that was about a dad who didn't know how to give Grace and to Love well all the time."

One of the greatest things I can show my children is my willingness to admit failure and to admit when I am wrong.  My screw up with Ben is just one of many.  I have just as many piling up with my son Nate.  And to be honest, I am okay with all of it.  As many times as I blow it I am right there willing to apologize and admit my mistake.  Humbly.  Without walls.  Without rules of engagement.  It is the best thing I can hand them.  Perfect parents destroy their children by making them believe they are "god" and silently demand that they be idolized and pedestaled in an attempt to never have to admit wrong.  This doesn't call any child to grace, love, brokenness, suffering, loss, pain, being known, enjoyed, accepted.  The perfect parent who does "nothing" wrong, the parent who never admits to hurting their children is leading their children to secretly hate themselves, not trust the parent and to shut down their hearts to hide all of the "broken things"every child has inside of themselves.  It is the epitome of selfishness.  Children are sacrificed for the parent to maintain this false illusion that they have never screwed up along the way.  It's more about maintaining appearances rather than allowing everyone to be who they are and protecting that right for their children.

As a Christian I am called to be flawed, to be the murderer I am, to be a broken person in need of a savior now and forever.  If I am not this person in the world no one will be drawn to the God who chose to redeem all of this mess.  If I am not this person in front of my children they will never be drawn to this same God who redeems the mess, but more drawn to an endless dead ended pursuit of being a perfect person.  I don't know if I am a better dad than my dad was but at the end of my life I can proudly say that wasn't my aim.  My children will hopefully feel deeply pursued, known and loved by a man who was willing to be powerless when it comes to falsely protecting his "position" of authority as a dad.  Those same adult children walking into the world as men knowing that this life isn't about being clean, perfect, good, better than the next but to be men who love well...and part of loving well is the ability to humbly admit when we hurt other people.

Speaking Truth

by 

Mike Hamilton

We are called to love others while dying for them.  I should be able to stop the blog right there.  Except just like Satan in the garden, our world has subtly lied to us.  Political Correctness, a form of lying, has lured us into the idea that it is better to tell partial truths and keep everyone happy than it is to speak Truth.  I'm not a Pharisee, I'm not here to tell you that if you lie to your wife and tell her you love her new hair but inside you know it looks terrible that you are a terrible sinner.  And if we can just for a moment or two while I'm speaking about this topic lay aside the idea of sin....or we may become lost.  What I am writing about tonight is the importance of speaking Truth to those who you are called to Love.  Without Truth your offering of "love" is no love at all.  It is the world's substitute for Love which leads to dead things.  Dead relationships, dead intimacy, dead heart movement, even in some ways a dead Gospel.  

Truth is tied more to Love than to the Law of "doing it right because we are supposed to do it right".  I saw a tweet last night that said "If you don't honor your mother or father how will you raise kids who will honor you? #reapwhatyousow.  The man who tweeted this is a well known pastor, but unfortunately he is well known for speaking harsh truth from harsh places leading to harsh reactions.  It might play well for publicity but its never received as a grace filled offering that leads you to be thirsty for a God who would know you and love you.  The tweet he sent suggests something that I'm not sure he can back up biblically, a harsh God who is waiting for you to screw up so He can put it on your head ten fold.  There are so many variables that go into why someone would be in that position that stating it that way is nothing short of irresponsible.  What about abused kids who are now adults?  What about kids who were neglected?  Not loved well?  Children who were treated as a nuisance?  My point is, the next part of the scripture speaks to the parents responsibility to the children...statements such as this are divisive, not grace oriented nor Loving.  

When we are speaking Truth into people's lives we have to be willing to be powerless in the midst of doing so.  Yes, POWERLESS.  We seem to be able to lovingly tell a lie or very boldly and harshly speak "truth", but no one seems to be able to speak Truth without bucking up for it.  If Truth does not come from a tender loving place from within your heart, it is better left unsaid.  (mind you we are talking deep hard topics that are a part of a healthy intimate relationship, not "your dress is pretty").  Truth spoken out of Love often leaves the speaker feeling weak, fearing rejection or retaliation.  And the loving thing to do in response to those feelings?  Lay down your swords, pull of your armor....allow that person to do what they may.  As a counselor I have the very odd job of having to love my clients well in ways that not only disturb their wounded hearts but also disturbs them in ways that may make them want to leave.  Spoken Truths do not often set well with people who want to remain in control of their hearts and lives for their own gain.  

We are all called to do this and trust me it can feel awful, it can actually feel more like Death than a dead relationship or dead intimacy.  It is an active, vulnerable place where you are exchanging everything good for an unknown response from the receiver.  But this much you can count on, I have never spoken hard things into a person's life and heart from a loving place and regretted it.  It almost always leads to tears, connection, brokenness, safety, heart movement.  Most people hedge their bets on safe interactions that rob them of life and purpose, settling into a life of existence....disrupting this life strategy is courageous, disruption through lovingly telling someone what is real.  It almost never feels like Life when we begin to enter those waters with someone we care for but I have never entered and not found Life there.  It is worth it, the people you love are worth it.....even if it is messy and scary and dark....you will find Him there, even if the people you are speaking to do not follow.  

Marriage

Marriage

by

Mike Hamilton

When I do premarital or marital counseling I always start with one easy question, "Help me list the reasons you are getting or are married".  The list is always the same with some small variation as to the order of the answers.  Love, God, wanted children, financial security, buy a home, travel, we love the same things, want to do ministry, we have fun, we get a long well, our families liked our spouse.  This is almost always the list.  Maybe God is first and Love is second, but to some degree I could almost have this pre-written on my white board.  Some pre-marital couples list off, in addition to these, how much scripture of marriage they've studied, reasons why they are going to make it in marriage etc.  By the third or fourth answer I get a smile creeping across my face and they begin to realize they have willingly entered into a trap.  My problem with this list?  This isn't even remotely God's list for marriage.  

God has many purposes for marriage but one of the greatest is that our marriage is an example of the marriage between Christ and His church (His bride).  God's list is far deeper than ours and costs more than both of the spouses have in their account.  When we say "I do" we are signing the deed on a house that costs 5.5 million dollars and payment is due after the honeymoon.  Marriage is this big and it calls on resources that are not in us and certainly not at our disposal.  Look at the Cross for a moment, what Jesus did for His bride. . .He died for her while she was not inclined to do the same.  In other words, He was willing to give up His life when His bride hated Him, didn't Love Him, didn't agree with Him, wanted something different than He did. . .does this sound familiar in your marriage? This is when arguments start, lines get drawn, bunkers are entered and we begin to strategize to destroy our spouse.......instead of be destroyed as Christ was.

 God's list would be something like "Die for your spouse when they are not, give Grace, allow them to KNOW you, grow in humility, call them to live in Truth and reality, forsake comfort for the good of the marriage, pursue each other's heart, defend the marriage from ALL threats, the marriage is more important than anything else under God, allow each other to be who they are, do not change what God is changing, Love them well to the exclusion of your own agenda....."  His list is infinite but you get the idea.  Not one person goes to the altar with this in mind.  Not one.  But as soon as we are married God begins the real purpose of marriage, Sanctification.  He wants this union to grind and cut and sand away the things we have held onto that keep our hearts in charge of our world.  An angry man will be taught how to be tender, a voiceless wife will be taught how to be brave, a "little boy" who lacks the qualities of a man will be taught how to be a warrior for his wife...and the list keeps growing.  

God's purpose for our marriage is not for us to be happy.  It isn't for our bank accounts to be more secure.  He never promises marriage to be free of suffering, in fact it seems to multiply it.  God is taking two broken people who refuse to see their brokenness and forcing them into a relationship that will expose that brokenness.  The marriages that worry me the most?  The ones that appear to be perfect.  When I meet a couple who have been married 10 or 20 years and claim "We've never had problems"....THAT is a problem.  Sanctification is scary, it hurts, it is out of our control and God is perfectly capable of pushing buttons in us with our spouses that we never knew existed.  So when your marriage begins to have problem, put the broom away, don't sweep it under the carpet so that you both don't acknowledge them. . .these are the very problems that are inviting you to the Freedom marriage holds for our most wounded places, but to get there we must enter into the mess that is our REAL marriage.  The most hope I have for a couple is when they come to me and say "We've realized we don't love each other"....my response is always "Good, at least you are not in denial like the rest of us, now let's learn how to do that."

Redeemer

by 

Mike Hamilton

It is interesting the positions we put God in when it comes to what He "should" do for us.  Like no one else in the world we ask Him to reverse suffering, loss, pain, hurts, BEFORE they occurred, to make them as if they never occurred.  If I find myself in an ER with a doctor looking at my broken leg, I do not get mad at him for not reversing the event that broke my leg.  I am not mad at the surgeon for preventing my lung cancer, I am grateful that he is gifted in lung surgery.  I do not scream at the police officer for showing up after I dialed 911, I'm grateful that he showed up quickly and is protecting me.  When I forgive another person, that forgiveness does not reverse the pain they have caused me and vice versa.  

So why do we get angry with God for not reversing our pain?  Why do we get mad that He didn't show up "before"?  We are a peculiar group of people who seem to want to dictate to God who He should be and what His role in our life should be.  God is a redeemer, He has never claimed to be a preventer.  I would say that as long as our heart and soul is bent on determining what God was supposed to do for us, we will miss what He is doing for us.  Most of us would tell an amazing tale of a fire fighter who rushed in to carry us out of a burning building, even if we had suffered many third degree burns before he got to us.  But not God, we demand that He pay for the pain He should have prevented, instead of watching Him redeem our impossible stories of loss.  

Most clients come into my office in the place of God is "preventer" not "Redeemer".  They come to me looking for a fix, a way to better communicate to their spouse, a quick way to remedy the thing they want to affect them no more.....they want to wash away from their stories the very thing God is asking them to watch Him redeem.  A failing marriage, a past of sexual abuse, a death of a child, any trauma that our hearts are screaming "I will not let this affect me, if it does I will not survive".  

I have always been told and agree with the statement "The hardest things for our hearts to handle and accept are the things we have not chosen".  Loss and suffering spiral us into a dark place of despair instead of hope when this happens to us, be it a family death, a divorce, cancer, loss of a job, a whole host of things we would never have allowed into our lives.  We despair because we put God into a role He never promised us.  We can only Hope when we correctly see Him for what it is He does, He washes the dirty, frees the slave, restores the broken, heals the wounded.  He is the redeemer.  

When your life gets to a place where things are not going well and despair is mounting, you can almost always bet that we refuse to let Him do what He does.  Redemption is out of our purview, it is not for us to participate in beyond the role of victim.  We have to watch an unpredictable and unknowable God move in our lives and hearts without the foreknowledge that a plan exists, much less a good plan.  But if we enter into this place and have Hope we have now completed the one thing He asks of us.  "Trust Me, know that I am healing what has been broken, experience Me in loss in ways you can't understand, watch Me as I take what you thought was dirty and used and violated and hopeless and turn that into something beautiful and inspiring, something that makes you Rest and makes others Hope in me too."  Stories of the heroes of 9-11 in New York pull at us because they rushed in and helped when no one else could or would.  They are heroes not because they prevented the loss but because they made us have hope in the midst of it.  God's role in our lives and hearts is no different as redeemer.  He promises us Hope in the midst of loss, He promises to Love us in ways that makes the dark light, the intolerable tolerable.  

When Prayers Aren't Answered

by

Mike Hamilton

I was in Colorado with my family this past week.  This was supposed to be a week of refreshing, comfort, spectacular hikes and good food, a rest for my soul, my heart, my mind.  Two days into our vacation we reach the house we rented. . .at 11,000 feet.  11,000 feet.  11,000 feet, I keep typing that wondering why it didn't seem that bad when I booked this place, but it certainly seems bad now.  When we arrived at the house it was 7 or 8 pm and everyone was pretty much ready to crawl into bed.  At least that is what we thought.  

Within an hour our youngest son (2) started crying out and was restless, stuffy nose making him mad, just not comfortable, acute mountain sickness from ascending to that altitude too quickly.  Both kids ended up in our bed that night, Ben was up for hours kicking and tossing and turning.  The entire time I kept praying this ridiculous prayer, "God, please just let him go to sleep so we can have a good vacation".  And sadly, I really did mean it, that was my real prayer.  Hours later when he passed out from pure exhaustion, I was finally able to drift off for about 3 hours.  

Fast forward to the next night, its a repeat performance except this time Nate (our 5 year old) is stuffy and nauseated.  Both kids were tossing and turning, no one sleeping and I began to pray again.  "God, seriously, just let them get good rest, let them get sleep so we can enjoy this time, let them get sleep so we can enjoy the mountains and enjoy our time as a family....we need this God".  Again, sadly, I really did mean this, it was my prayer in earnest.  But here is the problem, I've known for years these kinds of prayers go unanswered.  They aren't real prayers, they are more like grumbling, ticked off, demanding prayers that are there for my comfort more than anything else.  Why would He answer that?  He has something deeper in mind for our hearts and souls than we can possible hope to understand much less ask for.  He is interested in things that transform us, transforms others, things that last and become a base for growth in us or in those around us, God is not interested in our comfortable vacations. . .He is interested in us learning to Love others and to give Grace and to suffer to find Rest.

So, three hours later, I'm still praying, desperate to go to sleep, desperate to just get those kids to sleep. . .when Nate sits up and begins to vomit in the bed.  I very quickly grab him up and he lets loose again on me, the floor, in his hand.  By the time we entered the bathroom he's vomiting on the floor and then finally in the shower.  I was barefoot, standing in it, all while telling Nate that it was going to be okay.  That he is okay, that everything was going to be okay, that I was sad he was sick and that he has done nothing wrong.  I was on my knees rubbing his hair and looking him straight in the eyes, holding his hand, cleaning him up.  I had entered into the mess in a literal way.  

And it was at that point when I felt Rest for the first time, three days into our vacation.  I began to see that I was asking for mindless numb comfort and God wanted me to understand how to Love my child in a way that is bonding, transforming, healing.  God was asking for me to enter into the mess and find a Rest that can't be explained by normal thought.  My prayers never took into account that God rarely uses comfort to bring us to big realizations.  Rarely if ever.  But while I sat in the bathroom with my son it was abundantly clear to me that I had, over the last few years, lost one of the most passionate things God had given me. . .the willingness to enter the mess with those around me.  This moment with my son was a reaffirming "go and do this, this is where you will find Rest, entering the messy places with those I've given you to love."  

It isn't the storied start to a vacation I would have asked for but I will never forget that moment with Nate.  And I hope to never forget the invitation to enter into the mess with those in my life, to love them as well as I can, to hope that my willingness to go there will invite others to do this as well.  This world offers a perfect numbing peace, it can be as sterile and clean as an operating room before use.  I have said many times God is a dirty God, so contrary to that sterile operating room.  He uses blood, mud, dirt, death, scars, sickness and tragedy to move us closer to Him and closer to others.  

Real life is full of dirty things, messiness that most of us would like to avoid for the sake of a comfortable moment, a comfortable life, a nice vacation.  I am thankful to have been in that bathroom Tuesday night with my son, sitting in that mess with him.  I hope to continue to move towards others in my weeks and years ahead to invite them to this same Rest.  Our hearts are full of painful places that most of us want to avoid for the same sake of comfort or a moving away from the pain.  It is these same places that will hold Rest for us if we dare enter in as we forsake comfort and embrace the reality of life in a fallen world.  

He came for the destroyed

Luke 19:10 is one of those examples of how our English language and translation did a disservice to a particular scripture meaning. Its not inaccurate, its just not as rich as it would have been if translated in a direct way. Luke 19:10 says "For the son of man came to seek the lost and save the what was lost". However, I'm not sure we can say that God was trying to find us, I'm not sure he didn't know our location, I'm not sure this word "lost" was the best one to use. Maybe if you look at it from a view that we were lost, meaning couldn't find our way home, that makes sense. But as enemies of God, I'm not sure if we were lost or just going our own way.

But when you look at the Greek, the word lost means "Utterly Destroyed or Decimated beyond recovery". Wow. That verse I've heard a million times just got rich, real and deep. If you think of God's as someone who designed us then you must then conclude that the fall twisted that design, or rather, destroyed it. We start out our pre-salvation moments as an utterly destroyed being, incapable of doing good without Him. If you sit with that for a while it makes the whole process of sanctification and salvation seem so different. Think of it this way, a car that has been utterly destroyed doesn't look like it was designed to look right? It doesn't operate as designed either right? A house that has been decimated can't be lived in right? It has become inoperable, useless and without purpose. Before Christ came into your heart, you were all of these things...but simultaneously He came to know you, Love you and save you, He created you....my point is, even while destroyed He saw value in you and worth in you as a daughter and son of the most High and did what was necessary to take you from utterly destroyed to a prince and princess in the High Courts...

The direction this has taken me is that without Him I am just "doing my best" which in my fallen, destroyed state is still sadly short of good. But we have a King who came to find our destroyed selves, to breathe life into our bodies and make us capable of doing what we were intended to do from day one, to glorify Him and to have fellowship with Him in Rest. And He did it, He salvaged this decimated creation because He saw something of value and worth.....

Now Entering the Kingdom of Self

I am sitting in my living room after a week of seclusion. I took time away from twitter, friends, clients, running, my family, people in general. I have had nothing left to give. I usually make contact with clients who text or email me non-emergency questions during the week just to let them know that I care for them, that they are on my radar screen, but even this was difficult. It seemed that lots of success lately has made it very difficult for me.....which is a strange thought. I have been training for a marathon in December, my practice has grown and things have been going well...so why am I so drained?

We rule our own hearts. Simple thought but complex as to how it plays out in our lives. Few of us allow unfettered access into the deeper places within us, but that is what God has designed us for. Deep connection. But this is far too disturbing. God would ask that we not protect our hearts from the things that happen. Now, let me clarify, He would ask that we not protect our hearts from what happens, this is different than allowing anything into our lives. The distinction is that we control what affects us by denying the reality of how events affect us. I'm suggesting that if someone hurts you in someway, most of us will "stuff it", deny it, or act like it never hurt us. But this isn't living in Truth, hurtful things hurt and God would want this to be true when it happens to us. And God is certainly asking us to allow Him to transform and work in our hearts all the time. We reject this because we still want to rule our own hearts apart from the King.

But, why am I so drained while things are going well? I'm in control of my heart. I didn't cause the growth in my practice, I can't. My field is based so heavily in referrals that much of a counselor's growth is up to God. He brings me clients not me. Bad events or good events all point to the one thing that all of us are afraid to admit, we can't make it happen. When my practice grows and it has nothing to do with me it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. When we lose our baby and there was nothing we could do, it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. I would much rather control my own heart without waiting on my King to show up in the good or the bad. If I rule I get to make rules, what comes in, what goes out. God never designed our hearts this way. We all live in some sort of spiritual dissociation where we decide what has happened to us and what is true, what is to be forgotten and what is painful or not. But if we do this in the hard times how do you stop doing that in the good times, a filter is a filter not easily taken off.

Let me clarify one more time. In my heart, if I'm king, I would choose to grow my practice in a way that I knew I would always be successful. God isn't interested in this. God being King makes Him interested in me showing up and caring for clients. His prosperity isn't about money, its about what happens inside of me that changes me into what He wants me to be. If I'm king I show up with clients that are easy with easy presenting problems. If I'm king I choose people needing advice about what cat to buy or how to make a good queso-dip. Since He is King I am given wounded people who need to understand what it means to be Loved, to see that others are willing to pursue their hearts, that they have value and that someone is willing to bleed for them. Its like the realization that people have when they finally understand that their marriage isn't about their happiness but more about learning how to Love their spouse without regard to themselves. It turns from blessing to a place where even in the good times we MUST LOOK TOWARDS HIM or we will hopelessly fail at it.

We are either okay with God moving in our lives either way, good or bad, or we are not. We can't have it one way and then another, we love it when He moves and hate it when He moves in hard ways, the position of our hearts simply doesn't allow this. When He moves He moves, when He acts who can reverse it? We are ultimately at His mercy. Success calls us to look towards Him if we are honest, if we look at it Biblically. Look at the story of Job, success isn't a right, it is something He gives. So if you find yourself where I am, drained and tired after really great things happening, just remember that this might be a sign pointing to something in your heart. "Now Entering the Kingdom of Self" and under this might be something in your heart that asks "Do I have what it takes, and if not will He take it away".

Ministering to others while WE are in suffering?

Jesus did so much more on the cross than die. I mean the most important thing He did for us was on the cross for sure, dying, but to not look further is to miss something important. I am not saying, more important, just something important. Look at Jesus and the rich young ruler, there is more to that story than a man who didn't follow. The story of Zacchaeus has much more to hold than where Jesus ate. The story of the adulteress woman holds more than Jesus being equitable to sinners. The story of His birth holds more than just a baby being born. In all of these stories is a store house of commentary by a God who wanted us to know Him and His heart. The cross is no different. This story is the linchpin that holds everything together for us to be sure, but in it are many invitations to our hearts. The obvious is that we can receive salvation because of this amazing and loving sacrifice. But to look closer, there are other invitations that lay at the foot of the cross.

In His most dark hour Jesus was caught in the grip of the very thing He asked the father to remove, suffering. From the garden where Jesus' request was not filled to the cross where He was covered in it, suffering, like never before, entered Jesus' story. The One who was sinless became sin, He who was our ultimate blessing became a curse, hanging from a tree. However something else was happening as He hung there for us, something that had nothing to do with His beautiful act of salvation. He began to Love and care for others in the midst of being broken spiritually and physically. As He was becoming sin He was living out perfect Love. As He was receiving all of God's fury He was living out perfect Mercy. As He was unable to be comforted He lived out giving perfect comfort. All of this in the midst of suffering.

"When Jesus saw His mother standing there, He said "Mother, here is your son" (speaking of the disciple John) and to the disciple He said "Here is your mother." In His suffering Jesus was taking care of those around Him, speaking Life into what He was witnessing as He died. He was engaged so fully with those at the foot of His cross that He was moved to invite them to be comforted and to be taken care of upon His leaving. The thief who hung next to Him was comforted while dying when Jesus said that He would be in Heaven with Him. The soldiers who were stealing His clothes were prayed for by Him that they would be forgiven. All of this happening simultaneously in His greatest day of suffering. He was always moving towards people as He lived out Love, Truth, Mercy, Grace, all despite what was happening around Him. So, what am I trying to point out here?

Suffering has a purpose for us and others. Suffering is much like Truth, it never comes back void. In the hands of the Master, suffering avails much in our hearts and lives, as well as in others' hearts and lives. But the problem is none of us are willing to sit in suffering for any extended period of time. We wiggle and wriggle our way out of suffering as quickly as we can as if it were an acid bath eating away at our skin. Oddly, I guess it is, eating away at our old flesh to make us new, but we are far too busy getting out than sitting in it. In our suffering we find Him. There is no question that He is always present in the very place that we wildly run from. Always. And in suffering and loss we have the opportunity to be stripped bare and find a place where He is all that matters and all that seems to make sense. This is where Christ lived all the time, all that matters is Him. To move into the lives of others effectively to live out Love, True Love, it takes us to a path none of us want. Suffering, loss and brokenness are the very road He calls us to when He wants us to invite others to the Deep, so they can call others to the Deep. But get this, we most effectively call others to the Deep when we are living in the middle of suffering.

Exactly! We are far too engrossed in our own lives and heart protection to give of ourselves from the deeper places, until we find brokenness. To the degree that you have experienced brokenness and have suffering in your story is the degree that you have compassion for others. Compassion without brokenness is sympathy at best. Compassion as a result of broken places in our hearts is an offering beyond us of Him. Broken people who are in pain often shock us because of their passion for Him during the loss. I see it each week or month on twitter, someone praising the King in the middle of pain, glorifying Him as they hurt...all the while our hearts are stirred to move towards Life with Him because there is something in our hearts that can't deny what they are saying. To speak that He is all I've got because it is text book, means little to me. But to hear a mother in agony over the loss of her child speak those words, that is where we see Him. When we move towards suffering we must be engaged in our story. This means we must be engaged with those in our story. And if we do these two things we can not help but speak Truth and Life to others while our world is shattering. We have no choice, if we submit to suffering, we submit to His plan in it. His plan will ALWAYS be to glorify and praise Him in ways that make others want to know more about it. This is what Jesus did on the cross and this is what we are called to each time we face suffering.

Sheep that bark like wolves

This week my heart has been so heavy. So many people I have meet on twitter and people who are in churches all across the nation have been duped by wolves. Of course they don't look like wolves, they are kind, politically correct, tender, grace filled people, which gives them the sheep's clothing...but they have teeth. They speak well, they write even better and they film these awesome trendy short films that make everyone say "have you seen...this or that film". I'm thinking about filming a short series named "TRUE-MA", to offset some of the lies of this growing emergent church.

It seems some from the realm of Jesus based churches have stepped up their response to this growing cancer in our midst, but I think far too many people frankly feel rude if they do say something. These are seemingly good, nice men. But really? I don't think this can be true, they are leading generations of young people right into the toilet, one QUESTION at a time. Is Jesus really the only way to get to heaven? (bell) If you take away the virgin birth, what have you really lost? (bell) The Bible isn't an inspired text, its just a cultural commentary that doesn't all fit our culture. (bell) To a man who teaches at a liberal seminary in Seattle, Mars Hill Graduate School, who had his students take communion, YES COMMUNION, from a MUSLIM CLERIC, yes, do I need to repeat it? (McClaren) Do I need to add that this week he is fasting with the muslims during ramadan? (mcclaren) They question whether homosexuality is a sin, why? The Bible speaks to this. They question whether or not Jesus is the only way to heaven, why? The Bible speaks to this.

I think the only way you can pull this off is to put doubt into the minds of our children as to the inspired nature of the Bible. If you can pull that off, then the rest is easy. Take a Holy Document, make it human and then place it into the context of CULTURE. Our culture isn't theirs they say, our culture is thousands of years older they say, we are in a post-modern culture they say, the Bible isn't totally applicable to use anymore, so now we get to pick and choose what we believe from it. APOSTATES! The drool from their wolf fangs drip out under the kind little sheep's face that they show all of us. This is not about mega-churches for them, its about polluting Truth to make it "truth", its about taking Holiness and making it relative, its about taking the divine and making it human, its about taking words of Life and twisting it just slightly to make it death in disguise.

The first "person" to try this method did so successfully and pulled it off many, many years ago. The use of question, the use of "dialogue", the invitation to "wrestle", the charge to continue the "conversation", all used once. The question about what is widely known as Truth is sometimes veiled in an "invitation to dialogue" or "to wrestle", but why wrestle with things that are known to be BIBLICALLY TRUE? There is always an agenda hidden in the emergent church's dialogue, just like when Satan said in the garden, "surely this day you will not die?" He used the same device, a question of God's Ultimate Truth, to bring all of humanity into sin. His invitation seemed to be good, but lead to death. He didn't rage at God to Adam and Eve, he simply questioned God's Truth. This is the emergent church, simply questioning God's Truth for the sake of dialogue.

Bell was quoted in an interview along with his wife that they didn't believe the Bible was a Holy inspired text, how can so many people be reading books from this guy? His invitation is just the same as Satan's, death. Bell doesn't deny Jesus, he just slightly twists Jesus to make him NOT JESUS, so when he offers "him", its not really Him. McClaren is a full on apostate as well, inviting a Muslim Cleric to give communion, this is nothing short of Apostasy! Jesus himself gave instruction on how to give communion, why, and what it signifies. Who is McClaren to change this, pervert this? To dirty this beautiful symbol of the cross?

Be careful those who have read the lies within the pages of these men's books, and others who are coming out of the emergent church movement. They are wolves, apostates, men who would deny Truth so that they can deal out "truth", a post-modern compromise for political correctness and tolerance. Satan invited Adam and Eve to question Truth and said that God didn't want them to "know what He knows"...he invited them to death, but also to be "gods", to be able to create their own "truth" so that they could act as they wished. This is the heart of the liberal emergent church movement, we are all miniature "gods" who get to co-lead with God to create something.....no offense, I lose my car keys twice a week, what can I do to co-lead with God? He DOESNT NEED ME OR YOU, HE WORKS THROUGH me and you, we are not CO-LEADERS, CO-GODS or CO-ANYTHING, we are to be Truth filled, broken vessels that He chooses to use or not. Culture does not bind God, He isn't SUDDENLY irrelevant, HE IS GOD, to be sold on the fact that because we live in a post-modern culture that God is in need of our help is crazy, dangerous and is laden with agenda. A Holy God that is in need of our marketing efforts is a truly WEAK GOD, this scares me if this is the True God that I've always served, that He has failed to anticipate a post-modern culture and has become bound by it so severely that He is in need of me. I am not a god or a God, and can certainly recognize that He is, but not true for many emergents, be careful sheep, be careful, there are those in this pen who do not know His voice and question His Truth, look for teeth my friends, look for teeth.

Bella's Service

We had a service on Saturday for our daughter, we named her Bella Rest Hamilton. I spent a lot of time trying to post this blog and realized that I can't do the service justice. It was just Julie and I, completely alone in a beautiful park. No one single person was there, it had been raining all day. We were glad. This was our time, just two parents mourning their daughter. We wrote letters to Bella and I wanted to post mine. The details of our time in the park is ours, but my words to my daughter, I want to share. I hope these speak to you as well, I hope they might call you to deeper places, that they might mean something.

Letter to Bella:

Lord you have searched me and you know me, you know when I sit and I rise, you know my thoughts from afar, you watch my going out and my lying down, you are familiar with all my ways, before a word is on my tongue you know it completely O Lord…..My sweet daughter Bella, this part of scripture gives me peace and a rest in my heart for I know that our God knew you before He put you into your mom’s womb. He knew you, your heart, he knew who you were, before you ever took your own breath. Comfort is only a part though, only a small portion of what I have felt through this time that we lost you, our sweet baby girl.

I was excited about you even before I met you, before I could see you, I was excited. I so wanted a daughter that I could hold in my arms and snuggle with, to have you sit in my lap and hold your little face in my hands. I was excited about that. I was excited to get to meet you and see what your face looked like, to see what your hands looked like, little baby hands are so sweet. To have you be a part of our family, to be a part of our little family, would have been so sweet Bella, I was excited for you to be with us.

I was excited too for Nate who would have made you such a great big brother, he would have gotten to see you grow and help you learn all of these great things he has learned. He would have thought it was fun to help you say words, to walk, to play with toys, to eat….Nate is your big brother and I am I know he will meet you someday. I hope you love him.

I have also felt hope. Hope is the thing that we get to do here on earth before we see Jesus face to face. I know that hope isn’t needed in Heaven, where you are, God is completely there with you, completely engaged and surrounding you! You get to see Him each minute of each hour of each long day there. We only get glimpses, but hope allows us to glimpse Him in ways that we can’t otherwise. Hope has allowed me to do many things for you even before I met you. It allowed me to know how much I loved you, how very much I loved you and how much your mom and I would have done to save your life! You were precious to us, and we had never met you! Hope allowed me this. Hope also allowed me to know that you were important and real, valuable and worthy, that you were lovable and a gift. Hope allowed me to experience you and your impact on my heart before you were born, Hope allowed my heart to be touched by you Bella! I would not trade those days.

I felt tremendous loss. I lost years of hearing your voice, feeling your little hands reach for me, hearing your feet run around the house. I lost years of time, yes, but years of experiences with you as my daughter. This loss was and is, will always be a huge loss, you will never be with us here. I will never see you married, I don’t get to walk you down the aisle, I don’t get to watch you grow up from Barbie dolls to makeup. I will never get to pursue your heart as only a daddy can pursue his daughter’s heart. I will miss you Bella. I will always miss you.

But let me say this too, I would not change the fact that God gave you to your mommy and I. I can’t say I wouldn’t change having you leave us, but I can say for sure that I wouldn’t change getting to know you were ours, for a very, very short time. You will always be a part of the family and we will tell Nate about you someday. We will always remember you and the day of 09/09/09, the day you left us here. I love you very much Bella, you were not lost on us, I am glad God gave you two parents who would miss you, I think its important! You were a person! You brought meaning to our lives in such a short time, you meant something to me, you truly created so much in my heart from the moment that your mommy saw the pink line……….that pink line. I was so grateful for it…..it lead me to you, and you lead me to Him in ways I had forgotten could be true. Thank you Bella for being my daughter, for being a part of our family, thank you for making a huge impact on my life and heart, you were worth it, even this loss, you were worth it.

We love you very much and I hope that one day, someday, when we are in Heaven we might get to see you and meet you. I do hope to be able to do this. You will never be forgotten little girl….I would have loved to have protected and known your heart, to have gotten to pour into your heart what I have to give, but it seems it happened the other way around for us. You matter to me little girl, you matter to me!

Asleep in the Bottom of the Boat

What do you do when the storm is still raging and your boat is falling apart? Its strange, waves crashing, wind is howling, thunder rolling, and I'm asleep in the bottom of the boat. I know that life, real life, is about encountering things that allows us to understand Jesus, to become more like Him. Think of the feeling of powerlessness and envision the cross, think of rejection and think of the crowd choosing the murderer over Jesus, think of loneliness and think of Jesus in the garden. Countless situations call us to experience what Jesus did while here for us. But asleep in the bottom of the boat? This is not usually me. I'm likely the man standing on the tip top of the mast during a hurricane screaming and shaking my fist at God, daring Him to kill me. But asleep? During a storm? This is just not me. What a strange place I must say again, to be humbled in front of the One I've done battle with all my life.

Now this doesn't mean I don't feel sadness, wave after wave of sadness hit, loss will always be with our family now, and this is okay, it must be okay for I can't change this. I have found peace in the middle of a raging hurricane for the first time in my life. My feet have been planted under me by something beyond me. But this is not so for my wife, an ever growing sadness, depression, a beginning bud of anger, all chaotic for a woman who has lived so controlled her whole life. My wife said yesterday that "I have always done what is right, what is controlled, I don't want to do this right." Now that is a HUGE statement from a woman who has done right for right's sake, all of her life.

It never ceases to amaze me that God can use the same event to call our hearts to be transformed in totally different ways. 10 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago, it would have felt like death to me to move into the place I have found myself. This peace and rest in the midst of a boat destroying storm. The bottom of the boat might as well have been a coffin, it would have been DEATH to me to be there. But my wife, has always been able to find this place, the place where calm reigns and outbursts or anger had no place. She has never fought the storm. Although, she has never been in one this huge. "I've never had loss to this magnitude, nothing even close". So what is going on? It feels like we are walking through this in separate spheres, I can see her and she can see me, but we are definitely not experiencing the same event. God is showing Himself as amazing, showing His commitment to two people separately and together, to transform them separately and together.

For a man who has been so terrified of powerlessness it has been freeing to be powerless in this. For a woman who has been so controlled all her life, God used something far too big for her to control, the life of a baby. (whatever your belief, God either used it, didn't stop it etc) It would feel like death for my wife to feel deeply any emotion, especially rage towards God, overwhelming loss, uncontrollable tears. She would wonder where it would stop, how far would it go, she is moving into uncharted territory. Uncontrolled, uncharted territory.

My heart is moved towards my wife but I know that God is in control again, moving us towards something we can't know or understand. He will work in my wife what He will, He will finish what He has started. Same with me, this work of being asleep in the boat, will perfect something in me that has never been there. Hope in the midst of the unknown, to an acceptance that He is God and I am NOT His peer. I have demanded that position far too long. We are both moving into places seldom seen by each of us, the only thing I have to hold onto is that He has to be there because I would not have chosen this path.

Julie spoke to that yesterday. "I would not have chosen this." My eyes burn with tears right now as I type those words. It is the hardest thing life offers us. These places in our stories where loss has affected us so deeply we would never have chosen. Those things have happened to us, no matter our choice to be a part of that story. These are words deeply rooted in pain and suffering, "I would not have chosen this." And there is nothing I can say. I sit in this boat, asleep, watching my wife staring at that mast, wondering if she will climb, shake her fist in His face. Will this be the thing that frees her heart to be at rest as a sinner in front of the One who loves her most? Will she see that He would love her anyway, whether she chooses cordial rightness or anger filled accusation? I hope she climbs the mast.

Her Name Might Be Rest

Last week we got possible bad news from the OB. This week this news was confirmed. My wife's hormone levels didn't go up after four days, we both knew what this meant. The nurse asked us to come in for a sonogram. I met my wife at my office and we drove together. It was a strange journey down to the hospital. We chatted, we laughed, I told her a story about getting on the radio today to argue a political point, but in our hearts, a growing feeling that God was leading us from Hope into Loss. As we drove we texted, Facebooked and Tweeted for prayers, we made phone calls, but again, in our hearts was an acknowledgment that God was in full control now, prayers wouldn't change this part of our story. I liken the feeling of the drive to a small child waiting in line for a roller coaster. This underlying fear that can't be shown in the line, this frantic feeling building the closer we found ourselves to the hospital, but little shown on the outside. It was polite more than calm, surreal but engaged. So hard to put into words.

The sono-tech showed us the baby this time. This tiny little pea. This really helped me. In my wife's womb was a tiny little being, God spared me the fear that we would see blackness where a child should have been. Hard to grieve blackness. Maybe it will be harder still to grieve the little pea, so much loss attached to such a little baby. We couldn't see an arm, or toes, not a face, just a little pea, mine, it was my little pea. We left the doctor's office, a practice full of Christian doctors, all who know that saying "God is in control" doesn't take away pain. They invited us to loss. God used these men.

We drove home, went to eat down the road, and took a walk with our 1 year old and our huge dog. Quivering in our hearts and working its way into our words was this feeling that grew as we walked as a family. This feeling, this loss mixed with pain yet Rest, a true humble moment in my life. It made words to my wife so hard. I wanted to tell her that I wanted to say this baby was a girl, I really want a little girl. I wanted to tell her that I want to name this little girl, Emily or Bella, or maybe Truth, something that makes a statement. Rest sounds good, her name might be Rest. But these words couldn't find their way out, much to much inside waiting to come out. The pond in our neighborhood wasn't the place.

We made it back home and I got dressed for a jog. We were trying to slowly allow loss to show on its own, I was okay if it showed while I jogged down the road. It didn't, God wouldn't have it that way. This was much to important. It hit as I read my twitter posts, people posting such amazing things, so much concern, Love, Grace, from people I've never met. God can create community within any structure, I've seen this. What took me down the road to full blown, heaving tears was a surprise. One person, Last Trumpet Living, said "Jesus is holding your baby right now." I say it caught me by surprise because I'm a counselor and I fully believe in the suffering, the pain, the loss. But this comment took me directly into, through and beyond this place of suffering, to a place of Hope that I can't put into words. This might sound cheesy but for the first time I think Heaven became real to me. In my life I have found it difficult to get the concept because I often say "it seems to good to be true for me, I believe in Heaven but it just seems to good for me." But for my baby, this tiny little baby that I've only seen on a black and white TV screen, Heaven is a proper place...she deserves that place.

Now I will find suffering in all of this and I am so glad to have lost it tonight with many tears, many hope filled tears. He was in that. But suffering must come....I have lost 50 years of time with this baby. Its funny what God uses to remind you of what you lost. My 1 year old was running down the hall on our wood floors, and what I have heard a million times suddenly stopped me cold and made me realize the pain that will come...the sound of his little bare feet. That is loss. He giggled as he chased the dog....that is loss. He hugged me before he went to bed, that is loss. I will never feel that with her...I will never hear her feet, her name, this little girl, might be Rest...I will let you know later. I will never hold that little girl. This will always be loss and I am at Rest in that, she is mine, but not to hold and see, to touch and laugh with, to tickle and pat her head. I hope He continues to lead me into this.

I will post more here, I hope that you don't mind that I work through this on such a public forum, but I believe in this, to be out there with what it is that God is doing in me and my wife. He has lead us into loss, but in this place is still Rest....what a Kind King we do serve. What a Kind King.......