Yes, I am 8 years old

I feel like a kid again. Wife and I brought several items back to Waco from KC this week. They include: her wedding dress, my bicycle, some delicious granola my mom made, and my LEGOS! YES! We have spent the last few evenings building Lego sets. And I have spent the last few mornings, between breakfast and going to work, building even more. Love it love it. I love the creative aspect of Legos, the constructive aspect, and the sound they make when I rake my hand through them. Ah, to be young again.

In other news, Wife and I went on a date tonight! That's right, keeping the romance alive. I won't tell you how long it had been since we had been on a date because I cannot remember. This time we went to Uncle Dan's BBQ. It was alright, I give it a B minus. Having grown up in Kansas City (the barbeque capital of the world, people!), I consider myself somewhat of a barbeque connoisseur. Connoisseur is really another word for snob. Anyway, Uncle Dan's had decent food, though the brisket was a bit dry. My complaints were the lack of barbeque-restaurant atmosphere and the small portions. An excellent BBQ eatery piles on the meat. Uncle Dan's workers (nephews?) did not.

We continued our date at the movie theatre, where we saw Iron Man 2. It was, in a word, awesometasticlysweet. It had all the makings of a good movie... a thousand fight scenes, cool technology that doesn't exist, a lack of mushy mush, and Scarlett Johansson (just kidding, wifey!). Heather would have enjoyed it more if she hadn't had a headache, but she liked the movie pretty well. We'll probably buy it someday.

Real Irishmen keep their phones in their pockets.

True story...

This afternoon wife and I walked to the grocery store that is two blocks from our apartment. On our way back, I spotted a phone in a phone case (the kind that clips to a belt) lying on the ground. I picked it up and confirmed that it was indeed a phone and it seemed to work fine. I decided to find out who the phone belonged to, so I took it back to the apartment and investigated its address book.

I called the number labeled "home" and a woman answered. I explained that I had found the phone on the ground and was trying to figure out where I should take it. She was happy that I called because her grandson, the phone's owner, had lost it last night. She said that he was in town until tomorrow, and when she heard from him, she'd have him call me. A few minutes later, though, she called back and told me to look in the phone for Tommy, lost-phone-man's boss who was in Waco with him.

I called Tommy and left him a message explaining all and asking that he call back. He did, and told me the phone's owner (whose name is also Tommy) was staying at the Econolodge in room 128. Econolodge is about a block from the apartment, so I drove over there to room 128. I was greeted just before I got to the door by a man with Subway sandwich.

"Hey, is that my phone?" asked the man.

"I dunno. Are you Tommy?" I replied.

He was. "Yeah. Great! Where'd you find it?"

I told him I found it a couple blocks up the street on the sidewalk.

He seemed to understand. "In front of Scruffy's?"

"Scruffy's" to which Tommy referred is Scruffy Murphy's, which you will know from a previous blog post is an abandoned-looking-but-apparently-open-for-business Irish pub halfway between the grocery store and our apartment.

"Yeah that's right," I told him.

"Oh yeah," Tommy explained, "we were so drunk last night. I figured I dropped my phone, so I looked all over their parking lot but couldn't find it. Thanks for bringing it back." He suddenly looked around to see what he had readily available. "You want half a sandwich?"

Well, having a wife who never lets me go hungry (hence the original trip to the grocery store), I declined Tommy's half-a-sandwich, wished him a good day, and made my way home.

Moral of the story: If you're going to have a few too many at an Irish pub in Texas on a Wednesday night, make sure to secure your phone in a better place than a belt clip.

Walls, Responsibility, Faith, and Waiting

I feel as if I am surrounded by a wall, an impossible list of things keeping me from where I would like to be. There are dozens of bricks in this wall, each of them conquerable, but together they are insurmountable. I hold my breath because at any moment the bricks may give way, and the wall will crumble. I try to wait patiently, but the anticipation is constant and unending. For the most part, I am hopeful and excited about this wall falling around me, but deep down I am terrified that I am waiting for something that will not happen. I feel helpless because time and again I have tried to demolish the barrier, but I don’t have the strength. So I hold my breath and wait. And I wait, and wait some more.

Bills. Car repairs. Groceries. Student loans. Driver’s licenses. Credit card payments.

Heather hasn’t been able to find a full-time job. I love her so much, and I want her to find a job that she will enjoy. I don’t want her to be unhappy, especially for my sake. Am I selfish for bringing her here? Am I irresponsible?

How do I know we’re supposed to be here? Someone pointed out to me (very sensitively) that perhaps our trouble with jobs and finances indicates that we shouldn’t have come to Waco. Maybe we made our own plan instead of following God’s. How do I know?

I don’t. I have no way of knowing for certain that this is where we should be right now. As I think back, I cannot remember an explicit directive from God to move to Waco after marrying Heather. I can’t remember an instruction to go anywhere else either, or to stay where we were. We moved here because, of all the places we could have gone, Waco had the most purpose. The seminary I feel led to attend is here, and that’s it. We had no holier reason than that.

I know that I’ve made mistakes, choosing selfishness over glorifying God, and I know that I haven’t pursued him as diligently as I could have. But I also know that despite my mistakes, for which I receive forgiveness, I am still God’s son whom he loves. He is an intricate God with an intricate plan, and my calling within that plan is not to a place or time, but to faithfulness in my pursuit of Christ.

“I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

He is not a God of, “Let’s dwell on what you could have done differently,” but a God of, “Let’s move on from here." It is not by confidence in my past that I face the future, but by faith that my future is in and through him. I’m still afraid, still uncertain about all these bricks around me, but “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.

“My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

Nighttime Adventures

Don't be scared by the title, it's not what you think.

Those who are diligent in their blog-following will remember my post awhile back about going to Walmart at night. You will also recall my wife's post from yesterday about getting old. I will lend a hand to the not-so-diligent bloggers, and tell them that both these posts emphasized that Wife and I don't go out late (as in after 7 pm) anymore.

Well, tonight we did. And what an adventure it was!

Without further ado, things I learned upon venturing out at nighttime...

1) First thing I learned is that I cannot see in the dark anymore. Yes, I had my headlights on. Yes, I was wearing my glasses. I even had carrots for dinner! I suppose I'm inheriting my mother's night-blindness. Anyway, it made our adventure even more, well, adventuresome.

2) Texas road crews perform repairs on the interstate at night. This means all the traffic on I-35 South is jammed into one lane, and is backed up for a few miles.

3) A driver should always bring Garmin along, even when going to Walmart. Sure, Garmin reduces the adventure-factor, but she does inspire navigational confidence.

4) Waco has several bridges over the Brazos River, most of which a traveler on I-35 cannot see. A traveler trying to avoid a nighttime traffic jam, however, gets to drive on these bridges. And one bridge has neat-o nighttime lights!

5) Waco also has many one-way streets, making navigation a guessing game. A traveler unfamiliar with the downtown streets, who doesn't know where he's going, and cannot see in the dark may very well drive the wrong way down a one-way street. That is, until his wife shouts nonsense and points at all the "Wrong Way" signs.

6) One block north of our apartment, there is a building that appears to have housed, at one time, an Irish Pub called Scruffy Murphy's. By all outward appearances, Scruffy Murphy's is closed now, which means they no longer host weekly karaoke. By all inward appearances, though, (meaning cars in the parking lot at night and lights on inside) Scruffy Murphy's is not closed, whether legally or otherwise. Upon Wife pointing all this out, my stomach entered into "fish and chips and possibly corned beef" mode. Mmmmm. Here's hoping.

I'd like to know... What sort of adventures bring new discoveries to your life?

Grrrrr Texas

Today I discovered two things Texans don't do well: 1) Design highways, and 2) Drive on their poorly designed highways.

These shortcomings made for a scary trip to DFW Airport to see Wife's mom. I've never made such an amazing evasive maneuver as I did today. Afterward, as I gasped for oxygen and tried to loosen my death grip on the steering wheel, Wife told me I did a great job and she was proud of me.

I think we can all learn a lesson from Texas drivers:

Drive the speed limit (or less), don't tailgate, and don't slam on the brakes on the interstate.

By the way, Texas legislature passed a law last month that drivers ages 18-24 must complete a driver education course to apply for a license. We're checking to see whether this affects us, since we're already licensed in other states. Bleh.