Paralyzed By Shame

Our Pastor spoke about Shame this morning and it really challenged me. Shame can be paralyzing. Shame is not the same as guilt. Guilt is a feeling after you have done something wrong. Shame is the feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. What causes Shame? My pastor was saying that Shame comes from the Human need to feel valued. We should feel valued by God and find our worth in God, but more often than not, this is not the case in our lives. Our value comes from our Job, our appearance, our talents, and our friends and family. If any of these areas fail, our lives become shattered, and our sense of value begins to crumble.

A lot of my value comes from wanting to please those closest to me. I am afraid of failure. I want to please those around me and so in my quest for perfection I am scared to take risks. I do not want to take the wrong job, because I do not want to disappoint or make the wrong decision. I settle for good enough, in order to maintain my value. My inadequacies force me to try to earn value in other areas of my life. Fear of failing keeps me paralyzed, as I seek to please people. I need to know that someone needs me, or that I matter to someone, in order feel my worth.

Sure these feelings sound ridiculous, but we all feel inadequate, or below other people's standard. We allow those standards to paralyze us from really living. The truth is that we will never match up to these expectations, and that our sense of value will never be fulfilled. We are going to fail in some way at our job, in our marriage, and with our family.

Living without shame comes with a realization that God is our Redeemer and restorer. We are not perfect, but God has already made up for our imperfection. We are all sinners, but we all can be restored by God.

The Road to Restoration includes living lives free from Shame and finding value in the love of God. I am not trying to simplify life, because living without shame is not easy, but I desire to fully accept God's love for me. I need to be satisfied with that alone.

Off Line- Update on life.

Sorry everyone, I have not had access to the internet at my house for most of the week. The "Internet Guy", came this morning and fixed everything. Lots has happened this week that I must share. My sister and her husband celebrated their 10 year anniversary on Thursday. Isn't that crazy! I wonder what life will be like for Ashley and I in 10 years. Kids? Probably!

My youngest Niece turns 3 today. Happy Birthday Regan. My cousins David and Alyssa just found out that they were selected to adopt a 14 month old boy named Zachary. I could not be more excited for them. Ashley said she will be shopping for Zachary this weekend. My other cousin Whitnee is due to have her baby boy soon. So much is happening its hard to keep up with everything.

We got our Tax refund yesterday and My Bank account has never looked so full. It pumps me up, because now we can pay off our final credit card. God has definitely provided for Ashley and I. P.S. Ashley loves her job and is doing such an amazing job as a teacher. She works six days a week and is such a hard worker. I could not be more proud of her, and I love being her husband.

My other sister is now moving to Philadelphia, we are sad that she will be so far away, but now it gives us a reason to go visit.

I hope to take some pictures this weekend and post them on here. Hope all is well with you all.

Remodel and Restoration

Hey I wanted to just check in real quick and see what you think about my newly remodeled blog. All the thanks goes out to Punch Debt in the Face, Ninja helped me with the set up and design. As you can see I changed the name at the top. A little background to the name. I really feel like life is all about restoration. Many aspects of life are broken, and God really wants to restore us back to who He created us to be. I believe that I am here on Earth to Love and help in that restoration process. Restoration might be sought out by restoring Justice in Uganda, restoring peace in Sudan, or helping restore a broken family by offering support. This blog is also about my own life and my own journey towards restoration. Learning how to love, allowing others to love me, and believing that I am loved. Restoration is dependent upon a community of people seeking out the needs of others. I seek to help restore the lives of others in the way that I live. Dictionary.com defines Restore as, "to bring back to a former, original, normal condition, as a building, statue, or painting." I want my life to reflect love, peace, friendship, justice, comfort, and hospitality. I hope to be apart of the restoration story and, I ask you to join me in this journey. I hope to learn with you, and grow with you.

2010 Final List

Here it is:

1. Pay off Car loan
2. Plan periodic Date Nights with Ashley
3. Blog Throughout the entire Year
4. Go Snowboarding at least once
   
5. Play tennis or basketball more often (every other month at least)
6. Eat more Fish and less Beef
7. Go somewhere I've never been (Arizona, Philadelphia)
8. Fix my bike
9. Drink more water and tea, and less Caffeine.
10. Tithe consistently
11. Volunteer to Serve food to homeless
12. Make my Dad's Famous Strawberry pie from scratch.
13. Read a Classic Book
14. Take advantage of living by the ocean (Picnic at the ocean, run on the cliffs, go boogie boarding)
15. Visit my mom at her new house
16. Go to NHL hockey Game (only big Sporting Event that I have not experienced, besides Soccer..haha)
17. Try new foods. (2009 I had Calamari for the first time, something like that)
    
18. Stay in touch with old friends. (Easy to get busy with life and get disconnected to those who used to be really close to you)
19. Find a restaurant or place that my wife and I can call "Our Place".
    
20. Do some sort of "Man Craft". Build a picture frame, or grow something.
    

2010 List

I was reading a few blogs the other morning and "Always a Planner" was talking about making a list of things to do in 2010. The idea was to do 20 lists of 10, so in total 200 items. The 200 items could be small things like, eating at a specific restaurant or trying a new recipe. Today I have the day off and I am going to work on my list. I will probably cut it down to just 20 items for this year. 20 things I would like to do, to see, to experience, or just attempt this year in 2010.

I will post my results by the end of the day. Join me and post your own list of things you would like to do.

Forgiveness was Radical

I have been Reading Peter Rollins Book "The Orthodox Heretic", for awhile now. I have just been reading bits and pieces at a time. The passage below really challenged me and encouraged me to love in a transforming way.

"Jesus' understanding of Forgiveness was so radical because he did not need people to repent before he would accept them. He did not require a change in their behavior before he loved, respected, and related to them. Yet, it was precisely this unconditional love and forgiveness that seemed so potent and transformative, often being the very act that drew people to repentance (a word that means to have a change of heart)." - Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic

I agree with Rollins on the point above. I really believe that he is speaking the heart of Christ. Jesus did not look into the eyes of a "Prostitute" and see a prostitute, but he looked into her eyes and saw one of God's children that he dearly loved. Jesus showed people how much he loved them and accepted them despite their sins and failures. Christ never said, "Change your life and I will love you." The love that Christ showed to others was so transformative that people desired to change their lives to be like him.

As a believer in Christ, why do we want everyone to believe exactly what we believe before we accept them? Why do we indoctrinate people? Why do we try to conform people to our beliefs and standards of living? Why don't we love people no matter what their beliefs are, or no matter how they live their lives? Why don't we stop trying to transform people ourselves? If you want to transform someone's life, love them, and let the love of Christ do the transforming work.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this quote from Rollins Book and on anything else said here on this post.

American Dream

What is the American Dream? The American Dream is to work hard in order to make a lot of money, so that you can purchase a nice house, a nice car, and eventually retire and reap the benefits of your hard work. The American Dream can be very appealing. Since I got married and started working full time, I feel a deep urgency to provide for "My Family", meaning my wife. As a Husband you want to make choices that benefit your family and help bring security to your lives. Its almost as if my instinct turned toward pursuit of the "American Dream". I want to work harder in order to make more money, so that my family might be more "comfortable". When I took a moment to reflect on my life, I thought, why am I in pursuit of this vanity? This is not going to make me happier, make my marriage happier, or even make my life better. This pursuit to accumulate will drain me of my happiness. Lets set something straight, I am not saying that work is bad, or working to save for a house is bad. My mindset was off, and my focus was off. I work in order to pay for necessities, and I work hard because of the pride that I have in how I represent myself. These are not bad things, but if they become my goal and my aim, then I am just running no where on treadmill. My Dream is that my life might be a representation of love. The way I work might be a representation of love. The way that I use my money might be a representation of love. I want my life to be a whole lot less about me, and more about others.

So I ask you, have you ever found yourself pursuing the "American Dream"? How do you personally keep a balance in life, without losing focus on goals that you might have?