Ragamuffin Soul

The 8 year old is perceptive.
Perceptive is probably the wrong word.
She is a Jedi.
I can’t get crap past her.
She moves items around the house with only her mind.
It’s freaky.
Anyways…
Yesterday she got sick.
Like really sick.
She called me crying asking when I was getting home.
She needed her daddy.
“Daddyyyy.  I feel sooooo sick.  I needed yooooouuuu.  When are you coming home?”
Those 13 words we littered with moans, tears, snot, sighs, wailing, and gnashing of teeth

“Baby.  I’m so sad you are sick.  Daddy is on his way home.  Probably like 15 more minutes ok?”

And like a storm in Oklahoma, she completely transformed the atmosphere of our conversation in a fraction of a second.
No moans, no tears, no snot, no sighs, no wailing, and no gnashing of teeth.
It was all gone.

“Daddy.  15 minutes means 45 minutes.  You are just like your football games.  When you say 15 minutes, I know you have to call time outs and get out of bounds and wait for the timer to start and stuff.  So can you just say 45 minutes instead of 15?”

OMG.

8 year old – 1
Dad in his 30’s – 0

Game Set Match.
Los

Not like WANT his body…
But want his body…
Like only if it wasn’t so pasty.
A bit more tan.
But like my head on top of his body.
Not like that.
Not with his head on his body and my head on his body.
Like cut his head off and put my head on his shoulders.
I mean I would never actually do that.
Cut off his head.
You know what I mean.
I just want his pecs as my pecs.
His abs as my abs.
Not ON my abs.
Whatever…

This post started off really safe and ended up wounding my masculinity.
But face it…
The J Dog is ripped
Los

When the 5 year old crawled on top of me at 4:30 this morning it pretty much felt like someone had just taken him out of the microwave.
The kid was burning up.
“Hey buddy?  You ok?  Daddy’s got you.”
“I know this daddy.  That’s why I came. You make me feel less sick.”
Out of the mouths of babes…

Losiah didn’t crawl up and snuggle next to his new Power Ranger sword.
Losiah didn’t crawl up and snuggle next to the wii.

He came to me.
He found rest.

How quickly we, as adult followers of Christ, forget this simple concept and try and find refuge in crap.

The kid is not an idiot.  He came to dad.
I will drop everything and hold him and scratch his back and give him medicine and rock him to sleep.
Your job, your car, your porn, your food, your books, your Power Ranger sword won’t do that for you.
Only your Father will.

He’s waiting…
Los

Today I Am…

To Be Famous
It’s said that mans greatest desire is to know and be known.
I mean who wants to live and not be known?

But even if all you do is preach or sing or write about Jesus, the satisfaction from being known is sometimes greater than the satisfaction of Jesus being known.
Ah humanity.

So I ask 2 simple questions…
How has the current culture of Christianity helped this problem?
How does the current culture of Christianity solve this problem?
Los

3 Hours Left.
If we had just 3 hours left to watch one movie.
After those 3 hours we would never be able to watch another movie again.
Ever.

What movie would you beg us to see?
What is the one movie that you would tell the world is not to be missed?
Los

This is a circular statement that needs engraving in our modern day worship culture.
Sure, sometimes they overlap.
But they are completely different gifting.
Say…Repeat…
Then do what God has called you to do…
Thoughts?
Los

Hey, Hey, Hey…it’s Ladie’s Night at Ragamuffinsoul and our emcee is my one and only assistant, Noelle Larson.

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One of my favorite episodes of Friends (Yes, I’m a woman in my 30′s…I know, I know…so cliche’…) was the one where they discover “perfect” Monica’s secret messy closet.

I mean that episode has proven to be 30 minutes of free therapy for what I’ve come to realize was one of my greatest sicknesses…

You see, the better half of my life has been spent living like Monica.
Organized on the outside.
Put together.
Good from far, but far from good.

I have tried, I mean SINCERELY tried to become like some of you who have every drawer, every nook, every cranny, every moment of your schedule- perfectly organized. Each January 1st I bust out my Franklin Planner and grab my boot straps and try to put first things first. But then someone calls and needs to talk, or I remember its my cousin’s birthday, or I decide its a perfect day to stop by H & M.

You see my dilemma, don’t you?
I’m a mess.

I have not hijacked Carlos blog to justify my laziness, or make excuses for why Proverbs 31 didn’t really mean ALL of those verses that haunt me at night. In fact, I’m still trying and growing and failing in my quest.

But what I am learning on this crazy journey of life is that being “good from far, but far from good” is really no good at all. Wrapping everything up in a pretty bow, doesn’t make it pretty.

And I’m learning that I’m not always pretty.

And these truths apply to more than just my ability to put my home together, or show up on time. Its roots go down into my heart.
My desire to live out an image of perfection is changing.

I’m learning to be okay with the mess, for now.

I’ve discovered that projecting an image of perfection only does a few things:

1. Reminds me that I’m living a lie.

2. Puts friends at a distance and keeps them from confiding in me with their struggles.

3. Keeps me from having a place to run when I struggle too.

I’m learning to be okay with the mess.

I’ve found freedom in the mess.

I’m loved in the middle of my mess.

I finally discovered that I wasn’t really fooling Him anyway.

And in the end He is all that matters.

He loves me in my mess.

And in that love, I’m transformed.

I know you probably have your stuff together, but let’s just say you don’t…

How do you navigate the messes in your life?

Do you hide them?

Do you embrace them?

You can read more from my assistant at her blog Metromom.org and at ScottsdaleMomsBlog.com

We have a way about us.
We have a way around us.
We have a way throughout us.
We, in all our humanity, have figured out how to take something so small, so tiny, so non essential, and turn it into the singular thing that takes us down.
It’s our greatest gift and our strongest curse.
Our ability to process.

Yesterday I tweeted this…
Our ability as humans to make an uncrossable valley out of a crack in the sidewalk is one of a kind. Step Back. Look Again. Step Over. Walk.

Today you are facing what seems like a giant.
It may actually be a giant.
It probably is not.

But if it is a giant follow this procedure…
When you are standing at the foot of a giant, and looking straight up, you can not see the entire situation correctly.
Turn around. Walk back away from the giant, turn back and face the giant, and now you can see the whole giant.
Not just his shoe.
When you do this you will find things you could not see from below him.
Like he’s blind.
He is asleep.
He is friendly.
The truth of this giant is far different seeing him from a distance than seeing him from up close.

Now if you turned around after your walk away, and you can’t see anything, it’s because it wasn’t a giant.
It was a lego man that your 3 year old left in the hallway.
You probably stepped on it in the middle of the night and cussed because it hurt for a second.
But it’s not a giant.
It’s a toy.
Now continue on your way and always stop, breathe, step back, and walk.

The giants will morph back into the toys they really are.
Los

I never got it.
I mean all the Christian chicks were saying it and all the Christian guys hated it.
Mostly because we didn’t know what the hell it meant.
I remember I wanted to date this girl Stephanie SO bad.
(Name has been changed to protect the ease of the make out)
“Now Carlos, she wants to date you but make sure you guard her heart.”
I’d always reply with…”OF COURSE!” and then figure out how to make out by hour 4 of the first date.
#Guys
When I would attend the Campus Crusade For Christ meetings I would hear it ALL the time.
And I never knew of anyone who could accurately describe what this guarding actual looked like.
This was the closest thing I could find…

OMG.

Electric fences. Guard dogs. Snipers.
Yea. No.

I get it. Who wants to be crushed.
But I think that we are going about it the wrong way.
The time to guard your heart is BEFORE you get into a relationship.
Cause let me tell you, the books may say that he or she is gonna wait for the guard to take a vacation, but it’s probably not gonna happen.
In order to experience the truth of relational bliss you actually have to GIVE your heart.
Not guard it.

You have to open your chest wide, expose all the nerve endings inside of you, and be ready to either find the fullness of the satisfaction of true love or the burial of utter and total rejection.
And let me tell you, both of those make you truly alive as opposed to existing.

So open up your chest, past any aspect of self, close your eyes, sprint, feel the wind rushing past your heart, and when you finally find him or her…
You will curse me for the heartache before them…
But you will thank me for the truth of the fullness you have found.
And you will never find it with guard dogs and snipers.
You may find a safe existing love, but you really don’t want that.

Be Alive In Your Search.
Feel It All.
It’s better that way.
I’d love your thoughts…
Fire The Guard Dog.
Los

I Am: