The Heavens Declared

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” Psalm 19:1 ESV

Last night just before turning in for the night, Melody and Tal called me outside to see something. I walked outside and at first thought that a neighbor had turned on a strobe light of some kind. It was not raining or thundering, but the sky was continually lighting up with cloud to cloud lightning. It was absolutely gorgeous. Tal walked back inside to grab the digital camera and we shot three videos, none of which do the scene we witnessed any justice at all. As I stared at the light show overhead, I started smiling and Psalm 19:1 came to mind. Truly the sky above was proclaiming His handiwork.

Here are the three videos. If you saw the show last night, I’d love to hear your comments.

Giving it up for UP

Melody and I surprised the kids last night and took them to see Pixar’s UP in 3D. We all absolutely loved the film! Great themes throughout that I’m sure will find their way into this blog sooner or later. Here is the trailer. Go see it soon!

Storms of Perfection

I decided to switch Reflections of a Ragamuffin from Blogspot to WordPress this morning…mainly because I wanted the flexibility of having multiple pages on my blog. (If you notice up top, I have include a tab called “My Story” and have written and uploaded Act 1 thus far.)

The transition was fairly simple, although I am still learning the WordPress interface. Since my header image on Blogspot did not fit the new WordPress theme that I chose, I had to spend some time rethinking what I wanted that image to look like. I started thinking about visuals  and imagery that could represent the journey that Melody and I have been on for the last 10 years. Our journey has been painful and has taken turns that we never imagined. Through it all, however, there was a thread of hope…a ray of sunshine.

With that thought on my mind, I did a search for “storms and sun” to see what kind of images would pop up that contained those contradictory elements. The image that I used in the masthead was one of those images, and here are a few more. Let me know if you like some of these better than the one I chose.

Each of these images really struck me, but the one below haunted me. I found myself staring at the photo for at least 7 or 8 minutes, thinking about our story and how this image symbolizes so much of what we have been through. I used it for one of the headers above, but, because of the height limitations, it really didn’t do the image justice.

Here is the full image.

The raw power of the tornado is captured incredibly in this image and provides quite a contrast to the rays of sunshine exploding through the storm clouds. As our relationship was torn asunder by my addiction and infidelity, through it all I can look back and honestly say God provided rays of hope on even the darkest of days.

Which masthead do you prefer? What do you think about this image?

Let’s Stop Hiding Behind Christian Clichés

Melody and I have been anxiously awaiting the beginning of the new season of Intervention on A&E and watched the season premier last night. We love the show because it is about as raw and real-life as it gets and each episode deals honestly with our human condition.

Last night’s episode was about Gabe, a boy who was abandoned on the streets of Calcutta as a 3-year old boy, but had the good fortune of being adopted by a loving Christian family in Portland. Although Gabe was given love by his new family, he never felt like he fit in with his blonde-haired, blue-eyed siblings. Everywhere they went as a family, it was obvious that he was adopted. This fact, coupled with the deep pain born out of his physical and emotional abandonment in Calcutta, led Gabe to turn to drugs during adolescence.

When we were introduced to Gabe during last night’s episode, he was using heroin every 2 hours and had blown through an almost $40,000 insurance settlement. The family decided it was time for an intervention and thankfully it went well.

As we turned out the lights to go to bed, I sent the following on Twitter…

“Intervention tonight was a reminder of how Christians can string together clichés and at the end of the day have said nothing.”

My purpose here is not to judge Gabe’s family. I have no idea what it is like to have a son or daughter who is literally destroying themselves right before your eyes. What I do know is that when it comes to addiction, shame and behavior modification simply do not work. The letter that Gabe’s father read during the intervention had the therapist rolling her eyes. It was full of judgement and basically said,

“When you get your crap together, we can have a relationship again.”

When you look at sin with the simplistic view that it is simply a matter of making better choices, it is very easy to find yourself saying things like “You just need to trust Jesus” or “Let go and let God” or any number of other trite phrases that we love to throw around in Christian circles. At the end of the day, what do those phrases really mean? My heart was breaking for Gabe who simply wanted his family to walk into his pain with him and love him there.

Not only are our trite phrases void of meaning, but they also serve to further distance us from those who are hurting and can often add insult to injury. If we came across a gunshot victim who was bleeding all over the sidewalk, we wouldn’t think about simply saying, “You just need to give that to God.” We would all do whatever necessary to ensure that they got the proper medical attention as quickly as possible.

Why do we see emotional wounds differently? Is it because they are not as blatantly obvious?

I suppose I related to Gabe last night because of my own orphan mentality that I fight constantly. I know firsthand how real that emotional pain is and I was not physically abandoned as Gabe was. I can’t begin to fathom Gabe’s deep soul ache from being left on the street to fend for himself at 3 years old. Unlike many who are adopted and ask the question “Why didn’t my parents want me?”, Gabe wasn’t given up for adoption. Rather he was literally abandoned and no doubt that question has shaped his self-esteem, no matter how much love his new family showed him.

So Gabe turned to drugs to numb the ache of his soul. Ministering to Gabe or anyone who is a part of the walking wounded means finding their pain and loving them there. That is what Jesus did and the religious folk hated Him for it. It is so much easier to stand at a distance and tell someone to get their crap together. So much easier to throw out a few Christian clichés that scream loudly that we do not understand the pain our brother or sister is going through.

Let’s choose today to step boldly into someone else’s story and seek to understand their pain. Let’s bring the healing balm of our Savior to their woundedness. Fair warning…it is messy. It isn’t popular. The cliché crowd will begin to hurl their insults and will think you have lost your mind. The Gabes of the world need us. Let’s introduce them to a Savior that will NEVER leave or abandon.

Memorial Day Tribute

In honor of the fallen men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, please take a moment and play the “Taps” video and read the poem, “Freedom Is Not Free”.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone and God Bless America!

Freedom Is Not Free
By LCDR Kelly Strong, USCG – Copyright 1981

I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Service man saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He’d stand out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil
How many mothers’ tears?

How many pilots’ planes shot down?
How many died at sea
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves?
No, freedom isn’t free.

I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still,
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant “Amen,”
When a flag had draped a coffin.
Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn’t free.

Proof the Silent Treatment Doesn’t Work

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each
other the silent treatment. The next week the man realized that he would
need his wife to wake him at 5.00 am for an early morning business flight to Chicago.

Not wanting to be the first to break the silence, he finally wrote on a piece of paper,

“Please wake me at 5.00 am.”

The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9.00am, and that he
had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn’t
woken him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed … it said…

“It is 5.00am; wake up.”

Ranburne Quarterbacks

I was looking through some old SD photo cards this afternoon and ran across this picture that was taken about a year and a half ago when Ranburne High’s football field was dedicated to Coach Harlan Robinson. From left to right is my dad, Brit (my brother), me, and Coach Robinson.

The interesting thing about this picture is that all 3 of us played quarterback for Coach Robinson at Ranburne and Coach Robinson himself was a former Ranburne QB (’55-’57). Coach Robinson became Ranburne’s football coach my Dad’s Jr. year (’62) and Dad was his first QB. I was the starting quarterback from ’86-’88 and Brit took over after I graduated, QBing the Bulldogs from ’89-’91.

To make this even more interesting, bring in two more sets of brothers…Bart and Chad Young and Terrell and Tyler Mobley. Including those brothers in the mix, you have Ranburne High School’s starting quarterback covered from 1979 til 1991…not counting 1960 til 1963 when my dad was the starter. Here is the way that played out:

Harlan Robinson 1955-1957
Fred Lovvorn 1960-1963
Terrell Mobley 1979-1981
Bart Young 1982-1983
Tyler Mobley 1984-1985
Tray Lovvorn 1986-1988
Brit Lovvorn 1989-1991

So what does this prove? That Coach Robinson was partial to Lovvorns, Youngs, and Mobleys, of course! 🙂 If you believe that, I have some waterfront property in Arizona that I’d like to sell you.