Beloved Walks Blog

The unblinking eye

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By Snow

Have you ever woken up under warm blankets on a cold day? And when you poked a hand just outside of your cozy covers, you found the air was frigid and uninviting? That is how it feels to me every time I have to leave my home. I just want to stay under those blankets.

I am someone who is often not comfortable in his own skin. I am most secure at home, surrounded by loved ones or even alone. Home is where I can just be me. It is a cocoon of warmth and love. On any given day, it is indeed a battle for me to fly away from that cocoon.

One of the hangups I’ve had since I was a teenager is that I feel like I am constantly being stared at when I am out in public. These days, I logically know this is not true, yet the feeling persists. There’s no reason for people to be staring at me.

But they are.

Or at least they might be.

Or they could be.

Maybe.

As part of that feeling of being under observation, I also feel like these same strangers are judging me. Yet, I know that only one Judge actually matters.

I go out of my way not to make other people feel the way I do, like I am staring at them or judging them. This is one of the reasons I avoid looking at people in public places, particularly eye contact. I can even pass friends or family members on the street and not see them. They have to flag me down, or they just tell me later, “I saw you. You looked lost in thought.”

I guess I have been lost in thought for decades now.

If I make an effort, I can curb my default behavior. I can, if I really try, walk and look at people, smile and say, “hello.” Some people need this, to be seen (the opposite of me, I need to be invisible). So, I think it is Biblical and neighborly to try to do this, but it is definitely a challenge for me.

Walking through the halls at work is even worse. There is a much higher likelihood I know these people. So depending on my anxiety level, I either go out of my way to avoid eye contact, or I say, “Hello, how are you?” like a script.

As for me, when faced with this most useless of questions, I am always “doing good” no matter how wonderful or horrible my day is going. Just whatever makes the pointless conversation end.

If I am particularly anti-social that day, I will even change my path if I see someone up ahead. I sometimes duck into the copy room and pretend I had to go in there rather than crossing paths with others. I can’t remember the last time I had to make an actual copy in the copy room. I use it for cover. Then, I go out the other door and try to make a people-less escape that way.

Credit: JC

Another bit of struggle is that, though I can remember names, my brain doesn’t bring them to mind fast enough on random encounters. Or, if it does, I am not confident enough to say them. I feel it is better to avoid saying a name than to call someone by the wrong name. It actually irks me a little when people I don’t know very well say my name. I don’t mind when friends or family members say my name, but I don’t like when others, such as co-workers, overuse it. You don’t have to say my name to make me pay attention to you. You just have to say something more interesting than my daydreams.

Over the weekend, I actually studied the names of a few people I knew we might encounter at an event. These are wonderful people who provide a service for us a couple of times a year. I wanted to be able to greet each of them by name, to show them how much they mean to me. Nope, brain wouldn’t allow it, despite my studying. Despite my saying their names right as we walked up. So, I had to do the nameless thing. It was very disappointing to me on a personal level, though I am sure they did not care or even notice. Even now, I am pushing back tears over this. It is difficult for me to connect with people, but when I do, I feel I never do enough, and I second-guess myself into a state of overwhelming sadness.

I was saved over five years ago now, and, though it might not be obvious from this post, I have come a long way with my anxiety since then. Yes, my anxiety is obviously still there (perhaps it is my “thorn in my flesh“), but I cope with it far better – particularly when I remember to just stop and seek Jesus.

So many times He brings me comfort.

And so many times, I forget to just stop and let Him do that.

He is always there, and I have to do better about giving my burdens to Him.

“Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
Philippians 4:4-9 NLT

One leaf

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Credit: Snow

By Snow

Sometimes, you hear words that might be from God, but you’re not entirely sure if it’s really Him, your own meandering thoughts, or some other influence. Other times, it is clear as a bell Who is speaking to you.

I woke up at one point in the middle of the night as I heard this:

“How can I help you with your writing if you never write?”

When I mentioned this to my beloved bride this morning, she described it as “a punch to your gut.” More like a kick in my rear.

God is, of course, right. Being omniscient surely helps Him in that regard. I don’t have to be all-knowing to understand what He is saying, though.

Writing is a gift that He gave me, but lately I have not been writing – not here, not there, not anywhere. Even at work, where I normally find writing a pleasure compared to the rest of my job’s responsibilities, I have tried my best to avoid it.

Oh, I could create you an entire page of excuses on why I put writing away in a drawer – some of them quite legitimate. However, you don’t want to read that, and none of those excuses really matter.

The real reason I have not been writing is because I have been in an enemy stronghold – by my own doing. At some point, I allowed complaining to become my default perspective instead of gratitude. I have been angry at God for a lot of things over the last few years.

I know that God sees the whole forest while I am fortunate if I can even see one leaf of one branch of one tree. To use another metaphor, He sees the gigantic beach of His whole Plan, and I see at most a grain of sand in it. Sometimes, just an atom or two. I know all of this, yet I still find myself yelling, sometimes literally, “Why God? Why?!?”

I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am indeed grateful for all of it – we just spent a long weekend focusing on giving thanks to God for our many blessings. I couldn’t list them all here if I tried – that’s how blessed I am.

Last week, I took a walk in my favorite park to try to reconnect with God. While He is everywhere, I feel closest to Him there. I had some success that day. I realized I was carrying around a lot of pain – pain that I needed to give to Him. Jesus died for me so that I would not have to carry pain. Life can bring us disappointments sometimes. There are also disappointments we create on our own.

At the park, I felt Him, and I left there feeling better, but still not really having any answers. I was just as confused.

Today, with the additional impetus of His overnight words, I was able to put a lot of the things swimming around in my head on paper – and even create a plan of sorts.

A recent blessing is that I will be embarking on a writing project that is far beyond my capabilities to achieve. I have to trust God, for I can only achieve it with His help.

He can only help me write if I write.

So, I am writing again.

Credit: Snow

“Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still ‘today,’ so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.”
Hebrews 3:12-14 NLT

First forgive

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By Snow

We have been in our new home over three months now, more than a quarter of a year! During the construction process, it often felt like we would never get here, and now we have been here for months.

I’ve mentioned before that this move has been challenging. Multiple days a week, the builder or their sub-contractors are here fixing things that should have been right long before we moved in – like having a front door that properly opens, shuts, and locks. We are also experiencing unexpected expenses of contracting people on our own to get things to where they need to be.

However, JC and I choose as best we can to focus on the blessing of finally being together under one roof as a family. We also love our home and our land, both of which really belong to God. He’s just letting us borrow and tend to them for a little bit. One of us will sometimes falter and be blinded by the negative, but this is when the other provides a reminder to focus on the blessings.

My beloved bride recently heard a strong message from the Holy Spirit – and that is, we must forgive the builder. I am so grateful she shared this with me, because she is absolutely right.

My internal voice said, “I should have thought of this, as the spiritual leader.” This type of negativity will sneak into my thoughts, and I have to be on guard about it. Unfortunately, I don’t always catch it, but this time I did. It doesn’t matter what vessel God uses to convey His will, all that matters is that we hear and obey.

The ability to forgive is a wonderful gift from Jesus. While I will sometimes resist doing so, I always feel so free after doing it. You see, harboring a grudge against a person or a company doesn’t really hurt them. It hurts you.

My Dad completely abandoned our family when I was 16 years old. For years, I held intense anger against him. I didn’t want to hear anything about him, and I certainly didn’t want to be compared to him in any way. Even on his good qualities, which I could no longer see at that time due to my pain at what he did to us.

I reacted sharply against my Mom when she complimented me in some way as being similar to him. I told her I was nothing like him at all and never would be. She responded, “Of course you’re like him sometimes. He’s part of you, just like I am. I loved him, and you have good parts of him that I love in you, too.” This from the woman hurt more by his actions than anyone else.

After Dad died, I eventually realized that I needed to forgive him. I did so, and it felt like a burden lifted. This was before I was even saved, so I didn’t fully understand what was going on. All I knew was, I felt so much better by letting go of my anger against him.

Me and Dad (Image Credit: Mom)

Forgiving my father also reclaimed the good memories I had with him. For years, those memories had been colored and distorted with his subsequent poor choices. But he did love me, and he did enjoy those times together like I did. Forgiving him let me realize that.

So, yes, I forgive our builder. Not for their sake, but for ours.

“When you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”
Mark 11:25 NLT

Holding the flashlight

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By Snow

Last time, I mentioned that living in the same home has allowed me to spend more time with my stepson, who is a young adult. One of the projects we’ve been working on together is replacing light fixtures in various rooms with ceiling fans. While I had done some simpler projects about 15 years ago, he did not have much experience working with electricity. I handled the electrical aspects, and he helped by holding things, handing me tools while I was on the ladder, shining the flashlight, etc.

Credit: Snow

The process has been painful at times – due to a combination of my inexperience, the home builder’s ineptitude, and the fans’ sometimes questionable quality.

For various reasons, the last ceiling fan we came to was the one for his room. He asked if he could take the lead on installing this one. I must admit, I felt a mixture of both pride and trepidation when he asked this.

Within myself, I poked at my fear. It’s not like I would let him hook the fan up without turning off the circuit breaker first or by connecting the wrong wires to one another. “Of course you can!” I said. I also said a popcorn prayer in my mind that it would go well.

Later that day, he began installing the fan, while I took the secondary role. When it came time to turn off the circuit breaker, I told him to come to the garage with me so I could show him which one. “You can just do it,” he said.

“Nope, you need to do this yourself.” So we went downstairs to the garage, and he turned off the circuit breaker for his room.

At one point, about midway through, I noted how he was doing a good job installing the fan by himself, while I was pretty much just handing him things. “Yes, you’re like the little kid who holds the flashlight for his father,” he joked. I had, in fact, really been that kid whenever I helped my dad.

Until I married JC, I had never been a father. So it is a road I am navigating with much prayer. In working on projects with my stepson in particular, I realize that I am distilling information that I learned from my own father as well as other father figures I have known over the years.

My dad had various issues, as we all do to varying extents, but I try to choose from the best of him – because he did have his fatherly moments.

One of the aspects that I wish had been different with Dad, however, is that he never let me move beyond the “helper” role. I don’t learn nearly as well by watching someone do something as I do by actually doing it myself. While I have good memories of watching Dad work on stuff around the house, outside in the yard, or for the car, it has been a struggle at times to do those kinds of things on my own in the decades since his death.

This is one of the reasons I was glad my stepson wanted to lead the way on his fan. The installation itself went very smoothly. Part of that was because we were able to apply lessons learned from the previous fans and part of it was because this fan was better crafted and not as persnickety going up. Thank You, Jesus.

Near the end, though, there was a tricky part that caused him to struggle, so he asked me to double check it. “Hey, I’m just the little kid who holds the flashlight,” I reminded him before confirming he had indeed properly installed the piece.

Once we were done, he was very happy and proud of his accomplishment. He even showed off his fan and its features to his mom when I wasn’t around. He mentioned to me regretfully that, since this was the last fan, he would forget what he learned by the time he had to do one again years down the road.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I told him. “There’s still a few light fixtures that you can swap out with new ones around here.” His face fell. “And I’m sure some of the neighbors could use your help, too,” I continued joking. He scampered off before I could add more to his imaginary task list.

The whole experience represented multiple answered prayers. It was also just fun to watch someone I love apply things I have taught him. As I said, thank You, Jesus. I am so grateful.

“Let my teaching fall on you like rain; let my speech settle like dew. Let my words fall like rain on tender grass, like gentle showers on young plants.”
Deuteronomy 32:2 NLT

Murphy vs. Jesus

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By Snow

As soon as I click “Publish” on this post, I will have already equaled at the beginning of 2023 the number of Beloved Walks entries I made in all of 2022. I sure didn’t plan to write so little here last year, but I allowed a super-busy schedule to infringe on this blog. Lord willing, I will do better this year.

I am living a blessed life, full of so many answered prayers. JC and I are married now and recently moved into our first home together. We spent much of last year in the construction process – which proved to be both time-consuming and stressful. Needless to say, we chose our home for the land and not for the builder. She is ours now, though, and we are grateful for her.

In the midst of what otherwise would have been the happy occasion of taking ownership of our home, though, a beloved family pet passed away – tears of sadness instead of happiness. I found myself asking, “Why today, Lord?”

We also encountered Murphy’s Law (“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”) in full force on just about every aspect of the move and settling in. I must admit, there were times where I was angry at God for allowing yet another mishap beyond our control but obviously within His.

But you know what, I had to keep truing back to something (certain times I was more successful at this than others). Yes, things were going wrong. Sometimes, horribly so. But I was finally living with my beloved bride and stepkids. How many thousands of times had I prayed for these moments? How dare I allow any earthly problem to overshadow those spiritual blessings.

Credit: JC

Just living in the same home as my stepson, for instance, has allowed us to get closer than when I was a frequent visitor. He and I have worked on a number of projects around the house together. He’s learning to trust me – that I won’t bite his head off or belittle him when something goes wrong. We make any mistakes together and learn from them.

The truth is, I’m not exactly handy. I am more of a technologically-inclined person than a mechanically-inclined one. And even my technology instincts have started to wither as I become older. But, with God’s help, as well as a little Googling, I am able to figure out enough to get by. A home improvement task that should take an hour often takes me four, but I do eventually get there – most of the time, anyway.

I have never been a father before, and I now have three wonderful kids! I love them, and I thank God for them.

Each morning when I wake up, no matter what is ahead on that day, I like to gaze at my beloved bride next to me. How blessed I am. How blessed. No day that begins with her at my side can be all-bad!

So, I won’t let Murphy get me down. Instead, I will focus on Jesus. I am grateful to Him for His blessings of today and, Lord willing, the promises of tomorrow.

Thank you for reading. May Jesus bless you throughout 2023.

“I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease.”
Lamentations 3:20-22 NLT

Someday is now

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By Snow

Tomorrow, I will return to the office where I work for the first time since March 20, 2020. When I left my desk that day, I thought about how weird it would be not to return for a few weeks or maybe even months. Now, almost two years later, it feels weird to return at all. I have gotten used to working in lock-down mode. As an introvert, I prefer it, and, in some ways, I am actually more effective than I am in person. The world wants its “normal” back, though. Who am I to argue with the world?

Jesus blessed me many times over during those two years, and that is where I want to keep my focus. In addition to staying free of the virus, there are wonderful things happening in my life now that would have only seemed like distant dreams in March 2020 – things that I prayed would happen “someday.”

  • Someday, I will be married to my beloved JC, who is the love of my life.
  • Someday, I will be forming relationships with my stepchildren, who I love no less than if they were my very own.
  • Someday, my beloved bride and I will be building a home together.

There are more blessings than I could possibly list here. Every single one of them came from Jesus. Before I accepted Jesus in 2018, my life was empty. He has been re-molding me back into who He created me to be. This clay still struggles sometimes, but the Potter continues to shape it.

I thank God for Jesus and for my beloved.

Yes, I will be back in the office tomorrow – but He will be right there with me. Like He always has been.

Thank you for reading. May Jesus bless you as He has blessed me.

Credit: JC

“And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Now all glory to God our Father forever and ever! Amen.”
Philippians 4:19-20 NLT

The Big Pause

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Credit: JC

By Snow

It has been over five months since I last posted here on Beloved Walks. I’ve had a number of wonderful things happen in my life since then, yet other aspects have been stagnant. I should focus on the blessings. I try to do that, but I often fail. Instead, I think about the stagnation. Hearing from God on just about every topic except the ones that are most important. He has shown JC and me a beautiful destination, but barely a glance at the path actually to get there. It almost feels cruel, yet I know our God is not cruel.

I have journaled with pencil and paper a number of times, but even that I begin to drift away from. The more I sense the stagnation, the less I want to write. I have no desire over and over to keep writing, “It is another day. I prayed for wisdom into X and Y. I have heard nothing. Maybe tomorrow.” It ultimately serves no purpose.

This frustration carries over to my writing in general. I find that I don’t want to write here. I don’t want to share my story anymore, because there’s nothing worth sharing. Just stagnation.

Perhaps God is freezing me out because of some unconfessed sin? Yet, as mentioned, I hear from Him on other topics – just not the biggest ones. We fasted a couple months ago. It seemed promising at first with insights into the destination, but ultimately, unfruitful because there were none about the path. I don’t even like reading my journal from that time because it begins full of bright hope and ends in dark discouragement 40 days later.

I still feel that way. God owes me nothing, yet I feel let down. That is the honest truth. We are fasting again now, but my heart isn’t really in it. Last time, I dutifully kept a daily fasting journal to capture all of the insights. This time, I haven’t journaled at all. “Why bother?” I think. “It is just going to chronicle yet another failure.”

I’m tired of failure. I’m tired of the way things are, that I’m not good enough, that I’m not strong enough, that I’m not smart enough to accomplish much of anything. I am blessed to have JC in my life, but outside of her, I often feel alone. I look at the news, and so-called Christian churches are doing idiotic and harmful things in His name. They have allowed Earthly politics to infect them. I see no answers there.

Any answers will come from God and His Word. I still believe that, despite my discouragement.

Tomorrow, I face another day of sameness. Doing a job that I am blessed to have but, in my heart of hearts, hate. It chips away at me little by little. In many ways, I am inherently lazy, so that is probably why God leaves me there to rot. I deserve it until I can prove otherwise.

And yet, I don’t feel like proving otherwise. I don’t feel like pretending anymore – pretending that I care about projects that mean nothing to me. Oh, I know all the quotes about how I am actually working for God.

“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.”
Colossians 3:23

I try to do this, but I just can’t see it. Does God really want me to do such meaningless work?

Apparently, He does, for He hasn’t whispered any other paths forward into existence for me. He has only shown me a destination, so perhaps I should walk by faith and not by sight?

“So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.”
2 Corinthians 5:6-7

Maybe He is expecting me to take action instead of waiting on Him? Perhaps I should quit my job and have faith that He will provide?

Yet, taking matters into our own hands is not always the answer, either. When Abraham and Sarah took that approach, they named the result “Ishmael.” So, maybe that is not the way to go.

Instead, I wait. But for what?

What if the answer never comes? What if He has no intention of showing me how to proceed? At what point do I just take a step?

Beyond the job considerations, there are also housing considerations. The lease on my apartment is almost up. This has been a wonderful place to heal, but I tire of it and the area. I want to live elsewhere, but, again, what move can I make without hearing from Him on such an important decision?

I guess the default answer is to stay in place until hearing otherwise from Him. In other words, more stagnation.

How do I break this pattern?

I am an indecisive person, but adding in this wait to hear from God into every major decision is just taking what was already a slow process and bringing it to an apparent halt. Before, I could at least, eventually, after much thought and analysis, decide something. Except maybe for jobs. I was never great about deciding to leave those on my own. I tend to fall from one job I dislike to another. I stay at a place until the job is literally gone, sometimes for 8 or 10 or more years of misery. Then I take the very next one offered to me. Oh, I yodel about how this time will be different, and I will finally find a job that means something to me, that I love. Then the next corporate job comes along and I take it and the misery that comes with it. Bills must be paid.

This is a useless and negative post. I imagine the three people who read this blog are like, “Finally, a new post!” and then are disappointed to find this. It is simply how I feel.

Maybe tomorrow.