SynerJack

It has been five months and seven days since I slid a ring on my wife’s finger and promised to love her always.  When most of you read the previous sentence it will not have the same significance to you as it does to me, it can’t.  When I looked my beautiful bride in her gorgeous blue eyes and said my vows I fell in love with her all over again.  My favorite physical characteristic about my wife is her eyes.  They are beautiful.  But it isn’t her eyes themselves that cause me to fall deeper in love with her, (more…)

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“Wo ai ni!” “Ich liebe sie.” “Chanrack-koon…” “J’etame et l’adore, ma belle…”

“I love you.”                                                                                                                                  

I can say it in five languages. I can say it in infinite ways. But, my heart wells and gushes over when I say it to one person in particular. For over two years, now, I’ve held close the one person in this world who can affect me the way she does – Carrie Michelle Wiley.

I can remember meeting Carrie in college, when she was dating one of my best friends. I can remember attempting to teach her why cigars were such an important part of our lives in our “Tuesday Night Theology Group.” I can remember throwing the rugby ball around with her at the park, shortly before being kicked out by a nice, yet stern, police officer. I can remember sitting in Capitol Park, in Sacramento, CA, amidst the dappled trees and cool Autumn afternoon, and realizing, “I am so completely in love with Carrie. She is the one I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. Whoa… that’s heavy.”

Instead of picking just one memory. I want to talk about several.

The first is when I first got home from California, and Carrie asked me, very directly, if God had said anything to me while I was there. When I responded with, “Yeah…” she proceeded to pull out of me what had been revealed to me in the park. With that first “I love you.” an incredible blending of two lives began.

The second memory is the look in Carrie’s eyes when I know that she’s truly happy. Even in the short amount of time we’ve been married, we’ve experienced some hardships and heartaches… the kind that pull you down on your knees to ask God “Why?” and beg for strength. I don’t like the pictures from that time in our lives because there was a deep saddness in both of our eyes. But, what makes looking at those pictures worth it is how you can compare them to now, or before November of 2006, and see the incredible spark in Carrie’s eyes. Thoughts of motherhood, being a wife, love, whatever they are… something kindles an incredibly rich beauty in the eyes of my beloved. When I see those eyes, in my pictures, in my dreams, and as I hold her close, my heart melts and I weep with joy for how good God is.

Last, I love how wonderful a mother Carrie is. To see her interact with and love on our daughter makes me internally leap and dance, and tell her once again how much I love her. I know that my love will grow and grow as Laura Kate grows and we add more little ones to our family, but my love will grow most for the one who is my teammate, confidant, and lover, Carrie.

It is my joy, as a husband, to get to serve, lead, and love someone as amazing as my wife.

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Pick the one part of the day that you always look your best and feel your best. For some, that is on their way to work after a nice shower and self-pampering, or for others it might be the late evening getting ready for that night out on the town. For Cass, we have had specific moments where we dressed our best, and she definitely dressed her best. Yet, the moment I can’t shake is, for her, the worst.

Only about 4 months ago we had planned a special date to go to our first ‘fancy’ dinner (over $100) and then to the theater to watch an amazing production. When she had stepped out of the car from driving over an hour from Ft. Worth, she looked like an angel. The most amazing hair, amazing face, most amazing dress, legs to die for, amazing shoes and smile to be jealous of. I was all over her that night. I walked around proudly showing her to the world as if to say, “Look at who I am with tonight!” All the boys were jealous. (more…)

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We moved into a new house in Lawrenceville, GA in 1995.  We were only there for six months before Robin and I were separated in a series of events that ultimately led us to Texas.  One of the things that healed our relationship – both metaphorically and literally, were some vines she hand-painted on the master bathroom wall.

Why?

It’s the itch.

It’s that part of her that can never leave “well enough” alone.  That can never accept what’s cheapest or easiest as her final answer.

So we moved into this house with new carpet, newly-painted walls, new everything.  The bathroom and every other room in the house had been painted a lovely shade of off-white.  But NOOOOO.  That wasn’t good enough.  We had to go buy some paint of our own, and SHE had to paint these stupid vines on the bathroom wall.  (Hang on, I’m getting to the good part.)  And I had to look at those stupid things every single day, all the while resenting them and everything they stood for.

Then came the day I returned alone to that nearly-empty house.  (more…)

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So being the newly married guy out of us four I have to be the sappy, “I’m in love,” ‘my heart beats for her’ type of guy. And for this week I want us to remember the greatest of times. I was speaking with a close friend a while back about marriage and the sacredness of it and it got me thinking about my marriage and the pathway that lays ahead.

I have done only two weddings in my career of being a minister and there is one tradition I have held to in those and hope to continue to do in the future. Before each wedding, I met with both couples and told them to bring me their favorite picture of them together. The time that they were most in love and joyous because of it. (more…)

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I have had rare moments in my life were I have stopped simply to appreciate exactly were I was in life.  They are moments that unforgettable and unduplicatable.  While the majority of my life I am looking forward to were I am going, or back to where I have been, these rare moments stand out as monuments to periods of my life.  The problem with these moments is that they are gone just as quickly as I realize that they are here.  Life moves forward and while the memory of the moment may last tomorrow I am older, tomorrow I life continues, tomorrow the things that happened yestarday are only memories.  (more…)

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John Miller, in his book, QBQ, the Question Behind the Question, tells the following story:

When Stacey was 12 years old, she and her father, a pilot, took off on a Sunday afternoon joyride in their single engine Cessna.  Not long into the flight, and about a mile up over Lake Michigan, the joy of their father-daughter adventure came to an abrupt halt.  Stacey’s father turned to her and in a calm, reassuring tone he said, “Honey, the engine has quit.  I’m going to need to fly the plane differently.”  Interesting phrase: “Fly the plane differently.”

Her father understood that new challenges and changing conditions often require different strategies.  Conditions change, markets change, people change.  What works one day in a given situation does not necessarily work the next.  We need to develop a repertoire of responses so were prepared when our engine unexpectedly quits.

Like John, I absolutely love the phrase, “Fly the plane differently.”

All four of us are in seasons where new challenges and changing conditions may require different strategies.  So let’s talk about change.

Here are a couple of other great thoughts:  Penelope Trunk says, “We don’t owe it to the last generation to keep fighting their fights. We owe it to the last generation to thank them, and then move on.”

And check out this link about four types of spiritual change.

Speaking of change, imagine being a pastor receiving one of these two letters:

“I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it.  Last Sunday’s new hymn - if you can call it that - sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon.  If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this - in God’s house! - don’t be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship.  The hymns we grew up with are all we need.”

This letter was written in 1863 and the song they were concerned about was the hymn “Just As I Am”.

Another letter said:

“What is wrong with the inspiring hymns with which we grew up? When I go to church, it is to worship God, not to be distracted with learning a new hymn.  Last Sunday’s was particularly unnerving.  The tune was un-singable and the new harmonies were quite distorting.”

This letter was written in 1890 and about the hymn “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”.   (Read even more about the controversial organ here.)

I look forward to your ideas, as well as the wonderful changes sure to come from everybody’s freinds, the politicians.

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