I write today from the perspective of a dad who is in the middle of the battle, not from the perspective of “I’ve lived though the college years and here’s what I’ve learned.”

Nonetheless…

My dad responsiblity to my girls is to love, provide, and protect them with everything I have.  Just because they move out of the house and onto a college campus, my daddy objective doesn’t stop.  Sure, it takes a different shape, but the heart of this endeavor remains the same.

The timing was perfect.  I had just dropped CC off at college when I came across Dan Klamm’s 4 Tips for Keeping in Touch with Your College Student (what he writes, I read). These principles apply to our children’s social world, at any age,  So as I read, I took notes. While technology evolves rapidly, these principles are timeless. Perhaps the following may be useful for you too, as you try to keep in touch with the younger generation through technology:

1. Let your student set some ground rules.

Connection today easier than ever.  As a dad, my heart is to make sure my girls are constantly safe AND to keep an eye on their emotional health. Facebook statuses are very telling.  BUT I’ve learned the hard way that each young person has a different tolerance level for mom and dad lurking on their page.  Proceed with the utmost caution, and allow them to set the acceptance bar (remember, I’m talking college student, not high school age or younger.  Thats a different story). Your ability to have this connection is ultimately dependent on your student’s level of comfort inviting you into his or her social world.

Klamm writes “Find out whether she’s comfortable with you commenting on photos and wall posts. Familiarize yourselves with privacy settings, which offer significant control to students who wish to selectively share content with parents.”

2. Respect your student’s space.

Don’t insert yourself into personal conversations or private moments that happen to be taking place in a venue to which you have access. Just as you wouldn’t intrude on your daughter’s romantic dinner date at a restaurant, you shouldn’t inject yourself into her Facebook wall-to-wall conversation with her new crush….guilty of this….results weren’t pretty.

See something you don’t like?  Call her or even shoot her a text.  Keep the concern or correction private.

3. Branch out from the usual platforms.

Facebook, texts, and Twitter are the obvious and currently popular platforms, but Foursquare and Skype shouldn’t be overlooked. Each platform provides for a different level of communication with your student.  And do your best to stay current on the newest platforms.  Google+, with its Huddle feature, is possibly the new Facebook.

4. Avoid over communication. 

Klamm writes “Just because you can communicate with your student 24/7 doesn’t mean that you should. Remember, college is a time of growth, exploration and self-discovery. For these things to happen, students need to experience what it’s like to make decisions independently. While you can and should actively support your student’s college pursuits, resist the urge to be a constant voice in her ear (or message in her inbox).”

So when you send your student off to school, take comfort in the fact that he or she is just a poke, tweet, or Google+ hangout away. Technology can ease the pain of this life transition.  It’s up to us mom and dad, to use it wisely.

Should they invite you in, enter and communicate wisely.

Here’s one of my all time favorite theological questions from one of my spiritual heroes, John Piper. The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this:

“If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?”

And the follow-up question goes to our church leaders: Do we preach and teach and lead in such a way that people are prepared to hear that question and answer with a resounding No?

J. C. Ryle wrote  ” But alas, how little fit for heaven are many who talk of going to heaven, when they die, while they manifestly have no saving faith and no real acquaintance with Christ. You give Christ no honor here. You have no communion with Him. You do not love Him. Alas, what could you do in heaven? It would be no place for you. Its joys would be no joys for you. Its happiness would be a happiness into which you could not enter. Its employments would be a weariness and a burden to your heart. Oh, repent and change before it be too late!

“The worst this life can shove down our throats, but with the nearness of Jesus, is heaven on earth. The best this life can give, but without Jesus, is a living hell.” – Ray Ortlund

Ouch Ouch OUCH!  For us Christians, at least those of us willing to be gut level honest….are you choosing heaven just cause you hate the heat?

“Don’t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people.

Still shooting your wounded? STOP! Not sure if your church is still target practicing on their “sinful” members? Ask one who has been victim of their attack. But you’re not the one doing the shooting? Wrong. You are guilty by association.

Don’t tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all his children.

ALL of His children. That includes those living lifestyles different from yours. How would you handle something as sensitive as this? Thank you Pastor Hybels for giving us a Godly example.

Don’t preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors.

Stop the finger pointing. Judgement is HIS, not yours. We are called to love. Don’t tell me about your compassion….show me.

In the end, I’m not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.

Hang around the church long enough, and you’ll get hurt…it’s inevitable. We can all agree that as long as fallible people attend, and fallible leaders lead, dissapointment will follow. This reality has rendered many of our local churches LAZY. When the church is critizied, the mantra is often – “Yes, we know we have a long way to go, but after all, we are all human.” (insert cheesy Sunday morning church smile here).

OK, this century old excuse has been well established. Now what?

I’m just crazy enough to believe that you and I can make a difference in our local churches. People are hurting, and many are members of your own congregation. If they hurt long enough, you’ll never see them again….they will fade into the fabric of our dying world. And shame on you. Shame on me. Stop judging and start loving….not just lip service love. A real, compassionate, selfless, all inclusive kind of love. Unless of course, if you are without sin then be sure to bring your own stones to the party.

After all, who in the HELL are we to judge?

* The above embolden statement was spoken by Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ.

P.S. – Sorry for the edgy vent….I can’t keep it inside anymore…

He told me the MOST terrifying aspect of the whole process was gathering endorsements, you know, the ones from somewhat famous people that adorn the book cover?  Being ever so helpful, I sent him the following pre-packaged, partially fictional yet ready for print endorsements, and encouraged him to use them liberally:

• “Nice try! Really… nice!” (Dr. Heinrich Borfmann, Bogotron Seminary)
• “Moments of true semi-adequacy!” (Edie Contralto, Cupboard-Keepers Ministries)
• “We had such hopes for little Don. And now, this. Oh dear. Well, at least he’s not in prison.  …He’s not, is he?” (Verna Fleebner, Ferncrest Elementary School [retired])
• “Ambitious, but… well, ambitious!” (Pastor Eulie Lapidary, Church of Holy Perpetuity)
• “This one part was terrific!” (Bob Fernbern, mechanic)

He chose none of the above. But his struggle did cause me to wonder – if I needed a LIFE endorsement, who would I call first? What might they say? Am I investing in the lives of others, to the point where I’m making a significant difference?

Thanks Charlie for the reminder.

If you find yourself needing a book endorsement, I did hold one back from my buddy.  Here ya go:

“Brings to mind the greats. Longingly. By way of contrast.” (Varf Konkelman, talk show host)

Writing is my passion.  I have no big dreams that this will one day lead to anything other than what its always been for me – my catharsis.  Some are born to CREATE, others to DO, some to BE, but those of us who have a passion to write, have no other choice.

But what does one do when he has gone through the most heart breaking, somewhat public, traumatic event of his life?  Write too soon and surely the perception will be that of insensitivity.  Give up writing? Or wait ’till the “right time”? Certainly this dilemma has some validity, but the time has come to do what I sense the Holy Spirit is prompting me to do – write…openly, honestly, and humbly.

Divorce isn’t just a single-facetted event but rather one that unfolds and transitions through various phases. While one never completely heals from divorce, each day that passes brings fresh aid.   A divorce does not define who I am, but who I am will never be void of a failed 21 year marriage.  So when I write about my divorce, I do so for three reasons:

1. To give those of you in a marriage or those hoping to one day be married, a peek behind the heart-broken curtain of a child of God who is living the realities of a broken marriage.  My heart and hope is that your marriage will be healthy, abundant, and all that God wants it to be.  If I can reveal my fatal pitfalls, perhaps you can avoid them.
2. And to those going through the process of divorce, I will write to tell you that the King of Kings loves you.  There is a tomorrow.
3. And lastly, writing brings me healing.

For those wondering, I do not profess to be healed of this pain.  Nor do I claim to be an expert on divorce (who would EVER hope to be?).  All that I know is that I’m a repentant believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  He has forgiven me of my sin of divorce.  My ex wife has forgiven me for not being the husband that God called me to be. And I am working on forgiving myself.

Perhaps there is no truer statement than this: “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

It is from this perspective and my story above that I restart the discipline of writing. It is a new beginning.

…Soli Deo Gloria

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

3 takeaways:

1. Though

Notice, it does not say “if” I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  The valley is part of life. Suffering is a normal part of life.

2. Walk

Suffering is not only something we will go through, it is also something that we have to get through.  The valley of the shadow of death is not a place for running or stopping, it is a place of careful walking.

3. Through 

Through….not to….the valley.

As Rev. Vesteeg once said, “The promise of scripture is that God, our good shepherd, will be with us as we walk. He will guard our steps, give us strength, enable us in the context of his community of cope, he will journey with us even through our unsolved problems, he will correct us when we need correcting, and in the end, we will come to that new pasture – he will prepare a table before us, even in the presence of our enemies. The only way to glory is through suffering. The only way to the table before us for Christ was through suffering.”

The contrast is stark, from the Pastor saying “I now pronounce you man and wife”, to the judge’s swift signature that made the divorce official….every in-between day wrote this story.

What went wrong?

Over 7,817 days you mean to tell me that something couldn’t be righted…be fixed?

No.

If you are married or plan to marry one day, perhaps this peak into this broken heart will mean something to you.  If you’ve experienced the trauma of divorce, perhaps you may identify. Dreams have been shattered…hearts torn apart.

Breathe.

Now what?  I have nooooo idea.  But I think that I do know this about those who walk this path:

You still have to see her over and over again. At the attorney’s. At school. At games. You must be cordial.

You finally get enough room in the bed.

You meet the friendly staff at Publix. You find yourself chatting warmly with the checkers, the man in the parka who’s always stocking the freezer section, Victor the produce man. How do you pick a good honeydew? You dont think Victor knows, either.

You learn the pleasures of laundry and dishes, sweeping, and mopping.  You get the better closet.

You learn that every single online account was in her name or under her phone number; it takes you two days to organize a vacation stop on the newspaper.

You realize the joke she was always making turned out to be true: What’s hers is hers and what’s yours is hers.

You start eating leftovers.

You have to decide what to say when people innocently ask how SHE is doing.

You start making a real effort to spend quality time with each of your children.

You cry. A lot.

You find that the characters in the story lines in old episodes of Nip/Tuck, on which you binge during the long lonely nights, closely parallel your own life story in weird ways. Ditto The Wire, The Office, Modern Family.

You can’t get that Cee Lo Green song out of your head. The uncensored version.

You hope beyond hope that this trauma has not damaged your children beyond repair. You know it will always be a part of their personal tale. For that, you are eternally sorry. You wanted them to have the “perfect” life.

Your life becomes a lot more modulated. There’s no more shouting.

You lose “friends”.  You gain friends.

You realize that the church has no clue how to love someone going through a divorce.  And by church, I mean you, me, AND the local church.

You think about things a person can’t do for himself. You wonder what it would be like to grow old alone. Will there be someone to help you when you’ve fallen, and you can’t get up?  Funny….but not so funny.

You try not to think about all the money you managed to scrape together over a period of two decades and a business that you’ve poured your sweat and blood into,  that’s now “permanently” divided in half, to be spent by her on: new perfume, travel, shoes, furniture you will never sit on, or a bed you will never sleep in. Consequences, I get it. But someone please help me with this….

You wonder where the state of Florida ever got the idea for a “no fault” divorce.

You wonder if she’s morphing into a whole different person and will be happy.

You learn that rationalization, along with the opposable thumb, is what distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.

You learn to dread the “drive-away” – when either the kids or you separate after precious time together. It’s as if the entire ball-crushing experience of the breakup happens to you all over again – replayed in superfast motion over the span of 5 seconds. You realize that anxiety really can be crippling.

You discover in successive waves some of what really happened. Through counseling, or a good friend,  you unearth telling details…truths that you knew you knew, but never ever wanted to admit…

You are thankful for every minute you get to spend with your kids, and especially the moments that they really need you and you can be there for them. The injustice of losing by decree fully half your time with them is the deepest cut of all.

You hope and pray that they will learn and grow from this hardship. It is clear already that they have blossomed in a number of ways. You want them to know in their hearts that you would move the world for them.  My girls will never have the feeling that nobody loves them, or that their daddy isn’t profusely proud of them, or doesn’t try (with all of his man-ness) to understand them.

You wish you could tell your story from beginning to end. You wish you could once and finally be heard and understood. But you know this will never happen. Lord willing, I will never ever disparage her, my wife of 21 years, the mother of my 4 precious girls, and most importantly, a daughter of the King of Kings. For the sake of the children, its usually better to say less than more.  Good advice from so many.

When a marriage ends, you learn this: nobody sees things quite the way you do, and nobody cares as much as you do.

But you can’t help telling yourself: Maybe…just maybe someday I’ll find someone who will.

Perhaps it does no one any favors. Justin Taylor wrote “Hagiography is unfair to the subject, presenting a saint instead of a sinner. And it’s unfair to the audience, who make a good-faith assumption that they are not merely reading a well-written tale or watching a good film, but that they are reading or seeing something that reflects reality and basic accuracy.

Andrew Roberts’s Wall Street Journal weekend review of a new biography on Mahatma Gandhi serves as a good reminder in this regard. Contrary to the sanitized portrayal of Gandhi in popular culture, Roberts explains that Gandhi could be unusually cruel, racist, and sexually perverse—among other vices.”

But couldn’t we all? And then some?

The beauty of God’s grace and forgiveness is that our past is buried deep within the sea of forgetfulness.  But while our past is our PAST, it is still OUR past.

This truth continues to resonate in my life – others identify more with our failures than our successes. Glory in our past sin? Never.  But sanitize our sinful past? No! God receives glory in and through our reconciliation. May we never air our dirty laundry for the sake of attention.  But we should follow that still small prompting of the Holy Spirit that invites others into the real you. It’s ok. Your failures are not unique. Our stories of falling down and getting back up can and will be used to bring a smile to the face of our Creator, so stop sanitizing!

You are who you are, and somebody someday will need to know the real you….to help them embrace the real them.

The awe that we sense or ought to sense when standing in the presence of a human being is a moment of intuition for the likeness of God which is concealed in his essence … The secret of every being is the divine care and concern that are invested in it. -Abraham Joshua Heschel

Atheist.
Muslim.
Hindu.
Buddhist.
Christian.

These are people made in the image and likeness of God. Are you okay with that?

The image of God in each and every person transcends the faith they practice. Are you okay with that?

God loves people of all faiths. He cares for them deeply and tenderly. Are you okay with that?

Easily, and usually rightfully the butt of jokes. We quickly learn and are conditioned to take it.  But deep within us is a heart crying out to be understood…to connect…to be heard.

One of the great things about us fellas is we are generally uncomplicated creatures and most of the time it’s not difficult to make us happy.

The exception is when it comes to relationship issues. As a sociology major,  I loved taking part in, and studying the results of, a recent survey. They asked us guys to fill you in on what women everywhere need to know. With guaranteed anonymity I trust most of us were very honest (occasionally, brutally so).

Here are a select 18 things we men wish you women understood about us. While your man may not agree with all 18, if he is honest, many apply:

1. I think about you more than you realize. I just don’t phone or e-mail you every time it happens.

2. Making me ask a man for directions is like me telling you to ask another woman for fashion advice.

3. If I stand a chance with you, never play hard to get. I’m so freaked out by rejection I’ll just assume you aren’t into me and stop calling.

4. Ask me to do something for you and you’ll remind me I’m a man. Tell me how to do something and you’ll remind me of my mother.

5. Telling me I’m right – no matter the topic – will score major points with me.

6. I’m sensitive about my body but I won’t admit it. If you point out my stomach flab I’ll probably shrug off the comment in front of you, then privately check out my stomach later.

7. It’s not a good idea to read something into every word I say when we fight. I’ll be caught off-guard. For me, it’s like trying to pass an oral exam I never knew I had to study for.

8. If I say you look nice when I show up, it’s polite. If I say it later on, it’s an excuse to stare.

9. I have at least one ‘girlie’ song on my iPod. But I’ll deny knowing how it got there if you ask.

10. I pick out clothes that feel good. If you want me to dress cool, get something comfy.

11. When you get up from our table at a restaurant or bar to go to the bathroom, I scan the room to see who checks you out.

12. Seeing your feisty side makes me feel as connected to you as you do to me when I’m sensitive.

13. Looking at other women does not mean anything other than that someone’s outfit happens to be more revealing than yours.

14. Making me carry your bag in public may be helpful to you but it makes me feel like I’m wearing a skirt: emasculated. If you ask me to carry it all the time I’m going to resent it.

15. Want me to watch more chick flicks with you? Then don’t tell all your friends how I got tearful during the last one. My reputation is at stake.

16. I know I’ll never be the bad-boy type – but please don’t refer to me as a ‘nice guy’.

17. If you hate my mother, I’ll think less of you. But if you always agree with her, I’ll also think less of you.

18. Yeah, it’s annoying you take so long to get ready – but when you look so fantastic, all is forgiven.