Sunday morning, coming down.

January 21, 2008 at 11:34 pm (Inspirational, Kevin's Writings)
Tags: , ,

(Title stolen from the Kris Kristofferson song of the same name.)

I love Sunday mornings.

My Sunday morning starts in the middle of many people’s Saturday night. I get up between 12 and 12:30 AM, as Sherlene is pulling into a truck stop. By 1:00 I am dressed, with a cup of coffee and rolling down the road. By 2:30 Sherlene is in bed after a number of good night kisses, and all of the assurances of my love that I can give her. I listen to some old hymns on CD, and then I listen to a sermon on our iPod. We have the complete Bible on our iPod, so I listen to several chapters, and then I shut it all off and think. I pray about myself, my family, and my friends. After a while, the sky begins to pink up in the east, and as I can see more, my focus becomes wider. I begin noticing more around me. By the time the sun is two fingers up in the sky, the world has come to life. I pray for the family that is all dressed up, and headed for church. I pray for the guy in the old pick-up in his security company uniform. I pray for the people that own the cars parked overnight in the bar parking lots.

For all of my young life, there was no question where I would be on Sunday morning. I was in our Sunday morning gathering in the home of my grandfather. I professed when I was 12, but never really did anything with it. By the time I was sixteen Sunday morning was a little tense because I hadn’t read my bible all week, and had nothing to share. There came a time when I could no longer ignore the hypocrisy between my Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, so I made the choice to stop going to the meeting. If I was not allowing God into my life at that time, other forces were at work.

Just a few years later, I woke up on Sunday morning fully dressed. I was in the Navy, stationed in Japan, and sleeping on the floor of a friend. My Saturday nights were extending way into Sunday. My head was pounding from the excesses of the night before so I got up in search of an aspirin. Upon standing, I realized I wasn’t wearing socks. Looking around the room, I absent mindedly put my hand in my jacket pocket. I found my socks, and pulled them out. They were covered with vomit. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember if it was mine or someone else’s. Judging from the nasty taste in my mouth, I decided it must be mine. A hallmark of this time period was regret. I was caught in a cycle I didn’t know how to get out of, and my actions left me feeling empty and full of remorse.

My salvation may have begun when I found a new activity on Sunday morning. I would get up early and go fishing. As the eastern sky was turning pink I arrived at the lake. I enjoyed watching the mist rise off the still water and listening to the birds waking up  in the trees around me. Soon, the ducks that spent the night out in safe water were nosing around the shore, and if I was lucky I might see a doe and her fawn drinking. By the time the sun was a finger up on the horizon, a breeze would spring up, and the world around me came to life. Traffic on the road behind me increased, more people came to the lake, and small waves began kicking up on the water. It was a busy and chaotic time in my life then, and as each wave washed ashore I was reminded of all the things I had to do that day. Some of us have to reconnect with our Creator by observing His creation, and that was a time when my “church” was the wide open sky.

After my divorce, I went back to partying well into Sunday morning and I remember sitting in a bar when I made a comment about God. There were several people at the table, and they all looked at me amazed that I even believed there was one. I remember clearly, looking around that bar and realizing that no one here had anything of value for me.

On a recent Sunday morning, we were able to attend church with a friend. It was a large church, and as we raised our voices in the opening hymns, I took the liberty of glancing around. This group had the look of common everyday folks, some of them were obviously enjoying the service, and some of them obviously were not. I wondered then; how thin was the line between Saturday night and Sunday morning for a few. I know now that God was using every one of my missteps to guide me back to Him, and I pray for each and every one of those that are wandering in a plea that He would guide them to a safe place as He has guided me.

I have known from an early age that I have only so many Sunday mornings to enjoy. When I was young, I poured them out like water, sure that there were more where that came from. As I got older, I began using them a pinch at a time; “Sunday morning will last from this time to this time, then I have things to do.” These days, I am jealous of the time spent doing the things I must, and I wish I had more time to worship with others. May each of your Sunday mornings be a time of joyous worship,

God bless.

Kevin

2 Comments

Boring

January 19, 2008 at 11:56 am (Kevin's Writings)

“My kids think my job is boring – just moving my little mouse and riding my little desk.”  -LaronB in the “Intensities” comments.

(Thank you for your comments, now for a little fun.)

Hey LaRon, I guess I have to agree with your kids on this one. That sounds kind of boring.

Perhaps you should make things more exciting with a new career.Perhaps… gambling!

Yeah, that sounds good, you could go to the big bright casinos, and sit at a blackjack table all hours of the night, and do a little sports betting on the side. That sounds a lot more exciting!

This will help your kids boring lives too. At first it may not seem that big a deal, but as you struggle in your new career, they can learn what to do when the lights get cut off by the power company because you couldn’t pay the bill. Eventually, they can learn to lie and cover for Dads exciting career, by telling bill collectors that; “No, Dads not home, but, -wait a minute-, he says the check is in the mail.”

After a while of course Mom can go to work to support your new career. This will mean she won’t be home when the kids get out of school, so there won’t be any milk and cookies waiting. But hey! They can learn the exciting skill of dumpster diving behind the bakery while they walk home from school. This opens up all kinds of exciting things to do. They can dig around and find all of their own school clothes, birthday presents, new toys, etc. How exciting is that? Also, food stamps don’t carry nearly the stigma they used to, now that they come in a little credit card looking thing.

Eventually, as you get deeper into this new and exciting career, grandpa and grandma will want to help out. The five of you, (is that right?) and grandpa and grandma can live together in a two bedroom apartment on the cheap side of town. This way, the kids can learn the fine art of scrapping and fighting with the neighbor kids. They can also listen in on the family arguments going on all around them because they live over, under, and beside all of their new friends. They may need this experience later in life with their own happy family.

Forget college. That just leads to one of those boring point and click jobs. They’ll want a real education. I recommend a few years on the streets, perhaps trying their hand at dads exciting gambling career. If things go badly, they may wind up in jail, or they might work a deal with the District Attorney, and they could go into the military. Gosh, I can hardly stand the excitement!

Don’t ever stop buying those lottery tickets because that is your big hope for retirement. After all gambling is what brought you through this exciting life, so why stop now?

Or, I suppose you could continue with the pointing and clicking thing. Keep working hard, and getting raises. Go home every night, and tickle your kids until they admit you are the greatest dad ever. Put away a few dollars every month so you can send your kids to college, and eventually retire and spoil your grandbabies.

But what is the excitement in that?

**Please understand I am writing this in the same spirit of fun that allows your kids to tell you your job is boring. I think I will like your kids.

Kevin

2 Comments

Struggles

January 13, 2008 at 3:45 pm (Inspirational, Kevin's Writings)

A number of years ago, I struggled with the nature of my salvation.

I wondered if I could know, for sure, that I was saved. I wasn’t even sure what I had done to be saved.

I had always believed that a person could not emphatically say, at any given moment, that they were saved. My salvation depended on many things, and I wouldn’t know until the judgment day how I had done.

Therein lay my struggle.

My god was an angry god, constantly pointing out my faults, and ready at all points to punish. To be sure, he didn’t have to look far, and just the fact that he still showed an interest was my understanding of grace.

So, I picked up my Bible, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I read it for my self. I studied it, endlessly. My yearning for an answer kept me coming back, and back, and back. It didn’t take long really to find the many verses that told me that I could know that I was saved, or even how. It took me two years of reading, praying and meditating to accept it.

Upon accepting it, I discovered the meaning of faith, and I took my first feeble steps in my new walk with God. This was a walk by faith, and my God was a loving God that rejoiced in my new walk, rewarding me with a peace that I had never known before.

He hasn’t left me marking time by marching in place; this has been a walk requiring that I step out, in faith. Once I took the step of accepting a salvation that was totally of His doing, and none of mine, I became aware of other steps that I needed to take. I was made aware of them, not with the twin hammers of guilt, and condemnation that I had known all my life, but with love, and I can tell you that love is an entirely different experience than I had ever known before.

One of the first steps I was made aware of was financial. I have struggled all my life with money, I eventually found myself at the bottom. Buried, figuratively, bankrupt, literally. In my pain and embarrassment, I cried out, thinking again, that my god would be displeased with my ineptitude. Imagine my surprise when He told me to give my struggles to Him. (Doesn’t He clothe the lilies of the field, and know when the sparrow falls?) I am fairly hard headed, and I didn’t understand. It took a long time, but eventually, I had no choice. I gave it to Him.

That has been the pattern ever since. He makes me aware of a next step, and the hallmark of this awareness is a complete lack of condemnation. Then, I struggle, and I fight, and I kick. Eventually, I am exhausted, and give up, handing it all to Him.

I am learning. My latest struggle was with my health. I have always been healthy.  Then one day I was in the hospital. I couldn’t breathe, to cough was to be racked with pain, and to hear the doctors tell it, I was in trouble. I will never forget the peace that came over me when I handed it all to God. “This one is on You Lord, sick or healthy, stay or go Your choice.”

Sherlene or I either one ever worried about how the bills would get paid.

I have come to discover that when I struggle and fight His will, I am being disciplined. Much like my father disciplined me as a child, my heavenly Father disciplines me as His child. If it were any other way, I would not be His child. It has taken me an incredibly long time to accept my discipline, and even longer to begin to appreciate it, even love it. Given that glimpse, I know what He meant when He told us that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

There are further steps in faith I have yet to take. There are rifts in understanding between my earthly father and I. My steps in faith have led away from the church of my youth, and it pains him deeply. We haven’t talked about it much, mostly because I am afraid of further rifts, not believing a common understanding is possible.

I will read some more, and pray. I want to be led totally by love in this. Love overcomes all things.

Is it possible Lord?

I give it to You.

1 Comment

Intensities in ten cities

January 13, 2008 at 1:49 pm (Kevin's Writings, Trucking, Trucking Lifestyle)

(Title shamelessly ripped off from Ted Nugents album of the same name.)

From somewhere deep in my subconscious, I knew that the truck had stopped. I also knew that it had moved a short distance, and then stopped again.

I woke up.

Sherlene had been driving since Illinois. She had come through St Louis In the fog, encountered the beginnings of freezing rain in Kansas City, and now she was in Salina KS where it was snowing. The roads were snow covered, and she was tired. It was 10:00 at night.

We have been very blessed in our career that we haven’t had a lot of bad weather driving. We have usually been able to route ourselves around it, or been through before it, or after it. The little we have done has been for short distances.

This trip seemed to be going differently.

“What’s going on?” I asked. She was thinking about calling in to dispatch and telling them the roads were too bad, and she was going to stop. She had been talking to drivers in the truck stop, and they were telling her how bad it was west of here.

I had stopped driving at 12:15 PM that day, and I had been sleeping for a good 6-7 hours so technically I could start driving at 10:15. I love a challenge. That is what makes a job good or bad in my opinion. So, I crawled out of bed, put on my boots, got a fresh cup of coffee, and went to work.

I started out at 50 MPH, on what I call a single track. That means there are two small strips in the slow lane for your tires, and everything else is snow covered. It wasn’t long before I had three trucks blow by me like I was standing still, so I sped up to 55. Apparently there is a big difference between the type of drivers hanging out in the truck stop, scaring each other, and those out here running the roads. “Fine” I thought, I’ll run too.

And so I did.

Or so “we” did. I ran into Denver, where we dropped our load. From there, we picked up a load to Portland OR. We had been watching the weather in Wyoming and Oregon for a while, and it didn’t look good. Sherlene drove next, and it didn’t take long before she had stopped again, this time in Laramie WY. Snow, 45 MPH sustained wind, 75 MPH gusts, and whiteout conditions. We talked about it, and again, other drivers were sitting it out. But, the roads were open, and meanwhile there were a steady stream of trucks rolling past continuing on their way.

I slept through the entire thing, but it sounds like all it was billed to be. There were times when she couldn’t see, there was once when she watched the wind pick up the back of a trailer in front of her, and move it over several feet. I did wake up for a few minutes to see the bitter wind blowing fine snow low across the road giving everything a smoky “other world” look. I went back to sleep.

She then drove down the canyon into Salt Lake City, without Jake brakes. Jake brakes use the compression of the engine to slow the truck down without using the brakes. That is what makes the loud growling sound you hear when a truck is getting off the interstate. In slick weather, you need to be more in control of your truck, so you don’t use the “Jakes”. Brakes on trucks use air pressure to apply the brakes. More correctly, they use air pressure to hold the brakes off. When you step on the brakes, you dump some of that air, so the pads contact the drums. If you use the brakes too much, you can run out of air, and your brakes lock up. On a long downhill run you have to keep the speed down, without using too much of your air, or heating up your brakes. It gets rather complicated.

By midnight, Sherlene was exhausted, and who can blame her. In fact I was exhausted also. I had been sleeping since Denver, and we were now in Snowville UT, but I couldn’t wake up. We had some extra time, so I slept too. I woke up at around 4:30 AM and left. As before, it was a day of “single track” driving. Oddly enough, the part we had worried about most of all was the easiest. The “Cabbage” is named after Cabbage Hill. It is a long down grade west of La Grande leading from the top of the mountain on I84 down to the bottom of the Columbia River Gorge. It has a bad reputation for eating up trucks, even in good weather. Bad weather might involve chaining up your tires, and crawling down the mountain. We had been hearing bad things all across WY, UT, ID, and OR, but by the time I got there after sleeping half the night, it was just wet, and I rolled down at 35 MPH, in 4th gear, and the Jakes roaring away. Had I left at midnight, things might have been different.

I am finishing this almost two weeks later. We have spent 5 wonderful days staying on the coast of Oregon, and 4 more days with Sherlenes sister. Coming back out of Oregon was every bit as hairy as it was going in. This time, the “Cabbage” was 100% snow covered and the “must have chains” lights were flashing. Even though everyone else was chaining up, I chose to interpret the signs another way, and rolled right on up and over the mountain.

There have been some “interesting” moments for both of us, but it has been good for us. We both feel a lot more confident in our abilities. My Dad will cringe at that, and tell me not to be too confident. Sorry Dad!

1 Comment