In December of 2007 I’d been living in Lubbock for several months after 14 years in the Phoenix valley. I was a not by choice divorced single Dad living in a place I never wanted to live. Somewhere in the middle of the month I realized that this would be the first time in my life that I’d be alone for Christmas.

It was a pretty awful thought.

I volunteered to help with my daughters’ school Christmas party. Among the other parents there was a lady wearing scrubs. I asked her where she worked and she said, “Carillon House”. I didn’t know what or where that was. She explained it was a skilled care facility. “It being Christmas time I suppose they get lots of visitors up there”, I said. She shook her head. “Sadly, no. Even a lot of the residents who have family here in town don’t get visited on Christmas.” That’s sad, I thought. I went back to passing out candy canes and overly frosted cookies.

Christmas Eve afternoon I was starting to lose it. I’ve always been with family and friends on Christmas. Lonely was what other poor souls struggled with during the holidays, not me. “Lonely at Christmas” was an article I read in a magazine, not what I saw when I looked in the mirror. Now lonely was me.

Lonely sucks.

Ever feel like running and you don’t know where to go? I got in the car and started driving, trying to remember where I saw a thrift store. It was about an hour before all the stores closed on Christmas Eve when I found the Savers store. I went in and bought all the vases I could find, then drove to Wal-Mart and bought some ribbon and several bunches of roses. That night I prepped all the flowers and vases and went to bed.

Christmas morning I drove to Carillon House. I hit the elevator button for the second floor. When the door opened I walked to the first room on the north side, took a deep breath and went in.

“Merry Christmas. I’m Todd. Here’s a flower for you.”

The gray haired lady in her hospital bed looked at me with a mix of surprise, gratitude and suspicion. “Why…thank you. Do you have someone up here?”

“Nope. Just here to say hi and give you a flower. How are you feeling? What brought you in here? Are you getting better?”

In case you ever wondered, I’m the best in the world at asking questions. It’s because I’m genuinely interested in people and their stories. And it’s a control/defense mechanism. If I keep people talking about themselves, they won’t have a chance to ask me about me.

And so I went, room to room. I spent over four hours at Carillon passing out flowers and hearing people’s stories. The time passed until it was Christmas past.

A few days into the new week I starting thinking about the roses in the vases. They’d be drooping by now. Few things are sadder than a rose browned and bent over in a vase. They’d have to throw them away. And the vases would be empty.

It was one of those private “come to Jesus” moments. If I didn’t go back to Carillon, then my Christmas day visit would be a pure act of selfishness. Sure, I took flowers. Sure, I visited with people. But the truth is I was there because I didn’t want to be alone. If I never went back, what would that say about me?

So on New Year’s Day I said to Annie and Emma, “Girls, we’re going to go visit some people.” We got more vases and roses and off we went. We’ve been going ever since. With the exception of several out of state vacations and the girls having the flu, we’ve been there every week for the past three years. After the first several months Emma asked me, “Daddy, what’s on the 4th floor?”

“That’s Vista Care Hospice”.

“How come we don’t go up there?” I didn’t have a good answer so after that conversation we’ve been there every week, too.

Over that time we’ve met many fascinating people and heard the stories of their lives. My girls have learned what it means to “serve each other with love” (Galatians 5:13b). At ten years old they are completely comfortable around the elderly, their wheelchairs, walkers and canes. They talk and visit and laugh and I couldn’t be prouder of them. We’ve gotten to know people, developed rich friendships and grieved when they left for heaven.

Christmas is in a couple days. With due respect to my dear friends here, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t still a sizeable loneliness in my life. There’s no getting around the fact that the holiday season magnifies what’s broken in a person’s life. I still deeply miss my family and friends in faraway places and wish that I could be in their kitchen laughing and eating and sitting by their fireplace. Yet from that long ago dark night when the angel announced the Good News to shepherds in the hills of Bethlehem, Christmas comes to us where we are. And where I am, like it or not, is here.

It’s Christmas in a couple days. We’ll go to Carillon House to visit our friends who also know something about “lonely”. They’ll be thinking about their spouses who died this year or last, about all the friends they’ve outlived,  and how they probably never imagined spending Christmas in a skilled care center. We’ll spend time together, encouraging one another and hopefully remembering that Christmas comes to us where we are. And in the coming, it brings the hope that someday we’ll all be in a place where lonely is nowhere to be found.

Wherever Christmas finds you this year, remember that Jesus comes to you where you are. And that He can take even desperate acts of self-preservation and redeem them for something good.

Merry Christmas.

“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For behold I bring you glad tidings, good news of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord!” – Luke 2: 10-11

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

In a sentence…I have allowed my burden to become an idol.

For my readers who don’t know me, four years ago my spouse chose to walk away from our marriage. I didn’t want that. My daughters didn’t want that. We were (and continue to be) left bouncing in the wake of the consequences created by her decisions.

The burdens I’ve been carrying since; burdens of abandonment, betrayal, loneliness, starting life over from scratch without a network in a new state is but a short list of what has dominated my thoughts. Not to mention the constant fear she would again someday pick up and relocate our children again. I have allowed these burdens, by the amount of time spent fretting and obsessing over them, to become an idol. By definition, an idol is something to which time and devotion are paid. I have paid too much time and far too much attention to my burdens of the past four years. They have become idols at the expense of time and attention focusing on God’s sovereignty over my life.

Are my burdens real? Absolutely. I can’t begin to describe the profound loneliness of beginning life over in a place you never wanted to live where you know no one, leaving behind 14 years of deeply invested friendships, ministry, network, jobs and every good thing that feeds your soul. Add to that the burden of single parenting, a job God never intended in His original design of family, cover it all with a daily feeling of being “on the outside looking in” and it’s a small start in communicating what a head-banging process this has been.

My burdens are real. They are heavy. And they may not go away anytime soon. Yet in focusing on them, both knowingly and unknowingly, I have allowed these burdens to become an idol. Like a man examining a stain on his necktie, my vision has become myopic. I’ve become oblivious to the larger environment around me, the environment over which God is fully sovereign. Focusing on my burdens has created in me a spirit of fear. I’ve been waiting and worrying over the next bad thing that could happen instead of acknowledging God and His perfect love that casts out fear. To, even in one’s mind, relegate God in any way as subject to one’s circumstances is sin.

One would think a seminary graduate would have this figured out. But there is a big difference between head knowledge and heart assurance. At some point all of us will experience a life event that forces us to decide whether or not we will “own” our theology. When life is full of everything happy and circumstances are favorable, it’s easy to pay lip service to the goodness of God. When life kicks you in the head and takes away most or all of what you value, the question is unavoidable. Is God still good when life is not?

In the wake of my spouse walking away, my friend Jerry Sittser told me, “In God’s big-picture drama, people who walk out of your life are small players. As painful and horrible as this situation is, there is nothing anyone can do to thwart God’s purposes for your life. Or for the lives of your children.” This is a true statement. Yet in my pain I lost sight of this. God, in my mind, became subject to the decisions of my ex-spouse. Instead of rightly seeing God as in control of His universe (and mine) in the middle of my awful situation I viewed Him as subject to my rotten circumstances instead of sovereign over the details of my life.

Psalm 34 calls us to “magnify the Lord and exalt His name” and that in doing so God will “deliver us from all our fears.” In allowing my burdens to become an idol, I’ve done the opposite. In magnifying my fears I have minimized God. That in itself is grievous. Yet the arrogance of this sin is magnified by the irony that my spirit of fear has been cultivated while surrounded by God’s blessings. I’ve lamented to God the burden of moving to and surviving in a place where I knew no one, while across the room sits a cabinet full of customer files, every one of them a stranger until God brought them into my life. I’ve lamented to God the burden of leaving behind the bonds of an established church family, while the members and friends at Turning Point Church, many of whom don’t even know me that well, have consistently prayed for me and cared for my daughters as if they were their own. I’ve lamented to God my burden of loneliness, and in doing so treated God as if He hasn’t been here for every tear and every sleepless night.

While I’ve been guilty of treating God as though He is subject to my circumstances, true to form God has been incredibly patient and kind with me. He has, in ways big and small, used these same circumstances to remind and encourage me that He transcends everything I can see and imagine. He really does “cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose”. After disappointments in my job, He surprises me with unexpected sales. Or sitting in church, missing all my friends and ministry in Arizona, a hand on my shoulder and a voice saying, “You’ve been on my heart a lot. Let me pray for you.” Or in moments of deeply felt insignificance someone saying, “Thanks for what you said in your sermon. God really used it in my life.” And even in ways far outside the box like a guy named Bob at Sam’s Club in Roswell, New Mexico who offers to pray for me while filling my car at the gas pump.

If I’d spent as much time looking for God in the details as I’ve spent focusing on my fears, how different would my life look?

So there you have it. My confession. And my resolution to stop living from a spirit of fear. God’s arm is not too short to save. There’s nothing that will happen in my life that He’s not already aware of. The fact that I am still here is proof of His provision. He promises to give me a hope and a future. He promises not to quit working on me. And He promises to “restore all the years that the locusts have eaten”. I have no idea how He will do that, but I look forward to seeing it.

In the meantime, my burdens may not get lighter. My situation may not change. It may get worse. But it doesn’t matter because God is on His throne. He loves me. I don’t know why. But He does. And His promises are bigger than my fearful circumstances.

Or as He says, “If I (God) am for you, who can be against you?”

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Rock piles.

Depending on the lay of the farmer’s land, before planting crops it’s sometimes necessary to harvest rock. The freezing of winter and the thawing of spring brings to the surface of the ground stones that were previously hidden. Some are hand-sized. An easy grab and pitch into a skid loader bucket or onto a flatbed trailer. Others require two hands, a knee bend and a strong back. And on rare occasion, one needs to be pulled out with a tractor and a log chain.

Say the phrase “pick rock” to any Iowa farm kid and they know exactly what you’re talking about.

The reason for picking rock is simple. Come harvest time you don’t want a field stone to go screaming through the internal gears of a John Deere combine that could be traded even up for one of your nicer homes in Scottsdale, Edina, or Lake Forest. So to avoid costly down time and expensive repairs, you walk the field and move the rock to an out of the way place.

My Uncle Ev and Aunt Katherine had a rock pile on their farm. We kids called it “The Mountain”. We played regularly on it. It seemed so big. Go back there now and it’s still there, a memorial to a literal century of hard work and successful farming. When we look at it, we remember.

Joshua 4 is one of my favorite accounts in the Bible. It’s where God rolls back the waters of the Jordan River to allow the people of Israel to walk across on dry ground. God instructs them to build a monument of 12 stones to mark the event. He had a specific reason. “…in the future, when your children ask you, “What do these stones mean?” tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” -(Joshua 4:6-7)

God knows that His humans have short memories. That’s why He wanted them to set up the 12 stones as a reminder of the miracle He did. That rock pile was for remembering the great work He had done for them.

This Thanksgiving season as I count my blessings, it occurs to me that I’ve done a lot of worrying this year. A lot of asking God why He seems so slow to respond in certain areas of my life. And if I’m honest, no small amount of doubt and anxiety. Wondering sometimes silently and sometimes in full voice, “God, are you gonna take care of me?”

The irony, of course, is that I’ve done my worrying and doubting and whining while sitting squarely on top my rock pile. Those stones of good health, food to eat, a place to live, a car to drive, healthy children, opportunities to earn a living, friends old and new, wonderful parents, a church family, and multiple moments of God’s grace and mercy, dropped into my life at a point of need and always above and beyond what I could ask or imagine.

What audacity. To sit atop my rock pile of blessings, lifetime proof of God’s faithful provision, and wonder if He will come through for me this time?

Perhaps there is more symbolism to the stones than I realize. Could it possibly be God’s inside joke of what a blockhead I can be?

God, please forgive my arrogance of distrusting You while surrounded by your tangible blessings. This Thanksgiving help me to be mindful that You are forever faithful, my Source and my Provider. When I wonder, when I doubt, remind me to look at the rock pile that You’ve built in my life and renew my faith and trust, because You are faithful and true.

Here’s hoping you take a good long look at your rock pile.

Happy Thanksgiving.

“The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. The Lord protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need He saved me. Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” – Psalm 116:5-7

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

A scene early in the film shows the drivers getting into their vehicles to start the race. Franco, the Italian race driver (played by Raul Julia), jumps into his Ferrari. He reaches up, grabs the rear view mirror and breaks it off the windshield. Tossing it aside, he says with great conviction,

“The first rule of Italian driving is a what’s a behind me is a not important.”

What’s behind me is not important. It makes sense if you’re a race driver. Beyond that, it’s still worth thinking about.

As we sit in the driver’s seat, all of us have three parts to our life experience:

Our past - Where we’ve been. The stuff we see in our rear view mirror.

Our present - Where we are today. The view through the windshield in this moment.

Our future - What lies ahead down the road. The unseen future God has for us.

Today we sit in the driver’s seat facing the future and we wonder what to do with what we see in our life’s rear view mirror. It’s a mix of successes and failures. Victories and defeats. Honors and embarrassments.

For most of us, it’s not the good parts of our past that hold us back. I doubt many people go to their therapists and say, “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I just can’t seem to get past being elected Homecoming queen.” No, it’s the bad and sad we tend to fixate on. The wrongs done to us and the wrongs we did to others.

How much time do you spend thinking about the imposed and self-inflicted pains from your past? Are they passing thoughts? Rare thoughts? Or are they thoughts that preoccupy you? Thoughts that consume you?

If you get in your car tomorrow morning, pull out on the freeway and drive looking only at the rear view mirror, how far do you think you’d get? Who likes to start their day with the sounds of shattering glass and crunching metal?

God understands that we all have a past. But I wonder… does He spend as much time thinking about it as we do?

And if He doesn’t, why do we?

God says that if and when we confess our sins, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) He also promises that we are a “new creature in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). By God’s definition, we are forgiven.

The problem of staring at the rear view mirror after God forgives us is that we begin to confuse our past with our present identity. We still see the image of who we used to be. The screw up. The rebel. The liar. The cheat. We feel the weight of our sin and in our soul pressed moments begin to doubt and wonder if God has really forgiven us. When our image of who we are comes from the rear view mirror, we can’t see through the windshield to our present reality and the future God has for us. The famous psychiatrist Karl Menninnger once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day.

Make no mistake. Satan doesn’t want you looking through the windshield. He wants your eyes glued to the rear view mirror. He’s not about to remind you that you are forgiven. He wants you to see yourself as the person you used to be, not the new creation you are. Satan can’t stop you from accepting God’s forgiveness. But he will work like hell to see that you don’t accept God’s acceptance. If he can keep your eyes on everything ugly in your rear view mirror, you won’t live like a forgiven person.

There’s a reason the rear view mirror is this big and the windshield is THIS BIG. Rear view mirrors are for glancing at, not staring at. Rear view mirrors are for perspective. A quick look once in awhile to remember from a grateful heart what God has saved you from. A peek to remember that by God’s grace, you aren’t the person you used to be. You are a new creation.

Time to stop staring at the rear view mirror of yesterday and start looking through the windshield of today. That’s where you’ll see all the people that need to hear the good news that God is here to love and forgive and accept them. Unconditionally.

Eyes forward.

“This one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:13-14

When I was a kid, we would spend Christmas with my cousins in Ozona, Texas. My Uncle John was U.S. Border Patrolman there. Ozona, maybe about 3,000 people, is the only town in Crockett County, a county that’s the same size as Delaware.  

Partly because of his line of work, partly because of living in Texas and partly because of personal hobby, my Uncle John had quite a few guns. So did my Dad who collected antique Winchester rifles. So for my cousin Jack and me, getting our first BB guns was a big deal.

But it was an even bigger deal a couple years later when we were about 10 years old. That year our Dads gave us pellet guns for Christmas. Matching Sheridan Blue Streak Air Rifles. To this day it remains one of my favorite Christmas presents. Solid wood stock, sleek shiny black metal barrel, bolt action, single shot, .20 caliber pellet, air pump…I can still feel it in my hands. It was a beauty.

As was often the case during Christmas vacation in Texas, we tagged along with our Dads when they went deer hunting. My uncle was a friend to many of the ranchers in the area and he was often invited to hunt on their private land. On this particular day we were hunting at Beecher’s Ranch; located just west of the middle of nowhere, about two hours from the other side of no place. If you’ve ever been to West Texas you know what I mean. Nothing but cactus and canyons and mesquite scrub.

Jack, his twin sister Kaye, our cousin Becky and I went along in the old station wagon used for hunting trips. After arriving, we stayed around the car while our Dads walked a short canyon they wanted to hunt. It was great fun and even better now that Jack and I were armed with our trusty air rifles.

Understand that Jack and I had gun safety drilled into our heads from the time we could point our fingers and say “bang!”. We grew up around guns and our Dads taught us well. Never point at anything you don’t intend to shoot. Point the gun at the ground while you’re walking. Never put a shell in the chamber until you’re ready to fire. Always keep the safety on until you pull the trigger. Failure to abide by these rules meant the BB guns got put away until we were ready to be diligent. The rules hadn’t changed now that we had upgraded our weaponry.

We were sitting in the station wagon with the doors open laughing and talking. I was in the driver’s seat, my cousin Becky on the passenger side. Jack and Kaye were in the back. My new Sheridan Blue Streak Air Rifle was on my lap. I have no recollection of how or why there was a pellet in the chamber. I have no memory of pumping air into the gun. Selective memory I’m sure, because who else would have done that but me?

All I remember was the distinct sound of the air rifle discharging. Pchoo! I didn’t feel anything at first. Then I saw blood running all over my left hand. Holding it up I looked in shock at my cousin Becky and yelled, “You shot my finger!”

Then it started to hurt.

At that point it was like a Keystone Cops movie. We all ran around the station wagon screaming and bumping into each other. My hand was bleeding, our Dads weren’t anywhere close and we’re in the middle of nowhere. Somehow in the panic one of us remembered seeing a small house, probably used by ranch hands, about a mile back up the road on the other side of the bump gate. So Kaye and I headed that way.

When we got there I went up and knocked. A Mexican gentleman who, in retrospect, would have been someone my Border Patrol uncle would have likely paid a visit to on a work day, answered the door. It became very clear very fast that he didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Spanish. I guess blood translates in any language because he took me inside to the sink so I could wash my wound.

Whatever this shack lacked in amenities it had an ample supply of whiskey bottles. In the middle of my washing the guy firmly took hold of my wrist with one hand and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other hand. He pulled the cork out with his teeth, and with a crazed smile grunted, “Ah? Ah?” while indicating he wanted to demonstrate it’s medicinal properties by disinfecting my still bleeding finger. I suddenly felt like I was in a Pancho Villa movie. And because yelling louder always helps when you don’t know the language, I kept shouting, “BAND-AID! BAND-AID!”

Somehow I got my point across and even more miraculous, he found a bandage for my finger.

Weeks before there was anticipation in hoping for the Christmas gift of a pellet gun and now there was anticipation of having to tell my Dad what happened. I had plenty of time to think about it on the walk back to the car. 

The upside was that it was only a finger. I didn’t shoot my eye out. That’s a good thing because for me to get a new plastic eye would have cost a lot of money.

I dreaded telling him what happened. Even though my cousin Becky did pull the trigger (a fact that I tell my children to curry sympathy), the reality is I broke the rules and put the pellet in the gun. And now I had to tell my Dad.

I thought he would take the gun away. I thought he would scream and yell. I fully expected a good spanking. And a long lecture about gun safety was a foregone conclusion. And I would have deserved all of it.

But he didn’t do any of that. He just asked me what happened and listened. When everything was talked about he said the hole in my finger was probably lesson enough. And that was that.

I was only ten years old but I still remember how I felt in that moment. Dad didn’t turn me over his knee. He didn’t call me a baby who was too young to have a pellet gun. My Dad was treating me, well, almost like a grown up. There were consequences to actions. Disobedience exacts a price. I was free to make decisions. The wisdom, or lack thereof, would determine the outcome. And if I didn’t learn from the hole in my finger, I probably wasn’t going to learn.

Over the years I’ve learned that more often than not, God responds to me in a similar way. Sure, God can discipline hard if He chooses to.  God doesn’t shy away from the truth or the consequences, be they good, bad or ugly. God corrects with truth. But He also corrects us with a loyal love that refuses to let us go, no matter what. And in doing so He nurtures and deepens our relationship. Or as the Apostle Paul put it in Romans 2:4, “Do you not know that it is God’s kindness that leads you to repentance?”

The kindness of God. He doesn’t beat us down or cause us to fearfully cower in the corner. He loves us into submission. All because of His fierce desire for relationship with us.

They are still learning and don’t yet understand the importance of a soft touch. Emma had a two footer to finish out the first hole. At the top of her backswing I had to grab the club because her follow through would have driven the ball down the Superstition Freeway. Annie couldn’t get to the next hole fast enough. Hit the ball and run. Hit the ball and run. We had the best time together and they enjoyed figuring out the ramps and which door to hit their ball through.

It was getting to be about 7:30 and they were starting to fade so we stopped to come home. We weren’t done with the course but it didn’t matter. They were whining a little on the way out and weren’t acting as nicely as they could. Their behavior was nothing I had to discipline them for. It had been a long day for them and they were tired. I got them home for some food and a bath and bed.

In the middle of the night, maybe around 4 AM, I felt someone looking at me. Annie was standing there. She crawled in and snuggled up next to me, face to face.

“Daddy, I’m sorry that I quit golfing tonight.”

That didn’t sound like the real reason she was out here talking to me in the wee hours. I told her she didn’t quit, we just decided to come home.

Then she said, “Daddy, I’m sorry that I wasn’t very nice to you on the way home.”

So that’s it.

I told her it was ok. That she was tired and we all get cranky when we’re tired. I hugged her and told her how much I appreciated her apology. “It’s not easy to say you’re sorry, Annie. I’m very proud of you. Do you want to go back to bed now?”

She nodded.

“Are you ok?”

She smiled, “I’m ok.”

“I love you, Annie. So much.”

“I love you too so much.” And she trotted off to her room.

I learn from my kids all the time. Here’s what I learned from Annie at 4 in the morning.

Annie thought it was so important to make things right with me that she got up in the middle of the night to do it. It is a hard thing to come to someone and confess and apologize. I know that’s true for me. More often than not, our ego keeps us from saying the things we need to say to those we’ve hurt or offended. The longer we wait, the harder it gets.

That’s what the Bible means when it talks about “giving the devil a foothold.” When we let our conscience grow cold, we clear a spot for all the wrong things to grow in our heart. Hard feelings. Bitterness. Grudges. Resentment. Once those grow deep, pride becomes a ruthless gardener who is loathe to let them be uprooted.

Annie’s apology reminded me of another truth. When we care enough about the other person to say “I’m sorry” and make things right, we elevate and honor the relationship. Annie showed me in word and action that I was a person she cared about enough to talk about what was troubling her. And significant to me was how I felt when it was over. When she apologized for what she perceived was a hurtful thing she had done, I would have moved the world for her. I don’t know that I’ve ever been more proud of Annie. Because of the respect and honor she showed me, it makes me want to work even harder at being a better Dad. That single 60-second transparent moment deepened our relationship.

When we confess and apologize for the hurts we’ve caused, we:

Communicate a contrite heart that cares about making things right.

Communicate respect to the person and our relationship.

Communicate that the person is more important than our pride.

Communicate a desire to move forward in a healthy, restored way.

God, help us be people who care enough to say, “I’m sorry.”

“And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” – Ephesians 4:32