The Lobster and the Riverbed.

She was red like a rusted firetruck or an old farmhouse hidden in the shade by a large sycamore tree. The lobster climbed up the dried riverbank through the hot sun. She rested in the shade for a bit. The riverbed was as dry burnt toast, but there was a faint rumble up ahead. The lobster traversed up the riverbed a little more, walking around the large smooth stones and stumbling through the small smooth pebbles.

Suddenly, she came upon a wall. The wall blocked off the entire riverbed. It was impossible to climb over. Up in the distance, she believed there was water. She traveled too far to turn back. With her claws, she started pinching the wall. Over and over again, she pinched and pinched.

After what seemed like hours, the wall grew damp. She kept pinching. A leak sprung out and squirted water down her shell. She kept pinching. As the stream of water grew, she dug her feet into the riverbed to keep from being washed away. When the current got to be almost unbearable, she sidestepped out of the flow and started pinching another part of the wall. Soon, she found the wall to be damp there too. She kept pinching. Water started squirting out of that wall too, and when she could stand it no longer, she moved to another part of the wall. She kept pinching.

When her work was done, she rested in the gentle flow of the restored river. She stretched out on a rock and tried to ignore the beavers who were yelling at her from on shore.

I Tried.

The stars are out. I tried to count, but lost track after only a few.

The sky is big. I tried to measure it with my hands, but my arms aren't long enough.

The ground is so hard. I pushed against it and tried to move it, but it wouldn't budge.

So is the love God has given me for you.

Patience

Patience.

I'm learning patience.

There are a few things that I can control in my life and many things that I cannot.

One of the things I can control is patience.

Patience is longsuffering.

Waiting without suffering is just waiting.

I am learning to suffer for a long time.

But the suffering I endure is not worthy to be compared to what other people have to suffer through.

And sometimes I wonder why my suffering is enough for me to endure.

If I am impatient with my trial, how can I overcome a larger one?

One step at a time.

God doesn't give me long range plans.

He only tells me what to do now.

And I usually can't see beyond the step I am currently taking.

I am constantly walking into the unknown.

If I knew what was going to happen, I would enjoy this step more.

It would be easier to endure this suffering.

I could be patient. 

But knowing wouldn't be trusting.

But knowing wouldn't be faith.

Faith is believing without seeing.

Do I believe that God provides for me?

Yes.

I can break it down to two easy steps.

1. God is big enough and strong enough to take care of me.

2. God is loving enough towards me that He wants to take care of me.

If I can believe those two things, and I do, then I should have no fear of the unknown.

So I don't...

still...

I'd still like to know what was going to happen.

But that's just me.

Not God.

God already knows, and He wants me to find out then.

Not now.

So I wait.

Patiently

...

The suffering I endure is not one of physical strain.

My suffering is an attack on my faith.

How long will I wait on the Lord before I try to take care of things myself?

How long will I wait on the Lord before I try to speed things up?

When is God too late?

Of course I know the answer.

Never.

He is always on time.

I think it's in the nick of time. At the last second. He barely made it.

But He does what He does when He wants to.

He planned it that way.

To keep me trusting.

To keep me waiting.

To prove my faith...

...

...or to disprove it.

To prove it.

I'm going to be victorious.

I'm going to wait...

...and be patient.

I'm not going to take what isn't mine.

I will trust the Lord to provide.

I will have faith.

My God is big enough.

My God loves me enough to take care of me.

He's going to do it.

He will.

Just watch and see.

The Piper Problem Part 1

Before I tell you my story, I would like you to understand something about me. It's hard for me to explain, and I'm not sure you would quite understand, but I'm not like everyone else. My family is a bit... abnormal. We love each other and take care of each other like a family should... but we're not really blood related. In fact, not all of us even has blood. My family consists of different fictional characters that I can create and bring to life as I see fit.

I've been like this as long as I remember. I just think of someone and that person is in the room. I can think up a man, woman, boy, girl, dog, cat, or even a cartoon alien. The problem is that the person I think up isn't always nice, depending on my mood. So there are many times that I think up a lot of trouble for myself.

The first time I remember it happening, I was lost. I was wandering through the streets and I was scared. I thought that I would get mugged and before my very eyes, a mugger appeared. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that couldn't possibly be true, and the mugger just jumped out from behind a garbage can or corner or something, but that's not the way it happened. There was nothing there, and slowly, the mugger came into view. At first, it was just an outline, and then he started fading in. I could see right through him until he became solid. He jumped at me the moment he became solid and started going through my pockets. Once he found my wallet, he pushed me to the ground and ran away. I wished that Superman was real and that he would get the mugger for me and Superman appeared the same way the mugger had. He went after the mugger and retrieved my wallet. I was so surprised but relieved that Superman was there to protect me. As I walked on, he floated there beside me. He didn't say anything, but stayed with me block after block, looking around for trouble.

It had rained a few hours before and there were large puddles in the street. As a car drove by, it splashed Superman, and he vanished in a large cloud of smoke. I thought of him again and he reappeared like he did before. I asked him what happened, and he didn't know. Then another car drove through the same puddle and the same thing happened. My creations were destroyed by water!

It's been years since then and I've gotten better at creating and controlling who I create. I stopped watching scary movies after the Werewolf incident of 2004. Three people ended up in the hospital and I got a vaccination for rabies.

I've created thousands of people and sent them out into the world. I have no idea how many have stayed dry, but when it's raining, it's not uncommon to see reports on the news of people exploding in a large cloud of smoke. It was baffling the police as so many missing person reports were coming in. I actually started my own private investigator business that specializes in finding missing persons. My creations go out and live lives and make friends and get married and people who love them miss them when they vanish, so I "find" them by recreating them. I tell them all to never take baths or showers or be caught out in the rain, but they all eventually get caught or splashed. I go to the police station regularly to look over their missing persons. I recognize most of them, but last Friday, I made a mistake.

I recreated someone I never created in the first place. Piper Long was a girl that went missing two weeks ago. She looked so familiar that I thought she was one of mine, so I red the bio, studied the picture, and recreated her. However, after delivering her to her husband, I went downtown for some coffee and saw Piper dressed in rags in the corner asking for change.

I walked over to talk to her for a little and I found out that she ran away from home. She had been hiding a drug habit for some time and it became uncontrollable. She ended up running away with a man who promised to take care of her and after he used her, he left her in the cold. She was too ashamed to go back, too addicted to quit, and to poor to think of any other solution. Her husband loved her and she didn't deserve that love.

I agreed.

The Piper I created would be loyal and drug free. She would return the love that her husband had given her. This Piper couldn't. But what should I do? There can't be two Pipers. This could ruin my whole business and I don't know how I would explain what I can do to the police. In order to cover my tracks, I offered to set up the real Piper with an all expense paid trip to a faraway rehab under an alias. She would go and get clean, and one day, I'll figure out how to make the switch.

***

What should happen next? Give me suggestions in the comments.

Genesis 4:7

Mostly Fiction... just so you don't freak out.

So I came around the corner and found a girl in the alley being pecked at and eaten alive by a large black bird. As I ran closer to shoe the bird away, I noticed that it didn't have all of it's feathers. It's head was bare and ugly, the black eyes bulged out of it's head and it's claws were deep in the girls side. Even though the girl was writhing in pain, she wasn't trying to fight off the bird. I shoed it away and it only flew to a nearby fire escape and looked at me.

The girl was badly hurt, and as I knelt over her to assess the damage, she looked at me with big green eyes. Blood dripped over her face and her right eye was stained with it. Her breathing was shallow, puncture wounds were all over her body, but the freshest deepest were in her right side where the claws dug in. Her clothes were stained with dried blood as well as fresh. She looked at me as if to say thank you for a moment's peace, but as I tried to help her, she kept pushing my hands away.

I tore off my sleeves and tried to put pressure on the wounds in her side. I called and cried out for help but it seemed like no one could hear me. I laid my jacket on top of her and propped her feet on a nearby cinder block. All the while, she is pushing my hands away, pushing the blanket aside, kicking away the brick.

In a hushed painful tone, I heard her speak. "Thank you for helping, but I'll be okay. Just leave me here and I'll be fine."

I object passionately. "The bird isn't gone. It's just waiting for me to leave. I need to get you somewhere safe. I need to help you."

"No. It's okay. Just leave me here. You've done enough by giving me this moments rest." Her mouth kept moving, but her voice is inaudible."

I look at the bird, and it just stares at me. I yell at it and try to scare it away, but it doesn't move. Even when I try to throw little bits of concrete at it, it just moves to one side or the other as I miss. I can't leave the girl here. I reach for my phone, but it's not there. I must have left it in the charger this morning. I call out for help again, but no one is around. The girl is still just trying to remove my jacket from her, but she is getting weaker.

So I pick her up, wrapped in my jacket. As tenderly as I can, I take her out into the street. It's empty. I call out again and again to the nearby buildings, asking for help. The hospital is a few blocks down the street, so I head in that direction.

She's protesting, but weak. I hold her close and feel the warm liquid on my chest. I hear a flap of wings and that large black bird is following us.

"Just leave me here." Her voice is weak, but once again audible. "I don't care what happens to me." I'm getting tired. The bird is following and cawing at us. "It's okay. Just put me down. I want it to happen."

I can't. I just can't do it. I have to save her. She loses consciousness. The hospital is just up ahead. I come in through the sliding doors crying for help. A gurney is wheeled over and I set her down. After talking with the receptionist and filling out paperwork, the doctor comes out.

"She's lost a lot of blood and I don't know if she'll make it through the night."

I offer mine, but it's not the right type. I'm told to go home and rest. There's nothing more I can do for her tonight.

So I walk out the door; my face stained in tears, my clothes stained in blood. There is the bird, perched on a lampost right outside the door. It stares at me with it's big scary eyes on it's featherless head.

I haven't won this thing yet.

Pastor's Quentin's Gardening Parables #1

So last week, I went gardening with Pastor Quentin. With my new van, I'm looking for a few extra dollars to help me at the gas pumps. Pastor Quentin hired me to help him with some yard work. The first day, he had me digging holes and planing ground cover. He showed me everything, but God taught me what it meant.

When your digging holes to plant a ministry, you don't want to plant it too close to another. They all need their space and do not need to be competing for space or resources.

The ministries are pretty snug in the pots they are in, but need to come out so they can be planted properly. The pots were just temporary. This requires the planter to shake it out, and if that doesn't work, squeeze the pot a little on one side and rotate and squeeze on the other. Then shake again. Ministries don't always look like they started out and although you might seem to have things organized on the start up, things tend to get shaken around a bit at first.

Once the ministry is out of the pot, the planter must take something sharp (knife, old shears) and score the roots. This means cutting up the roost system. If this doesn't happen, the roots just grow in a tight circle around the plant and don't extend into the soil you put it in. Concentrated roots means it's easy to pull out. Your ministry cannot flourished if closed off in a tight niche. New people have to be welcomed and that might mean cutting the closeness of the group for a time. But it will be better in the longrun.

The ministry must be placed where it's leaves are above ground, and special soil from the bag is mixed with soil from the ground. Ministries take money to start, and someone will have to pour money into the ministry to get it going. It may be that someday in the future, the ministry will survive off the money in the field where it is planted, but it needs help getting there. Also, the ministry can't be undercover. It needs to be seen. An underground ministry has no accountability. It breeds secrets and division and would have to work extra hard to get where it needs to be if it makes it at all.

Once the soil is in place, the planter must push the soil in around it to remove all the air pockets. The ministry leaders must let go of anything in the ministry that is just taking up space. It needs to be efficient in the way it handles money, property, and time. Otherwise, the roots can rot.

Last, the ground is watered. The Bible speaks of being washed in the Word of God. It also refers to the Holy Spirit as living water. The ministry needs both the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to flourish. If there are any air pockets that did not get removed, they will be revealed by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. If they are not immediately corrected, the whole plant is in danger.

I wonder what I'm going to learn next.

Nervous

The night before the audition, I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to throw up. I knelt there with my face over the toilet gripping the seat with my hands. The faint blue water shivers as I push air in and out of my mouth trying to get the precious oxygen down my throat. The sides of my vision have darkened and I can only see what is directly in front of me. My heart is beating in my ears and I can't feel my legs any longer.

...

The stage is dark. I'm early. The director isn't hear yet. The janitor let me in. I walk across the stage on my toes. I jump a couple of times just to hear the sound. It thumps. The echo dies out almost instantly. I reach down and feel the stage with my hands. If it were a blanket, I would grab it and draw it snug around me. I would roll in it until it was my entire world. I would...

I feel a tingle on the back of my neck. I'm being watched. I push myself off the floor and peer into the darkness. In the doorway, there is a silhouette. Whoever it is can see me, but with the lights off, I have no guess as to who it might be. It enters the room and walks towards the stage.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing... I... I..."

The lights jump on. The man was standing by the big breaker just off stage. He is wearing blue jeans, a dress shirt, and a leather jacket.

"What are you doing?"

I rise to my feet with my head down. Sorry. As I walk past him, I hear him mumble something, but I can't make out what it is.

...

I'm backstage, about to go on. The spotlight shines down and makes a circle on the stage. My throat is caught again and I finger my chest looking for my diaphragm. I push it a couple times as if giving myself CPR. My name is called. I step into the light.

...

I'm at home again, kneeling in front of the toilet. My hands are on the seat and my breath stirs the water. The phone is on the floor next to me. I'm waiting for a phone call. My breaths are shallow, but I can feel the soft tickle of the bath mat on my legs.