Chubby

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Along about April while training for my anticipated second marathon in four months I was looking pretty slim. Slimmer than normal. Slim even for me.

Running 30 miles per week. Doing core work on the big purple ball that is too hard to hide from the kids. Making smarter choices in eating. Expecting six-pack abs to appear soon. Hearkening back to high school days & being as ripped - if you can call it that for a skinny boy - as I'd ever been. Thinking something like, "I won't be another bulgy belly daddy at the pool this summer," in my average-American-unrealistically-imaged vanity.

Then came six days of a stubborn kidney stone & a few other set backs that have had me running much less in the past two months. Still eating the same however. The pounds became sticky. The bulgy belly emerged again.

(Reader time out: Before you bemoan the skinny boy with the little bulgy belly issue, please hang on. We are moving toward a point. Don't get lost in body-type comparisons along the way. Okay? If you are past that, then you can resume reading.)

So, we're at the pool yesterday. Seth in swim lessons. JM & I sitting on the side of the kiddy pool. ME splashing around in front of us. I bend over toward her. She recoils scaredy faced. Transfixed by bulgy belly.

"Daddy, you've got a chubby tummy," floats out with a giggle. Popping my pride with a BANG.

I made some fatherly, "It's not nice to say things like that about other people's bodies even if it is true, Mary Elizabeth," comment. You have to add the "even if it is true" with ME due to the five-year old honesty she'd just exhibited.

Yet, while instructing her I was praying too. "So much for my pride. Thank you, Jesus, for having my innocent little sweetheart bring me back to your reality."

How about you, friend?

Not your body-type. 

Your pride.

Is it skinny?

Or chubby?

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 1 Peter 5:5

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:10

 

I John Mark

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That title is not a typo. And don't worry: The pastor hasn't gone heretical preparing to cite previously unknown scripture from "First" John Mark.

That, readers, is how my two-year old, toddler son refers to himself.
Sweet kid. Rough as a corncob.  Even when he loves you. Big for his age. Genes from Mama's side. Blue-eyed, dimple-cheeked bandit. He'll steal your heart. Tough on the outside, but soft on the inside.  So his perceptive sister says. Got big vocabulary. Yet still learning. How to be himself. Not easy being number three. How to use his words. Can't always communicate what he'd like. Yet with unwavering certainty he asserts himself.
If you were to say to John Mark, "You are so cute!" He'd respond, "No, I John Mark."
If I were to ask him, quoting Mary Elizabeth, "Are you tough on the outside & soft on the inside?" He'd respond, "No, I John Mark."
Most any question. Most any statement.
He responds, "I John Mark."
He doesn't understand that we're just describing a characteristic of who he is. All he knows is that he is. He is "John Mark" period.
If this is still around. If he cares to read it. For the record. Let me state: Yes, my son, you are the one, the only John Mark Householder. Unique. Absolute treasure of your father. Given by God. Made in His image. Filled with His Spirit.
If only when life asked of me, I could respond every time with such unwavering certainty. I am Paul Aaron. Unique. Absolute treasure of my Father. Given to the world by Him. Made in His image. Filled with His Spirit.

 

Spacewalk

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U.S. Astronauts began a risky spacewalk about two hours ago to repair & upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.  Among their maneuvers will be a camera upgrade. The old one allowed us never before seen views of space & will end up in the Smithsonian. The new one will look deeper into space & is the size of a baby grand piano.

The little boy inside me spoke up, "Wow! Wouldn't that be a cool thing to be doing this morning! Walking in space. Floating around. Seeing Earth like a glowing ball. Awesome!"
The grown man inside spoke next, "That took years of dedication & training to get there.  And even though those guys are weightless they are in those heavy, cumbersome suits.  And for each one guy out there working he actions are directed by countless many."  You've seen the space movies, right?  How many people watch monitors & give instructions & updates down here while a handful are up there?
The Christ-follower inside had the last word, "I can be weighed down & encumbered by the sins of this world, yet freed to weightless dependence as I confess to my Savior.  I am part of the Body of Christ, the church, & although we are many we seek our direction from only One, our Lord Jesus."  What needs confession today?  How is he directing me to follow?
Following Jesus.  A lifewalk.

 

Jumping Curbs

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I had a Huffy ProThunder 4.  The coolest BMX bike in the world of 1980.  Shiny black & yellow bumblebee meets BMX, Baby! 
I loved to ride hard.  I loved to jump.  The stuff a BMX bike was made to do.  The stuff boys frighten their Mamas doing.  Jumping curbs was the thing to do on our neighborhood streets.  The transition of curbing into each driveway made a pair of impromptu ramps--one in each direction--in front of every home.
Jumping curbs.  Again & again.  Jumping curbs.
My heart jumped too.
Fun stuff.
Well, fun when you're a ten-year old boy.
Years later as a newlywed my wife had a white Cutlass Supreme. Nothing too expensive, but the wheels & the trimwork gave it a tough, futuristic look.  From the front it had the look of an old-school Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet.  She never liked it when I said that & she still won't.
Finishing up a late workday at my desk in Fort Worth & knowing Melanie would be leaving work in Dallas near 40 miles away, I got a cellular phone call.
Noise.  Sirens.  My heart quickened.  Then a firm voice.
I'm an EMT with Dallas Fire Department.  I've got your wife with me in the ambulance. 

My heart stopped.
She's been in an accident.  We're taking her to Baylor Hospital.  I'm not supposed to, but she wanted me to call you.
I must confess that I broke the speed limit as I drove the very road my wife had wrecked on.  I was only slowed by the onlookers gawking at what was left of her tough turned upside down white Cutlass Supreme.
She'd been run off the interstate.  Jumped a curb.  Flipped her car. At highway speed.
Not fun.
Not fun no matter your age.
The ambulance ride & ER visit ended up being only precautionary.  She came out sore, but with just one scratch & one good bump by God's grace.

Matthew 5:17 records Jesus saying, "Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

John R.W. (you know he's English because he has two middle initials & the way he spells "curb") Stott writes of that same biblical Law, "It is the kerbstone along the road of love."
I can do the math on that equation: Law = Curb + Road = Life of Christ-follower.
God's Law shows us our boundaries as we seek to follow Christ Jesus living by grace.
As a kid jumping curbs was fun.  A thrill.
As an adult jumping curbs is costly.  Possibly deadly.
As a kid jumping curbs was habitual.  It was daily.  
As an adult I try to keep it between the lines.  Trouble free.
But I must ask myself... When it comes to some of God's Laws for me--His commands, His direction, His will--am I still jumping the curbs?  How does that reflect the growing maturity I should be attaining as a Follower of Jesus?
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man I put childish ways behind me."
Still jumping curbs?