Total Pageviews

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Hero Quest Chapter 2 part 1

Everyday Life- Tuesday
  John’s watch beeped.  He was going to just stay in bed.  The emotion from Monday had made the night’s sleep restless at best.  “No, John.  You have got to get up and run.”  The blankets hugged him tightly and seemed to encourage him to just stay right there in the bed.  “Why is it that the bed feels so much more comfortable when you know that you need to get up?”  John continued to try to motivate himself.  He then began to walk through his ultimate dream.  Every part of that dream had him walking around, fit and healthy.  In the dream he was 75 but seemed to be ageless.  As John saw himself in the dream he began to get excited.  It was time to get going.  The clock said it was 5:10 am.  Carefully making his way across the dark room toward the bathroom, John continued to try to motivate himself.  “If you are going to run 40 miles on your 40th birthday you are going to need to just get out there and do it.  Besides, too many people know of your crazy goal to back out now.  But of course you need your rest, go back to bed.  You had a hard day yesterday.  You deserve to sleep, just another 30 minutes.”  The conversation continued but John dressed anyway and ran five miles.  Running always woke him up and got him past that morning lack of motivation.   
     After a cool drink of water John sat in his special chair and began to talk with Jesus, “So where were you yesterday?”  Silence.  “I mean I was left high and dry there, under attack and you did nothing.  I trusted You.”  “Did you?”  For a moment John was stunned.  “Of course I trusted in You.”  “Did you?” The soft compassionate but very serious voice again asked.  Now John was silent.  At least he was silent outwardly inside he began fuming.  “You know I need to get out of this job.  This is just too dangerous to my reputation.  What if the police believed her?  I would never be able to get a job again.  I would be disgraced in the papers.  My family would hide their faces when we went to church.  I can almost hear the people whispering, ‘There goes the woman beater.’  No doubt about it I need to quit.”  Again silence filled the house.  John listened to the clock tick.  The cat scratched at the carpet and John nearly dislocated his arm trying to hit the beast with his shoe.  Normally he would have just shooed the cat from his scratching duty but in the moment hitting the cat seemed so much the better.  “Stupid cat!”  The momentary pause in the prayer time reminded John that he was supposed to be praying and was wasting time letting his mind wander aimlessly.  “A hero must focus and I am John Hero so I will focus.”  John read a few pages from His Bible and tried praying a pre written prayer that he had once read from a book, copied and taped down in a journal.  Something seemed lacking in the moment though.  He closed the book and looked over at the empty couch across the room.  “Did you?”  Exasperated, John just stared at the emptiness.  Anger again welled up inside of him.  “I tell you that I learned to trust You 12 years ago and have never looked back.”  Suddenly John felt his face grow hot.  He was blushing.  Though there was no mirror near by him knew that he must be blushing.  That was a lie.  His faith had left him on many occasions.  Multiple times in his life he had resolved to abandon this whole God thing and just get on with a more normal life.  It might have been just coincidence but John felt a cool breeze blow across his face in that moment.  It felt like a soft inviting kiss.  “I love you John.  Why didn’t you trust me?”  The whole vivid, horrible scene replayed itself in John’s head.  He wanted to get away from it all and go eat his oatmeal.  But the scene played on anyway.  Again and again he watched things unfold.  Forwards and backwards the movie in his head showed him every detail in picture perfect clarity.  “Where did I fail?”  John watched it again and again. “Help me see this through Your eyes.”  Suddenly John saw himself sitting at his desk.  There was a woman talking to him.  But he could hear no voices.  Out of the silence he heard the voice.  It was silent for moment and then he heard it again.  “Let it go.  Let her steal the pillows, the blankets the sheets, let her have it all.  I will get you more.”  John wept.  He remembered hearing that.  But he had ignored it figuring that it was the voice of passivity sneaking up on him.  A small tear danced around the creases of John’s face.  “Now I see.”

Monday, April 16, 2012

Real Life at the Crisis Shelter April 9-15, 2012

Weekly highlights

Monday April 9:  A guest came to the staff office for Tylenol and through conversation we learned much of her life story.  While it was heart breaking it also gave an opportunity for prayer and healing.  A mom who has been working very hard toward her housing got a two day heads up from an apartment that she could move in.  We rejoiced.      
Tuesday April 10:    One of our children was out of control and hurting another child.  Staff stepped in to help restrain him.  It took over 30 minutes for the 9 year old to calm down.  Afterwards, he was a well behaved child again.  We encouraged mom to seek mental health help for the child.
Wednesday April 11:   One of our guests was becoming very anxious over the expectations for further stay.  She is also very bitter with her employers and transfers much of that anger toward staff.  We are working on helping her focus  A woman was wandering up and down East Sprague and was very confused.  Staff helped her in our Phase II room for the night since she did not seem stable enough for the regular shelter.  We will reevaluate in the morning.  One of our singles is also feeling very anxious by some poor parenting that she is seeing by one of our moms.  We have been working with this mom but not making much progress.  We checked in a mom who is definitely coming down from something.  Our goal right now is to keep the kids safe.
Thursday April 12:  Set up new entertainment cabinet in staff office.  We are looking much better and more professional.  The staff had a conversation with one of our guests who has been keeping their puppy (not service or therapy animal) in their car.  She told us that the dog will be moving to a kennel by tomorrow.  The child who was aggressive toward another child on Tuesday was walking around threatening others.  Mom didn’t seem to think it was a big deal despite many conversations and the issues on Tuesday.  She has been asked to leave Friday morning.      
Friday April 13:  Reports of a mom being abusive toward her child.  Several guests and staff have contacted Child Protective Services in the hopes of helping this child.            
Weekend:  Mom that had checked in high continued to use throughout the week and was asked to leave.  We also started working with a mom with a very sweet disabled son (25 years old)  since we are currently pretty stuffed at the shelter we are using our Phase II room for these two for now.  Otherwise we would need to double up and that would be uncomfortable for many of our moms (Put into a room with a 25 year old man.)    

General comments:   Anxiety seems to be higher among the ladies checking into the Crisis Shelter right now and that creates a stressful environment for others.  Interestingly most of those anxious people sleep a lot during the day so the day is very quiet!          
    
Current Crisis Shelter Purpose Statement:

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Progress on my goals April 8-14, 2012

 TargetActually Done
Leadership BibleBe on page 525 (5 pg a day)On page 525
Faith in Action BibleBe on page 630 (6 pg a day)On page 630
Message Read Through7 Days youversion programOn track
Running25 miles a week20
Running 2012 Overall1212 miles by 12/12/12238.5
Crunches1000 a week1000
Floss7 times a week7 Days
Face Cleaning/Lotions7 times a week7
I Like Book7 times a week7
Modules2 a week3
Social Events3 a quarter0
Guy Time10 X a quarter0
Self Exam3 a week2
Book Reading1 Book a week1
Evening Prayer Meeting26 times a year8
Paid Speaking3 a quarter0
Date with Cara3 a quarter0
Date with Rachel1 a quarter0


The book that I finished this week was on servant leadership.  It was very challenging, not to read but to live out in the real world.  Among the most profound concepts that I believe will shape me in the future is the revelation given by Jesus in the feeding of the 5000 or the 4000.  There was a problem.  In this case the people were hungry.  Andrew worked at the problem and realized that he could not manufacture a response.  How true!  We try to do this with problems that we face all of the time and it is often impossible.  However, he goes to Jesus who is capable of manufacture.  Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes and then shows Andrew and the rest our real part in God's plan.  We are to be distributors of God's blessings.  When we allow God to manufacture and we choose to distribute we will see miracles take place.
I fall a bit short on my running but feel good about my overall progress.  The next two weeks will be on finishing the book Hero Quest and getting it ready to send to the publisher before the month is out.