The Hard Stuff

Baseball (that's my crutch anyway) kept us gone all summer long...well, since March actually, and since the sports-ban, I had the perfect opportunity to get everyone up and out this morning and right on over to TSC...it was breathtaking just to walk in the door and be home again. The famaliar marathon of praise music came to and end and the man took to the podium. I love to hear Tom McCoy preach; he is so honest and so real and...when he "gets to preachin", he might just end up right in your face with something. Of course, I'm fearing the worst of this because I don't need anyone's help knowing that we haven't been where we needed to be and the guilt each morning as we headed out to the ballfield has been enough that even Goliath himself with all his "cubits" and "shekels" would have stuggled to carry it. The screen pops up; "Courage" is the topic for the day...and I can breathe a little easier; I can probably avoid direct persecution besides, how many times have we heard the story of David and Goliath? I mean my five year old can repeat it with all the important details. That's the thing about Tom, he's the slippery, sneaky type and the Lord will use him to get you ...especially when you're not expecting it. And so He does and I know it's coming and there's not one dang thing I can do about it...no where to run (like you can out run the Holy Spirit) nowhere to hide...it all boils down to "the hard stuff"...the "hard stuff" in my life begins at home and follows me to the office where it gets even harder. The hard stuff is dragging my butt up out of bed to take my boys to church while Chris is working and being there in that pew when Tom calls for the spouse and families to pray together and I sit there without mine, the hard stuff is battling the demons that my fourteen-year-old faces between two fathers-the one who should love him and the one who does, the negativity that comes home from a shift on the streets dealing with other people's problems and the stress that I bring home from an office that is struggling to find it's balance. The harder stuff is standing up to all of that and saying you know what, it just isn't going to be this way any longer. But I get it, I know when I've been told and directed, I know when it's time to act. So, if you happen to find a smooth round stone flying towards you, it is, as my favorite pastor might say, "in the name of the Lord" and it's just me dealing with "the hard stuff".