No, I Love YOU To The Sun!

So, although I'm not exactly sure how it started one of my favorite things my daughter and I do at various times during the day and specifically during bedtime preparation is a silly "I love you" game.  If I were to script it here's what it would look like:

Daddy: "I love you"

Caitlyn: "I love YOU"

Daddy: "I love you too"

Caitlyn: "I love you to the moon"

Daddy: "I love you forever"

Caitlyn: "I love you to always"

Caitlyn: "I love you to the sun"

Daddy: "no, I love YOU to the sun"

Caitlyn: "no, I love YOU to the sun"  (and we go on five or six times like this most of the time)

So now you are thinking....why in the world are you telling me this?

Two reasons.  Number one, I just love that we do that all the time (as any daddy would).  But secondly, for some reason tonight after she crawled off my lap to go to bed it hit me.  Have you ever stopped to notice how much of our relationship with Christ is demonstrated in how we are with our kids?  I've always heard it, and have had small moments here and there of semi consciousness to that fact.  But, tonight was different.  Tonight I wondered what my life would look like if I treated my relationship with Christ in reverse of the way that I live out my life as a father (or in this case a daddy).  If through the way I live and pray and worship I truly saw myself crawling up in the lap of my daddy and having a "no, I love YOU to the sun" conversation with him.  I'm not normally this kind of guy.  I don't get incredibly mushy about seeing an almighty God as my daddy, which is a fault of mine.  Although it is correct to see God the way I do most of the time as high and lifted up, Savior, Redeemer, Almighty, Holy....etc.  I am at a place that I am realizing that I limit God when I think that way.  Hard to believe right?  Limit God by calling him almighty?  No.  I mean limit him by not allowing him to daddy me and tell me he loves me when I should.  

It's my perception that women are generally better at this than men.  What I mean is that men are raised to be....well....manly.  I'm not saying we don't need a daddy, I'm just saying that women tend to long for and need the "I love you" and tender side of daddy more than men do.  Where men see strong, all knowing, cool, coach, fishing buddy dad.....women see loving, tender, big lap to sit in, protector daddy.  

So what am I trying to say.  Nothing really, other than realizing that I have a shortcoming I need to work on as a man and understand that God wants this kind of a relationship with me as well to round out the rest of our relationship, and I need to be willing to allow him to be that way and be willing to love him back that way.  Mushy?  Absolutely not!  The truth is that God IS this way whether I accept it or not.  I don't want to miss out on any avenue of my relationship with him, so I want to fix it.  So, remind yourself this week at some point to have a "No, I love YOU to the sun" talk with the creator of the universe.....because he wants to have that talk with you.

Thanks for listening.....

 

No Sleep For The Weary

It's official....I suck at sleeping.  As proof here I am typing away on a blog at six in the morning after being up since four.  Now that I've knocked out about a pot of coffee myself before my wife even wakes up I'm a little antsy so forgive the ADD that will probably be included in the paragraphs provided below.  

I know what you are thinking:   dude, just take a sleep aid and go to bed!  Been there tried that.  In fact, I think I've never been as miserable in all my life as I was a morning a couple of days ago after i decided I needed to sleep and took a pill to help a bit.  Chrissy left for work that morning after I had still not slept much and Caitlyn sat in the bed with me watching playhouse disney while I tried, at no avail, to dose a little more before she started jumping on my stomach repeatedly to get me out of the bed.  I decided to try and take a shower to gradually start to wake myself from the drug induced haze. After 30 minutes of letting water run over me (hoping it would make the semi truck stop doing the same) I gave up and just went on with the day thinking, "what the heck, I'll just sleep better tonight".  WHATEVER!  Just for the record.  They don't tell you on the box of sleeping pills that if you don't sleep when you have taken one of these that you will feel like it's not just one night of z's you missed out on but about 4 years!  That should be an included disclaimer if you ask me.

I go through these spells from time to time.   Maybe it's related to the stuff going on in my life.  Don't know why I would be stressed other than, let's see:  Starting a church, putting together new band for said church, wife is pregnant, there are crawling things in my attic, learning music for a different church every weekend (i'll be glad when that's over on June 15th!!!!!), don't have health insurance for maternity.  Really other than that there's not much going on in my life to keep me up at night.  Albeit the crawly things in the attic are about to make me go nuts and start shooting holes in the roof until something falls out of it.  Seriously!  You want to know what makes a serial killer snap.....don't let him sleep for a few days and put raccoons in his attic!  BANG!  Like pulling the trigger on a handgun without a safety.  

Ok enough, I don't want you guys to think I'm losing it or anything cause I'm really not.  Just venting over the net a little.  Thanks for listening.  Thank you Houston good night!!!  (or morning)

ok,ok,ok!

I'll start blogging.  Since it's this epidemic that is taking over the world, I guess I'll join the crowd.  And yes, I would jump off a cliff if all my friends did it.....because I hate to be alone!  

P.S.  There will be no shortage of sarcasm in these blogs for the most part I figure.

Later