Author Archives: Dave

It seems more than a bit surreal that I will be married by the end of tomorrow. I’m almost breathless about the whole thing, like I can barely look back and remember how it all happened. Sometimes I wake up and think, how in the world did I get here? What am I thinking? When did it all change?

Well, it hasn’t all changed…it’s all been completed, more than anything else. So, this morning our parents are meeting for the first time over breakfast. And then rehearsals, and….wow, this is gonna be a busy day!

And tomorrow, shortly before noon, my life will be forever wrapped up into another. I once would have said that two individual lives end and form a new one, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think we just wrap the two individual lives up into each other, ask for God’s blessing, and do the best we can. Some friends of mine have a plaque on their wall…it says, “Pray Hard, Work Hard, Trust God.” Pretty simple formula, and I think that will work for the future, as everything changes.

One of my groomsmen keeps leaving me voicemails with a countdown…

So, I probably won’t post anything for a week or so…I’m sure I’ll have more than enough to keep me busy!!

Much love to everyone!

Of all the things I’ve published or otherwise had in print, I’ve never published a poem until now! I’m excited to announce my first!!

If you’re interested, click over to Infuze Magazine (it’s on my sidebar). Go to the “Creative Works” tab on the left, and scroll down to poetry.

Let me know what you think!

I have this problem…when I get stressed, my mouth runs.

It’s a completely innocent motivation, don’t get me wrong. When my stress-o-meter reaches the red, I just need to verbalize what’s on my mind in order to release the pressure. Then I’m fine. I tend to exaggerate when I’m verbalizing, and I tend to do it in a grumbling manner.

Translation: I complain for ten minutes, and then I’m ready to deal with life again.

Unfortunately, my fiance doesn’t deal with that. When I “discuss” all of the things that makes me so upset, she goes into this thought process where she wants to fix all of it. When it’s something that she’s already been dealing with, she feels like I’m calling her a failure. You can imagine the cycle this leads to: I verbalize my feelings to let off the pressure, and then I’m happy and ready to move on, only to find out that she’s depressed, irritated, and suddenly has issues that she needs to address. Which are the same issues that I just vented. Which are now being heaped back on me, which means I will need to verbalize them again….

….sheesh….

I’d love to say that women are complicated here, but I think it’s different than that. I think that men and women function very simply and effectively on their own. It’s when we try to entertwine two lives and live them as one that things get really complicated. Of course that’s one of our primary goals…to find someone to entertwine our lives with, right? God sort of hard-wired most of us that way.

So He wants the complicated stuff to replace the effective simplicity in human dynamics.

God definitely has a sense of humor.

Moving just sucks!!

My fiance and I are in the process of moving into our new place…well, actually we basically have moved in, ’cause all of her stuff is here but not her…and my entire life is like in boxes right now. Moving is always worth it in the end, but the process of it is the most horrible thing in the world.

I have great groomsmen though, ’cause they have totally been helping with my move.

Next weekend my life as a single man will end, and my next life united with this wonderful woman will begin. Some people ask me if I have doubts, and I’m like, of course! This is the rest of my life I’m talking about…I think you’re crazy if you don’t doubt it. Doubt, after all, is where faith begins, right? We don’t truly have faith and believe in something until we doubt and question it, because that doubting and questioning leads us to really discover the evidence. Platonic as that notion is, it’s true.

Of course, I think sometimes you have to believe before you can see, as well.

So yes, I do doubt our marriage. And that doubt leads me to a faith that it will work. The doubt is a periodic re-examination moreso than an intense questioning. And I think that’s fine, because it just leads to make us more certain.

Doubt gets a bad reputation.

It’s amazing how flippantly we take things.

I’ve been thinking about this concept of the spoiled child at Christmastime who is so busy playing with his new toys that he never thanks those who gave them to him. The people who spent time picking out just the right toy, consulting with parents, wrapping it carefully, including a card. This spoiled boy in my mind doesn’t care…he just wants to play with it until there’s something newer and more exciting, and then he forgets about it all together.

There’s an adult in my mind, too. This adult gives one of their friends a gift, and the friend never says “thank you.” The friend never mentions it, in fact…they just keep taking the gift for granted and move on with life, move on with the friendship, and wait for the next gift.

The word narcissistic comes to mind. We wouldn’t be so pompous as to do that, would we? We’re so much more thoughtful and considerate than that, aren’t we?

Think about what God has done for you lately. Just in the last day. Just in the last 12 hours. Think about it. Get past the clutter in your head, move beyond the junk. Look around the bomb that was just dropped in your life. Peer through the fog. There are gifts there. What is it for you? LIfe? Family? A new child? Finishing school? Your car repair wasn’t as expensive as you though it would be? What is it for you?

What if it’s not a material thing at all? What if it’s us having the chance to find something more out there than just this senseless chaos that we like to call life? What if it’s a real meaning, a true purpose? What if it’s something on the other side, something undeniably real and yet unseen?

How thankful should we be for that?

How anxiously should we grab onto it?

“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift” (II Corinthians 9:15, HCSB).