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he opposite way my friend sees the chain which goes down into a pit not as a chain but as a thread that he can easily break or untie and that he controls the tension he doesn t yet see that chain in full clarity he still believes from the moment the desire to get wasted comes into his mind which will destroy his walk to sobriety and will break every heart around him he still only sees that chain as sewing thread and he goes back to the familiar chain until he wakes again in agony more miserable than before because he has briefly tasted the hope of freedom knowing more about myself and the many cliffs i threw myself off and the cliffs that are all around me still i only feel compassion for my friend to see what is a chain or a rope or a thread in our lives takes a renewal of our mind it takes discernment it takes wisdom it takes honesty it takes humility it takes community it takes tremendous discipline it takes truth none of these elements come easy and so it takes great courage courage fuels perseverance perseverance fuels hope woven throughout those new and good substances that are more precious than gold is faith trust and hope in god who will meet us in our weaknesses and make us strong a god of compassion and total understanding that looses the bonds and sets us free and sets us free not to go back to our chains but to walk in the place of victory a victory that expands inward in our lives and outward to those we love discernment gives us the ability to see what is a chain of doom in our lives that we must avoid at all costs or what is merely a thread that is telling us that it is an unbreakable chain that discernment is outside of us in a fountain of unlimited power a higher power oh but i don t struggle with addictions one might say you still need a higher power last sunday afternoon we came home from church and a long mother s day celebration and went out at night to something completely different an awards party sponsored by a men s magazine beauty glamour celebrity and awards and awkward my wife and i missed our son and our arms dangled next to us reaching for his hands we don t get out much together we dropped our son off for the evening with his aunt and uncle that he adores my wife waited in the car as i carried him up in my arms to their apartment he had on clean space man pajamas and his blue robe wrapped up against the spring air his soft blonde hair smelled like baby shampoo a ten pound bag of his toys and books slammed against the side of my thigh with his arms tightly around my neck he waved good night to his mother as we walked away from the car he asked me when we were coming home we will be home as soon as possible son as the words left my mouth i was already searching for a prayer i left him in the great love and care of his newly pregnant auntie and hugged him goodbye feeling the tug in my heart to hold on longer the elevator ride down was very sober i prayed we would get back home safe and alive from the portuguese highway lunacy when we were both in the car we just looked at each other for a moment we already felt bad leaving him i pulled the car out carefully and started for the intersection from behind me a black sedan almost ended our lives right in front of his aunt and uncle s apartment the car was cruising at over a hundred miles per hour on a city street he didn t see me or didn t expect me but he almost killed a little boys parents the driver missed us by the width of a layer of paint he continued on through the intersection running two sets of red lights and up a hill where he almost hit another car the driver of that car believes because he has a fast car an expensive car he has power he has power to do what he will he has no power he is merely but carefully kept by the grace and mercy of god just like the parents in a car he doesn t know parents that pray every time they get into a car for god s protection we all need that power daily hourly our lives are so fragile and challenged but it takes discernment to fully understand that or to appreciate it or to admit it tr posted by tracy richardson at 10 37 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday april 1 2014 treasures mined in darkness our son always goes to bed with a book or two or four my wife and i take turns reading to him in english and portuguese and then we slowly shut off lights pray together and finally the lights go out and i tell him another story in the dark it s called a dark story these are funny stories often about my family and my childhood or how his mom and i met or the things he did when he was growing up or crazy tales with no endings my alpha wife falls asleep completely spent by her day but he and i will continue on and talk about our day or laugh hysterically about our day until she shushes us both to quiet down in the darkness he always asks me a flurry of questions trying to hold off on sleep and they are usually questions about god his mind tries to comprehend complex issues regarding eternity heaven creation angels or possibly how tall he will be when he s five when he s satisfied with my answers or my struggles to answer he will hold my hand until he drifts off into little snores it s a powerful part of my day all of what i wanted to accomplish and did or didn t succeed at throughout my day all my plans for the next day completely end as i hear the sound of his chest rise and fall next to me alone in my thoughts next to him i often think about all the love and pain that brought me through to this time in my life before he fell asleep last night he whispered daddy i will love you forever he fell asleep before i could reply i didn t have words anyway the gratitude and wonder of that sentence and what will be in our futures overwhelmed me into silence my mind went back to struggles and pain well over a decade ago but now to have all of this beside me and so much hope for more ahead of me i had no words the gratitude actually hurt all through me there was a burning thanks that i could find no words for a place in me that i could not reach with language i could only hold the hand of our small son in the dark thinking about what he had just said i was profoundly grateful because at one time in my life i never imagined that i would ever hear that sentence directed towards me his words were a very significant sentence in my life one that leveled me with honesty and challenged me as his father as i held his small hand i thought about the great age gap between us and i wondered quietly about our days together of all that is ahead for him and how much of it i will be there for i thought about how short life is and how impossible it is that such an insignificant length of time can satisfy our lives i wondered about eternity grasping for comfort praying that god would give us that timeless place together as i remembered where i was in the history of my life i was without words to express the thank you s for where i am now and the help me s for all that is ahead of me i fell asleep in the darkness weighing my responsibilities and aching for the grace and power it s a prayer that i am certain fills the hearts and minds of every parent on earth we all must believe in a future that is so different than what we can possibly imagine today and move towards it we may only have a glimpse of it in our battle but we have to move everything out of the way that would prevent us and keep persevering i am thankful for my son s words last night whispered in the darkness of his room far beyond the darkness that was my life for years it gave me hope for today there are moments like i had with my son that we cannot see in our afflictions now but they are there precious and in a future we cannot see in our current struggles they are the valuable pieces of our individual lives that bring us hope with wisdom and encouragement that we can share with another the substance of these things cannot ever be bought but are treasures mined in darkness tr webrep currentvote norating noweight posted by tracy richardson at 1 34 pm 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest sunday march 23 2014 the invitations are being sent out you have an invitation you might have received it but never opened it you may stumble upon it every day in your day to day but still have never opened it the envelope that holds it is getting larger and brighter now so it doesn t get lost in the darkness recently my wife was asked to make a quick video clip for an ngo to be shown at it s annual event the event was held at a small church where some of the members are connected to this ngo i can t name the ngo in this blog because to do so would put it at risk because it operates in a muslim nation the ngo is not a christian based missionary outreach but it is mostly supported by christian workers the ngo isn t a trojan horse to get christianity into the country where they operate it just happened that the workers are mostly christian they are not in this muslim country to start a church in a clandestine way but to help people who are living in desperate situations the christians are going into this muslim nation only to make a difference in people s lives for the short time they can be with them my wife and i sat with the two pastors that head up the ngo and they told us of some of the pain and hardship they encounter when they go into the city they work in i have known these pastors and many of the people that go with them for years now but i had no idea what they do and what they and their fellow workers confront when they do their work when they told us i shook my head in unbelief i wanted to cry i almost vomited these quiet pastors and the very ordinary people that go with them are going into a place of such poverty and squalor that would be enough of a challenge but the neglect and sexual abuse of the young children they attend to is beyond comprehension the ngo is made up of dentists gynecologists physiotherapists and ordinary people doing extremely unordinary things in a place so horrific it defies the mind to grasp it a dentist friend told me that when he returns from his trip there he holds his young daughter and weeps they are not going into this city with a mayor the military police or any local officials to protect them or a news crew to highlight what they are doing they are going in by faith alone the officials of the city have written this part of this city off and muslims will not go in there because they believe it is the place where the devil actually lives there are tourists who go in there though they go in to prey on little children that are abandoned to alleys with no safe place to go at night and no authorities to arrest their predators or they avoid the street hassles and just pay the parents to have sex with their children but it gets worse in this town 60 of people are handicapped why because of incest there is no outreach to help these children or others until this ngo shows up twice a year it took days for me to process out what they told me at the table just like my friend the stories made me want to run home and hold our son if you think the church is a building it isn t it is a community of people people coming together under a roof or in a field or a basement or a landfill all over the earth to study the bible learn and grow together and then apply what they are learning sometimes that application happens in very terrifying and difficult situations the christians working in this ngo are applying their faith where there is nothing but thick darkness under bright african sunshine i am humbled to my core for what they are doing there relying only on their faith alone faith alone i could go on about the brutality and degradation the suffering of christians in north korea being caged up worse than animals and tortured for simply owning a bible and their desire to share the gospel i could write about the suffering of christians persecuted for their faith in egypt syria or in nigeria but what i want to write about today is my personal pain of seeing twenty four empty chairs at a banquet table i went with my wife to the event and agreed to take a few photos for the ngo s website it was a miserable evening with rain coming down in torrents traffic was backed up so bad that what should have taken us thirty minutes to arrive turned into a two hour traffic nightmare when we finally arrived i had time to walk around and take photos of tables and decorations because the event was running late next to the main room there were two long banquet tables and twenty four chairs carefully decorated for people invited for an evening out it was a free event with excellent portuguese food the candlelit tables and the decorated seats that surrounded them was a statement of faith by the people who set those tables with faith that they would attend the pouring rain didn t diminish the care of the table settings or change the expectations that some if not all would arrive eventually none of those invited came in at the end of the evening the clean tables were stripped down and put away they all missed a beautiful evening with great food for a great cause they missed something much greater than that however infinitely greater i do not know the reason each seat remained empty but i have some thoughts and not one of them has anything to do with the rainy evening or the traffic i looked at the table in sadness because these lives do not fully understand the party they declined to attend i believe many still want the other party desires and dreams in a huge ballroom of confusion and darkness makes it difficult if not impossible to get out of that other party the love of so many things keeps most doors blocked entertainment and consumption block some doors relationships block others a sense of rejection or shame block others pain hatred and violence blocks others money and excess blocks others biblical ignorance and unbelief blocks others personal spirituality nail some doors shut other doors are blocked by crowds of people that seem to be having such a great time living it up it seems this must be the place crowds gather around mostly at those doors because it would seem so life must be a party right there is an eternal divide between these two parties and the divisions and distinctions played out in our temporal world are getting more apparent to me every day i was a bartender for many years and i never needed a clock to know how much time was left before the bar closed i could tell by the last rush when everyone wanted to get another round of drinks before the bar closed the volume of the crowd would go up the clock was winding down to closing time but everyone wanted to keep the party going they didn t want to leave they didn t want the illusive dream of a good night out they slaved for all week to pass away without a fight i sensed that same feeling in the traffic as we drove to the eve...