Unknown Gifts

Unlike my last post, this blog has a hint of sarcasm and humor.  Reader beware. Also, because you REFUSED to comment on my last two posts, you are required to comment on this one.  By reading the following post, you agree to the Terms & Conditions of Brent, which is basically to comment on this post.  Or to comment on one of the last two posts.  You get the point.

Black Friday will soon be upon us.  And I'm not talking about Rebecca Black's Friday, either. And in case you forgot, watch the video so you can get the song stuck in your head for the next week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0. But, getting back on track...

It is my philosophy that we should celebrate one holiday at a time.  Now, before you Jesus juke me, hear me out (because I know that we should celebrate the birth of Christ all year round, but I'm specifically talking about the Christmas holiday).  I basically took this philosophy from Nordstrom, but I've always believed it.  Those of you who are going to Walmart at 10pm on Thanksgiving should be slapped for two reasons: Reason #1 - You should be at home with your family playing Monopoly, Risk, or electronic Clue; Reason #2 - You have defiled the traditions of our forefathers. The first reason is good enough.  As if Christmas shopping isn't hard enough, you've got to challenge us to start 2 hours early?

Anyway, enough with my rant about black Friday.  It's not the reason I'm posting.  But I DO want to talk about Christmas shopping and how difficult it can be.

I personally maintain the principle that I should make it easy on you to do birthday and Christmas shopping for me.  I will tell you what I would like for a gift if you ask me. I am not one of those people that say, "I don't know," or "be creative," when asked what they want for Christmas.  I find it frustrating and annoying.  I think it's mostly because I don't want to walk around Walmart for three hours trying to figure out what to get someone.  At least give me an idea.  And honestly, I don't care if I don't get a single thing on my list, so don't worry.

If I ask you what you want for Christmas and you give one of the above mentioned reasons, then know this:  I am getting you a giftcard.  Why? because I'm not going to spend hours trying to find a gift for you only to find out you'll never use it or that you're going to return it for something else.  I will save us both the trouble.  "But it's the thought that counts."  Yes.  And I am thinking about both of us and about the trouble we can avoid. On a side note, if you want to get me something for Christmas, a giftcard to Lucille's would be about all that I could ask for.

The one person that I won't get a giftcard for is my wife.  For some reason, I am attracted to the idea of being incredibly creative in giving her a gift.  She has never really told me what she wants for Christmas so I'm always daunted with the task of getting something good.  I admit, I've had some hits and misses.  But this year I think I've got a hit.  I won't know until December 25th, but I'll give you the results.

In all reality, I'm attracted to being successful in my creativeness.  It gives me a thrill to realize that I knew what she would enjoy without her telling me. Sometimes the gifts she enjoys are the ones she probably never even thought of wanting.  Those are the best. All of this got me thinking about something:

You know those times when you either don't know what you want in life, or you just refuse to tell God what it is? And somehow He always manages to give you what you need?  I don't know about you, but I've been there several times.  And sometimes you get the things in life that you never even knew you needed or wanted.  It got me to thinking that I'm glad that God didn't just give me a giftcard and say, "Just go get what you want."  We all know that sometimes what we want is not good at all.

On the flip side of the coin, how many times do we fail to receive blessings from God because we don't make our needs known?  Because we are proud. Too proud to even tell God what is that we want.

 What are some of the things that God has blessed you with that you didn't know you needed, but you were glad you got anyway?

Quiet Remedies - Part 2

Read Part 1 if you haven't already: http://brentingroum.blogspot.com/2011/11/quiet-remedies-part-1.html

In the words that follow I promise to divulge the reason why I cried yesterday.  But before that, I need to finish telling you about what happened between my father and I.

So there I was. Wait.  What a dumb way to start a post.  Let me try again...

I sat on the couch in my parent's living room about to tell them what I had done and about the mess that I had gotten myself into.  I wasn't there because I was in the neighborhood and just decided to stop by.  I had basically made an appointment with my parents because "I need to talk to you about something."  That, in and of itself, applies a huge pressure to any situation.  I don't know if my parents knew what was coming next or not.

Now, I'm not going to go into detail about what I had done because I'm not going to scratch at an old wound.  I'm sure there will be a day where I feel like talking to you about it but not today.  At any rate...

After I had told my parents about what had happened, I was shocked at my dad's response.  There was no hint of surprise on his face.  He was not enraged, as I thought he might be.  In the calmest form I have ever seen my dad, his exact words were as follows: "Okay. Just know that I love you."  Whoa! Wait. What happened to my father.  This was a guy who was accused of throwing scripture portion books at Bible Quiz matches. And I promise he tried to run me over in the car once (the jury was still out on this one up until the day my dad passed, and will remain unanswered until I actually make it to heaven and ask the Lord Himself about it).

I had seen a part of my dad that I can't consciously remember seeing before this point.  He was kind.  He was gentle.  And most of all, he didn't have a whole lot to say.

This is where it started.  It was my realization that I could just go and hang out with my dad. There was nothing like just going over to his house and sitting with him.  It always seemed like he knew my troubles. He knew about the stresses that I was going through and in most cases, I could tell that he had been there before.  The one thing that I loved about my dad is that he never tried to tell me how to fix my issues.  He just let me sit there and think about things.  If I had a question, he was there to answer it.  So on most days, after we had lunch, I would just go over to the house and sit on the couch. We had already had our conversation about all the things we liked to talk about. So that's what we did.  We just sat there.  It was so refreshing.

Now, getting back to yesterday:

I've been pretty stressed out about a few things, mostly having to do with Christmas, and I was looking for that place.  When I had remembered it, I started balling like a baby. I had to text a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) just to tell him that I missed my dad.  I really wasn't sure what was going on.

After a few minutes, I came back to Earth.  I started thinking about God. I feel really bad about this but it wasn't until yesterday that I realized my dad had become an amazing example of my heavenly Father.  They both knew what was going on with me.  They both understood my hurts.  And here's the most amazing part of it all:  Through the silence of my Earthy father, he had taught me to listen to the sound of my heavenly Father. Wow.

Although I miss my dad, and I miss going over to hang out with him, I have figured out that I need to find that new place of peace.  Just a place where I can simply take comfort in the silence.  The Lord is there sitting with me, and He's ready to answer my questions.  He even gives me some advice.  I can thank Mark Ingroum for teaching this to me, even though its been about a year and a half since I've seen him.  I would say that I hope to be at least half the father that he was to me, but no: I want a double portion of that blessing.  Just as Elisha said to Elijah, "Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit."

Where is that place that you like to go to hear from God?  What have your parents taught you about God with just their actions?

Until next time...

Quiet Remedies - Part 1

Just a warning: this is a long blog.  I'm not going to make it a habit to blog this long, but I need to explain why I'm doing this.

I don't blog.  At least I never have before.  I've always thought that there was enough blogs in the world and that no one needs to read another one, especially one written by myself. "So," you ask, "why now?"  That's a great question.  Allow me to explain:

I have been on a Facebook fast since September, and plan on continuing on with it through December.  It's been rather liberating to be honest with you.  I think everyone should try it.  I've missed out on all the drama that people post on Facebook, and better yet, I've been given a lot more free time.  This is the main reason I've decided to write.  There are others, but none that are incredibly important.

I've been thinking about this for a long time.  I've been waiting for something to write about.  This morning it came.  It was a feeling that came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face.  I actually cried.  Unlike Pierre Napier, crying is a normal thing for me.  My big brother can attest to that.

I started thinking of a place that I needed to go.  I place that I could just sit with someone and just keep quiet, not saying anything.  Somewhere that I could go and just be refreshed.  I could go to the park but there would be no one there to just sit with.  I could go to the church and sit in my office, but there'd be too many people there to interrupt me.  I knew that I've been to a place like this before and for some reason I couldn't remember it. But wait.  Here it comes.  I remembered.

Switch gears for a second.

In the later years of my father's life his health begin to deteriorate a little bit more than any of us expected.  Because of my flexible schedule I would take up the task of transporting my father to various doctors appointments and mainly to the dialysis clinic on certain days.  I would often have lunch with my dad.   We would carry on conversations about music, sound systems, and computers.  It was great to be able to shoot the breeze with my dad and realize the commonalities that we had.

During my high school years I was usually upset at my father.  I thought of him as mean and strict.  I still loved him, but my disposition towards him was not accurate.  I took the first opportunity I could and moved out of the house (but you must know that my parents bought me a luggage set as a graduation present - hint hint).  Four days after I graduated high school I moved out.  The next year was pretty interesting.  My parents moved to another town, I moved to Texas, and somehow the connection changed.  Oddly enough, we all made it back to Kingman, AZ (insert joke here).

As I begin to evolve into a man, I began to seek council from my father.  I started to learn about all the things that we both enjoyed doing.  This was great!  There was an open road for our conversations. I started to see my dad in a different light.   Shortly after I had discovered my new relationship with my dad, something happened.  Something that changed our relationship forever. I had experienced what I thought to be my first big failure in life.  I had to face my dad and tell him what was going on.  I was deathly afraid to tell him what I'd done.

I hate to leave you like this, but I'm going to have to split this one up.  I have a comment question for you:  How's your relationship with your parents today in contrast with how they've been in the past?  I promise tomorrow I will give you the rest of this blog, and I promise to tell you why I cried this morning.