Safety

One of my best friends went home to be with Jesus last week. Joe Riley, age 34.

Nothing can prepare you for this. Nor should you want to be prepared for it. For some crazy reason I keep thinking I should have been better prepared. But this is nothing like the other challenges I’ve faced in life. There is no “moving on” or “getting over it”. There is just a hole there. There was me before December 7th 2016 and now there’s me after December 7th 2016, with a hole.

I took a strength’s test once and it said my top talent theme, by a long shot, was “Relator”. The description of someone with this theme is:

“…you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends. You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk -- you might be taken advantage of -- but you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.”
http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/703/relator.aspx

This fits. I thrive on the relationships with those closest to me. Joe was one of my people. It’s hard to beat 15+ years of experiencing life together. From high school, to being in a rock band for 7 years, to being housemates, to being roommates, to being in each others’ weddings and all the milestones in-between. Not many people got me like Joe, and not many people got Joe like me. No matter how much time passed between our calls it was always like we’d just chatted yesterday. I keep having the impulse to call him to talk about all of this.

It’s difficult to summarize why Joe was so special to those who haven’t known him for years. He was the treasure you might walk by every day and not notice was there all along. He was the unexpected heartfelt comment, but only if you had the time to listen. He was the obscure idea that reminded you that being childlike is a good thing. He was the healthy conviction that came from seeing someone so self-aware and humble enough to admit where he needed to improve. He was the guy who put flowers in your car while you were proposing to your wife. He was so many things, in so many small ways that will each forever remind me of him.

The day after he passed, I found myself in a Walmart in front of a rack of themed men’s underwear, bawling. I was there because Joe and I used to do late night Walmart runs for new boxers. I can’t imagine what the other shoppers thought. Maybe “It’s not that hard of a decision”. I picked some Star Wars boxers that had a TIE Fighter chasing an X-Wing and an explosion right on the crotch, because Joe would have thought it was funny.

I once heard a friend who had also experienced loss say “It’s not helpful to ask ‘Why?’. It’s more helpful to ask ‘What’s next?’”. I think he was right. One of the only things that has eased the hurt has been to think about what’s next. There’s no changing what’s happened but I can change me. I can learn from Joe’s life and I can be more like him.

Things I’ve learned through this and through knowing Joe:

We need people.
All I wanted to do was to crawl under the covers and sort this out but you can’t sort things like this out alone. Being with people I was close to and Joe was close to helped. And it’s more than just getting through something. It’s all the time. We truly need people in our lives more than we know. You realize this when one of your closest friends isn’t around anymore.

Be intentional about your close friendships.
It’s easy to take for granted those people who have been with you for the longest amounts of time. Don’t take them for granted. To be honest, I didn’t realize how strong my friendship was with Joe until one day he asked me to be his best man. You don’t know how much you mean to people and they don’t know how much they mean to you. Joe always made sure to stay in touch with me even when he moved across the country. I need to be more like that.

Be weird.
Joe was super weird. He said weird things, wore weird things, and built weird things. He didn’t conform. I was talking to Mike, the lead guitarist from our band, and he said “Joe always had an amazing beard but as soon as he found out it was popular to have a beard he immediately shaved it off.” If I can do anything in my life to honor Joe it would be to embrace what makes me, me and make no apologies for it. I’ve already taken an inventory of a number of areas in my life where my motives were more about getting approval from society or attaining “success” than being true to myself.

Never stop improving.
In my opinion the greatest part about Joe’s story is the immense personal growth. Through many tears and laughs I was privileged enough to be witness to the process. He was always so aware of the areas that needed improvement and was working on doing something about it. And the progress showed. He ended strong. His love for God and people fueled an epic journey from a shy and removed guy to a spiritual powerhouse who knew full well the influence and authority he carried as a follower of Jesus.

The one thing my heart always longed for with Joe was that he would find love, and he most certainly did. Jeanie, you were absolutely perfect for him. I never saw him happier than when he was with you.

In the band, we nicknamed him Safety Joe, because of a french tank helmet he ended up wearing to every show. It was kind of his thing. It was kind of our thing. It started as a joke and ended up being a persona. Now, after all these years as his friend, it takes on new meaning for me. He was always there for me. He was consistent, reliable, and genuinely cared. He was my Safety. And now he is experiencing the ultimate Safety.

Enjoy paradise my friend. I miss you madly but I’m sure God had a crazy idea for a guitar that he needed your help with or something.

The Best Advice Ever

In lieu of attending my wedding on account of health reasons, my Grandpa Irwin sent me an email. In that email he wrote some words from his heart. Among those words was written some advice that I would later come to realize was the best advice I had ever gotten. They were words that would over time become etched into the very fabric of my being and shape the man I would become. Words that I would one day share with my children. Words that I would echo to so many others that I've crossed paths with and that they would eventually repeat back to me in the form of super convicting advice. But before I can tell you the advice you must first better understand the man behind the words.

Meet William Dutton. I know, I said it was my Grandpa Irwin who gave me the advice. It's the same guy. He was adopted. William, or Bill as he went by, was not exactly the most well-behaved kid growing up. His dad had left and his mom was struggling to raise him. At age 15 he was about to get thrown into reform school as a ward of the state but, as fate would have it, a merciful sheriff instead choose to give him a second chance and put him up for adoption. It was then that Bill was adopted by the Irwin's, hence the last name change. Three formative years would pass under their care before Bill enlisted in the service at age 18.

Out of the service, Bill quickly found work at IBM, learned how to program, and started his own data processing company called Midwest Data Control. This was when computers took up a whole room. He would go on to sell that company and jump between a handful of high profile positions in the budding industry of Computing Systems.

At some point during that career Bill tried his hand at higher education, majoring in poker and minoring in Pre-Med. He made it through 3 years Nursing school and may not have come out of it with a degree but did come out having found the love of his live, Marlene.

It is said that Bill would have parted the seas for Marlene. When I asked my mom and aunt what Bill and Marlene were like, it was as if I'd just reminded them of the fondest of all memories. Their eyes lit up and smiles began to take shape. I was quickly bombarded with a slew of stories that might as well have come out of some great novel or a fairy tale. Stories like how one time my Grandpa, out of an adrenaline rush of compassion, lifted a tractor off of a man who was pinned against a barn. Stories about how my Grandma once bolted out of the house to tend to some kids who had just crashed their car while hot-rodding down their street. The one theme that seemed consistent throughout was their extravagant love for each other and the people around them.

In the early 70s, Marlene was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Being a nurse, she had actually self-diagnosed herself in 1965 but doctors hadn't figured out how to officially diagnose it at that point. By the early 80s she was no longer able to get around. Bill made a decision to always care for her under his own roof as long as she had her mental faculties. And she never did lose her mind. In fact, quite the opposite. She was always happy. The nurses couldn't believe her temperament. People actually mistook her happiness for being heavily medicated.

My only memories of Grandma Irwin were seeing her in her hospital bed, smiling, in the back room of their Seward, Nebraska house with her two birds keeping her company. I remember her bed was situated in a room just off the kitchen which meant, with my Grandpa being an amazing cook, she had a front row sniff to every meal. The only problem was that she had to eat through a feeding tube and couldn't actually partake of the meals. Her response when asked about this dilemma? "It never really bothered me." Of course she would say that.

For years my Grandpa cared for her, bathed her, tended to her medical needs, and kept her company all by himself. He even deliberately moved himself and Grandma to Utah, further away from his kids, because he didn't want her care to be a burden to anyone except himself.

Marlene passed away on January 29, 1995 due to complications from a surgery. My Grandpa took care of her all those years by himself. This is the kind of love he was capable of. A sacrificial love that knew no limits and would do it all over again if given the chance.

So, now that you better understand the kind of man my Grandpa was, the advice he emailed me leading up to my wedding will make more sense. With out further ado, I give you the best advice I've ever be given:

"It's not as important to be right as it is to be loving and understanding at all times."

There you have it. Simple yet deeply profound and difficult to live out. I've learned that I mustn't let my concern about being right outweigh the relationships I have with the people around me. As much as I want to defend my point of view and prove I am right, it doesn't actually matter as much as having an authentic human connection with someone and understanding their point of view. They're more likely to come around to your way of thinking if they don't have their guard up anyways. This applies to my relationship with my wife, my children, my co-workers, my family, friends, acquaintances, even strangers. What good is there in winning an argument if in the process you lose the person? It's better to be falsely accused of being wrong and reconcile your relationships than to lash out and lay claim to empty satisfaction.

My Grandpa actually passed away three months before my wedding in 2005. At his memorial service, I brought with me a print out of the email where he wrote this advice and, through blurred vision, read those words once again to a room filled with his close friends and loved ones. That group of people, who were privileged enough to know Grandpa Irwin, knew better than any the truth behind the wisdom.

You're Not Alone

It's a lie to believe that you're the only one going through something. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man" (NKJV). The New Living Translations puts it "The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience."

Just let that sink in. We think our struggles are so unique and that no one could possibly understand what we're going through. They aren't. And they do.

See isolation is the enemy's tactic. If he can get you alone you become an easy target, or at least you're no longer threat to his cause. Lions when they are hunting will wait for the wounded and weak to separate from the pack before they strike. It's not in our design to be alone. God pretty much flat out said it from the get-go "It is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18).

Even statistically there is a high chance that the people you're around every day are dealing with something similar. I started to look up some of these statistics out of curiosity but had to stop because it was actually quite the downer. It's crazy how common these things are.

In the US: 

• 1 in 12 adults suffer from alcohol abuse 
• 1 in 10 suffer from depression 
• 1 in 10 college-age women suffer from a clinical eating disorder 
• 1 in 2 children will witness the divorce of their parents 
• 6 in 10 Christian males regularly view pornography 

It is easy to keep your problems to yourself isn't it? It's hard to let someone know, like really know, what you're dealing with. That's because shame is a powerful force to reckon with. In fact, it's been at work ever since the very first sin. What did Adam and Eve do as soon as they had eaten the fruit from the Tree of Life? They suddenly realized they were naked and hid. It's one thing to know you've done something wrong and be embarrassed about it but it's another to let shame creep in. Embarrassment says "I did something wrong" but shame says "I am something wrong". That's the danger with shame. It starts to take over who you are and shape your identity around a lie.

1 Corinthians 10:13 actually has a bit more to it that I didn't mention earlier. Here's the full verse: "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."

God is faithful and will make a way of escape. You have an out. When you're falling into the trap, look for help.

I apologize in advance here for my nerdiness but it's like that scene on Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when Luke, Han, Chewbacca and Leia are stuck in the trash compactor. Luke is being attacked and drug under all the garbage by a tentacled creature called a dianoga and, to make matters worse, the walls start closing in. Luke calls out to C-3PO for help and just before they are crushed R2-D2 turns the compactor off and opens the door.

When you are facing an impossible task call out to the person who eats the impossible for breakfast. He is faithful to make a way of escape.

For some of us, the escape isn't hard to find. There's bright red neon EXIT sign in plain view but it's like each time you walk through that exit you end up back in the very same room, like some kind of sick cosmic joke. As such, we've grown accustomed to our dark room. Psalm 18:19 says "He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me." Grab a hold of that truth and you try the exit again.

There is no temptation that is too great for our Lord to overcome. In fact, did you know that he already did? The bible says that Jesus endured every temptation we've had to face and was able to overcome.. Hebrews 4:15 "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." He's proven he can handle it. He's gotten into the ring and earned the championship belt. Tag in the reigning champ on the fights we can't handle and stick to the ones we can.