I was having an email conversation with my brother last night when the topic came up about my frustration in pretty much failing to complete anything in my life in the last ten years.  I have bounced around from career to job to career without ever really becoming proficient at any of it.  In light of this,  I thought it would be entertaining to list every career or job I have seriously considered, pursued or done.  Here they are, in general chronological order:

• paleontologist
• lawn mower
• valve factory worker
• pizza cook
• printing factory distribution center worker
• journalist
• photojournalist
• musician
• metal fabricator
• plexiglass fabricator
• powder coater
• linguist
• missionary
• carpenter
• professor
• professional student
• teacher
• artist
• photographer
• stay-at-home parent
• writer
• minister

In some ways all of these things made me into a well-rounded person, but mostly they have just left me frustrated.  I have spent all of this time trying to find my true place in the world and for whatever reason I have failed at or quit nearly every one of the things listed above.

I have recently felt that God is pushing me toward something new and important.  The only problem is that I can’t figure out what it is.  I don’t think it’s any of the things I have already tried, but who knows?  I’ve come to realize that many of these failures are a result of me trying to fix my life myself and making a wrong turn.  Maybe God has called me to be a wanderer and just touch down briefly in all of these areas, but I’m not so sure about that.  I’m trying to sit back and ask God to lead me, but in some ways I’ve lost confidence in my ability to listen.

My prevailing theory is that God has led me to all of these places for a reason, and that I’ll be able to use all of that variety of experience I have gained for something bigger in the future.  But maybe not.  I just have to keep my eyes, ears, and heart open, and pray that I can keep myself out of God’s way.

This has been kind of a weird week for me. It started with the death of my wife’s grandfather.  Then came the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti and the ridiculous religious controversy following it.  Finally, tonight, at the junior high church event I help out at every week, the students were mourning an eighth grade boy who recently committed suicide.  While none of these things led directly to personal grief, my heart is broken to see people I love and care about grieving, in one case, a long expected loss, and in another, and unexpected and tragic one.

As I sat in that funeral yesterday morning, a number of things were going through my mind.  We were celebrating the life of a man who was remembered by his acts of service to others, who worked hard to take care of the people he loved and often people he had never met before.  As  I heard story after story along these lines,  I started to wonder (and this is going to sound morbid to those of you who don’t know me) what kinds of things people will say at my funeral.  What if I died tomorrow?  Would I be remembered as a man who lived his life to serve and love others, who modeled his life after Christ and shared his faith through active love and service?  Or would people struggle to come up with something to say about me?  As I write this, I realize it could come across as selfishly motivated and prideful, but what I really am trying to say is that through the death of an incredible family man, I was inspired to try and follow his example and become a great servant.  It is, after all, what Jesus did.

Now comes the part where a lot of you will think I’ve gone completely off the deep end.  Through all of this tragedy and loss in my family, in Haiti, in the ending of a young life, the most overwhelming feeling I have is one of hope.  During my grandfather-in-law’s funeral one of the pictures playing in the slide show projected on the wall was one of his baptism.  Story after story was told about how he put his faith into action through service.   I have no doubt he is now resting peacefully in the arms of his God.   I have hope because I know no matter what kinds of horrible and tragic things happen in this world, someday I will be able to have that same peaceful rest.  And I have hope because all of the evil and painful things that exist all around us will one day be destroyed and a new, perfect creation will replace them.  And thank God for that.

Apparently, an overwhelming majority of Christians pick Christmas as their favorite holiday.  While I understand their reasons (Jesus’ birth, overwhelming seasonal generosity), I just can’t agree.  I can’t get past the rampant materialism and people getting upset about the phrase “Happy Holidays” and the lack of Nativity scenes at the local public school.  Personally, I prefer Easter for its messages of hope and sacrifice.  Plus the Easter Bunny would totally take out Santa in a cage match.

My biggest complaint about Christmas this year is a completely personal one.  It is only adding to the feeling that I am totally overwhelmed by lots of little but taxing things.  Piles of mostly worthless material possessions that we can’t seem to get rid of, countless unfinished home improvement projects, a seemingly endless supply of housework, and a financial hole we’ve been stuck in for years.  None of these things individual are really that serious, but when all of them are put together, it adds up to an incredible weight crushing me beneath it.  My wife and I often joke that the best thing that could happen to us is if our house burned down and we could just start over from scratch.  Naturally, that would create  a host of new problems on its own, but the idea of some kind of relief is that appealling.

I’ve recently been motivated to get things in my life in order for the sake of my children and my wife’s and my mental stability, but every time I try to start, I end up frustrated with my lack of progress and give up without much of a fight.  I feel that with a clean slate, I could start being a more productive person, but at this point, I’m just not sure how to get there.

So Santa, this is my letter:  All I want for Christmas this year is a fresh start.  Love, Andy  (P.S.: I’ll even make homemade cookies if that will help persuade you.  With organic milk.  Please!)

I’m going to give this a trial run.  Any of you who know me know that I always have something to say about something, and up to this point, I have had very few outlets to express those thoughts and opinions.  I don’t expect this to be some kind of groundbreaking, cutting edge blog.  For one thing, I know zero about coding, so I can’t even make it look cool.  What I do expect to do is use it to purge my overcrowded mind of all of my thoughts on culture, faith, and life.  I hope to share insights about these topics I have learned, and I hope to learn from any responses to my posts.

Now that I have sufficiently bored my imaginary readers, I will move on.  Check back for something about something  sometime later.