When life hands you roaches...

It’s 5:45 in the morning and I am getting ready to go to the gym to get my exercise thing going. I started working out a few months ago (you might remember some earlier entries in the blog on the subject…) and I have been feeling good about my progress.
I have to admit that I didn’t want to get up yesterday morning. I was feeling unsure about everything and my heart was, well, heavy, burdened. I know that these feelings are going to come and go but lets be honest here.

1.) I am still a guy.
2.) Guys don’t do feelings well.

It’s a little known fact that men do in fact have feelings. Most women generally assume that we don’t because of our behavior but we do. But when confronted with feelings we kind of make that same face that we make when confronted with an infant with a poopy diaper for the first time.
(Heh… I just had to add “poopy” to my Microsoft Dictionary)
You know that look.
“Oh… OHHHHHH…. Uh, hey, what do I- this smells- help, Baby- oh crap.”
And then we make those sounds like we’re going to hurl.
“URRRKKKK- UUUURRRK… oh this smells bad.”
It’s the same thing with emotions.
The whole point of the preceding section was to mention that I am, in fact, getting up off the mat and continuing on with my life. The sun does continue to shine.
I spent yesterday helping my aforementioned Step-Father in law paint some stuff and take out a few cockroach condos, I mean kitchen cabinets.
It was bad. Unless you have actually lived in a New York City tenement (and I have, thank you very much) you don’t really appreciate just how nasty the German cockroach is.
When I get to heaven I know what the first thing I am going to ask God is.
Some of you might ask about rainbows and what it was like living in the Old Testament and how cool the whole parting the Red Sea thing was.
Me? I’m asking what the story is with the cockroaches.
Seriously, I have to know.
I spent my time listening to some worship songs I had to dig out and dust off, feeling like quite the hypocrite for doing so. But as the day went along I found that I was talking to God more and more. Asking him for strength and, believe it or not, feeling strength come.
No, I wasn’t lifting cars and tossing them.
Samson is going to be my second question. “Lord, what was Samson’s exercise regimen and how can I get that strong?”
The strength that showed up was different. When I pulled the cabinet from the wall and saw those roaches I wanted to cringe.
Okay, I wanted to cry.
I read this great story once about a big roach (the dreaded Water Bug) and the author described roaches as having antennae that “waits for instruction from space” or something like that. I am sure I butchered the line, at any rate I wanted to cry.
There, I said it.
I felt like crying. I was feeling a blanket of despondence cover me and I wanted it to go away.
And then I started to laugh. I felt a calm come over me and I started to thank God for this opportunity (Yeah! I know. Can you believe it?). I thanked him for being there with me and the roaches. I thanked him for the roaches.
Put the phone down and don’t bother calling Bellevue.

a.) I’m not crazy
b.) I’m not in New York City

I don’t know why. I don’t know why God chose that moment to find me again. But I know that I started to feel the air lighten and that cloud lift. He was there with me telling me that it was going to be okay. Remember I said I was reading the book of Job? I’m pretty sure I mentioned it. Anyway, he never complained about things the way you think he’d might.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.
It was like his mantra.
I’m making it mine for the time being.
Things turned out well for Job because he never lost faith. I’m going to do the same.
Oh yeah, weird thing. I feel like I have to mention it. I had a dream that I was on a Cruise ship. What it means, I don’t know. But I felt like sharing.
I gotta go. The treadmill is calling me.