He Will Not Let You Fall

It’s not been the greatest week for sleep… two nights this week, I woke up at 3am, and never got back to bed. In to work between 6am and 6:30, and the rest of the day is pretty much tofu. I can carry on for a certain amount of time before I simply can’t function any more, and then it’s time to just cave up at home and rest.

So, why the fractured sleep? Not sure… I do know that when I have internal struggles going on, my already-difficult sleep becomes that much harder. If things go too far from “normal,” my world gets turned around and things get even more fractured.

So, do I immediately turn to the Lord and His word, to regain perspective and to rest in Him?... Wish that was the case, but usually in my muddled mind, I don’t turn to the only One who can turn things around. So, dear friends, allow me a little meditation here on some words I should have been reading a couple days ago…

Psalm 121 – A song of ascents

I lift up my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip — He who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD watches over you — the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all harm— He will watch over your life;

the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

And, as I was putting these words into this post, Psalm 121 (He Will Not Let You Fall) “randomly” started playing on my iPod. Can God use an iPod to get His point across?... I think so.

Father God, help me to turn my eyes away from myself, away from this world, and away from all that would keep my attention away from You. You are my refuge, my hope, my help, my joy, my strength, my life. Help me to remember that.

Amen

Lord Of The Past

"Well I picked up all these pieces,
and I built a strong deception,
and I locked myself inside of it
for my own protection.

And I sit alone inside myself,
and curse my company.
For this thing that has kept me alive for so long
is now killing me..."
- Bob Bennett, "Lord Of The Past"

I mentioned a post or two ago that there was a bit of a revelation that happened to me last week... it was in my counseling session that we ran into something that I had not even realized. And, the meaning of those words from Bob Bennett were finally clear to me...

I had forgotten what a lonely child I was. I never really fit in, never really had many friends (if any), had tough times in school (definitely was the square peg that had no chance of fitting in the round hole of education at that time...), and was a right-brained visually-oriented bewildered child who had teachers with no idea of what to do with me. So, I spent much of my childhood in solitude. Really good for my imagination, which is what makes me the storyteller I am today, but bad for social skills. Not to mention emotional issues. When my counselor asked if being teased and treated differently by the other kids was something that hurt, I answered that sure, it stung, but I had built such effective armor plating that anything they threw at me had no chance of doing damage.

Yup... armor plating. Didn't even realize that I would describe it that way. Always thought of myself as fairly open and accepting... without realizing what kind of defenses I had built over the years...

And, the kicker is, those defensive devices are still in place today. The things I turned to, like food, to compensate for being alone most of the time. The sense of anger that still runs underneath everything to this day from being lonely but never expressing it. Always ready to raise the drawbridge, man the ramparts, and launch the first salvo.

Yet here, in 2005, at 46 years of age, things are very different. I have dear friends, a church family that is amazing, and my beloved Vicki, who is wife and soulmate and best friend all wrapped into one. Through God's grace, I'm not the kid I was back then. I have found my calling at His Kids Radio and a place to serve at our church. God has shown His purpose in many things to build me into who I am today, and who I am becoming in His grace. But the old behaviours, the armor, the defenses - they still are running in auto mode. Always in the background. Ready to respond before I can even think about it.

And so, I'm learning to recognize them. And to remind myself that I simply don't need them anymore. By God's grace and loving kindness, the old is gone - the new has come. It isn't easy. There's a lot to work on. But it's a major step in the right direction...

"For this thing that has kept me alive for so long
is now killing me..."

But, by God's grace, I will live.

Not bad for a Monday...

OK - for the rest of the normal world, today is Tuesday. I realize that... But in the weird Olson world, today is Monday. See, we work Tuesday through Saturday, so really, Monday is our Saturday.

Got it? :-D

Amazing time in Columbus. Vicki finally took the time to understand more about the GPS, which means that I now have some small comprehension of the thing too. :-D Found our way into downtown Toledo (and the White Castle therein). Stayed in Toledo Saturday night, and went to Columbus Sunday.

Cirque was (as usual) wonderful! We didn't realize how good our seats were until we arrived... and were seated 6 rows from the stage. We've never sat that close at a Cirque show, and it was incredible to see it from that perspective.

Only disappointment of the trip? Somehow, we ended up at The Waffle House of The Living Dead in Findlay OH. Sometime, I'll go into a full discourse about it. Not now, tho.

So, off to face the work at hand. Should be a busy Monday. (or Tuesday... :-D )

Outta here for the night

I do intend to catch folks up on how things are going... and will do so next week. But, tonight we drive to Columbus OH (love those gas prices... not.) and tomorrow we're seeing Cirque Du Soleil. We've seen Varekai before a couple years ago, and it's Vicki's favorite Cirque show, so off we go. :-D

Talk to you next week - with some interesting revelations...

WindowWordBlogging

OK – so I’m trying something that normally would be talked about in one of Topher’s blogs… Blogger for Word. It’s a toolbar that lets you create blog posts right within Word, letting you use all the usual tools you’re used to (assuming you’re familiar with Word), and not doing annoying stuff like having a post get dumped because something fouled on the way to being published and you just spent 30 minutes writing your heart into a post and now it’s gone to oblivion…

Not that it’s ever happened to me… :-D

Don’t ask me how well it works – this is the maiden voyage. But I should think there’s some good potential here. I mean, Vicki’s spent all this time trying to beat some semblence of understanding about Word into my thick noggin – hopefully this will show that her efforts weren’t in vain. :-D

That’s all from the blog front for now. Now, let’s see if this puppy works, or if it goes to oblivion. Fare thee well, little post. Go get ‘em, tiger…