So when I get really worked up I tend to rearrange furniture.  It’s a lot easier to a rearrange my outsides when I can rearrange my insides. In my head it makes sense if my outside is in order my inside will fall in line automatically.  I ended up moving my bookcase from my bedroom to my living room.  So as I was taking all the books off the shelves I ran across my photo albums.  Remember photo albums?  I hadn’t looked at them in awhile.  I have a ton of pictures but most are from the computer only.

The easiest one to flip through is Zoe’s.  Mostly use baby pictures in the hospital, bring her home, showing her off, first bath, first steps.  Then it kind of stops likely at too busy to fill it all of a sudden. It is hard for me to recognize that little baby as my big girl. I have time to add to it and catch it up.

Then the one I started for Peg and me.  We were early into our relationship and I wanted to show her I understood why she took so many pictures of us. That is by the way one of the ways I know I can’t be gay, I hate having my picture taken. It goes up to a certain time then drops off. I look back and see how bright her eyes were being clean and sober then.  How much more calm we both look when we were working a program, going to church, and both working.  That one sucks because I can fill it up and be done with it now.

Then there is the one for my daughters Kathryn and Victoria I started after they left. That one hurts deeply because I have filled it as much as I can but it ends and there is so many empty pages left empty.  Peg’s dead so that why her story ended but their story is going on at full steam and I have no clue about it. It has been so long since I have seen them and they are completely cool with that fact. It is so much easier dealing with grief for the dead than grief for the living. I know why that one isn’t filled because that all I have. Despite all my prayers in all these years there hasn’t been any movement to reconciliation. The abyss in my heart grows wondering if there will ever come a day where I can ever add another photo?

The oldest photo album is from when I first started working with Billy. He told me to start it to start piecing together an actual history of my life. There is what I remembered and what actually happened. Vast difference in facts between the two!  So much is there. Happy times with my Castle grayskull. Pets I forgot. My grandparents I never really got to know. Pictures of my dad how much I have been growing into his image. Man I can see pictures of myself with way to much hair and not enough fat to hide my ribs. Was that me at all really? Yep. I can see how my nephew Josh got his goofy awkwardness from me or how my Alyssa looks exactly like my sister at her age. I see that kid and what all hell I have put him through. That scrawny kid looks so fragile when I look at him.

I have been twisted up since I looked through them probably the reason why I don’t pick them up that often anymore. So much joy and happiness in those books but for every one picture I have in the books my mind reminds me of a dozen times where things were screwed up and no one had a camera thank God. Those shattered morning waking up without a clue where I was or how I got here. Theses times I sold my integrity for temporary company. Trading my meek progress for going back out. The fights in the middle of the night over who knows what just because I was so unhappy and didn’t know what to do with it. The lies I told to lift myself up in the eyes of others and the impending doom I ran from them finding out. That morning as that I ran up to yell at that guy and blood started pooling from under his head. Those days I wondered if I could wear shorts or were the cuts still to fresh.

The problem with reading so much is some of it sticks. I shared a quote I read with a friend when that little voice in my head quietly whispered” And He said to them, "No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.'" Luke 4;23 If my advice was good enough for him it was good enough for myself to. Instantly pie charts and graphs popped up about how my situation was so different that it couldn’t apply to me. The thing about truth that sucks is no matter how much you buy your own bull I you hear it you know it’s true.

I had read a quote from Max Lucado a few weeks ago that said “put down the photographs more often and pick up the bible instead.” I have read the bible and more often than not view it as instructional only forgetting it’s a love letter not a textbook. All my regrets for missing the chance to say something I’ll get again. I will sit with my dad again and hear him laugh. I will go walking with my grandpa in his garden to the kitchen door where grandma has a chocolate cake waiting for my birthday. I will see Peg again and hold her hand again. I will sit down with the creator of the universe and be able to say what the heck was all that about like I have done a million times before and FINALLY get a full answer. The platypus what were you thinking? Why do bell peppers make me sick? Why does nose hair and back hair grow like weeds but I couldn’t get a Mohawk?  Hells yes I will finally know if fish fart!

That’s the quiet beauty of the Gospel. The stuff should be screamed at me each day. We win in the end. Of course this fallen world sucks it is so far off the plan from nearly the get go. It was never intended to have dead wives and separated kids nor layoffs, broke cars and internet interruptions. We did all that and despite wrecking it in His graciousness all will be restored. I can’t even wrap my head about what that will feel like. All I know is how to make the best of what little I have to scrape by. It is far easier for me to embrace pain, jealousy, maliciousness, and lust because I have plate of experience in those and only a taste of grace.

To look back at all those times and think for all their brightness is just the trailer to the show that is coming is staggering. Happily ever after is coming just not this side of heaven. My best day here is by leagues my worst day there and my ticket is already bought. The enemy knows this and throws afflictions left and right. His favorite tactic for myself is seemingly unending mediocrity, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 My story is far from over. Those books may remain empty here on earth but I will fill them in heaven.

I'm reaching farther than I ever have before
(Tired of wasting time)
Leaving all who broke your heart upon the shore
(Tired of wasting time)
I may be some sort of crazy
We may be some sort of crazy
But I swear on everything I have and more
(go go go go)

The Sound of pulling Heaven Down, Blue October