We're not even out of day two when I recorded this. For my readers out there, this time I recorded FIRST and then had to figure out how to transcribe the message. I really want to keep a written version of the newsletter/podcast whenever I can. Who knows… maybe my voices gets on other people’s nerves as much as it gets in mine. Lol
I already had a topic for today but then I had something else pop up. Of course. (I love it when this happens).
In the near future, I still want to answer the question:
“Can I be empathetic to myself?”
But I already have something else, today, that is incredible that has happened.
I'm a numbers guy. A lot of my faith, a lot of what I believe originated in numbers and the likelihood of or the ability for something to happen exactly on time. It has always been something I'm enthralled by because, you know, there’s timing and there’s perfect timing and that's the way God's timing is described. That it's perfect timing, and that it's always perfect. I have so many examples! I get to SEE so many examples being a faithful person.
It's not even like I need to validate my faith, but it's so nice that I get to, you know? It's so nice that I get a chance to have my faith validated, or hear how good God is. Or observe it based on something that's going on in my life, or a testimony of somebody else's life. Those are all really encouraging things, right? For anybody, whatever.
With faith, when encouraging things happen, in perfect timing, it makes you feel like you're in the right place. And sometimes we are able to look back and catch it. Or realize that it happened.
Getting on that elevator and spilling a drink on the woman that would end up being your future wife. That’s timing. Perfect. Impossible timing. Right? Or was that “fate”? Fate seems like it gets a lot of God’s credit, but I’m sure God isn’t trippin about it. Lol
But there are also really, really specific, and more impossible moments to miss. Clearly, Only God moments. Encouraging moments that happen in faith. I think that they are a result of perfect timing, an example or a display by God that says… SEE… I TOLD YOU. In God’s loving and graceful way, of course.
I’m not gonna share a lot of the specific details about this story, because it’s a shared story… and his details are his testimony. But, yesterday or today…a few minutes ago… my landlord sent me a text message and he said that he had read the newsletter from today this morning, and it was right on time for a few different reasons. I write about my daughter very rarely. But, I wrote about my daughter today. Specifically. He's got a 16 year old daughter who recently turned 16 years old also, and we've had multiple conversations about that in the past.
But I'll be honest with you, if there's anybody in the world that has complete permission to be pissed at me. it's this man, right here? It's this human being, my landlord, because of this last insanity season. I mean, he definitely has all the permission in the world.
Again, not even gonna get into that, but trust me when I tell you.
He sends me a text message today saying the fact that the timing was perfect, because not only did I write my PODcast, which normally I don't, normally… I just publish A podcast version normally.
30% of the time… maybe 10% of the time now… I’ll write It first and then record it. He's one of the people that I talked about in the beginning that likes to read the articles versus listen to the published podcast.
So just look at the amount of things that have to be perfectly aligned, right there.
One, I write it instead of recording it.
Two, he's gracious.
He’s a gracious, God loving man who has been good to me when I didn't deserve it, and we've been through a ton of shit, together that's not all been good…and it's been my fault…you know… but still gracious enough to be subscribed to my PODcast and newsletter, and often enough consumes it to where it's not crazy for him to open my podcast and read it.
He's got a 16 year old daughter, and I happen to have talked about my 16 year old daughter in the article today… these are all things that change part of the story so much that they could change the trajectory of this.
They all have to happen in order to get to this place.
And then he happens to read it, and then he happens to be in a situation with his 16 year old daughter…today, after reading that article, where specifically in interaction with him and his kid that involved listening, learning, imagining and being empathetic came into play in real time today with his daughter…That is going through it…That is in the same generation. And! It is as challenging to him, it is, it is, it is to me to navigate parenthood at this age, as is as it is to everybody.
I mean, here's the thing…there's another million coincidences that could have happened that I don't even know about, like, I don't know at what point in a day his phone battery was charged or not charged, or if, at that moment, his phone was on the charger, he wouldn't have read that article. It could have gone to spam. You know? There are hundreds…even millions of ways that each story could go, but then for them to end up iin perfect timing…like that… you can't tell me there's not a God.
You can't tell me that God's timing isn't real either.
And I think that such a good percentage of the reason that I have not lost my ever loving mind in this season is because of opportunities for me to see this kind of timing unfold.
It's never gonna be as bad as it was today. Tomorrow's gonna be better.
And then I say, it's gonna be better, even the pain, even if the pain is worse, even if the situation is worse.
Each day, I get stronger. Each day, I get transformed into more of what God wants me to be.
I don't always understand it. I slip and fall down a lot.
I make a lot of mistakes.
I'm trying.
And he sends me this message today just about how we’re trying to be good dads for our daughters and how much he appreciated the timing in the context of the message that I posted today, because it, it was, it was perfectly planned by God for him.
How many times does that situation and the timing play out perfectly? And we never hear about it. We never even hear about it. Maybe your day got away from you so fast that you forgot to text the person, but something that they said changed part of your day. And I would say, probably more often than not, we don't hear about how good God's timing is as a testimony, per se.
How many times do we miss it? Holy? That’s adding that into the equation by itself.
How many times we just are oblivious, you know? It's clearly spelled out and we just miss it.
But the timing was perfect, but for whatever reason, we never connect the dots or realize what God was up to.
How many times does he cover in our ass when we have no possible way to even know to cover our ass?
And I see that enough times.
So often, and it's so important, and it's so powerful.
It's so powerful to me.
Because, you know what? I think a lot of times, when we go through stuff … you know how important is it for us to realize that we're not alone in it?
I was in a Dads group in the past, and the beauty of the Dads group was the realization that, “hey, yo! My kid drives me crazy too. Lol … I'm not alone. I'm not the only one that's going through this. This is a human situation that is normal. It feels less lonely to know that there is someone with me in it. It normalizes it. It takes the alone-ness that I feel out of It …it takes the sting out of it.
God's timing is like that for our relationship with him. That's him letting us know that we're not alone. That's Him saying, I'm right here love. I got you Even when you don't know I got you… I got you. Even when you think that I'm out to get you. I got you.
I promise it, because if you didn't go to the left, you were gonna go right. And if you went right, I may never have seen you again.
“But God, the road on the left, it was like an ass whipping all the way!”
But you made it to the other side. You didn't make it out of the road on the right, there's nothing left of you.
If I didn't, if My timing wasn't perfect, there would have been nothing left of you if I let you continue.
So, because I love you.
I knew that road was gonna be hard for you.
But I would rather that road.
I would rather take you on that path and get you to where I gotta get you and purify you.
And make you as empathetic as I can possibly make you.
So that you survive, so that you can grow this kingdom.
So you can make sure that other people know that they're not alone either.
I didn't know that writing this morning, finishing it, recording it, posting it, I didn't know the timing was gonna be perfect. I posted it at 2pm and by 5pm it had already been used by God to bless His people.
How cool is it that I get to be used that way?
You know what I'm saying?
How cool is it? I'm not saying that, like, “for me”... but how awesome is it that he uses me flat on my back, literally. In bed…to deliver a message for Him?
There's no bigger honor in the world.
And I am, I'm thankful for the road that I've been on as bad as it's been, as hard as it's been.
I'm thankful for this.
I'm not the same person that I used to be.
And I'm definitely not gonna be the same person when I'm at the end of this.
But my prayer is that I'm just what He wants me to be.
I just get to keep pointing to the impossible timing that he has.
The incredible blessings that he puts around us, whether we know it or we don't.
So, do I believe in God's timing? Absolutely, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Because God's timing is impossible. And that's where God lives. He lives in the impossible.
He lives in a place that cannot be explained by you. You might be able to, to figure out some of the chances…the likelihood of the chances based on the variables that you know that there are, and calculate a probability that it could happen or wouldn't happen.
And that can be the proof for you not having faith, or the proof for you having faith, or whatever it is….
But God lives in the impossible place, the place that that man can't duplicate.
Man might be able to kind of think about how…but man can't take credit for it.
I know that I'm in an impossible place. The only way I come back from this, is if the impossible be made possible.
By God, period.
And it's not like he doesn't do it every day. You know? I'm saying, it's not like it's this big thing for him to do it either. It's not like he just didn't do it earlier today for a conversation that I had with my kid and put into writing… OOOHHH another thing … What if I didn't have the COURAGE to ask my kid if I could publish the article? She really doesn't like to be talked about. You know… she is 16, of course she doesn't.
But what if I just said “you know what, never mind. I'm not gonna post it. I'm not gonna have the conversation with Hannah about it. Instead, when she got back from volleyball today, I was like, “babe, I need to read this to you to see if I can post it.”
And I did.
I asked permission to post it, right? Because that's what you gotta do at a certain point. Can't take their picture… anymore. They're 16, right? They're in charge of their face. It's their face. All of a sudden, like they made their face. They didn't make their face. I made that face. Her mama made that face.
But anyways. lol
I'm already so thankful for this project. God, like, I cannot believe.
I cannot believe, the way it's like, you jump started me.
I don't know how. You know what, honestly, guys, one of these days I'm gonna talk about the drugs that I've been on. I'm gonna name that one “Off My Meds”
Why? Because I've had that name for about a year.
Once, when I thought I was off my meds. Another one when, and it just kind of stuck around.
So “off my meds” is coming soon. That's basically going to be a conversation about the antidepressants that I was on for a long time…for almost two and a half, almost three years now, because, but it wasn't for the antidepressant factors. It was diagnosed for the the nerve pain. Now, listen, I'm not upset about the antidepressant stuff.
I was like, oh, it's an antidepressant also? Awesome. Lol You know?
I was like, if it's just for nerve pain…great..but if it was only for the antidepressant properties, I'd still take the shit. So that's kind of where I've been with that. There’s no shame at all in my game, I've been in a hell hole. And so I have no shame whatsoever around needing help.
But anyways… I'll talk more about all that. I'm gonna talk about the way that affected me during that time. One of the things that I noticed that was probably the most noticeable red flag for me to see, is that whenever I was on certain drugs, I wasn't even able to think, much less write.
I wasn't able to communicate. I couldn't communicate like this. My thoughts are all over the place. I could not even put together a group of thoughts to podcast or to write.
So the fact that I'm able to do this, I think, is probably God letting me know that “your brain is not totally broken from all that other stuff”.
It's still working. We're still working.
We're gonna still keep getting better. But I really think this project was something that I needed… MY soul needed…Maybe, even YOU needed…
I am thankful for it. This is day three.
Day 3 - Do I Believe In "God's Timing"?