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If talk is cheap, listening is expensive.  I love to listen to heartfelt stories especially from people I love.  There’s one whose heart I love hearing above all and that is my sweetie.  Tonight, she needed to vent about some things and she gently let me know was what was coming.  Her setup helped me to listen the way she wanted to be heard.

When we want help, we want the listener to listen for understanding.  We want solutions.  However, when we want to vent, solutions is exactly what we do not want.  We want to be listened to just for understanding.  It’s a subtle difference, but it is the difference between the speaker getting what they want or not.  If the speaker owns the topic and doesn’t get what they want, the whole experience is frustrating and irritating.  When it works though, it is magical.  There is nothing quite like the feeling you get when someone focuses on you and truly listens for understanding.

Listening is expensive because it is hard work (hard emotional work) and because it is rare. One last thought.  If you want me to listen for understanding, do what Jeanie did.  Tell me what you want and, who knows, you might just get it.

Thanks Sweetie.  It is an honor to hear your heart.

affirmation, family, personal

Fifty one years ago today a beautiful, young and very pregnant woman gave birth to a baby boy.  She and her husband (the boy’s father) loved the boy and cared for him like good parents do.  They gave him food and shelter and love.  They made sure that he was brought up in a Christian home.  Every Sunday they took him to church.  In fact, the boy cannot ever remember just sleeping in on a Sunday.

He grew up big and strong and one day he left and started a life of his own.  Eventually, the boy had children of his own and in the process of caring for his own children, he began to understand some of the difficulties that come with being a parent.  Now that his children are all on their own, the boy has a depth of thankfulness that he could never have experienced  as a youngster.  There’s just no way to explain those kinds of things to a little guy.  He doesn’t have the years of experience.  He only has what experience he has lived.  As much as the parents want him to learn from their experience, there are so very many limitations on that kind of understanding.  The boy learns best from his own experience… the hard way!

Now, the boy is a grandparent and more thankful than ever!  As he looks back from his 51 year old perspective, he wants to say, thank you to his parents.  Thanks for giving him life.  Thanks for taking care of him, loving him and doing your best to shape him into the person God made him to be.  He knows that he has let you down many times.  He remembers hurting you.  He wishes he could redo so many things from the past.  Alas, he understands better than ever how this show only has one performance with no rehearsals.

Despite all his regrets, the boy is happy.  He is glad to be alive and glad to be who he is.  Sure, there are many things he would like to change, but when he is honest, he realizes that there is no one else in the entire world that he would rather be.  I think that’s pretty cool.

affirmation, family, life, memories, observations, personal

Recently, I asked myself the question that guys my age ask themselves so often. What am I here for? What is my calling? What bothers me so much that I could give the rest of my life to making it better? And you know what? I had an answer. It was so clear. It wasn’t a new idea, which made it feel even more real. But it was the first time that this was the answer that came to me when I asked the question:

Stories

Hearing peoples stories, Helping people tell their stories, telling my story.

Read more…

affirmation, community, observations, reflection, stories

affirmation, friends

Please read my daughter, Danae’s blog from April 7, 2006: http://angeladanae.blogspot.com/2006/04/okay-girlsgirls.html

That’s true love. I am so proud of my family!

affirmation, family

Sometimes, I see something that I just have to stand back and applaud. My nephew, Kenny (who got absolutely none of his athletic ability from me) is the pitcher for his school’s baseball team. I cannot begin to tell you how incredibly gifted he is at what he does… (but that says less about his ability and more about my ineptness as a baseball fan). I think his pitches have been clocked at about a Brazillian miles per hour. No wait, a Brazillian is someone from Brazil. Anyway, he’s fast.

Like most ball players, he sometimes hurts himself and it takes him out of the game for a time of healing. He’s lately been out nursing an elbow injury, but this past Saturday, they finally let him play two innings. He gave up no hits and struck out five batters! On top of that, he had a 100% on base percentage with two singles. To top it all off, he also hit a home run (about 350 ft)!

Needless to say, everyone in the family, including me, is busting buttons with pride. However, that’s not why I am writing about him. I’m writing to tell you what most of the folks in or out of the game don’t know… inside Kenny’s hat is a Bible verse. He wrote, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Phil 4:13. When he stepped up to the mound, he took off his hat and read the verse to himself, said a prayer. Then he went to work applying his talent, and setting out to demonstrate the power of those words.

Is this passage in Philippians about winning ball games? I think not. It is about depending on the strength of God to help us in everything we do. In the game of life, I need God’s help, but sometimes I forget. I proceed with delusions that I can manage just fine on my own. He frequently reminds me that I cannot. Frequently He uses others to show me… sometimes it’s a friend… sometimes family… This time it’s my nephew. Thanks Kenny, for reminding me what a great God we serve. I’m proud of you.

affirmation, family