I stared at the TV and fought back tears while watching a CBS news interview with American missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham, who were haggard, filthy, and appeared to be disoriented. The couple, who were missionaries in the Philippines, decided to spend one night at a resort to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary. But that night they were kidnapped by terrorists, and a year later, they were being dragged through the Philippine jungle. One of their fellow hostages had been beheaded.
For the first few years I wrote my blog, it was the number one source of stress in my life — more than moving to a new state, having two kids, starting a new job, or getting diagnosed with an incurable condition.
When I was in high school, I attended the funerals for two classmates, one of whom died in a tragic shooting accident. I have a vivid memory from his funeral: sitting in the packed funeral home listening to Michael W. Smith’s song “Friends are Friends Forever” as teenagers sniffled and wiped tears away.
Several years ago I knew this guy who wanted to be good friends, but he didn’t act like much of one.
Throughout my 20s, one of the biggest sources of stress in my life was the fear that God didn’t really love me and that I would never really know where I stood with Him. At one one point, however, I put His love to the test: I went on a sinning spree that took me further than I wanted to go and convinced there was no way back.
It was Friday night in Petal, Mississippi. I was 17 years old and I decided to do something risky, something bold, something I had never done before: I drove up to a gas station. It may not seem an impressive feat to you, but this wasn’t just any gas station. This was the gas station, the Texaco — the central meeting point for the popular people from Petal High.
Several months ago, my wife and I began the process of looking for a new church. We hoped to find something much closer to our home, which automatically made the search more difficult. That wasn’t the only thing that made it harder though.
When I was in third grade, I had problems behaving. My heart was in the right place, but my good intentions didn’t make it to the surface a lot of the time. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to follow the rules.
I stopped talking to my friend Erin Myers because I was embarrassed of her. We were going to the mall together, and she wore a sleeveless denim jacket and a hat decorated with a large sunflower. This was also the year she played trumpet in the band, a fact that significantly lowered her social status at Petal High. I was terrified of being seen with her. Somehow Erin detected it.
For a lot of my single years, I was hopelessly awkward. No doubt, there were still attractive things about my personality (or at least my mom says there were), but overall, I was kind of weird.
While I vividly remember many moments from my wedding day, there’s one moment that still moves me, and I hope it always does.
When I was single, I wrote a description of the kind of wife I expected to have and the kind of husband I thought I would be. I’m grateful I’ve lost that embarrassing list, but I do recall that many of my expectations centered on three areas: my confidence in instant maturity as a husband, the assumption of a near-perfect sex life and the expectation of non-stop infatuation.
Nine years ago this month, I started the day by getting on my face before God and saying, “Lord, I’m getting down on the floor because if I get up, I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid.” I had good reason to be concerned.
When I was a kid growing up in Petal, Mississippi, I dreamed of leaving my hometown and moving to the big city. All that dreaming eventually led me to Washington, D.C., but in the years since I’ve been away, my fondness for small town living has grown as I’ve realized it actually comes with quite a few advantages. Here are five of my favorite benefits:
Some of the people I most admire love themselves really well. They’re not hard on themselves. They give themselves room to grow and figure things out. They like themselves. I find it easy to be around those folks. There’s something special going on with them.
Joshua Rogers 