Breathing

So my friend Curt at The Happy Husband e-mailed me yesterday and said, "Are you ever going to write a second post on your blog? I know four days doesn't seem like a long time, but it's approximately six months in blogosphere time." I know, I know. I think I said that the next time I could breathe I'd try to get on it.

So here I am... I'm breathing. I want to be witty and interesting, but frankly, I'm mostly tired. It's 1:30am here in California. I'm up late sending e-mails and working on the site and getting orders ready. Wow... I guess I really am an indie artist. Tomorrow's gonna come early.

Tonight I'm wrestling with my calling and my roles in this crazy life:

I am first and foremost a child of God, and that relationship needs to come first.

I am a husband to an amazing wife. She needs me to be present and to give her my life and my time. She needs me to serve her at the end of a long day with our kids. 

I am dad to Josh, Jake, Emily and Zach. They need me to be interested in them, to know what's going on at school, to ask about their friends and their interests.

I am a pastor and church musician, and I need to live out my vocation with integrity. I want to give my best to God's work at Peninsula Covenant Church. I want to be creative and excellent in the music and arts that we offer to God and to our community. I want to shepherd my flock well, to love our congregation and, especially, to nurture and guide those who give of their time and talent in worship.

I am a friend, a son, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a grandson.

I am a musician: a singer, pianist and songwriter. I need to nurture those gifts, to give back what has been given to me, to run hard after what God's called me to do with this amazing opportunity. A year ago I would never have dreamed this recording would be a reality, but here it is.

I am a broken man who is so in need of the grace of God, so in need of His healing and His guidance. I need to take time to read, to pray, to journal, to create, to talk, to process.

I started to feel panicky last week. I walked around saying, "There's not enough time in my day, not enough hours in the week." But you know what? I decided to sit down with pencil and paper and do some good, old-fashioned addition and subtraction. There are 168 hours in the week. Let's say I were to sleep 49 of those hours. (Like that's going to happen...) Even if I could manage that, I'd still have 119 left. Let's say I put in 50 at church. That's 69 left. So let's say, on principal, that Luanne and the kids get 51... They should come before work, right? That still leaves 18 hours in the week for movies and friends and working out and reading and journaling and working on this indie artist stuff. Not a LOT of time, but enough. I feel better. It's like I'm realizing that there ARE enough hours in the day to do what must be done. God won't call us to more than we can handle.

I may have to give up breathing though.