Thoughts @ 3am

Hello everyone,

This is Rick with my first ever blog. As I sit here at work I have plenty of time to think about different things. Most of the time I think about areas of my life I need to change or I think about sports (for those of you that know me; you know I think about sports a lot!). There have just been a lot of things lately telling me that I need to refocus. Wither the Sunday school class that I am in, or the very good sermon that I heard tonight, or maybe even the conversation that Lisa and I had the other day (see sweetie I really do listen to you!). These things made me stop and think why I do the things that I do. When I help around the house do I do them because I am so filled with God’s love that I am just over flowing with blessing to give them? Or when I accept an invitation to be on a team and put another meeting in our family’s extremely busy schedule am I doing this because I think that this is where God wants me? Or am I doings these things to be accepted? As I look over most of the decisions that I make throughout my day and week I believe that I make a lot of my decisions based on my fear of failure and need for acceptance. Is it that I am just trying to stay so busy that I do not think about this fear, or so I do not have to have a deep relationship with most of the people that I come into contact with? Or is it that I am just looking to be accepted? I am not really sure.

I really do know that God loves me. So my fear of failure is childish in a sense. However, it is scary to open yourself up to those deep relationships because you have to put your masks away. When you are truly open and let people see you for you they see the cracks and flaws in you. The scariest part to me is that I feel that if people really knew me that they would laugh and run away. But then I think that since God loves me and my family loves me how different can I be from everyone else? I just keep hearing this little voice saying, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” (And the voices of my two oldest saying "Daddys home!!!", and my youngest blowing raspberries. How much more love and acceptance can you get than that?)

Now that I am 30, I look at my relationships and I do long for that deepness. But when you have been wearing your mask for so long it becomes really hard to take off. It reminds me of a couple of things that I have learned from Veggie Tales as well as a book my daughter has (hey, I have kids this is what we watch and read). The VT movie is a “Snoodles Tale” and the book is the Green nose book (I am not really sure what the title of the green nose book is but that is what I call it!). In both the book and the movie the main characters have to learn to get their self worth from God and not from others. I guess that if I can learn this then the deep relationships with God, my family, and my friends will be a whole lot easier to achieve.

I have thought a lot about this blog and what I should write. Sorry it is so depressing (see here I go again). I really do have a very positive self image which is the only reason that I will post this instead of just logging off without posting. Not really sure that posting at 3am is the best thing to do after reading over what I just wrote. Not sure when I will post again, but I do hope to be more cheery next time. Hopefully next time I can tell you about me new found deepness! I am open to suggestions if anyone knows how to get there!

Again, thank you for reading my thoughts very early in the morning. Now before I go get some more coffee (and yes I was one of those people that told everyone that I would never drink coffee and now drink it at least two days a week) for those of you that know me you know that I will have to end my post like this:
GO COLTS!!!!!!!!!!! (See I told you I thought about sports as well)