Once he was 7 years old

Yesterday we celebrated Alex's 7th birthday. The boys were born 4 yrs and 8 days a part so we try to make things special for them by having individual family parties followed by a larger gathering a month later. Lex picked Olive Garden as the site for his birthday lunch so Mo, Houston, Gigi, Pops, Brock, Brooke, Tate, Nani, Adam, Mandy, and I all met for a tomato sauce and garlic covered bash. The man of the hour cleaned his plate and also cleaned up with a ton of Pokemon stuff. He even managed to have his wish for birthday snow somehow granted with a light dusting of the white stuff on the ground when he woke up.

There was a lot that went wrong this weekend, but we got Sunday right. Alex was all smiles while being celebrated by some of his favorite people. After all is said and done it's those family relationships that mater the most in life after of course a strong relationship with God. People come in and out of your life and you think that they will always be there, but when the rubber meets the road it's your family that prove they are the ones that will always have your back. You may treat each other like dirt sometimes, but you always find a way to love each other in spite of everyone's flaws. 

No time to remember what this is about

A ton of stuff going on this week, none of it involves getting any rest. Mandy says that I talk about how tired I am at least ten times a day. She's right of course as I can't ever seem to get energized enough. It doesn't help that there is always fifty things going on around the house. Baseball evaluations tonight (which meant getting Adam used to throwing the ball again for the past few weeks), date night this weekend, we got a new couch (thanks Pops!) so the old one is sitting in the dinning room waiting to sell, beside it is a box spring & mattress for Mandy's guest bed that can't be put into the guest room until all the storage is taken to a locker which can't happen until it quits raining every Saturday.

Both boys have birthdays in the next ten days which will bring two private parties so they feel special and then one larger gathering for friends. Adam is studying for the play he has the lead role in (Come see him as Charlie in Willy Wonka this May). My car keeps dying when we least expect it, only to come back to life moments later. Alex just runs around like a crazy person bumping into things half the time. At any given moment I wouldn't be shocked if my phone rang to tell me he's broken a bone. Last month I had to run up to the school because his nose starting bleeding. Typically nose bleeds are caused by dry air or too much picking, but not with Alex. He was playing in gym and ran face first into a wall. I'm not surprised. I once saw Adam run straight into a wooden column at church, do a back-flip, wet himself, and take off running after his friends. Both kids come home all bruised up and never have any idea how they took such a beating. You would think a purple golf-ball sized lump on the leg would at least leave a person with some type of memory even if it's just to serve as a reminder to never do whatever caused it again. Nope!! The same discussion takes place week after week; Me "How did that happen?!" Them "I don't know".

How they can both be so smart and so unaware of what their daily life is like?

"What did you do at school today?"
"How did you do on that spelling test?"
"Did you get to play outside?"
"How did your hair catch on fire?"

I don't know is the answer to all of the above. Sometimes I just stare at them and wonder how they have walking around sense. Of course it must be a genetic problem because you can forget me remembering any conversation after 9:00 p.m. I may be up and walking around until 11:00 p.m., but the brain clocks out at 9:00 p.m.

Mandy and I also have the same conversation at least twice a week:

" Don't forget you promised me (fill in the blank)"
"That wasn't me! I never said I'd do that!"
"Yes you did Bill Beck. You sat right there and promised me it would get done today!"
"What time was it when I made this promise?"
"I didn't write it down, but it was like 9:15."
"What was I doing?"
"You came in the living room around 8:30 and was watching that basketball game that ended in overtime."
"The game went into overtime! I don't remember anything after the first half! Okay I'll do it."

It's a wonder she doesn't drive around in a convertible. All she would have to do is tell me she asked me at 9:30 the night before and I'd have no choice but to agree and sign the registration.

In Just A Minute

This has been sitting in my Edit file for two years. I just happen to see it there today. It's a bit melodramatic, but it was written in good intentions. 

People say that life can change in an instant. If you've ever heard the sound of your first child crying the moment it entered this bright and noisy world, you know this to be true. If you've ever spent half your life searching for that one true love only to see her across the room as if by accident, you understand how quickly circumstances can change. Maybe you woke up one morning to find life has dealt you another hand; I suppose tragedy happens just as quickly as triumph. Suddenly you are swept away in an avalanche of sadness struggling to swim to the surface, to catch a quick breath before you are pulled under again. One moment you are bored by the mundane rituals of the world, seconds later you stand begging for life to be stale once again. It's in these times when you find yourself spun around looking at what just happened and thanking God for watching over you. With that in mind I bring this week's article.

His name isn't as important as what happened to him on that dark stretch of interstate I65 South. I say that with a grain of salt of course. I'm sure his name meant something to somebody. He was most certainly a son to a caring mother, possibly a father to a young innocent child. No doubt he was loved by God regardless of whether he understood that himself or not. I pray he'd spent a portion of his life in the arms of somebody that loved him deeply. That he knew God and His power to grant everlasting life. I wonder if he knows of the hours my family has spent thinking about his these past couple of weeks. 

It'd been a terribly long day spent helping my grandparents move, driving hours on end with two very loud boys, and the last thing any of us wanted was to be stuck in a traffic jam for an hour & a half at 8:30 on a Saturday night. Understandably at first we weren't interested in anything but getting home. Mistakenly certain that what lay just around the next corner was nothing more than a simple fender bender that in turn had been exasperated by slow moving police. As the minutes began to accumulate though we began to understand something very tragic had occurred up ahead. 

Even a week later the details are sparse. This stranger to me...this unknown motorist somehow found himself on the side of the road and in search of help. Whether by being involved in a minor car accident or engine trouble, the end result was the same...he was alone on a particularly dark section of the interstate and needed help. What happened next is too graphic for this venue, but simply put the stranded motorist ended his time on this earth while attempting to cross traffic that did not see him coming. Such a sad way to go...such a tragic way to leave this world behind.

The more we began to learn of what caused the delay in our return trip home, the more we began to imagine what might have been that night. What had put him at that place at that time? What minor adjustments of time could have prevented his death? What if it had been us that had caused his end had we not stopped at one more store or picked a slower restaurant? What would life have been like for everyone had things just not gone the way they did on that lonely stretch of I65? 

God has a plan. For this you can be certain. We may struggle with the situations we find ourselves in, but a plan exists never the less. The future is a frightening concept full of all sorts of nightmares and goblins and as scary as tomorrow might be, I can't think of anything more terrifying than facing it without God....without knowing the love of Jesus Christ. I used to think that someday I would get baptized when I was ready, I'm so very thankful God gave me the chance to live that long. I pray this man knew God, that his family has found peace in knowing he's now in The Saviors arms, and that they have found a way to live for today rather than wait for tomorrow.

Bill Beck iii

Between the hours of....

I don't talk about work much in this arena. Some of that is because I never know who is reading my stuff and I worry about the consequences of casting my place of employment in a negative light. The biggest reason I never talk about it though is that there's rarely anything to discuss. Simply put I have the Chandler Bing of jobs. It pays good, it's close to home, decent benefits, and I'm a pro at it, but very few people know what I actually do. That being said I'm not chasing down criminals all night or teaching the youth of today quantum physics or pulling apart an engine out of a Mustang GT. I'm in accounting. I stare at spread sheets and debate their meanings all day. Yes it can be challenging at times. Yes there are also office politics involved. No I can't see myself doing anything different. I go in at 8:00 a.m,lunch at 12:30, and leave at 5:00 p.m. I have good days and bad days, but after all is said and done life for me is what happens when I'm not at work. My family and friends. Laughing, enjoying each others time, learning how to be a better father, son, and friend. I'm fortunate to have a good job. My job isn't who I am though. 

Marching toward adulthood

The kids are turning 7 and 11 in the next two weeks. Everyone tells you to hold on to every second of their childhood because one day you will wake up and they will be gone. When it's said you smile and say they are right, but you never truly understand what that means until its too late. It's happening too fast and I can't hold tight enough. 

Alex is a curly haired mess of overreactions and quick comebacks. He routinely bellows, yells, screams, and hollers his every emotion. The master of comic relief, his only goal in life is to laugh and cuddle. He meets me at the door every night with a hug and urgent demand for my singular attention. 

Adam is stoic and remorseful. He's quick to react and even quicker to get his feelings hurt. He demands perfection from himself but doesn't have the patience to learn how to achieve it. Easily frustrated that he can't just pick a new skill up and be its master; he is so eager for others to see his latest accomplishment. Baseball, show choir (see him as Charlie in Willy Wonka next month), church...Mandy and I encourage him to be involved in everything and he thrives on it. Alex on the other hand gets frustrated if his tablet is too slow to start and would love nothing more than to never leave the house again. 

This old house

Not quite in the city, not far enough out to be in the country; this old house sits just off the highway in between patches of what seemed like forests when I was a child, but now through these old man eyes is nothing more than a few trees bunched up together. White shudders, a front porch that begs for a rocking chair and a glass of lemonade, built of bricks made from the same red clay that the foundation sits on, the old house was so loved by the woman that lived in it. A family room that allowed her to look out at the front yard and gaze at the cars that would pass by; She often found herself imaging where each driver was off to in such a hurry. Maybe to pick up the kids from school or to meet the girl of their dreams for a first date written in the stars. A cozy kitchen (not too fancy not too plain), a couple bedrooms at the end of the hall that split the home down the middle, hardwood floors that recorded each footstep and would creak at times under the strain of thirty years of a life lived in happiness. The only thing the woman loved more than that old house was the decorations that surrounded the outside of it. 

Tacky, eccentric, weird...she wasn't naive enough to think that the world didn't call her names as they drove down the highway and saw the objects covering the outside of the home. Let them stare she'd say to herself, I love each and everything thing out there. And even she would admit there was a lot to love... those that mocked the old house couldn't see the memories that came to life each time the woman looked at them. 

There was the five foot tall replica Statue of Liberty that reminded her of that winter spent with her husband and children in New York City ice skating around Rockefeller Center until late in the evening. 

In the yard sat a metallic ball on a concrete pedestal that reflected the morning sun in a way that took her back to the beach and the first time she saw the sun rise over the ocean.  Her daddy was beside her and kissed her on the forehead like dads do when they realize how proud of their children they are. 

The bird bath that would bring the prettiest red birds to her yard each spring     In her mind she can still hear the children screaming in delight "First red bird of the spring! Make a wish Momma!!"

The outside of the old house was covered with all sorts of things like that...things that looked out of place and from anyone else’s point of view, cluttered the yard. "It's just too much stuff" those pesky drivers would think as they zipped by never giving another thought to the woman inside the home who would sit on that front porch in her later years and relive her life one piece of yard art at a time. 

Time has since passed and the old house now sits in the same place not quite in the city, not far enough out to be in the country. Windows busted, the door kicked in, a couch lies on its side in the front yard where the Statue of Liberty once stood tall. It's hard to imagine what happened to the woman that lived inside; it's safe to say though that whatever took place was tragic, life changing, the kind of thing we all dread will befall ourselves someday and pray at night for those who have lost so much. 

With its true love having abandoned it, the old house simply fell apart piece by piece. 

As Christians we surround ourselves with reminders of Jesus Christ. Of the sacrifice God made when he allowed his only son be nailed on the cross and tortured for our sins. We share quotes from the Bible on Facebook and we come to every service and we laugh and sing and pray...like the woman in that old house we put things in front of us that make us appreciate the life we live through following Christ's teachings and we smile each time we think about our blessings. But sometimes the blessings don’t speak so clearly.  It could be a series of minor annoyances: the announcements were better at the beginning of service, they never sing anything current. It might take one single event that shakes us up deep down in our bones: maybe you’ve lost someone and church just doesn't feel right. Maybe you got laid off; how is anyone supposed to survive without a paycheck? Whatever the cause, regardless of the reason...just like that old house and the woman that once loved it with all her heart,  there are times when we abandon our church...we abandon God. If nobody in this room tonight has gone through this before, I promise you we all know somebody that has.

We abandon God. We abandon the church. God doesn’t tell us to leave! To pack our bags and hit the road. The church doesn't lock the doors or put bouncers in the foyer to keep us out. We quit coming! We take the Bible and place it on a shelf, we hide the daily verses that used to brighten our day, we take all those reminders of God that some might say clutter our view of the real world, and we let them go wherever it is things go when they are no longer necessary in our lives.

...that old house still sits there today. It’s in desperate need of some love and attention, but it’s still there waiting for the woman that loved it with all her heart to return...just like your church and more importantly just like your God. 

Done let yourself or someone you love feel abandoned. The church is here. God never left you. We are all waiting for you to come back. 

Holi-Dated Post

The holidays are over. 

Done with. 

Behind us. 

Everyone's favorite time of the year is gone and so are all those days off from work that come with it. Honestly the greatest gift I've ever received as a husband and father is the string of days spent around the house under the warm glow of Christmas lights watching movies with my boys and Mandy. Yes it takes forever to get all the decorations out, but to me there's no better feeling in the world then spending all day and night laughing with my family as the smell of cinnamon wafts through the air. 

The presents were fantastic. The looks on the faces of the boys as they got their new bikes, computers, and various other things were great to see, but the feelings of peace, comfort, and thankfulness that also arrive during those two weeks is something I wish I could bottle up and horde away for the long months ahead. 

Wouldn't it be amazing if you could keep a little Christmas in a bottle and just spray a bit into the air when life starts getting the best of you? Chaos begins to take control of your life, you feel like you're about to drown in a sea of angst, suddenly .... psspt....psspt.... a calm comes over you as Christmas swirls through the air all around. 

This year Christmas fell on a Sunday which is nice considering the fact that those same feelings that come in the last few weeks of the year are also the ones that rise up inside of me during those times I feel closest to Christ. I suspect that if I could bottle the Christmas spirit, I'd wind up with something very close to the Holy Spirit. The main difference being of course that one only occurs annually for a short period of time while the other is available in an unlimited supply all year long. All I gotta remember to do is chose to feel it.