You are doing this!

My flight to Seattle was great.  I landed and was warmly greeted by my very good friend Sarah M. and my dog Louie. It was good to be back where it all started. It seemed so unreal. We managed to squeeze in some fun times amongst all the other things I had to do. My time there was way too short. It seemed like as soon as I landed, I was leaving and giving hugs good-bye. I was headed back to Spokane.

 Ok, so I mention in my last blog that the Lord was doing some big things in my personal life. I haven't blogged in a while because I needed to see how some things were going to play out.  As you can imagine, when I’m walking, I have a lot of time to think. A LOT OF TIME TO THINK.  Much of that time has been spent thinking about three relationships in my life.  My step-father Ted, my ex-wife Kim, and an ex-girlfriend Sarah (who I was convinced at one point was the love of my life).  All of them ended badly. Two out of the three endings were completely my fault. The honest truth is, I did some horrible things. I'm not sure how much I'm going to share in these blogs, but I do think that it is all important to share. Because I think it tells about the grace of God, about His mercy and redemption. 

Before I left Boise, I really believed that the Lord had set things into motion in my heart. Ok- rewind, this may get confusing. I’m going to start back just before I left for Spokane the first time from Boise… Do you remember Amy?  She was the one who picked up St when we arrived in Boise. Well, on the first day that I met Amy I was slightly uncomfortable, because I knew she and Sarah are friends. So, I just assumed she hated me, but that she was just being nice for the cause.  Anyway, during that first day we hung out, she said something like "Oh, I have heard stories about you!" This honestly shook me up. I thought she was talking about things Sarah had told her. Move forward a few weeks later, when I had returned to Boise again, I found out that the “stories” she had referred to were only about how much fun St and I had together! It figures. Anyways, that one comment planted this seed in my heart. I had to find Sarah and apologize on a real level for the things I had done. I had wanted to do this for over a year now, but it just never seemed like the right time.

Ok, now back to Spokane, I had been in town for a few days and this nagging thought would not leave my mind, it just kept growing stronger. My ex-wife was now in this mix to get an apology from me, as well. I needed to share some things which I'm not sure she knew…. Anyways, I was set to meet St downtown. We were going to take some pictures of the two of us with LeeRoy. Since he was already down there, I told him to meet me at the skate park. I didn't know this at the time, but he had been at the coffee shop where Sarah works earlier in the day. later that night, we went out to the Flying Goat to chill and talk. I told him that I felt like I was supposed to talk to Sarah, Kim, and without me even thinking about what I was saying, my step-fathers name came out too. I told him I didn’t even know how to find all of them.  St just laughed.  He was like “dude, it has to be a God thing, because I was at Sarah's work today”. I was struck dumb. We chatted about it, and then I spent most the night thinking about it. I couldn't even sleep.  The next morning, I was up at 3:30. I had to take my friend Aubrey to work so I could use her car. St and I had a radio interview that morning and I was speaking at the church that night. I dropped St off after our interview and headed to Starbucks (I was picking up Aubrey from work.)  I was sitting there drinking coffee completely wrapped up in my thoughts about talking to these people. I got a little freaked out. I started to look for ways to discredit this whole idea of apologizing. But I couldn’t. So I moved on, trying to clear my head.  I had been working on memorizing Romans 8, so I thought, “I’ll do something "holy" “… Haha. I picked up my phone to open up my Bible app. The verse of the day was Heb 12:14 “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord”. (Hebrews 12:14 ESV) Haha, man, just thinking about that moment right now, I know it was sooo a God thing.  A straight-up spiritual back hand... Like "Look, You are doing this!" I just laughed after I read that. I said aloud “Ok God, I'm on it”... I sent out some messages, and made some phone calls to try and track these three people down. 

Aubrey and I left Starbucks, but we had to be back in a few hours for a meeting she had with her store manager.  During that time I made arrangements to meet with my ex-wife and my step-father the day before I would leave Spokane to head back to Boise. But I still needed to track down Sarah.  Aubrey and I headed back to Starbucks for her meeting. When I dropped her off, she asked me to get gas. She gave me her card, but not the pin so I had to turn right around and head back. I walked in to Starbucks and started to sit down. I saw a girl I kind of recognized. She saw me and seemed to recognize me right away. Since, I realized that I knew her somehow; I walked over to her table and started chatting her up. She was visibly UNComfortable. Not even three minutes in to the conversation, she blurts out. “YOU DO KNOW I’M BEST FRIENDS WITH SARAH RIGHT!"... I got a big smile and just started laughing. Man. God is so crazy! He set me up to succeed. So, I did all I could to get her to see this was so the Lord at work. Soooo much happened in that convo. More than I’m gonna write about now. She, of course, had her reservations. Honestly, I think she kind of hated me... But I convinced her to text Sarah. They both were not having it.  But after a lot of convincing, Sarah finally agreed to meet with me. She told me to meet her at 6:00 that night.  But I couldn't make that time work.  I would just be leaving an appointment, and then I had that speaking engagement at the church for the college group. So I asked if we could arrange to meet after that. She said no.  She said she could meet the next morning at 9:00, but I explained I had to catch a flight at 6:30am… our schedules just weren’t coming together. I think she was frustrated. She finally said "we make time for the things we really want to do" and that if I really wanted to meet up with her I would just have to make the effort to go find her.

So, I left town without being able to tell her what was on my heart. It wasn't the ideal out come. However, it did give me some insight on how she was feeling. And on the bright side, it gave me more time to reflect on how I felt and have time to better prepare my apology. For when I returned form Seattle.