Thank You Blog

I don't like religious people. Maybe I should rephrase that a bit.

I don't like really religious people. That's a bit better but it's still not quite right. You see, the "really" of that sentence is the key word. It should be in italics. And, it is not an issue of not liking religious people so much as it is an issue of not liking people that are really anything; be it religious people, liberal people, conservative people, cat people. If your world ebbs and flows with the Green Bay Packers or U2 then we aren't going to get along very well. Don't worry, I'll be ok.

Having firmly established my position as a moderate centrist, I am now going to establish myself as a moderate centrist hypocrite and tell a very really religious story.

I was a key player in a car accident on Easter Sunday 100 yards from the Church I've been attending while I was on my way to buy Breakfast for a friend. I think they call this foreshadowing. The accident was tragic and horrible and frightening and painful but that isn't the point is it? My accident is merely a position on the time line of a much larger story.

In an Ebay auction the seller sets a price that he believes to be fair and the buyer determines the actual worth of the item. If only one person bids then the item...let's call it a weed eater...is essentially worth what that person pays. However, things get really interesting when more than one person bids on the weed eater. Bid after bid is someone else in the community saying "I think that weed eater is worth more." Sellers like large communities.

Several weeks ago I was having doubts about whether or not I belonged in a certain community. I felt that it was a community I wanted desperately to be a part of but I was unsure whether or not they felt the same. You see I had been selling myself and I hadn't received any bids. So, I took my issue up with God and asked Him for a little perspective on the situation and then I got hit by a Chevy.

By 9:00 am on that Easter Sunday I had received 3 phone calls and 4 visitors and this was just the beginning. Over the course of my hospital stay, friends and family came, figuratively, out of the woodwork. Phone calls, text messages, paper air planes, chocolate eggs, magazines, hugs, hand shakes, cards, smiles, tears, shoulders and taxis. People from my community were aching to love me. They had been aching to love me. The problem was that I wasn't accepting any bids, before. Now, it isn't an option. The bids are rolling in and I can't do anything to stop them. It turns out that the worth was there all along.

God had to break my ribs to heal my spirit. It was a fair trade.

Now, about that title. To Alicia, Anna, Anne, Amy, Amy, Ben, Bill, Cassie, Cathy, Charlie, Christel, Christine, Claire, Clint, Dan, Dayna, Debra, Denise, Doug, Elizabeth, Jack, Jay, Jennifer, Jennifer, Jon, Judy, Julia, Julie, Kristin, Lauren, Matt, Meredith, Miriam, Mozelle, Nicole, Patrick, Patsy, Peggy, Rich, Rick, Robert, Ruth, Sam, Sara, Stan, Suzanne, Tommy, Trent, and the other I undoubtedly forgot...Thank you for being a part of my community and thank you letting me be a part of yours. I can't wait to see where our story goes next.

-Jake