The Fusion Coach

The attached commercial depicts where I am living these days. 

 http://www.autotrader.com/research/article/safety/70367/subaru-advertising-plays-the-father-daughter-heartstrings.jsp

Yesterday, my little girls graduated from high school.  In four years, if things go as planned, they will graduate from college.  One with a degree in education, the other, biology and music.  In four years the education major aspires to graduate into wife and motherhood, after completing a teaching stint in a third world country.   In eight, my biology major hopes to be graduating from medical school and starting her residency.   

Time passes quickly, as the commercial vividly suggests.  Graduation is all about growth.   Sometimes growth is painful.  Most of our daughter’s  friends are moving away.   My heart is a bit heavy knowing I won’t be seeing them as often.  A few, I may never see again.  Teens won’t be running in and out of our home anymore.  Yet, I celebrate their accomplishments and this promotion with vigor, despite the loss I feel.  

I envision God celebrating,  imparting dreams He has for them, praying they hear that still small voice of instruction.  “I have illiminated the path for you.  Follow it.”     

I also envision Him celebrating my graduations over the past few years.    Ministry to marketplace,  fear to faith,  passion to purpose, wishing and hoping –  to knowing and doing.  But I suspect He too, has  experienced some loss.  Times I have taken the easy road when the more challenging would have gotten me farther and faster to my destination.  Times when I have bowed to intimidation or condemnation or insecurity, instead of standing up to these giants.  Times when I have had more confidence in the threats of the enemy or the lies I tell myself,  than God’s promises.    

Often, as God has/is instructing, like the little girl eager to get on the road, I too, in an exasperated voice have said, “Daddy… okay”  when I couldn’t see over the dash.  Yet – God still handed me the keys, because unlike the Subaru dad, He has no fear of me NOT arriving at my destination.   He tells me in Jeremiah 29 that he has plans for me.  “I know what I am doing.  I have it all planned out.  I have plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.”  

Alan Jackson recorded an awesome song entitled Drive.  The song is about growth and ultimately graduation:  

It was just an old hand me down Ford
With 3 speed on the column and a dent in the door
A young boy two hands on the wheel,
I can’t replace the way it made me feel, 

I would press that clutch
And I would keep it right
He would say – a little slower son
Your doing just fine
Just a dirt road with trash on each side
But I was Mario Andretti… when Daddy let me drive.

When Daddy let me…..DRIVE.  Your Daddy has given you keys too.  Let the journey COMMENCE….

Had lunch last week with a friend who shared the highlights of a movie.  The storyline revolves around a young woman who experiences a fall, resulting in paralysis from the waist down.  The twist was, while she had no feeling, sensation or ability to move her legs,  the doctors could find no physiological reason for her condition.  No injury to her spine warranting this degree of disability. 

As the story continues,  she is forced to consider possible psychological reasons for her paralysis.  Eventually, she teams up with a doctor who challenges her:  ”If you want to walk, stop seeing yourself falling.”  In short, the paralysis was a result of her continual mental replaying of the fall – over and over.  The movie ends of course, with her getting out of the wheelchair and on with life.  If only all lives had such happy endings. 

I was saddened to hear of the passing of actor Jeff Conaway this morning from Taxi and Grease fame.  You may also remember him from Celebrity Rehab a couple of seasons back.  Sadly, it appears this was to be his last starring role.  Watching him on the program,  I recall thinking how lost and literally paralyzed by anger he seemed.  I suspect Jeff always saw himself falling….

While Jeff Conaway may be an extreme example, where have you fallen? Where are you paralyzed?  More importantly, can you see yourself walking/running/dancing again?  You will become what you believe.  Something to think about.