An Honestly Embittered Post:

The gloves are off. The facade torn down. This is honesty. Raw honesty. This is proof that I am human. Cut me and I bleed. Hold me underwater and I drown.

It is the second year in a row that I had thought that I had dodged all of the well-wishers, wishy-washers, and gushers on yet another Valentine's Day massacre, when the terrible realization dawned on me that today, in fact, was not Valentine's Day.

Today even had the perfect set up for the day to the dreaded day: I awoke to thunder and lightning along with tornado warnings. It seemed like something had torn the sky and it poured out it's contents on the earth below. For some strange reason, it was comforting. Maybe it was the hope that rain brings... or maybe it was my amplified negativity toward the day intepretting this as an amusing joke: the sky was cry for something that I cannot find the tears for.

Call me the Grinch of V-day, if you will, I have some very valid reasons why I refuse to even recognize that it exists.

I will reitterate this idea every year... be V-day a holiday of friendship or romanticism, here is a novel idea: why not treat everyone with dignity, respected, and cherish them every day? Guys, it makes me sick how all year long, you can take for granted what you has in your life and automatically redeem yourself (or buy-off) you girl.

And so the same goes the other way around too.

Girls, you are not exempt from this either. You fuel the fires by allowing yourselves duped into it OR worse playing into it like it's a game. The attention must be nice, so must the feeling of beating guys away with sticks.

(Which leads me now to indite myself. Damien, shame on you for being so critical of others and how they chose to celebrate. In your search for vindication, you have become no better.)

When I look at what true love is supposed to be like, nothing about this day reminds me of it. I see commercialism and material expectations. Sure, if must be nice to be showered with affection, but in the long run, the enamel stretches thin and the true nature is revealed: shallowness, selfish motives, etc. I could go on forever with the bitter list.

I'm really not a hateful person, I just never have liked the day and I probably never will. I'm just tired of it already. Too much pressure. Too many reminders. I will seemingly always have bad days around this time of year. This has never been a holiday of love or friendship to me. This has always been a reminder of loss.

It's funny, just today, I was reading in Ezekiel where God offers this crazy image to Ezekiel of Israel being a beautiful young woman who He did everything for. In the long run, she ended up running off on Him... insatiably searching for more and better. Yet even in His fierce anger, God still remembered the promises that He had made her, refraining from making her drink the wrath which she herself has funished.

I know how that wrath feels and it's not pretty. I know what it is to experience infidelity... I am not an easily angered person, but I have no stomach or tolerance for it. In the measure of patience that God has given me, I have no patience deception.

So what is true love? True love is that we don't get what we have coming to us. True love is patient endurance beyond what I in myself am capable of. True love has nothing to do with this day and just like that, I want nothing to do with it either.

"I'm not sure if you know this..."

"But, I am a pastor, by profession," I said with my pinky finger holding down the grave key in the upper lefthand corner of the keyboard. "I work with teenagers in a church," I continued through a tawny microphone which was attached to my ear, along with a set of headphones all while pressing different combinations of W,A,S,D,3, Right, Left, and Center mouse buttons.

As voice returned, rough, but confirming.

"Yes, I did happen to know that," returned the voice of a man I only know as Darkfire. "I did know that and I must tell you, that I think that is VERY F@$%ing cool. Kids need someone who cares about them."

Another voice chimed in, a female one. It was the familiar voice of LifeLyne this time: "Yes, Tomax is very f@$%ing cool..."

We continued to talk about the story I am about to share. When God has done something good... especially when He has done something good in and through other people, how can we not talk about it... even if it seems like foolishness to those who do not know God?

Let me start off by issuing a sad stereotype:

(please keep in mind that this is a VAST generalization)

Youth ministry is the back burner ministry of most churches. The only reason a youth ministry exists is because the children's ministry program is sick of them and the adults don't want them. The average youth ministry meeting is held in a bottom floor, back corner room of the church that is only unused because nobody else wants it. The average youth ministry is good enough for the 2nd/3rd best of everything.

The youth pastor is viewed as the slacker young adult who doesn't want to grow up, but stagnates in immaturity by mingling with his former peers. He is irresponsible, untimely, forgetful, messy, and untrustworthy. According to most members of the congregation, he is not a "real" pastor, yet he is patronized by being told that he might one day make a good one. He believes that the senior pastor is only there to trump his "brilliant" ideas, like a raw spam eating contest, followed promptly by "The Milk Challenge." He will only stay at a church, at maximum, for 18 months.... yet his head and heart are on a 1 year contract.

I do not say this to sound like a hero, but these are the generalizations which I have been preparing myself to deal with throughout my entire college career.

What has clearly blown me away is that I have had just about the exact opposite experience here. Yesterday was a day that has solidified my opinion of the senior pastor that God has blessed me with:

Last night (Friday night), I have planned a big night of games for the youth group. This was going to be a big night of random entertainment... super laid back, video games, board games, table top games. I had even been able to pick up a Nintendo Wii for the event!

As I prepared the room, I took notice that the television that were in the youth facilities. Keep in mind, I have an amazing youth room(s) (Yes, there are more than one of them in the area which encompasses the entirety of our room). The picture tubes in the tvs were all burnt out from overuse. It was almost like someone had put the menu up and left them on for days at a time. On my way out to the high school for lunch (I make a weekly visit to have lunch with my teens and their friends once a week), I had mentioned to Angie, the church secretary AND Pastor Brad's wife, that I needed to find some other TVs around the church to use for that night.

Lunch at the school was amazing. I stayed for 2 of the lunch waves and had lunch with several kids that I have not met before, but they were cool enough to invite me over to sit with them and get to know them. During that time, I had a conversation with a kid who wanted to go into the youth ministry too! It was such a good time!

On my way back, I received what could have sounded like an irritated phone call, but because of the nature of our relationship, I knew he was joking. "Where on EARTH are you?!" came the familiar voice of Pastor Brad. At this point, I had been sitting in the parking lot of Office Depot trying to down the final pieces of my 8-piece Chick-fil-a nugget meal while soaking in the 70 degree February sun. "When you're done with your errands, I needs some help moving things at the church." No biggie.

Upon arrival, Brad meets me at the door and says, "You're not gunna be happy with me..." he said with a forced serious face. Doubt filled my mind as I am trying to preemptively prepare myself for what was around the corner. I follow him into the youth facilities, which are attached to our offices, and I see two... brand new, 20-inch flat screen TVs (not flat panel, mind you)!

"Where did these come from!?" I say with jaw lowered.

"Angie and I picked them up today." The grin cracked through his facade... but then he continues... "Well, you're going to hate me for this... but I bought something. Now if you can't use it, we can take it back, but if you think you can find a use for it, it's yours."

At this point, I'm trying to conjure a possible imagination as to what he's talking about, but nothing could have prepared me for this. He pulls out a Sony Playstation 3, a second controller, and a game. My jaw went from hanging in the breeze to picking up dust and dirt from the floor.

As I started to fumble through a sentence of gratitude, he interrupts me and says, "These are our donation to the youth ministry. I know that people might see this as a waste of money, but I see it like this: You need the right tools to attract people in here. Let's face it, kids aren't going to just come in here to hear a good sermon... you need a way to keep them coming back so that relationships can happen and lives can be changed... and if people have a problem with this, they can take it up with me. There are many hills that I am not willing to die on, but this is one... I will be behind you 100% in you truly believe that you are doing the right thing and I have faith in you that you will."

You can only imagine how I must feel about this. Sure, it is amazing that I have 2 brand, spankin' new TVs AND access to all 3 next-generation gaming systems, but the real joy is this:

God has placed me in a position working along side of (not under) someone who has a true, genuine grasp on what ministry takes and is willing to not just verbally support, but all-out support what I am doing, believing that Christ will work through me and through this place. He has no delusions as to what it will take and he's enabling me to do so.

"Let me tell you, Tomax, " Darkfire continued. "You have no f@$%ing idea how much I wish I had that growing up... I think it's so cool that you're giving them something to do. The WORST thing that you can do to a kid is put time in his hands. I know from experience, that's when I got into the deepest $#(^... keep doing what you're doin', man..."

Yes, I could have done without filling in the words that Dark chose to use, but I use them to emphasize this point along with my gratefulness in the other:

Ministry doesn't just happen Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. It is our responsibility to take every moment, every chance to minister to people in seemingly unconventional ways. The church does still work, but we must be creative in our ways to get people curious as to what happens there. Even Jesus, before he told the disciples anything about who He was, simply said "Follow me and you'll get the picture..."

Though people like Darkfire and LifeLyne only know me as Tomax, a pastor who plays World of Warcraft and brother of a fellow guildie, though teens may see me as Pastor Damien on game nights, or the kids of Foley High School wondering who the spikey-headed guy standing off to the side of the lunch room on Tuesdays is... I pray that they all see Christ through me.