Success is not a white picket fence. Success is not a two-car garage and a mini van and 4 kids. It’s not a lawn I have to mow twice a month, nor is it a car payment, a mortgage, or a diploma that says I owe fifty thousand dollars for my education. Success is not the office on the top floor, and it’s not the job in the mailroom. It’s not being cast as the lead in the film, and it’s not a book deal. Success isn’t traveling the world in a rock band, and it’s not a Christmas bonus. Success sometimes comes overnight, but it doesn’t stick around long enough to get comfortable. It’s not a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, and fan mail you don’t have time to respond to. Success promises a lot, but it rarely delivers. It’s not the money in your bank account, the girl on your arm, or the car you drive. Success isn’t a job well done, and it’s not giving up and going home.

Success is staying the course. It’s falling down and getting back on your feet. It’s throwing one more punch when you’ve got no more strength left to throw it. It’s commitment to the call on your life. It’s being exactly the man and the woman God created you in His image to be.

Success is your arrival at Heaven’s Gate to be embraced by Jesus when all you want to do is collapse at his feet and worship because you know there is not a fiber left in your being worthy of it as he tells you with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Well done.”

Copyright © December 2011 || Make It MAD

I write fiction too.

“You write a lot about damaged and dysfunctional relationships,” one magazine writer pointed out to me during an interview after reading two of my short stories, 31 Days of May and Miracle. “What draws you to that sort of storytelling as a Christian writer?”

“I’ve never identified myself as a Christian writer. I happen to be a Christian who writes. And even if you could find my writing in the ‘religious fiction section’, that doesn’t mean my writing has to be safe and soft.”

I was asked if I thought I could keep a Christian audience if I started writing fiction.

“Look,” I replied. “I’m not after the saved. They know the truth. I’m after the broken, the defeated, and the hopeless through the power of story. My writing is intentionally dark because God’s light shines brightest in the darkness. Life is ugly. Life is broken. But therein lies the beauty of redemption. Anyone who tells you otherwise has never read the Gospels.”

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A few days ago a young woman asked to have her picture taken with Lauren and I in a coffee shop. I was flattered, yet couldn’t help but think, “You obviously have me confused with someone else. Zac Efron’s hair, perhaps.”

I felt awkward and perplexed. Why would she want a picture with me? With us? It seemed silly. As the camera flashed I thought of the kindly fellow who once dutifully informed me he’d, “punch that stupid wave right out of my hair,” if we ever exchanged pleasantries in person, as well as all the other charming things I’ve been called including, but not limited to: maxi-pad, mentally challenged, terrorist, and false prophet even though I’ve never prophesied anything except for what I am going to have for lunch. And if I could prophesy, I’d take that trick right to the Roulette tables in Vegas instead of the Internet.

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Today marks 29 months since the last time I actively watched pornography.

I’ve never committed to 29 months of anything. Aside from being alive, it is my longest running accomplishment.

Throughout the duration these 29 months I’ve fought, lusted, coveted, stumbled, fallen, cried, almost given up, gotten back up, and continued the fight only to fall again. In that regard, it doesn’t seem like much of anything to be proud of.

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My wife steps out from the shower and finds me in the other room doing sit-ups; an episode of The Office is playing on my computer propped up on the couch in front of me. I’ve got socks pulled up to my knees. She stands in the doorway, her hair still wet around the shoulders. The shirt she’s wearing belongs to me. I stop at the designated “sit” part of my exercise. She appears to be in shock. In all the time we have spent together, she has never seen me exert strenuous physical motion intended to improve my physic.

“What are YOU doing?” She points an accusatory finger at me like I’ve been caught staring too long at a Victoria’s Secret commercial.

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Dear Christianity.

I’ve known of you my entire life, but I never got to know you until recently.

I’m sorry for that.

In Vacation Bible School you were fun. If I knew enough about you, if I memorized enough verses in the Bible, I got stickers and candy.

I knew that the B-I-B-L-E, yes, that was the book-for-me.

You’ve been around all along, but when I started to get a little older, I based what I felt about you off the opinions of others. Because all my friends couldn’t be wrong.

Christianity was a religion for the weak.

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I was getting married in six hours, standing in the middle of the “family planning” aisle of the grocery store.

I thumbed my finger where a ring would soon be. “Has the selection always been this vast?” I turned to my friend Clint. He’d flown in from California, and was wearing orange pants.

“I think there’s been some developments since the last time we had sex,” he answered. “How do you even use this? It doesn’t seem pleasurable.”

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Dear Rob.

I hope that greeting doesn’t offend you. I don’t know you that well, but you seem like the kind of guy who doesn’t want to be called, Mr. Bell.

Has a crowd ever chanted, “Bell will burn in Hell” when you walked by them?

I guess the jokes on them if there is no Hell.

Kids used to call me Maxi-Pad on the bus. I’d like to say those days are behind me, but some adults still say it like they came up with it.

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I know what this is going to sound like. You already know it all. Surely you’re wiser in your youth than I could ever hope to be in my old age. I wouldn’t have listened to my father. Just as I am sure he didn’t want to listen to his. I was terrified of what he may say if he called me into the room when my sisters weren’t around. Terrified that he knew my secrets; that he may dangle them over my head, waiting for the perfect punishment. I was uncomfortable with myself. He was the man I looked up to. And men did not speak of these things they struggled with: women, overwhelming lust, and a desperate need to find their place in this world. I was ashamed. I believed I was alone.

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I don’t know why someone got paid to write a book on this. I’ve been doing it for months and no one has offered me a dime for my thoughts. On Fridays I usually write. And I usually do this on the other six days of the week too. I eat three meals, sometimes four. Also a weekly thing for me. I see friends, but I never limit that to just Fridays either. And if I’m feeling a little rambunctious, I like catching new release movies with Lauren Lankford in the afternoon to get the bargain matinee price and avoid the lines.

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