Turning 40
Note: Please excuse my grammar issues, my editor didn’t have time to look this one over before posting.
May 15, 2020
Tomorrow is my 40th birthday.
Today is my last day at my job of the last 14.5 years.
When I started at DDI, my only child was 5 months old. She will turn 15 this August.
None of my three children remember anything prior to me working at DDI, which just makes me feel old, because I have piles of memories of experiences that all happened before starting at DDI in January of 2006.
I have more former co-workers than current co-workers. DDI has always been a pirate ship of sorts. Always heading somewhere, with an ever-changing assortment of interesting characters getting on and off at various ports; manning the rigging, swabbing the decks. It often felt like certain doom was imminent but we always made it through somehow.
I started under the reign of founder and President L. Wayne Poole. He started Design Dimension when he was 22 or 23 years old, in 1967, fresh out of undergrad. We threw a block party to celebrate the 50th in June of 2017. It was a victorious occasion. Wayne passed away almost exactly a year later in 2018, and the reigns have been turned over to lead designer (now President) Betsy Peters Rascoe, and her husband Hunter Rascoe.
When Betsy told me that she and Hunter were making Wayne an offer on the business back in 2017, I was thrilled. I knew they were the perfect pair to take over. They are both children of small business owners, and they just get it. I also knew that I wasn’t going to be aboard much longer.
My family has been going through a spiritual awakening, which began in earnest in 2017. I have always believed in God. It was obvious to me that there must be a brilliant Creator because everything is so meticulously designed. I grew up in church, and for the most part accepted what I was taught. As I grew intellectually, I started to have some serious questions about the explanations I was given in my youth. Like everyone I had to do some digging for myself.
In 2008 I was introduced to the teacher/scholar who unlocked huge pieces of the puzzle for me. I won’t go into that story here because I just published a book about the exciting place that I have landed. All of the logical inconsistencies and contradictions in the Christian worldview I was taught as a kid have been sorted, and the truth is even more amazing than I could have ever imagined.
Bottom line: the brilliant Designer actually loves us; ALL of us. Always has, and always will. But part of that love is not forcing anyone to love Him back. Those who don’t want anything to do with Him will get exactly that, an eternity apart from Him. But any who do want to know the mind and heart behind it all can. Our God is knowable.
This is what solidified in 2017. I finally truly believed, but that’s not the right word. I knew for sure that my God not only knows me and loves me, but that He has really amazing things for me to do with my life, things that I am specifically designed to do (just like the rest of creation).
I was ready to go: ready to do whatever God had for me, because I finally understood that the genius behind everything else had things for me to do. He wasn’t going to force me to do them. I had to believe but not just believe: I had to move beyond intellectual belief to physical obedience. You can theoretically believe that a thing can hold your weight, but it’s not until you put your weight on it that you prove you believe it.
God led the Israelites out of Egypt with great signs and wonders, but when they got to the edge of the Promised Land, He expected them to trust Him. There were established and powerful people living in that land, and 10 out of the 12 spies who went into the land came back and said “No way. We can’t defeat these people.” Only two: Joshua and Caleb understood. Yes we cannot do it, but that’s not the point, God said He was going to drive them out before us. Who are we to say that He won’t do it?
To say it another way: God has amazing things waiting for those who actually trust Him. That does not mean gold and silver. I think that God always has deeper, truer riches in mind for His children. But once you grab hold of this concept, that the Designer has designed you specifically to do things, it changes you.
Fear, for the most part, evaporates because you know that it’s not on you to figure it all out. You begin to connect with what Jesus is talking about when He says:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6: 25-34
If you really believe this, it changes everything. Everything.
We, as a family, started to, in late December 2017. Since then, life has been an absolute whirlwind. It would take an entire book for me to describe it all, but believe me when I say don’t ask God to do whatever He wants with your life if you’re not ready for everything in your life to change.
But if you’re not satisfied with your life, or if you’ve always felt like you’re not doing what you were designed to do, you’re probably right. You need to get to know your Designer, because understanding His heart and His kindness and wisdom is absolutely essential to being able to get out of the boat you're in, and start walking on water.
I know this might all sound very pie-in-the-sky, but if you’re curious, follow along on our journey. We’re happy to be a test case for those who are skeptical. We are saying loud and clear: God is for you, He is not against you. He came down to deal with the sin issue a long time ago, that’s over. Now He is looking for people who are looking for Him.
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
Revelation 3:20
I hope that you’ll read my book. That’s my birthday wish.
If you’re not a reader, I’m working on the audio book. Google Books will read the ebook to you, albeit in a rather annoying voice. I don’t want you to read my book so that you’ll believe everything that I believe. Everyone has to discover truth on their own terms, and in their own time. I just want you to see that a lot of the nonsense you’ve been told about God are lies. There is another way to understand the narrative that is free of logical inconsistencies and self-contradictory doctrine, and it is so mind-blowingly beautiful. I just want everyone to experience it.
My time aboard the DDI ship has been essential. I couldn’t ever recall or describe how much I have learned. And I wish the current and future crew all the best. There will be storms; there will be beautiful horizons. Certainly these COVID-19 waters are strange. Strange waters are nothing new to this old ship. I tip my hat, as I disembark. May she sail on for many years to come.
40 years behind me, an uncertain number of days before me, I only have a foggy notion of where I’m headed. That’s the price you pay for true adventure. I promise you this: I will be living a life in relationship with the Creator of all things for every single day I have left. He is amazing! So brilliant, funny, patient, and gentle. He loves me, truly loves me. He loves you just as much.
Get in touch with this… you will not regret it. This is life as it was designed to be.
-m
