pastorrudytlc

written for the Cape May County Herald- April 6, 2011 Edition…

Yesterday my son Nicholas should have and would have turned 16 years old.  He’d be in high school now.  He’s be getting excited about learning how to drive.  He’d be playing baseball at Middle.  He’d be making the girls around him swoon!  He would probably be singing Barry Manilow songs at the top of his lungs in the car with his father! 

 Nicholas Paul was born in Omaha, Nebraska on April 5, 1995 but he also died the very same day.   Terri and I had anticipated a brand new life entering our world- joining our family- and within what still seems like a rushing chaotic whirlwind- before we even had a chance to say, “Hello,” we were already saying, “Goodbye!” And 16 years later, my heart still aches to know Nicholas and play ball with him and talk with him and be with him.  I miss him more now than I ever have and in spite of all the well wishes that I got all those years ago, I can honestly tell you that no, time has not healed squat!  I will be incomplete the rest of my days on this planet- because Nicholas is not here- and nothing and nobody will ever replace him! 

 Here is what I wrote in my journal on April 5, 1995- the day Nicholas both entered and departed from this earth:

“A time I will always treasure- a big dimple- a big nose- dark hair and without a doubt a true Sheptock.  Nicholas, when you get to Heaven, will you tell Jesus to please protect your Daddy because he is really not too strong right now and Mommy and I are going to need God’s help to accept the fact that we have to somehow journey on without you…  You are so cute son, and yet so fragile…  Nicholas, I wanted you longer than I had you…  I have no idea why we will not be able to raise you!  I treasure the truth with all that is within me that I will see you again but somehow I will walk the rest of my days here with a huge hole in my heart…  I love you son- now and always…”

 I share this with all of you today to remind you that if you know anyone who has ever lost a child, the worst thing that you could ever do is act like that son or daughter never existed.  In the nervousness of not knowing exactly the right words to say, too many people stay quiet about what still needs to be acknowledged- and that is that the life of someone who was immensely special to the one that you call special- is still gone!  The longing stays even as the years get longer since the tragic day first came!   There is a deep sorrow that rolls around on every birthday and anniversary and is kicked into full gear by anything that is a reminder of the loss of a human being that will forever be a part of the heart- even as the hearts are apart!  Words are not necessarily necessary- but a hug or tears shed together can be a much needed comfort- when the season comes round again!  And the power of just knowing that someone else remembered, by sharing a card or bringing a flower can make the memories sweet- even in the midst of a bitter hour.

 I still celebrate Nicholas’ Birthday.  Call me crazy, but I want my boy to know that I still miss him.  I want God to know that Heaven means so much more to me now than it ever did- because I actually have more kids there than I do here!  I will press on and navigate my way through every day by the grace of God and the pure appreciation of what a gift each new 24 hours of life is- but I won’t have to be called twice when it is my time to graduate!  Even in my dreams, I anticipate the time I will finally be able to hold Nicholas close and kiss him and shower all the love that an earthly father can bestow upon his offspring!

Let me close with some more words from my April journal those 16 years ago.  If nothing else to let my readers know that I follow God not because life is perfect, but because it is so broken!  I don’t need a genie; I need a Redeemer, a Savior and a Rescuer!  Jesus is all those things and more to me!

“On a quiet April morn, this little baby child was born- And he came into our lives for a short stay… Tons of questions fill my mind and no answers I can find-And pain fills my heart as I pray… Life is such a complex game and I will never be the same-For in a whirlwind this baby touched my heart…  And even though I miss him so- deep down inside I’m sure I know- With everything I do- he’ll be a part- and apart!  Jesus- please take good care of him and will you teach him how to catch? Will you write down all the things that make him laugh? I want to thank you for the moments that I got to hold him close-For we spent a lifetime- in a few hours and a half…”

 Happy Birthday Nicholas Paul!  Your name literally means “Little Victory,” and I know that the day that I finally cross the finish line- there will be no greater prize that waits for me! 

As I was thinking about composing this week’s article, I caught myself fixated on the thought, “How many of us are really comfortable in the skin that we are in???”  I have been seeing those Dove Soap Commercials over and over again on television during the NCAA College Basketball Tournament featuring prominent men like Georgetown Coach John Thompson III and former big time athletes like Magic Johnson and Bobby Hurley.  

 Bobby Hurley, the former St. Anthony High School star who led Duke to two NCAA championships, is featured in one of the advertising spots.  While we are treated to a montage of photos of Hurley growing up, he talks about not being the most talented or fastest player. But then he confidently expresses how he still got the job done!  The tag line of all the Dove commercials has been how all of these men have learned the secret of being “comfortable in my own skin.” 

 “I am comfortable in my own skin.”  This phrase stings me even as I hear it.  It almost teases and taunts me as I view these guys in the spotlight boasting about something that I know I truly can’t join them in!  I can honestly say that I am NOT now nor have I ever been content or very confident in the skin that I was created in!  I have struggled and battled a very low self-image my entire life because of the very tent that God chose for my contents to be prominently displayed in.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not mad at God nor am I bitter.  I am eternally grateful that the Lord loves me no matter what, no matter where, no matter when.  But still when I read verses in the Bible that tell me that I was fearfully and wonderfully made- accepting them as personal truth comes very hard for me to grasp!  Dare I even say that I believe that my body has held me back from truly becoming the man that I know deep down inside I have always wanted to be!  I have felt that my spirit has been cruelly trapped by the clear limitations of my physical being.  Does anybody else understand what I am even talking about?  How about you?

 This madness plagues me way beyond March each year.  I struggle with this ordeal through every season of every year.  I wish that it was just one thing that could be easily corrected, because God knows that if I could, I would!  If it would result in my world being turned around so I would never have to battle this oppression and suppression again, I would invest the minute to win it immediately!  But there are some days that it takes every ounce of faith and trust that I am able to muster to gather enough gumption just to be able to leave the house and go out into the world and function at the level that I demand, never mind trying to live up to all of the outward expectations put upon us by others!  It is almost like my body betrays me and fights against me and I hate it passionately.  Why can’t we be friends?  Why can’t I get it all together?  I wonder what it is like to just be able to wake up and get up and get going without having to fight so hard just to live!  And before you know it, I catch myself on the road of comparing myself with others which I know only leads to further depression and defeat!  So somewhere in this entire menagerie of mess that I find myself always battling with- I know I must look for my answer!  I refuse to lose and surrender to it!  I won’t just give up!  So I look up and continue to navigate my way “stuck” in the skin that I’m in!

 My answer to my lifelong dilemma is that there is no easy answer.  Maybe for too long I have been looking and waiting for something that probably is not going to come to me here this side of heaven.  I am honestly thankful to God for the “contents” of my life!  I know joy!    I have been blessed beyond measure and I really don’t need another “thing” to make me complete.  It is the “container” that frustrates the daylights out of me.  I will never be OK with the skin that I’m in!  And I don’t expect anybody who has cancer or struggles through daily disabilities to sing the praises of their outer impairments.  But who we are must not be measured by the standards of what we see on the outside!  Who we really are is the treasured soul that lives on- no matter what shape, size or color the package that we have been wrapped in may come in!  I am still Rudy Sheptock no matter how much I despise the skin that I’m in!  I will always yearn the rest of my days for the prison walls to fall and the bars to break away and the key to finally set me free.  I was not designed to be contained and that is all this fragile parcel that I see in my reflection in the mirror does!  And soon and very soon I am going to fly and nothing will ever ground me again.  But the “not yet” is “not now!”  So no matter what soap I may use and Lord knows that I use tons of it, I am not comfortable in the skin that I am in and I don’t have to pretend or lie about it or just say it so that it makes a nice commercial!  It is the very discomfort that keeps me fully alive and earnestly yearning for the grace of God that I know is sufficient until those wide open spaces become my true home once and for all!

“Oh, Job, don’t you see how God’s wooing you
   from the jaws of danger?
How he’s drawing you into wide-open places—
   inviting you to feast at a table laden with blessings?”                              JOB 36:16 THE MESSAGE

Back in 1979, the music group Supertramp had a huge hit with a record called “The Logical Song.”  The lyrics went something like this:

“When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.”

 Did you catch the significance of that last line?  “Please tell me who I am.”  I wonder if it is wise to even attempt to ask another person or an earthly group or tribe to describe or define the regal purpose of a human life!  Maybe the trouble is that we people all depend way too much upon one another for our labels and our instructions and our roadmaps to a destination where our lasting legacy may be discovered.  But one thing is for sure and that is deep down inside of each and every one of us we know that we were designed to live a story bigger than ourselves.  There is a nagging, almost gnawing feeling that disrupts the soul and calls and cries out for something so much more than what another daily lap around the mindless track of status quo can ever offer us!  And isn’t it so often in the quiet of the middle of a sleepless night when the noise of our utter despair can deafen our ears- although nobody else may hear a sound? 

 Why has the music stopped?  Why do we who were once so hopeful and full of wonder at youth become so hard and so full of woeful whining as adults?  Is comfort a legitimate goal to strive for?  Is the accumulation of wealth and stuff enough to satisfy the yearnings of a hungry heart?  Is settling into the same old ruts and routine actually more a prescription for spiritual rot rather than being respected as a responsible grown up?  Have we resigned ourselves to just being content to sit in the audience and watch television as others tackle the tales that perhaps we were actually authored to perform?  Is it time to wake up before the credits of our own short years begin to scroll down on the screen marking the reality of my days as “that’s all folks?” 

 I must admit to myself that I use my age as an excuse to not jump in and live as I know I still can!  I am not dead yet so why am I telling myself and believing the lies that my best days are behind me?  That is just not true!  There are still challenges that I believe God has put my name on to go after.  I need to be willing to pack up my laziness and put it back in the basement where it belongs and go up into the attic of my mind and break out my candor and my curiosity and my confidence and kick into high gear once more!  I have understood that what we call “The American Dream” isn’t worth waiting for and definitely not worth wasting my fragile days dying to get to!  I want to be part of an epic blockbuster adventure that is filled with many meaningful and loving relationships. The lives around me are the true treasure of this pilgrimage!  I want to dive into moving and miraculous opportunities that I know I can’t pull off without my constant companionship with the God who made me! I long for and desire a diet of daily digests of new truths and life lessons so that I may learn and know and experience fully which will keep active each and every precious one of my senses that God has equipped me with!  The only way I will know that my day has come and gone is when I stop breathing!  But even that for me will only be a change of venues and not a conclusion to life itself!

 There is much more I can say but for now I will leave you with this thought and that is the only logical thing we can all do is take a close and honest and reflective look into the depths of our souls and answer these questions:  “Do I like who I have become?”  “Would I continue reading my life story if I was the observer and not the main subject?”  “Do I still have time to rewrite and edit where this tale may be going?”  Answer well for your future and how you will be remembered depends upon it!  What’s your story???

Last night I went to see Middle Township High School’s musical production of Camelot…  I have something in common with that play as we were both born and were introduced to this earth back in 1960 and I guess that is why I have always felt a strange but very real kinship with it…  John F. Kennedy had just been elected as our new president in the fall of that year and when Camelot hit Broadway in December I was a hopeful and still show room new 10 month old infant.      

Maybe it is because I too am a dreamer, constantly yearning and longing for a world that is so much better than the one we have got, that my heart and soul so resonates with the driving theme of this play which is to get to a place where “we fight for right and not might… and celebrate the reality that “chivalry is not dead but very much alive and well…”

We had it once in the Garden of Eden…  God lovingly planted us in an environment where our sole purpose was to walk with him and enjoy and explore the majestic world around us.  We could express our souls without insecurity and jealousy and an unhealthy competitive nature that blocks so many songs from ever being sung and so many sonnets from ever being composed.  Who really cares if Randy and Paula and Simon think that I have talent and that I am doing alright as longs as the Master encourages me with his “well done my good and faithful servant?”  I was created to blossom and bloom before an audience of One- but I have sold out the rights of my creativity to the wrong one way too many times along the journey…  

And we get caught up in the drama of the scene that we are stuck in because of the times and places we are born.  And today in 2011, so far removed from the knights of the roundtable in King Arthur’s court and what seems like forever since the times of John and Jacqueline we live today in a chaotic situation where the politically correct values have hijacked our very uniqueness which unfortunately never gets to see the light of day.  And I yearn for something so much more than what I am served in the daily cafeteria of earth!  I want substance and soul and grit and genuine human touch and the encouragement to fly like a hawk knowing that I was designed by my God to soar like an eagle and not putz around like a chicken!  I want love to be passionate and compassionate and filled with the promises that, “no- never will I leave you- winter, springtime, summer or fall… No never will I leave you, no, not at all!”  I want Camelot!      

 So I continue on, with my feet on the ground in this world, but knowing undoubtedly that my heart really belongs in another…  And I won’t give up the quest for Camelot for I know in my DNA that it is real…  It is the place where grace and truth are the laws of the land and it is the field that I know this fertile spirit within me will one day be planted to be given the proper time and nourishment to grow and flourish into the harvest that I was meant to be!

Until that season- my message to all of you must be the same challenge that Arthur gave to Tom at the end of the play:  “Don’t let it be forgot… That once there was a spot… For one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot…” 

What was once- will be again- and I don’t want to miss its revival!

WHY BIBLE STUDY IS IMPORTANT!!!  This is how Solomon’s Bride would look if we took his words to her literally… Let’s just say that she wouldn’t be much to look at but she probably would have scared all the rats out of the neighborhood!!! 

 I am a firm believer that I have more regret in my life caused by the times that I have chosen to be way too tentative and overly cautious rather than just jump right in and “go for it” which, by the way, is much more my nature!  I don’t understand the value of committee meetings that take a wonderful idea that has so much potential and then just talk it to death and deflate it to the point that the best anyone can do with it when it is over is “table” it for another day!  I abhor the times in my walk when I seem to live more to just get by rather than attacking new challenges- and I wince when I recall all those “what could have been” moments if only I would have gone when the light turned a bright green!

Is swinging at a 3 balls and 0 strikes count a good idea?  Now most baseball coaches are going to blow a gasket over what I am about to share.  Any coach worth his weight is going to give his player the “take” sign- which means “don’t you dare swing”- which is also called giving the player the “red” light- when his batter is up there with such a delicious count. But I have always disagreed strongly with that philosophy!  I personally think that too many ballplayers allow too many hittable pitches go right on by them as they admire them with their bats cemented firmly upon their shoulders!

I think that when a hitter is ahead of a pitcher 3-0, the best bet for them is to be ready to swing away.  It is what is called giving the guy “a green light.”  The pitcher, who is already under some pressure to not walk the batter, is looking to throw a strike and most of the time he is going to offer something that lands right smack down the middle of the plate.  A pitcher thinking that the batter is going to be taking will more often than not serve up a lollipop on a silver platter and the sad thing is the batter can’t even partake of it if he wanted to because the coach has prematurely tied up his hands!  I say if it is a fat fastball then hit the living daylights out of it!  Don’t give up something great for something else that might never come again!

 How many ballgames have you seen where your guy takes a juicy pitch right down the middle at 3-0 and then will haphazardly swing at garbage on 3-1?  And then before you know it, the count is back to 3-2 and the advantage for the hitter is gone!  What are we waiting for if what we get is what we want?  I always approached the plate, when I was a player, as if I was never going to give myself a red light by taking a green light kind of offering!  Maybe I was called an aggressive hitter- but the key truth of it all was that I was a good hitter.  I hit the ball because I went up to the plate looking to swing the bat! 

 Life is too short to be sitting around when the light turns green! I am coming out against those who live with a looking for a “red light” mentality!  It is like they want to sit on the bench!  It is like the majority is satisfied to want to take a walk rather than go for the fences!  Jesus told his followers to “GO!”  The Lord challenged us to get out of our easy chairs and head into the entire world and go and be light and go and be salt and go and make a difference and go and love people just like He would!  He inspired us to be doers of His word and not merely those who read it and then ignore it a few minutes later!  It is like we Christians are satisfied to just read the book and not star in the movie!  As Senator Robert Kennedy once said, “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?”  I say now that is living with a green light mentality!

 I want to be wise and I want to be smart, but I also don’t want to be looking for excuses to not do something- but to pursue it with everything that is within me!  I want to live and if I lose- I want to strike out swinging and not because I was afraid to try!  Is there something right now that is eating away at you and you have kicked your heart in neutral when you should be in overdrive?  Are you rationalizing about something you should be running full speed ahead after?  Faith believes that what God leads you into, He will take care of you all the way through!  No, you might not have all your pieces in place- but isn’t that why they call it faith- because there must be room for God to show up?  Is God giving you a green and you are reading it as red?  Are you guilty of an over analysis paralysis?  It is funny to me that most of the critics up in the broadcast booth couldn’t hit the broad sign of the barn on a windy day with the breeze blowing in the right direction!  I am not in it to do it like they would do it!  I am up there swinging for the light is green and the day is here and it is our moment to make or break a miracle!  What color are you seeing today?