Perhaps it is a mix of her own childlike wonder or the fact we have so many memories of the young versions of our kids there. We had seasons’ passes for years when we lived in Los Angeles. Since the kids got out of school early every Thursday, we made it an almost weekly trip during the school year since it was just 45 minutes South of us.
So with Trevi back in CA at Westmont College, we wanted to celebrate her graduation at Disneyland, but then she ended up moving one of her classes to the May term so Trevi couldn’t go. I thought we would then cancel only to realize my wife and my Mom were still eager to go without her!
Look at these two! They were having the time of their lives!
I don’t know if either one of them have ever hugged me as hard they are hugging each other in this picture!
In line with my wife and I in lane 1 and my Mom and Caleb in lane 2, but then when it was time to get on the ride, my wife went to sit with my Mom! It’s not that was like a Scrooge McDuck. I was having fun – you know like a normal human being. But my Mom is next level at Disneyland! My Mom tried to take pictures of every scene in every ride!
We rented a wheelchair for my Mom. She’s very active, but we walk about 7 to 9 miles each day at Disneyland and the last time she went to DisneyWorld she ended up needing a hip replacement afterwards (plus having her in a wheelchair gets us to the front of the line sometimes). You would have thought my Mom was on parade! She was at about the same level as kids in their strollers, and she just had to wave at each and every one of them!
My wife was wearing a pin that it was her birthday. She didn’t want to be left out since Deborah and I were wearing our”Happily Ever After” pins since it was our 30th anniversary trip (we flew straight from Europe to CA for Trevi’s graduation and Disneyland). Our trip was in May. My Mom’s birthday was in January!
My wife and my Mom rode so many times together that at one point one of the workers congratulated them for their 30th anniversary! I missed this since Caleb and I were riding roller coasters at the time.
We had a great time celebrating Trevi’s graduation without her at Disneyland and with her before that in Santa Barbara! So proud of our college graduate!
We live in a diverse world filled with unprecedented opportunity. Now more than ever is the time for us to become agents of change, creating genuine unity among people from a variety of backgrounds and worldviews.
Not Like Me urges readers – women and men, democrats and republicans, church leaders and lay people from every background – to create a new future that connects God’s heart by removing the religious baggage of Christianity to discover the world Jesus intended. Through stories and insights gleaned from Eric’s own personal experiences and failures, the experiences of others, and the life and teachings of Jesus, readers will discover how to move beyond ethnic, racial, cultural, and ideological barriers toward genuine friendship with others that can lead to personal and community transformation.
With new and updated content, the 10th anniversary edition of Not Like Me inspires and equips us to develop diverse communities, resolve conflict, overcome bitterness, create a better future, and even heal our fractured world.
ABOUT ERIC BRYANT
Eric Bryant serves as the Pastor for Gateway Church in South Austin. Previously he served with Mosaic in Los Angeles and with a church planting team in Seattle. Eric earned his Doctorate of Ministry in Entrepreneurial Leadership with Bethel Seminary where he leads a doctoral cohort on Missional Effectiveness.
We live in a diverse world filled with unprecedented opportunity. Now more than ever is the time for us to become agents of change, creating genuine unity among people from a variety of backgrounds and worldviews.
Not Like Me urges readers – women and men, democrats and republicans, church leaders and lay people from every background – to create a new future that connects God’s heart by removing the religious baggage of Christianity to discover the world Jesus intended. Through stories and insights gleaned from Eric’s own personal experiences and failures, the experiences of others, and the life and teachings of Jesus, readers will discover how to move beyond ethnic, racial, cultural, and ideological barriers toward genuine friendship with others that can lead to personal and community transformation.
With new and updated content, the 10th anniversary edition of Not Like Me inspires and equips us to develop diverse communities, resolve conflict, overcome bitterness, create a better future, and even heal our fractured world.
ABOUT ERIC BRYANT
Eric Bryant serves as the Pastor for Gateway Church in South Austin. Previously he served with Mosaic in Los Angeles and with a church planting team in Seattle. Eric earned his Doctorate of Ministry in Entrepreneurial Leadership with Bethel Seminary where he leads a doctoral cohort on Missional Effectiveness.
Have you ever had a moment in your life when you had high expectations and instead you experienced great disappointment?
For me, one of those moments was the day I got married.
I love my wife. In fact, Deborah and I celebrated 23 years of marriage a couple of weeks ago. Our marriage has been great, but our wedding was a disaster. A week before the big day I started experiencing really unusual things.
I kept getting nauseaus. I mentioned it to my roommates who said “You’re just nervous. You’re getting cold feet.” – “But I’m not nervous! I’m excited!”
In addition to the nausea, I started getting headaches, and I never get headaches, so I mentioned it to my parents. “You’re just nervous.” – “But I’m not nervous! I’m excited!”
The headaches and stomach pain continued and then a couple days before the wedding I started having hot flashes. While driving with Deborah, I couldn’t get my sweatshirt off fast enough. I felt like I was burning up! I explained how I was feeling to Deborah, and she asked “Are you nervous?” – “NO! I’m not nervous! I’m excited!”
On the morning of our wedding day, I woke up with 100s of bumps all over my body. Since my groomsmen and I had spent the night with 6 of us in a Motel 6, I thought I had gotten bitten by some sort of bed bug. My groomsmen suggested I was nervous and the bumps were the result of my stress and fear. – “But I’m not nervous! Why won’t anyone believe me that I’m excited!”
After talking to my aunt who is a nurse, the mystery of the nausea, headaches, hot flashes, and now bumps was solved.
I woke up on the day of my wedding with chicken pox!
I had never had chicken pox in my entire life, now I got it on my wedding day!
Of all the days!!!
What was next, diaper rash on the honeymoon?!?
Can you imagine how ridiculous this moment was? I had given up soft drinks and chocolates to avoid getting even one pimple, and now I had hundreds of bumps all over my body! Deborah and I had saved ourselves for each other. One of my first thoughts was the wedding night. On the first night I would be with my wife, I looked like I had escaped from a leper colony!
I didn’t know what to do, but I thought I should call Deborah to find out if she had ever had chicken pox and tell her I was inflicted with this horrible childhood disease. Once I got her on the phone, I chickened out. Once I asked her if she had ever had chicken pox, she said “Of course, why do you ask?” She sounded so shocked by my question that I blurted out “Because one of my cousins has it.” “Well tell him not to come, that will ruin everything!”
I knew I had to tell her before she walked down the aisle and realized I was the one with chicken pox, so I wrote her a letter while she was in the changing room at the church telling her about my excitement and my disease. We have this great picture in our wedding album where she is reading my letter with a look of horror on her face.
This is not the expression you want your bride-to-be to make just hours before your wedding ceremony!
The ceremony went fine, and then afterwards the pastor told the crowd “Eric and Deborah would like to invite you to their wedding reception, but we should warn you: the groom has chicken pox. Go! Enjoy!”
People were waving at me from afar!
Parents were sending their kids over to me!
I shared this story in my life group. A few of the millennials in the group never had chicken pox since they got the chicken pox vaccine. To them sharing about getting chicken pox on my honeymoon would be like my grandma sharing about getting polio at her prom!
For more of the story, watch one of my first stand up comedy shows here:
After an incredibly contentious election and a truly surprising result, how should we respond?
I have friends and family who are excited about the results.
I have friends and family who voted for Trump and are still concerned for the future.
I have friends and family who are devastated by the results.
I have friends and family who are completely disinterested.
I have friends and possibly even family who are now looking to move to Canada or Finland.
This morning it felt like waking up in the alternative future as seen in Back to the Future II. Biff Tannen is in charge and the Cubs have won the World Series!
In an electorate so evenly split, I imagine you know people across the political spectrum as well.
Every four years, almost half of us wake up the day after the election feeling discouraged.
To give you some context, I am a pastor in South Austin – the bluest part of a blue city in a red state. My neighborhood had more signs for Bernie Sanders than for Hillary Clinton even up until the day before the election. There are no signs in my neighborhood for Donald Trump.
Whether or not you voted and whether or not your candidate won, I feel it’s important to share some thoughts to keep things in perspective.
First, there is hope.
Regardless of how you are feeling the day after this election, there is hope. There is always hope.
Our future can be influenced by politicians, businessmen, and the people in power, but our future is not determined by them.
Politics has certain limitations. There are checks and balances.
In our system, there is a big difference between what is said in a campaign and what can actually be done.
I lived in California when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected Governor, and California never did fall into the Pacific Ocean.
Even still, all across the planet there are people waking up today with a corrupt government or without the freedoms we enjoy as Americans, yet there are still moments when they laugh, eat, and enjoy life with family and friends.
Of course, there are others experiencing far worse circumstances even than that.
To live in the USA and to have the freedom we have to vote and to choose our governmental leaders are genuinely a privilege.
Jesus shared a story in which he shared: “To the one much is given, much is required.”
To misquote Uncle Ben from Spiderman:
“With great privilege comes great responsibility.”
May we use our privilege to sacrificially live in a way that honors God, the One who put us in this place on the planet and during this time in history.
When we find ourselves slipping into despair, we can find others in even worse situations we can help.
When we try to bring hope to others worse off than ourselves, hope begins to grow again within us.
Second, we can unify.
People on both sides of the aisle have blamed the other side for being divisive, corrupt, crude, and evil.
People of faith have shared their reasons for supporting their candidates from across the aisle. Some reluctantly. Some wholeheartedly.
Whether it was Trump or Clinton winning, either one of them asking for unity does not feel genuine. Before we blame them, we must remember, candidates go negative because that is what works on Americans. The media focuses on the negative because that is what we turn on the television to see.
Our candidates are a reflection of us.
We may not like the policies of the candidates or the character of the candidates, but when we were appalled by policies and rhetoric against immigrants from Mexico, Muslims, or the disabled, did we respond by inviting Mexican immigrants, Muslims, or the disabled into our homes?
We grow and can make the world a better place when we take the time to get to know others who have had a different life experience than we have.
We need to take the time to hear the stories of African American who have suffered injustice.
We need to take the time to hear the stories of police officers who are commissioned to protect and serve.
I am a part of a diverse church with people who voted for Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Evan McMullin, or did not vote at all.
We have people connected who not only vote differently but look differently, have a different standard on morality, or come from a different spiritual background.
This was not an accident but intentional.
At Gateway Church in Austin, we say: “Come As You Are” or as my Mosaic family says in Los Angeles, “we allow people to belong before they believe.”
Creating a diverse community requires sacrificing our preferences, our power, and our relationships.
Rather than just connecting with people just like me, I have to make a point to love, serve, and influence people Not Like Me.
Third, we can bring change.
The world is changing fast, and some people have not found their place in this new world.
People are hurting. People are angry. People are scared.
Donald Trump tapped into this need many people have.
Ironically this same sentiment is what brought President Obama to the presidency in 2008 with his call for change and for hope.
We long for something better. We know the world is broken and needs fixing.
Often, we look for political messiahs to rescue us.
Every four years, we show our disappointment in our leaders in not delivering the change they promised by electing someone else – usually from the other political party. Sure there have been some two term presidents, but almost every single time, they lose support in the House of Representatives or Senate 2 years after they are elected.
It should not surprise us that we have elected a reality television star known for his wealth and the beautiful women in his life.
As Americans, we seem to be tempted by fame, greed, and sex(ism).
(If Hillary Clinton had won, I could have written the same article but mentioning power, greed, and dishonesty).
Rather than only judging Donald Trump (or Hillary Clinton or any of our elected officials), we need to look honestly at ourselves and consider are we afraid, angry, greedy, divisive, and selfish?
Rather than wait for politicians and wealthy businessman to put into place laws we want to make our world better, we can do something right now!
Real power doesn’t come from changing laws but changing people.
I think it is remarkable in the story of Jonah in the Scriptures how the people of Nineveh turned to God and away from their wicked ways just before the King made a proclamation commanding them to do so (Jonah 3:3-7). The passage reminded me that often politicians are reactionary and true change must come from the ground up.
Abraham Lincoln once said: “With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed…. He who holds public sentiment goes deeper than he who erects statutes or pronounces decisions.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. mentioned that the Civil Rights Act was written in the streets before it was signed in the halls of Congress.
How powerful would it be if we decided to create a better nation, a better world rather than waiting on leaders to do all the work for us or blaming them for all of our problems.
We can make a positive difference, and they cannot do it without us!
So today, we need to pray for our elected officials – for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. These are real people with real families – real people who need our prayers.
We need to take our faith seriously knowing our anxious world needs peace, our angry world needs to experience and learn to share forgiveness, and our broken world needs the wholeness we have found in Jesus.
We need to pray for the strength and courage to bring hope, unify, and bring change.
