Anyone who knows me well knows the last eight months of my life have been somewhat crazy. I have co-founded a business, traveled for several months, gotten engaged, survived an explosion that destroyed my left eye and broke six bones, held down the freelance work I do for income, started writing a book, and finally, gotten married! To be honest, I am currently enjoying my sleep-ins!
My wife and I intentionally chose to live in the loft space of the warehouse that also houses the business I co-founded with my friend Tim. Our desire is to lease the warehouse to create a shared space to explore the relationship between creativity and spirituality. It would also appear that we are exploring the relationship between faith and completely being out of control!
For the last couple of months life has been out of control, but in a good way. I am not out of control and doing want I don't want to do, but rather, I am out of control doing what I want to do. It is 'out of control' more in the sense of depth, than in preference.
Money happens
I remember the day after my accident, not really being able to see because one eye didn't work at all, and the other hurt too much. I felt a deep sense of being disabled.
For the first time in my life I was unable to function as I wanted. I was used to being free to go, do, fly, speak, write, and make more or less what I have wanted with the day. I would set goals and achieve them.
Three days after the accident my ambitions were to go to the toilet, to brush my teeth, and to let Sierra (now my wife) wash my hair. I managed to achieve these things, but I was exhausted after them.
For the first time in my life I realised I was very dependent on others. I was far more committed than ever before—I had just co-launched a business and proposed to my girlfriend—and I felt completely unable to deliver.
I am now near being fully able, for this I am grateful. This experience taught me so much about life, God and surprisingly, money. I thought I would not only lose a lot of money, but also experience failure in a painful way. It seems that God had a couple of other things in mind.
Money just happened. Money happens. I found provision in the form of hospitality from both my family and my family-to-be, support from people who cared (including the government of New Zealand, looking out for the folk with the boo-boos), and a host of other people. Never before in my life have I had so many bills, and miraculously the money just happened.
From this stemmed a notion that money is for the betterment of humanity in general, and to be used by its possessor as means to achieve this end (that includes eating and paying rent). Money is to be used, and all the while something bigger is going on.
Out of our depth but where we want to be
So here we are—me and my wife. Living in a warehouse loft space, working out decisions we made some time ago. We are figuring out how to make an uncomfortable place comfortable, and how to live the life that we wonder about.
We are adjusting to calling the shots, not by our pockets, or by our peers, but by what we think Jesus is saying. This is the place where God seems to like us, out of our depth, out of control, and realising that something bigger is going on.
It's good to be married.
Jared Diprose is a self-employed Artisan and co-director of the Mosaic Workshop. He has a degree in Theology, and believes that words shape worlds. He is married to Sierra. You can see some of his work at www.facebook.com/jareddiprosecreative and you can check out The Mosaic Workshop at www.facebook.com/workshopmosaic
Jared Diprose's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/jared-diprose.html