Noodlehead
With the announcement of the closing of our company I thought I'd share a bit of my side of the Noodlehead story. This is a letter I wrote about two years ago and is addressed to myself when I was working with Jason and Noodlehead Studios.
Dear Caitlyn,
I know how you are feeling right now, worn out, exhausted, overwhelmed and utterly alone holding up a dream that isn't fully yours and that you can't completely commit to because of the resentment and bitterness growing daily toward the beast that is Noodlehead Studios. You feel unable to express your frustration for many reasons one being that you pushed Jason so hard to follow this dream that you feel his abandonment of you was all forseeable and your own blind fault. You feel strangled by his struggles and try to carry them as well as your own hoping that if you can lift just enough off of his plate he'll look up and realize you are standing right there.
I wish I could tell you some great piece of advice on how to encourage him or what to say to him that will instantly end this struggle, but I don't have a word you'll want to hear. Listen to your dad, let him make his own mistakes and let him pick them up, he'll never learn to stop making the same mistakes if he never knows the pain and discomfort of solving them. I know he is reactive and ever so slightly lazy, two things you never saw in him before you got married, and I know at first once he experiences the pain of having to solve his own problems he'll actually make everything worse in his efforts to avoid feeling that discomfort again, he'll call it efficiency, though you know it isn't.
You like to run and escape from the pain after hitting it head on. He likes to try everything to avoid the inevitable. Neither method is right and neither method serves God nor allows you to properly and fully learn the lesson. You can't run away and say "okay God I survived the challenge I've learned my lesson let's move on before I can feel any conviction about not being the person you want me to be" And he can't say "okay God I saw the challenge and I avoided it, I learned another way to avoid being who you want me to be."
You tell Jason regularly to stop running so fast that God will give to him when he see fit to give to him that there is nothing he can do to speed up or slow down the will of God, well the same goes to you. You can't learn his lessons for him when God see fit to teach him. Together you are actually working against God's will in Jason's life and your own. Be patient, I know it's hard to be patient with him when you see him slipping further and further away from being the Godly leader he was when you met him, but humble yourself and don't beat him up over his own failings, show him LOVE, MERCY, and GRACE. Submit to him even when you know he is wrong and don't go behind and fix things up. Let him see what his lack of leadership is doing to you rather than hide it and try to plow forward.
"Some day when the business gets to this point we can enjoy life." He says to you all the time and you hear the echos of lyrics in your head "what if someday never comes." and you beg him to enjoy you now because you could die tomorrow. Well I'd say the same thing to you. Enjoy him now, saveur every moment with him even if he is breaking your heart. Time is precious and you'll spend too many hours escaping the pain and escaping him that when he finally does shape up you'll be sorry you missed out on all those hours with him. Don't need him, but not in your escapist 'turn heel and run way' where you set yourself up to be okay no matter what so that if you need to run your stuff is all in order. No don't "not need him" so you can run away with out guilt. "Not need him" because you have a Heavenly Father who is infinitely more in love with you than Jason ever can be. Run to Him and spend your hours talking to Him the way you used to. Don't be frustrated with Him for giving you this man who is nothing like the packaging said. And don't feel bad and ungrateful that you are not satisfied with the husband God gave you and avoid praying because you don't want to admit to God (and yourself) that you are utterly disappointed with how things have turned out. He will turn into the man God intended him to be, and speaking with God, praying for Jason isn't being ungrateful.
He's got to go through this discovery and rough time, I know that's not what you want to hear right now, but from all this struggle he learns some things that are vitally important to him becoming the man God advertised him as. From these struggles grows a plant, a story that is touching many lives. It's not about him, its not even about you, but about God's bigger picture and God's greater Glory being served on this earth.
I wish I could say that I'm truly as wise as these words sound and that all wounds are healed but you, yourself have many things to work on. Focus on being healed yourself and your own journey and stop saying to God "When Jason is all set up and good we can look at me." Isn't that the same "some day" attitude you hate in Jason? You are no better than him so deal with your stuff. Let God work on both of you.
Sincerily,
The slightly humbled though hardly wiser person you will become
PS
It's got nothing to do with Noodlehead Studios its about you running away from who God wants you to be because you are afraid. Stop trying to get Noodlehead to succeed, Noodlehead has nothing to do with your purpose. Ouch does that sting a little, it's better to hear it from me than anyone else!