Fear

Gonna post a few rare light hearted ones. Feeling like a temporary change is in order. I say temporary because I have the habit of thinking and posting to the world that a good feeling or era of my life is permanent, only to be duped weeks or even hours later.  Crap. Started to write sad things again. Someone stop me if I try that again.

What do you fear?

I fear a few things. I will list them in a list. I will even add a reason.

1. Death. At least not being remembered for anything or even just not existing here anymore. I don't like that thought, it is a cruel one.

2. Unstable heights. I am not afraid of going on the top of the Sears tower, however I am afraid of chairlifts. Some strange and morbid thing in my head beckons me to jump off every time. In fact my warped mind tells me to do a lot of dumb things. I have actually acted on some of them. I worked in a factory using a press. I flipped a switch up and the press would slam down. I flipped in down and it would recede. I got the urge to flip it up and wave my hand under it and escape losing a set of carpals. I acted on it and got lucky. But not so lucky when I wanted to see what would happen if I touched a spinning bench grinder. I nearly lost my finger in a blood bath on that one. Anyways. I am afraid of planes. Anything that requires you to have faith that God is holding it up. Kinda shameful I know, but a solid concrete foundation can sometimes look more reassuring than an unseen God. Sad.

3. Nuclear war. (For Dave I will pronounce it Nucuuuuuular) A guy that stood in the park playing the sax when I was a little boy taught me about that little issue. Told me that Detroit was a huge nuke target because of the auto industry and if and when they decided to drop the bomb there would be no escape. We would be vaporized. Watch the 80's movie The Day After. That was how I pictured it happening.

4. Number 4 is too sad. I will not discuss it per my promise.

5. Number 5 is also too sad.

6. I am afraid of breaking my nose. I was punched in the nose in kindergarten by a 3 fingered (one thumb) karate guru for making fun of his missing finger. My nose shot out blood like a freed fire hose and got me to think that I really don't like getting hit in the nose. Ever since, I avoid any potential nose disasters by keeping a sharp eye on nose hazards. The problem is the unseen things that lurk behind corners waiting to break your nose. Here is a short list of things that have nearly broken my nose: Opened the car door right into my nose, multiple baby back head butts to my nose, a corner on a wall that jumped out and thumped it as I was looking backward whilst walking, and yes, my own knee somehow kicked me in the nose. That's it. That's all I am afraid of.
















Sing.
Migrate.

To leave a comment, click on the specific blog title and the comment form will be at the bottom of the page.

Anger

Psa. 4:4 In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.

Some people rub you the wrong way. There are people that will not rest until they have gotten the best of you. Then they retreat smiling, knowing that they got what they wanted, whatever the means.

It is really hard to hold your tongue. The Bible teaches us that the tongue is the hardest thing to tame. A doubled edged sword. It is true. One of the most obvious truths to observe in fact. Some people are starving for attention and it doesn't really matter whether it is positive or negative attention and they will do or say anything to get it.

The world reacts. The world exhibits it's wrath upon them. In the end, they got what they wanted. But isn't a rod fit for the back of a fool? A fool has a cunning way of making others look like fools too, even if they aren't. Vengeance is God's. He is the one with the rod, not us. We are called to a righteous lifestyle, though we are not righteous. We are called to follow Christ through the thorns. When we react to foolishness and throw our pearls to swine, we do not glorify the God that desires His glory, not vengeance to shine through us.

I am guilty of of my own wrath often. I have let people push me and push me and I bite my tongue and pray to God for a peaceful heart and graceful spirit. God reigns in me more often than not in this particular issue now days, but there are times that I retread. Open my mouth and say things that do not need to be said in anger or at all.

The things we say may be 100% true, but saying them doesn't make us 100% right. Saying them in anger makes us 100% wrong. This is wrath. Wrath that belongs to God. It is easy to let another person drag you down to where they are mentally or even spiritually if you let them.

In my experience, shame is the demise of the wicked. They speak and only condemning words are spoken. They sink their own ship, they don't need our help. Love is burning coals on their heads.










Sing.
Migrate.

To leave a comment, click on the specific blog title and the comment form will be at the bottom of the page.

Secrets

Post secrets is a really good idea. A genius one in fact. I wish it were my idea to give people an avenue to tell the things that weigh the deepest on their hearts to a million people anonymously. I admire a person that is willing to say things that others don't and would never. I admire those more that sign their names next to those statements for all to see because it is really hard being honest. There are many people who for whatever reason, just cannot bring themselves to reveal what is really going on in them. I don't think it's an issue with privacy, but an issue with honesty. Some can only be honest with themselves. They can evaluate and re-evaluate and see every fault they have, but hell will freeze over before they confess their sins before others. It is one thing to let God know what you are, but it is quite another to let others know. It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, God desires real honesty. He values those that know who they really are and who He really is. His grace doesn't seem so great when we hide the reasons we need it in the first place.

I am done with secrets. I used to hide them so deep in me that I couldn't even remember them. They rot though. They burn you from the inside out. Reality is that I have nothing. Neither do you. All of us are subject to what God has given us and that can be really easy to forget. God put people in my life that were eventually going to hurt me. But they made/make me happy. It is rarely easy when God is involved. He has a way of bringing us somewhere without us knowing it. I have always questioned God and His direction for me. I have always been wrong to do this. I am proud and stubborn and prefer to do things my own way rather than His. This has consistently gotten me in trouble. Why? Because He is God and I am not. It is a simple truth, but a truth that is the hardest to accept practically.

I was laying on the floor of Joe's van this night. Drunk off of my mind, needing something I had no idea how to attain. I laid there as the lights passed over my head and to my feet. I thought to myself..."What more is there?" I had two friends that were closer to me than family and I was smiling even if through tears. I sit here now asking the same questions to my God. What more is there. He answers in His own way, but I believe I was getting just what I needed...Love. Unconditional love from someone who wasn't supposed to love me. Two kids that beat their hearts with mine. I thank God for you Will and Joe. You were a major part of the saving of my life. Maybe God isn't so dumb. Maybe God brings people into your lives for a very good reason that we can't see or understand. Sometimes the situation feels wrong to us and we can't see God in it. That doesn't mean God isn't doing something giant in your life. I will try to think more about that.











Sing.
Migrate.










To leave a comment, click on the specific blog title and the comment form will be at the bottom of the page.

Into The Fog Part 2

What if we were to just pick up the things that mean the most to us and just walk away. Right into the fog. Does it really matter what's on the other side? Living in fear of what may be in there is no picnic. It is really hard to let our skeletons die. Skeletons were made to lie silently in the ground forgotten. We walk away from skeletons because we know that the person who inhabited them once isn't there.  They are long gone, hopefully somewhere much better. Skeletons have a way of sticking around though. They haunt us like our own shadows as we pass along the ground. These things are sorrow. These things we can't and do not really want to stop mourning. After a while they become part of us. At least they stay. At least they don't promise something with their mouths as their eyes drift away. We know what to expect from them. We always have them. Comfort. Stability in instability. But the thing about skeletons is that they are rotting and nasty. We can't live with them forever. I can keep visiting those same places over and over and think about times that we were happy there. I can think about Will and how much he always meant to me. I can remember all of these priceless times we had. The ways that we connected without speaking. I can sit outside that house all night long staring through the cobwebbed windows and he still won't be in there. He isn't in there. It only feels that way. I have to leave them behind. I don't know if I am ready to do that, but I am getting there, slowly and weary, but I am pointed in the right direction even if the blindfold is still on and the lungs won't allow fast travel.

Whether I am ready or not. I am going to get up and walk into that fog and see what is next. I am gonna shake the whole way in fear and expect as I always do, the worst, but I will see what God has in store for me. I will see it with my eyes, and I have to believe it is brighter than the sun. I think a lot of us have these skeletons that haunt our days and nights in different ways. I think we are all staring at this dense fog that some just can not muster the courage to walk into. I think that it is much easier to stay put and find comfort in misery. But I cannot and will not believe that what is in that fog is meant to harm us in the long run. I don't think staying put forever is any way to live no matter how scary the alternative.










Sing.
Migrate.








To leave a comment, click on the specific blog title and the comment form will be at the bottom of the page.

Into The Fog

I am the kind of person who needs change. I need for things to look or feel differently every few weeks to keep me excited. To give me something to look forward to. But there is a kind of change I detest. I find it miserable under the sun.

Leaving.

Not me. Other people. People I love. People I invest in. I hate it. Those that are reading this that know me already, know this about me. I have probably tried to talk you out of your dreams just to spare me the mourning of watching you go.

A lot of people have left me. Most have come back, but some I will never see again and that really sucks. It sucks to feel alone, even when it isn't true in the really real world. But in the mind of a very vulnerable and fragile person, feeling alone is all there is sometimes. I hate talking about it...Not because it doesn't help, but because I have readers now. One of the drawbacks to people enjoying what you write is that they come back and read more. I love this. But I feel self-conscious, like I am really annoying. For me it is just typing words into the atmosphere. I am not sitting in your cubicle writing this as you are reading this. I am not at your computer with you. If I were, I fear that I would be really embarrassed and make lame excuses for myself. I am here. Typing the words that magically appear through math in front of my face alone. And God's. I don't know what you are thinking. I don't know what you are feeling. I just know that the Healer is here. He puts His hand on our heads and gives us peace. The tears never seem to stop falling, but He is the One and Only that wipes them from our eyes.

It has been a rough year. I have been busted up in ways I have never been. I have battled so many demons and mostly lost. I have given up for isolated moments when nothing seemed to give me peace. I have wept far too many nights. But God has always been my comforter. He has been present and I have felt Him present. He didn't promise a life without pain. He did promise never to leave and here He is, still sitting here with me. Life is hard. Some of you have experienced pain that cannot be imagined by others. Abuse, neglect, rejection, failure, shattered faith, broken trust. It all hurts. It all takes little pieces of us away and never gives them back. So we struggle and try to get them back, but we can't get them because they aren't ours to get anymore. It is the past. We leave the past where it is and move forward. God hasn't given us a time machine for a very good reason. We are supposed to learn from mistakes and from pain, not erase it. Pain brings good things sometimes. It tells us something is wrong, so we can remedy our sickness. With Christ.

Once again, and I am shouting this now. I don't know why such awful things happen, but I do know that God is good. That's my anthem.











Sing.
Migrate.









To leave a comment, click on the specific blog title and the comment form will be at the bottom of the page.

Something Wonderful

I wonder if the people living in apartment 2 know that I have been stalking them? Not exactly stalking them, but sitting outside their home remembering when I slept in those walls. Wondering if they can still see the paintings I made on the walls of my bedroom through the years of fresh paint. I used the darkest colors, so I hope that they still can.

That apartment was the home of the most remarkable change in a person I have ever witnessed. Me. I witnessed both the most awful me that could be imagined and the best. This was the sight of God's rendering of my heart to His. I wanted nothing to do with it. Didn't want the tears and didn't want to care. I didn't want anyone telling me it was going to be alright. But it was. God was telling me it was going to be alright and it did end up alright. Not just alright, but later while living in the flat below, I met Laura. My wife, whom I never deserved or dreamed of.

This apartment holds so much memory for me and every time I drive by it, I can't help but hold back tears. It is unique to feel both dread and joy in the same image, but in this one, I feel both. My friends remember it too. They speak of it often. I want to buy that house, both flats and keep it for a place I can go just to have pity parties. I would scrub off the paint until mine was visible. Tear up the flooring to the one below that had my name written on it. I would sit there for hours whenever I felt down and remember what God did in me here. I would walk out happy and full of joy because I was saved. It is so easy to forget what God has done for you in your ordinary life. The problem is that I never wanted to be ordinary. I never wanted to be a run-of-the-mill person. I wanted to be remembered. I guess that would be pride, I don't know. I just wanted to be something special. I think we all do. It is God that makes us special because of what He does to us. I want to be used in something wonderful.















Sing.
Migrate.











To leave a comment, click on the specific blog title and the comment form will be at the bottom of the page.

New Year

I know I haven't posted in a while. I don't even have a busy school schedule to blame for it. I have no one to blame but myself. My laziness. My desire to avoid the things I love to do. This break from school has been really weird. It has been nothing but ups and downs rapidly exchanging blows to each other and I am left staggering. It has been a year of mourning 2010. 2011 will be a year of anniversaries. Christmas was the anniversary of the worst day of my life, beginning the worst year of my life. It went better than expected. I fought back the urges to hibernate and fall apart. I replaced every bad thought with a busy thought. I played Christmas music all day to push out the feelings of dread. I got through it. My kids will see this year as a positive Christmas. Caeden was so worried someone he loved would die again this year. Everyone in his life lived through this day, so praise God. I was a little scared too.

Well Christmas came and went. New Years arrived with the blowing of little cardboard horns and ugly hats. The night ended and I turned off the Christmas lights. Or the next door neighbor did, but I meant to. Now there will be anniversaries all year long: The day he was placed in his final resting place. The night I banged my fist against a statue of Mary and wept until I collapsed with anger and exhaustion. The night the dreams finally stopped torturing me and began haunting me. The day his memory stopped bringing me such a deep hurt and finally made me smile again. This year will be better. This year will be the year I recover, I swear it. I will not be held down forever and when I finally get up, this world better watch out. Until then, I will work at it and keep getting up out of bed and remember that Christ really does have everything in control. He really does care. I will feel passion again. It will be in 2011. I feel it.

It must be so hard to be with me for my wife. I don't open up as much as advertised. I keep so much inside and she can't always read me. I feel like I have to grieve in silence because of every precious and innocent person in my life. That is Will's fault. Makes me mad, but he couldn't have seen that coming in his state of mind. I try so hard to search and find the right word to explain what sits in my belly. I can't. I don't have the vocabulary. I don't know how to tell you and my family more importantly how much I need them right now. I just keep treading, failing to feel the thread that Gods has attached to my back to keep me afloat. Here's to 2011. The year of rebound. The year of recovery.












Sing.
Migrate.









To leave a comment, click on the specific blog title and the comment form will be at the bottom of the page.