You know, more than anything I'd like to get into your head for just a little while and see if I can make some sort of order out of the mess that was.
I write this blog for myself, before you even came along, but I wonder if you sometimes come and have a peek... and further, I wonder what you think if you do.
You've always been the curious kind; you're a vault of secrets to boot.
I like to think that I was a good bit different than most of your interests or whatever you want to call them... maybe I'm just full of myself.
I do believe I was different, undoubtedly, but I think despite the way you've done away with me like something perishable that's been in the fridge for a year, you saw me a little different too. Who knows... I probably never will.
Exactly one year ago, I asked what you really meant all those times you said you loved me, scared as I was to make an ass out of myself. We were on the same page, and I was elated. It was cold that morning, and I had the day off of work. It was the first time I had had the entire week of the holiday off. I was sitting on the phone talking of God and life and everything in between, lying down on the couch under a big blanket because I just liked it that way.
I felt like a little kid, a giddy little boy with braces and zits and blah blah blah.
I was elated, you know?

Anyway... I wonder, ya know, if you come by and check up. Not that it matters I guess. It's not like I could go back even if I wanted to, even if you wanted to. Now is really not the time... if ever.

This year, I lost my future. I lost the most beautiful thing in the world, I did...
but there is always something to be thankful for, yes? I got to hold that most beautiful gift in my arms in the most beautiful city I have ever seen. I have learned this and that, and when I did have that gift, I had never sought God so fervently. That might be telling of my function I suppose... my shortcoming. I've fallen apart ever since, and it is only in the last month or two that I have been able to direct this emotion or this whatever in such a way that I have never put so much into my work as I have now. It keeps me occupied, and it relaxes me. I am not even a quarter of the man I once was, but hopefully I'll get there again. My integrity is not what it was, but the distaste of sitting and dwelling on all the things you left unsaid have driven me to just want to do something else that completely requires my focus and attention. For this I am somewhat grateful, I am.

I do miss you... the oooo baby!... the Holla back shawty!... the peace signs... the ridiculous faces... your dry skin that I could kiss and touch for hours upon hours... your silly little grin and the way your eyes would look up into the corner when you got a little embarrassed... your funny little fist that you would shake... all of your absolute cheesiness. My God, you're cheesy and it was the cutest thing I say.
Oh, and how so very very very much do I miss you reading me passages from your books or sharing the Scriptures that you had read and what God had really showed you.
I loved helping you by text to get big K to eat when she refused because she had this idea of not wanting to get fat. I loved when the little guy would shout Waaalll or Dat dat dat dat dat dat dat.. boom boom boom... even those great big raaaawwrrrs. I'm sure I have said this before, a million times over, but I fell in love with them as I fell in love with you. That's what you asked of me, and that's what I did. That may have been the most difficult part, losing them... these beautiful little gifts when I had already grown to love them so greatly in preparation for what was said to be coming. That was at least half of the pain, but that's a different issue I suppose.

People still ask about you.
Yesterday when I was asked, I had to count the months. I guess that's a good thing, the fact that I no longer know off the top of my head. The days have turned to weeks have turned to months. I didn't know how to respond to most of the questions with anything other than an "I don't know. I really have no idea." [what had happened... where it all went... How?]

Just a year ago I was falling crown over sole for you.
You were moving me in nice and easy; it was little effort for you, and it wasn't so hard for me to love you either. My heart was broken for you. I gave you full access to this cold hard chest of mine and this time '09 you started doing surgery, cutting deeply and providing me warmth from the inside. I was hopeful and I looked only forward, right into those eyes as they turned from kelly to cornflower.

You blew my mind, sweetheart.
You had me; you had me.

I wonder what you wonder.
I wonder of your wonder.
I wonder what was.
I wonder what is.
I wonder what will become.
I wonder of this wonderful mess I have made.
I wonder what a terrible wonder.
I wonder; I wonder.

Dear

I wonder what has become of you.
I doubt anyone knows because it seems that no one, including yourself, has really known for quite some time.

You were my best friend.
Even Karina hadn't got that close.
I really did give you all I had, and I'm having a hard time finding it all on my own again.
I never trusted like I did you.
I hope I can do it again; I hope I am not entirely walled off and afraid.

You were my best friend.
... and now I do not even know you.
My heart still breaks when I see picture of your beautiful babies, but that's all.
Your pictures are like windows with views of nothing but flat and endless horizons.

My heart breaks for them more than for anything.
I wonder how much she will follow your pattern.
I pray God graces her with a personal encounter somehow or another before she gets there because you know better than any one of us what a terrible terrible path you've walked along.
That's the worst part of it all: You refuse to be honest about where you've been and what you've done. You rob yourself of a strong-built character because of dishonesty, shame, and pride. Those three bound together are not easily cut down, but surely it is possible. You put on this smile made of veneers and shine bright for everyone around you to see, but they don't see a damn thing, do they?

I hope my judgement has gone completely haywire in this, or simply that you've changed considerably in the past few months. I'm not so optimistic though...
but it's all for the sake of your beautiful little ones, and I couldn't possibly throw away all hope if they are considered.

God curse this cycle.
God bless you.
I love you, sweetheart.
I swear I do.

I sit here listening to many raising their voices, raising their hands...
God is here in this room, and I can't thank Him enough for simply showing up and gracing us all with His presence...
and still I see you here.
Why?

My chest is hurting now and again; I should probably get back to the doctor...
This has taken it's toll on my body, literally, I am weak. I'm hitting the gym, getting in shape, and I only feel weaker as the days pass. I'm slimmer, eating better, and I'm stronger, but again I am frail...
What are you thinking?
Am I really so off?
My judgement is not that bad, I'm sure of it. Your pattern is strong, prominent. I have a hard time ignoring this. Your reason shifts for the occasion, and I am left to wonder what is true...
They all seem like outs more than they seem like reasons. You look to be ashamed at what you have done and what you are doing. You said you'd love and embrace a higher standard in a relatiosnhip, in love... you said you loved me for pushing you to a better place, pushing you towards God, but at some point, Satan got a hold of your failures and you insecurities and he spoke to you. He lied to you. He came in from behind and slipped the blindfold over your eyes and told you that you'd be condemned. You didn't know where it came from, but he took the blinds off once you were facing my direction... and there I was... the object of your hurt, when in fact I've been the very opposite from the beginning. It doesn't take much logic to consider it silly for me to bring you closer to God only to rip you away from Him. You've never had to lie to me to earn my love. Never. So stop.
I love you; I forgive you.
I know it's easy to walk away with these circumstances because you can click a mouse or hit the little red "end" button.

Freedom

I've had this freedom for some time now; it's been about 5 years of freedom.
I've had late nights, good talks, and blah blah blah...
I lost all my pictures about a year ago of all these good times... all this fun.
It's nice to think and reminisce for sure, but recently I've grown up a little.
I've reconnected with a friend who is just that by name.
Really, he's always been my brother.
I've sat and thought about my given brother as well, and he means the world to me.
I thank God for him over and over because if it weren't for him, I'd have definitely gone off on my own to spend those late nights doing things I probably would have regretted. God uses this kid to keep me, and I'm realizing more and more these days what an honor it is to have this kid in my life. He's getting older now, and I haven't always done my part in being a good role model. In fact, most of the stupid stuff the kid does is just he picks up from me. It pisses me off, but then I realize where it all came from and then it breaks my heart.
We didn't have a father for a role model, either for us, but I was 7 years ahead of the kid and I've known better for quite some time. Still, I've left things out and I haven't taught this kid like I should have. He's a year and a half shy of being his own young man, and I often wonder if he'll make the silly decisions I have. I like to tell myself that he's a smart kid and he'll do better than I did, but I was a smart kid too and look where I've been. Compare me to everyone else around the world and I might not seem so bad, but what a terrible standard to have. I know better. Our standard is Christ crucified and risen: Jesus.
That's the standard no matter who strokes the ego and pride saying, now now it's alright... It's not, and if things go awry, I'll have to live with that...
Anyway, I was going somewhere with this...
Freedom, priorities, brothers... and love.
In the past few months I have found a capacity by God to love unconditionally. It obviously did not last permanently as my current circumstance would show. The record skipped somewhere and there I went and scratched it... damaged it... maybe ruined it.
I found this beautiful beautiful girl along the way, and I'm bundling her up with my family and that extra brother of mine and I'm starting to realize what really matters and what means most in the end. I'm not old, but I'm not getting younger. Life isn't slowing down for me; the gas pedal is pretty much stuck and it's starting to seem that we never really get over the hill... we're going downhill from the start.
I'm not a kid anymore, and I don't want to be. That stuff is to the wind and hard as I might try to hold onto it all the way through, I know I never will. Why waste my time and energy then? Why not just grow up already, prioritize and move in the direction I want to go? That's what's on my mind. God's opened my eyes to a lot of things in the past several months thanks to some lost puppy I found somewhere last year, and it's been so refreshing. Loving like I have loved and without regret. I've learned not to care about man's opinion of things. I've learned that we're all equally undeserving, so we must be equally deserving as well then. No one is better than the next guy or girl. I've learned that self righteousness is a killer that refuses to stay down along with insecurity... in fact, they do a lot of work together.
I've learned a lot, and I think I've been a little overwhelmed... I've rejoiced for a little too long about the fact and for some reason I've stalled out on applying it.
Silly me.
All that freedom for all that time, touting with arrogance how much I adored it and how much it meant to me, but really I was just collecting men's approval. Building my phone book and my friends list, but in all that time and among all those people, what's left? I mean, people are still around and I love them. The thing is though, I've built crazy magnificent relationships with those who really mean the most to me in a much shorter time and day by day by day they grow. I've reconnected with a brother and it is like we didn't even miss the first 5 years of each other's adult lives.
I think I'm ready to grow up. This freedom thing has gotten old, and it's not looking so free anymore. The cost was always pleasing others, whether said or unsaid... it was all about fitting into the group, getting into the circle, knowing the gossip, making fun of the outsiders, gettin' tight with the clique, building the list of inside jokes... havin' a blast and losin' sleep... losing time more like.
I had fun for sure. Yeah, I had fun, and I'd say I wished I grew up earlier if it weren't for the fact that I've come across this particular someone who actually helped me realize it was time to grow up and be a man.
I can't say I regret much other than the fact that I hadn't prioritized my little brother a lot higher a lot sooner, but it seems like I've found what I want.
Whether or not that is still attainable, God only knows right now, but hey... I'm wiser for it, right?
I've always got God, and although it was through this beautiful beautiful creation of His that I learned to love unconditionally for a while, it all came from Him in the end, right? I said nothing would stop me but divine intervention, but I must have forgotten that it wasn't just God and myself involved... I had her word, for sure, but I guess we all change our mind some time... Who knows though, right? God alone.
He knows what I want, but He also knows what I need. He'll let my heart break and fall to pieces because He knows how to put it all back together. As much as I might kick and scream, He's the boss... and I get it.

I get it.

So to hell with freedom... there's nothing free about it whether we're talking politics or life in general. I'll put on the chains... whatever that might mean or whatever they might be attached to. I've got my mind set, and I'm going to do something new... something new new new. I cannot wait, but I'll try not to get too anxious.
God give me patience and give me peace. I need you now more than ever because I feel like I'm going to go crazy. Thank you for my family, and my friends... thank you for those very very few who mean more than everything else to me. I know if everything else fell away and they handful of them were still there, I'd be overjoyed and beyond blessed. I love You.

... and I love you too.
Yeah, you.

Happy Easter. <3

Hope for Remain

My heart is heavy heavy heavy with question upon question.
I hope it's all still there.
I hope your ears are still open.
I hope your heart is still open,
most importantly,
to the wonderful God Who has brought you here today.
I thought my words were coming from the same place they were months ago,
but yesterday you loved them
while today you despise them...
or so it seems.
So, I question myself and my source.
Am I poisoning the well?
I know I don't always talk so gracefully,
but I'm speaking the same thing.
I'm still sharing God's promises with you and the revelation He's shared with me.
I hope you realize that these are my most prized possessions.
They are of far greater value than a few pizzas,
a few coats,
a couple hundred dollars,
or a plane ticket.
God's wisdom is the greatest gift I can share with you,
so please understand when I am puzzled and I have all sorts of inquiries about why it has such a bad taste these days.
I know you are tired.
I know you are busy,
but do not forget your God.
You can never be too busy to make time for Him;
I tell you the truth.
Remember how Jesus would go pray just before His death and the disciples would fall asleep? Jesus never let them sleep when this happened; He woke them up as soon as He saw them and told them to not grow weary. God is our rest and our reserve of strength. It is by Him that we persevere and do not grow tired, mentally, physically and spiritually.
I love you, and I am imperfect in that. I really do try, and I really like to think that God's helped me a whole bunch in the past few beautiful months of my life. I still fudge things up a bunch though, I know. I'm not perfect, but it's no excuse.
I will try harder; I will seek God more fervently, and I will share with you what I find.
I only pray pray pray... like I did this morning up at the altar... that your heart stays open to He Who does love you perfectly.
Remember that I am an imperfect vessel, a work in progress just like you.
I am not always going to reflect my God properly, but just because the reflection in the mirror is awful, that doesn't mean the subject reflected is what's awful.
It's me, the mirror, who needs to be cleaned up.
I'm only trying to help and push you because you said that's what you wanted.
You asked why on earth would you not want someone to push you towards the best expectations. I smiled greatly that day.
I am sorry if I have failed you in showing you proper love; I know I have a bad track record with that one... hard as I try to specifically model that very thing: LOVE.
I study and focus on it daily, meditate and pick apart.
I question the motives that lie behind my actions, behind each and every step I take.
I look for love because without it, everything else is to the wind.
Still, I fail on a daily basis, and I thank God wholeheartedly for His unending grace.
I just hope you don't walk away from me... that you do not walk away from Him... more than anything else, do not forget Him and learn to accept what He's got for you even if you don't like it. Know that He knows... better.
If you think you know His nature and what He's got for you, think once more and then stop and listen to Him. Stop thinking actually, and listen to what He has to say. He told Moses to just be still and know, know that He Is God.
Stop thinking that you'll find true fulfillment and genuine self confidence in being accepted by meager people. You won't. This is the stuff that only God gives out.
Stop running after man's approval because it will get you nowhere you want to be, nowhere God's got you to be. If you think you know what self confidence is, I promise you that until you've gone after God like you go after someone you can physically see... someone you care about so deeply, like your children say, and build a relationship... build integrity and obedience to His will... until then, I say, you do not and have not known. He's got the good stuff, but it's not passed out as much as His grace. This is the stuff we have to go after Him for, and we better run hard.

I'm telling you from experience. I've lived it and I've searched for that confidence and nowhere nowhere nowhere in the world did I find it until I got close to God.
I had to toss a lot of junk out of my life, and even though I grew up in church from the day I was born, I knew nothing. I thought I had it down when I finally decided to give my life to Christ, and as I got closer and closer to my Maker everything I thought was true, everything I thought I knew, was demolished... upended... uprooted... tossed aside. I read my bible, and I listened in the daily chapels. All that, and I didn't begin to really learn until I actually went after God... months and years after my initial surrender. My life changed because I changed my life... with His help and by His direction of course.
So here's what I've got: life experience and wisdom taken from the Source.
I hope you'll see what an asset they have been to me. I remember you used to wonder why I loved you like I do. Well, maybe you still do, but you don't ask anymore. Maybe I suck that bad these days and it really isn't such a wonder how I do what I do. Gosh, I hope not. Anyway, I told you before and I will tell you forever that it is only a God-given capacity that allows me to function in this way. This is beyond me, fueled by a God Who embodies Love itself.
I remember when I would share His Word with you; I remember when you would read to me daily from that collection of letters... excited and elated at what page God turned you to that day... one two three entries at a time. Goodness, you were so happy.
I remember how elated that made me, the fact that you were soaking up God's love and His promises for you life when it came to deliverance and healing. Those were the things that broke the bondage and trumped the lies that the devil had filled your head with for so long. God is He Who pulled you from the mire.
Today I'm sharing with you the same stuff, the same goods, only it's a different page, a different entry... something more fitting for this newfound position you find yourself in today.
I hope you come to love this gift just the same.
I hope you understand that God's grace is so absolutely wonderful and free, but He still asks of us. I hope you don't grow to despise these gifts that I'm trying to share with you.
Remember, these are my most prized possessions, sweetheart and I don't share them with everyone. That's part of the gift, using discretion when deciding who to share it with.
I hold these revelations and these teachings so dear to my heart and so focal in my life because God has given them to me and they have proven to be true and good regardless of what I thought when I began receiving them. I didn't buy them, and I didn't make them.
They came from God and I hope and pray with all of my now warm heart that you accept them with that in mind, Who it is they really come from.
Please, dear, open your heart and know that I only want to share my most prized possessions and learnings with you. Please please please, know this.
I loved you in very dark times, and I still do.
We've seen the sunshine, we have.
We've overcome some nasty things, some bad times.
I only hope that when the sun really breaks through, you don't go and run into the shade. I'm here still.
My hand is stretched out just like it always has been.
You've taken it before, and I really hope you'll take it again.
God will take your other hand if you will let Him, and I hope even more that you take His... He can take you places that I never could, but I want to go to those places too. Maybe the three of us can go together.
Bring the babies, please; they have to see this as well... if for nothing else, let this trip be taken on their behalf.

I'm so sorry for the foolishness.
I really do not like to be so childish, and God's working in my life this very day on these sorts of things, I know.

I love you with all of my imperfect heart... just the same and even more than I did months ago. It was good enough a few months ago... even just a month ago... I hope it still means the same; I hope it still holds the same value in your eyes.
I hope you are mindful of that, and I do hope that I can do a better job at it in the future if you'll let me... Let me?

<\3