But I Don’t, But I Will.

I want to fall in love with you,

But I can’t, but I will.

I long to really know you,
More then just your name and a few things about you.

I want to give you all of me

But I don’t, but I will.
How can I make me love you?

You first loved me, but what does that mean?

I can’t leave you, I know you’re who I want and you fill all my dreams.
But the rain always comes on the worst of days,

and I feel that each time I escape,

like a dog, I’m returning to eat my vomit.

I take peace and stomp on it.
Though I find myself running in circles, I’m running none the less.

And I’m not running on a track. Each time I run forward, I make it a little farther then the last.

On each turn back, when I’m bummed I even gave in, I don’t return as far as I did in the past.

This cycle is a process I know I don’t want to live in, but with each look back forward,
To Love, Himself, my longing grows longer and my endurance grows stronger.
It’s a love I’ve decided I won’t give up on.

It’s a love I will keep trying for,

A love that’s been died for.
I want to fall in love with you,

But I can’t, but I will.

I long to really know you,

More then just your name and a few things about you.

I want to give you all of me

But I don’t, but I will.

Something you’re not: personable vs friendly

I’ve found myself, throughout my life, having a hard time being personable. (This is an observation, and it’s not a bad thing. I’ll explain more as I go on.) I’ve seen some people have such a smooth approach and ease with starting conversations, holding conversations, ending conversations and even walking away from a conversation. Unfortunatly, if I just met you or if we’re not really close friends, I will butcher from one to all of these steps.

This dilemma had and does frustrate me to this day. If I see someone I graduated or went to school with, just picture a train trying to derail as he sees another coming up the tracks. No matter what he tries to do, he either crashes head on and burns, or derails, crashes and burns. Either way, not a good situation. (If you’re one of those people, I sincerely apologize and wish I could have changed the outcome of that conversation and I hope you can look past the awkwardness produced by every syllable produced from my lips.)

If that was a little melodramatic, it wasn’t by much, but my point is, I’ve seen so many people approach the situation and walk away unscathed and with ease.

This had also caused me frustration in teaching, talking to girls (mostly in high school. I’ve not so recently decided to put that on hold, but that’s for another topic) to meeting new people, etc.

The thing that’s amazing though is this:
It’s ok to not be personable! It’s definitely a gift, but absolutely not necessary for life. This is what really gets important when the rubber hits the road; are you a good friend?

It’s one thing to be personable, but if you can’t be a good friend, your life will be filled with shallow acquaintances and void of true, reliable, relatable friendships that really have your back. The crazy thing is I’ve been there in a way, because I balanced out my person-ability with acting outlandish and loud and humor in some way, shape or form.

Being friendly is less of a skill or a gift and more of a mindset in a way that develops into your character. Being a friend in short is the following:

Listening
Being there when it’s not convenient
Not focusing on relationship effort balance
Giving thought out and/or prayed through advice
Donating your time
Doing all these things, even when you can’t get something back

That’s some really simple, yet externally challenging tasks, but what people need these days are true friends. What our generation needs are true friends.
Are you personable?

If yes, don’t hide behind it. Use your gift. Be a friend too!

If no, don’t worry! Try your best (and prayer never hurts) and if it falls flat, be a friend! People need you.

Are you a friend?

2 Years Removed

Darkness. I sink so deep into darkness, yet I know about the light.
I’ve read about and seen and even felt the light. And it only seems fitting that when that’s where my mind is, that I lie awake at night in the dark.

I search for happiness through the day. But like Indiana Jones, there’s always obstacle in my way, But I know that that treasure is somewhere to be found, but ’till then, I will find myself alone.

And love is always one kiss away. But I can’t find that kiss and the pictures don’t say I love you or care if you stay. Just leave you lonely and scarred as they haunt you and say you’ll never find a true love because you’re filthy. You’ll never find a true love because the lovers are few. You’ll never have a true love, look where your loving has you.

My hope, it hangs by a string, tied to memories and promises I received as a kid. So I’ll hang on tight and I won’t let it fall, because somehow I know it will be worth it all.

Now 2 years removed, so much has changed and so much is gone. So much has grown and things made right that were wrong, and that hope has kept me all along. Now the darkness is all gone away. Sometimes it comes around, but I won’t let him stay. I’ve become a good friends with the creator of light and I’ll cling to his side because he brings joy that’s not dry and that joy is my strength every day I have life.

And happiness, I don’t seek it any longer. Of corse I want it, but it can not be found. It resides in joy and also in peace, so now I know that happiness is not the prize, but the byproduct of living a full life.
I see love is not found in a kiss, or a picture or a text that your missed. It’s not about sex and it can not be found in the darkness and loathing or the self destructive hours. When love comes about, it’s not always romantic, and in the best times, I didn’t see it coming at all. But it came from the people I’ve come to love the most. My friends on earth that are friends with the one above the earth.

Love is found in conviction, in laughter, in long nights, in road trips, in prayers, in selfless giving, in inside jokes, in hard times and in memories. Love is not limited to these things, but stretches past our boundaries. Mostly because if i’m in my boundaries, the focus is still on me.

2 years removed from some of the darkest places in my life, I find myself looking back at all the things I thought mattered. I look at how it all led to decay and it all shattered. How what I thought was most important was the right focus with the wrong perspective.

Hope, joy and love are still what drives me, yet now I know the light and he provides all my needs. His name is Jesus. And I’m no one special. That’s why I need him in every season. No less then anyone else daily needs him.

Do you need him? He’s waiting for you.
“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” Revelation 3:20
Written July 20, 2016

Freedom: Found

Freedom isn’t found in a date. It’s found in His name.

This phrase has repeated in my mind for the past week, and I’ll tell you why:

I’ve grown up in the church, I’ve experienced friends trying to overcome drugs and I’ve heard so many stories of people (including myself) who want freedom from anything if it’s lazieness to porn and they want it now and for good.

This isn’t a bad thing, but actually, a necessary step into freedom. There’s a very real move that we must step out of something, but often that step is looked at AS the freedom. You hear, “I’ve been clean since ____” (last week, last year, 6/7/16) and I am totally glad for those dates and those stories and testimonies of God’s goodness. What we have to remember through it all is to not put so much stock in a date. That if you slip up and lose that sobriety date, you don’t lose your freedom.

I’ve seen myself totally forget and forfeit my freedom that I had for years because of shame and walked right back into my struggles and habits INSTEAD of standing on the promises of God, and declaring freedom in the name of Jesus Christ!

The Bible says who the Son (Jesus) sets free is free indeed. (John 8:36)

That means freedom isn’t temporary but is attainable for good! And expounding on what that looks like, the psalmist wrote “I will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments.” (‭‭Psalms‬ ‭119:45‬) because he understood this principle:

Freedom is an action word!

Freedom is found through daily surrendering our own motives and wishes to the Lord, becoming a slave to Jesus, because his load is easy and his burden is light, and giving up our slavery to sin, that is always heavy and never easy.

The most important lesson I’ve learned though this is that:

Sin (anything that separates us from fullness of life and fullness in our relationship with Jesus) is condemning and heavy. Aka, never fun in the end.
Jesus wants me to be free and offers a way to get free!
Freedom comes in a moment, but is acted upon for a life time.
A slip up or backtrack or temptation doesn’t void your freedom.
Only you can void your freedom and only you can clame it!
Freedom is not found in a date, but is found in following Jesus! It’s found in his name!

We all have the ability to accept the freedom God has offered us. Will you put your stock in your own willpower/date or will you put everything into the promises of God he laid out in his word and through his spirit living in you?

Moon

I’ve looked to the moon and I’ve tried to fully understand how it works.At times it hides it’s loom, but it has the power to bring light to the dark.

When it’s setting the mood, or accompanying the stars, it’s simply not trying at all.
Now imagine with me for a moment that the moon started to try

That it was no longer mindless, that the man there of would wake and strive.

He would shine for goodness and hide his face from evil.

That he would bring peace and rest to parents and children equal.

That each morning, he would bow there to the sun.
Let us not forget that the moon is just a reflection of the sun.

The sun is the center of the solar system,

But the moon serves earth and the sun all at once.

When earth is filled with darkness, the moon gives a hint of what the sun has to show

Giving credit each morning to the one who gave the glow.

Because this he knows, without light he is nothing.

Without love, we are nothing.

What will it take for us to serve like the moon.
10/15

Hopeful Romantic

I’m a hopeful romantic. I watch movies on love and I’ve watched pornography. Pornography has nothing on the love stories. I don’t want anything shy of true love, because when I was young, I dreamed of it too. Sex was not what I longed for. I longed to lay arm in arm with my lover and spend time with my lover. I dreamed to fight for my lover and sacrifice for my lover.
When I was young, snuggling was my favorite thing and I never wanted anyone to feel sad or alone or anything like that. Not even my stuffed animals were safe from my comforting arms and neither was my mom.

My tiny arms would grab ahold of anyone if they wanted or not. I felt lonelier then ever, so I did all I could to keep myself on everyone to see we wouldn’t fall apart. But words pierced like knives and as I spread my arms wide, I found myself lunging into them heart first.

I’ve loved so many girls that I could loose track if I didn’t connect myself to them so deeply. I don’t know how I stretched my heart so wide through texts. Although my phone was taken away from me, it couldn’t stop me from trying to create love in places love would never be.

From girl to girl and picture to picture, love started distorting down to every pixel. I’ve never lost my heart for love, but years of distortion and restoring and destroying and relearning, my heart is a jumbled mess.

I want true love and nothing short of that. My heart knows that! My body doesn’t mind settling for a picture or video on the screen, but my heart beats louder and stronger and I don’t want any more sight of that distortion, but my heart is still soft, yet is shaped like a stone. It wants to shake off every lie it has been told but it looks like a rock and believes it’s hard and cold, even though it can feel the blood flow. It can hear the cry of love that’s untainted.

I want to love people. I want to love Jesus. I want to have a lover. I want to be a lover.

I’m far more fragile then I would like to admit, but I pray to God he will strengthen and renew me each and every day. I’m pushing through the grit and I’m pushing through the stones. I want so badly to be free. This time, there is freedom. I can feel it in my bones.

I’m a hopeful romantic and this is just how it goes. Healing is a process, and I’ll sing every wrong note until I sing it right or the trumpet blows. That’s just how it goes.

God called me to be Holy.

(This post flows from the previous post. If you’re curious, check out the last post to glean a more rounded understanding of my thoughts if you so wish. I will summarize in a stanza the gist of my previous post titled “God didn’t call me to be honest,”)

I have realized that honesty is important, but can also cause me to distract myself from changing. While I spend much time explaining myself and opening up, in this past year, it shifted from honesty, leading to change, leading to freedom to honesty leading to empathy, leading to stagnancy leading to honesty and so on. In essence, I was mistaking honesty for being holy, and oh was I wrong.

Now, I’m 21 and I’ve learned a lot. I don’t pretend to remember most of it or to live by it, but I’ve learned a lot about life and Jesus and myself and such, and when I looked at myself the other day in relfeaction, I realized my path was diverging from holiness to hypocrit. This is honestly my biggest fear; thinking I’m serving God, but through my meaningless pursuit of fixing situations through simply and almost exclusively talking about my troubles and struggles and what I needed, I found myself looking a lot like the religious people in the early New Testament. I hated this realization, but at the same time, am so glad for it. There’s nothing worse then thinking you’re right and being dead wrong. This has helped me realize why my joy has turned to fatigue and my hope has turned to criticalness, but I hid it behind positive words and such.

Let me take a step back for a minuet though. This wasn’t like a switch and it definatly isn’t a complete and utter failure on my part. There has been victories and I’ve learned a lot about self control and prayer and faith. These realizations have just brought me to the next place in my life and I thank God for being here with me through my stubbornness and failures.

Back to the point of all of this:

A lot of people who read this probably know that Holy means set apart. God in so many places calls people into deeper love with him. He has people doing crazy things that require crazy faith all throughout history, from the beginning until now. He calls people to follow him and love like crazy, to be set apart for a purpose and to be in this ever changing world as a symbol of constantce and truth.

May I be found amidst the few that stand for holiness, who heal the sick, cast out demons,raise the dead and lead people to Jesus all in his name for his glory, and live a life set apart for his glory and honor, laying down my own passions for a crown of glory.

I would hate to just be that guy that was super honest.

God didn’t call me to be honest,

My life in the past few years has been quite the rolar coaster. Not anything like the superman ride at sixflags or anything, and maybe not even a rolar coaster. Maybe just a ride like the tea cups. It’s quite exciting, with ebs and flows, but in the wrong circumstances can just be nauseating and feel like you’re going around in circles and as you see others enjoying it, you feel it must cause joy but it just feels like pain and pointless.

2015 felt a lot like the tea cups in the best way possible! Seeing things that were hurtful, finding freedom, learning, growing, asking people for foregiveness, discovering gifts and passions, seeing people healed right in front of me in Jesus name from prayers of others and prayers of my own and so much more exciting stuff! Yea, I got bumped around a little bit, and it wasn’t all flower peddles and gumdrops, but I expected that! That was no big deal. Besides, how could I even think to complain in a situation like that when everything else is just freedom upon freedom.

2014-15 was such a growing time for me. What I learned from disshonesty and hiding things and all kinds of stuff in 2014, and from a lot of decipleship moments through Carry the Love tour and 21 project (two places I really learned a lot from different people. Google them if you’ve never heard of them, they’re awesome.) through fasting, praying and church family; from all that, I learned the importance of honesty.

I LEARNED THE IMPORTANCE OF HOESTY

I learned that honesty was a wonderful thing that frees us from bondage. It gives others the opportunity to pray for me and encourage me. What I learned in 2016 is that honesty can be a destruction from movement.

HONESTY CAN BE A DESTRACTION FROM MOVEMENT

2016 has been a lot like those tea cups after you just ate a cheese stake and fries and you know you shouldn’t have eaten the fries, but you did, because you paid for them and you couldn’t find it in your heart to throw them away. In 2015, I replaced a lot of troubles with honest change. In 2016, I replaced a lot of my troubles with honesty.

Now I’m here, aproaching 2017 with a lot of excuses, a lot of honest moment, few moments of progress and a splash or two of shame. In this coming year, I don’t want to just expose my problems or talk about them. I don’t want to just open up about doubts or fears or temptations or love. I want to be stay honest about them, and then take the next step: change.

It’s time I put my struggles and hardships in the thrash can and not the recycling bin. I know more will come, but I’d rather conquer a thousand devils through the power of Jesus then let myself get hung up on 2 or 3 problems over and over again.

I’m not called to be honest, I’m called to be Holy.

I’m Not Cool

As I was sitting on the edge of my tub just moments ago, after finishing my bath and getting dressed for bed, I thought, “I’m really not cool.”

I started to think of life. Now if you don’t know yet, I have long thoughts that often originate from one statement or thing I notice. Some call it overthinking, and some call it being thoughtful. I agree with both of them, depending on the situation.

I thought of this silly statement because I was sitting, doing such a normal thing after such a mundain day at work and school. My life sometimes just is. This thought can be freeing or it can be scary. For me, today it was freeing.

So as I sat, I thought, I might not feel like I’m anything great in this moment. I’m not anywhere cool or doing anything exciting, but every single person has to settle down and go to sleep. It might look a little different then my winding down, but we all do it.

It’s easy to get down on ourselves because we feel like we’re not doing as well as or looking as well as or are as fit as someone else, but everyone has thoughts. Everyone has troubles. Everyone is going through this life. and no matter how good someone is at covering up there issues or dealing with their problems, we all have struggles and that’s ok. We all have questions and that’s ok. We all have dreams and those are good too. The only thing that matters is if you’re focus is on your blessings and not your problems, you stay honest with yourself and the people around you, especially the ones that care, always know there is hope in Christ and don’t close yourself off to improvement.

I try those things and it helps me a lot. And I’m stubborn minded. It’s really tough sometimes, but you’re not the only one.

I’m not cool and that’s ok. This way, I can always relate with the broken and the cast always. I hope to never have to prove my worth for a title, because frankly, I think I work better without one!

Youth Leader Perks

I really love these people. I help lead with the youth group at Tri-County Worship Center. It sometimes is rough to get myself there when I’ve had a long day, either on Sunday or Wednesday night, but EVERY time it is worth it.

These guys and girls are world changers and I’m so happy I get to share life, wisdom and laughter with them!

These pictures are a few of my group from the lumberjack Christmas party scavenger hunt!

i really have a passion to see youth and even young kids succeed. More then just succeed though, because success is meaningless and also relative if we gain it and lose who we are in the process. Lose ourselves, or even worse, never find who we are. Identity in Christ I believe is the most valuable thing someone can find and I pray that God would use me to help influence as many lives as possible.