Help Me....

Jude v.20-21 "But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life."

These are some difficult roads ahead for me to walk along. There are so many times where my mind just wants to give up. I'm tired and weary and I'm sick of it all. I wonder if my hope is just pointless. I cannot help but feel the depths of some of the hurts of my heart and its killing me to confront them. I hate the emotions that come out and the pain that exists. God, I wish you would just take it away from me. Its been a constantsy of pain that continues to exasberate my soul.

I remember reading the book by Henri Nouwen, "Wounded Healer" and I cannot help but to wonder if this is your plan for me. The woundedness of my heart is to become the authenticity that I speak from. If that is the case, help me to get through this with flying colors. I want to honor you and glorify you with the entirety of my life. Do not allow Satan to grab a foothold in my heart or my head. It seems so easy at times to want to give up and not to follow you. It seems so alluring to just walk away.

Help me remember that I am your child. Even if I walk away, your love has marked me as your own. I cannot run away from who I am, so help me to see the beauty of the life you have prepared for me. Help me to trust in your plan and to grow closer to you as I realize that you have all things in your hands. I am but the clay and you are the potter. The plans you have set before me, help me to continue to live them out faithfully with passion for your name. I do not want to live a mediocre life, but I want to glorify you with every cell in my body. I want to experience the fullness of your glory in me and through me and I want others to experience you with such intensity and depth.

God, I need you know, cast away these emotions, and center me on you, grant me a peace that transcends understanding and a trust that cannot be shaken.

Who do I love?

Isn't that the question of today? After talking with PD, I pretty much am left at such a simplistic choice....Will I ever grow to a point where I can stop thinking about my wants, my safety, my protection in order to think about another's wants, safety and protection? How does one ever get to that point? I have tried to will myself to be there...I have tried to do things to make me get there, but each are worthy of the attempt but fall pittifully short in this arena of life.

This is from April 23, 2008...

Difficulties...

Sanctus Real - I'm Not Alright
If weakness is a wound that no one wants to speak of,
Then cool is just how far we have to fall
I am not immune-I only wanna be loved
But I feel safe behind the firewall
Can I lose my need to impress?
If you want the truth, I need to confess

I'm not alright
I'm broken inside, broken inside
And all I go through
It leads me to you, it leads me to you

Burn away the pride, bring me to my weakness
Until everything I hide behind is gone
and when I'm open wide with nothing left to cling to
only you are there to lead me on
Because honestly, I'm not that strong

I'm not alright - I'm broken inside, broken inside
and all i go through - it leads me to you, it leads me to you

God, I'm at a point where I've had enough. I'm tired of this...tired of my heart going in roller coasters. What am I suppose to do from here? Do I continue to go on? For what reason, I feel that I'm just being used. Am I just an object that spurns hope into her heart, or does she really see me for who I am. I know that right now, I am but an object....and that hurts. She doesn't see me for who I am, only for what I represent. I am an ear to listen, a person to care through this struggle that she is going through...and its this crappy feeling that it is about her and she doesn't take much consideration of me.

Should I subject myself to this? My tendency is to cut and run. I can already feel the walls closing in on my heart, the defenses are being raised, and my heart wants to grow cold.

God change my heart to learn to respond correctly to such situations or change my heart so I can walk away from all of this. Either way, I submit it to you. I'm tired....and I'm not alright God... only you can change hearts. Help me to know what to do.....

Father teaching a son to swim...

Today was one of the hardest days to keep my heart open. I guess it was a day filled a lot...work, medical appointments, took a nap in the seminary parking lot...

I got asked to be a model for Abercrombie...probably something pretty low key, but it got me to thinking how such an affirmation made me feel so confident. I'm wondering why I don't feel that same confidence in God's affirmation of me. Do I really sense it? I'm not quite sure....or am I allowing less substitutes to fill the void that God needs to fill? I don't know....

Well, I'm off to San Antonio to take some time to think, reflect, and recenter my heart with God. This personal retreat I am really excited about!

I was in the hot-tub at lifetime and right before me God spoke to me so gently. There was this asian kid of about 6 years old surrounded by the arms of his father. As I watched them interact, I could see the child trust his dad so much and his dad letting go so the boy could swim on his own. Here I could see their interaction and how their eyes were so focused on one another. In the child's eyes, I saw an innocent joy of affirmation and a twinge of fear as he was put away from the father's embrace. Then in the father, I could see the pride in his face and the love in his eyes literally flowing with more love. There was a certainty to the father that the child could pretty much make his own and there in that place was this powerful encounter of God's desire for my heart.

I see that our lives are like learning how to swim. It is not always having to be in the father's embrace, but as we grow we are allowed past our own safety nets into areas that challenge us to grow more than before. But the father is always so loving and brings us back into His arms to remind our wandering hearts of His love and then casts us out again so that we can grow a bit more...

I wonder if that is why we experience those roller coasters in life. It is that perspective of not fully understanding the truth of life that makes us feel the sensation of a roller coaster, but in the illustration God provided for me today, it is teaching me how to "live" life so that as I grow in strength and skill, God will provide me that opportunity to teach others and to share in "life."

On the flip side, it has been difficult for my heart to stay open. I don't want to trust....I'm scared of getting hurt. God help me to trust in your plan and provision for my life.

Nostalgia...

Memories are a funny thing aren't they? Its the recollection of the past that conjure up emotions of the heart. Often, the memories that come are triggered by a catalyst that starts the jpeg in your head. Sometimes the conditions have to be ideal, other times its the mind that continues to races...finding every little thing to make something out of nothing...

I remember at Basic Training I would have all the time in the world to just sit there and think. I spent a lot of it staring at the hair of Private Johnson (female type). Here, I would begin to play out the thoughts of my life. What I'm doing here, who am I, and all these other deep questions that come into your head as you are forced to confront a sense of solitude. Each of them drawing into a database of memories, of feelings and emotions....exacting a certain perception that eventually capitulates into a notion of who I see myself to be. It was interesting the thoughts that would cross my head.

It is in one of these moments that I was drawn back to yesterday. I remember the excitement I had thinking about joining the military and so I was very dedicated in working out. After my workouts, I would sit in the steamroom and just let the menthol haze fill up my longs and bring a minty refreshment to my body! Oh, each pore opening up to soak in the steam with a combination of hot and menthol scorching my body....the refreshment and as I sat there at lifetime, I remembered back on the day I was sitting in the line at the DFAC staring into the blonde hair of Private Johnson wishing I was back in the steamroom. The things I would say to myself....oh my...how fortunate I was...

Isn't it funny how life is like that? Again, after working out I took myself to the mall b/c I had to use up my BR gift certificate and as I was walking through the mall I thought to myself, "Some of my fondest memories with my mom were here....dang...she went to the mall a lot!" And, so I stopped, took a deep breathe, and allowed the scent to fill my lungs...as it filled my lungs I could sense my brain release reflecting images, feelings, and deep seeded emotions that allowed me to live in that moment for a second.

When I take a reflection on memories, I also realize that memories are so one-sided...often not a reflection of reality but more an entrance into a moment. I think about basic with fondness...almost a desire to go back, but when I was there, I enjoyed it, but there were more moments of wanting to be home than to live in that moment. The culmination of times allowed the experience to be foundation, informative, and life-changing. However, it was not a place I would want my life to exist....

Perhaps in these moments...we are building those memories that will come later to ease a deeper pain in our lives, a moment of clarity that remembers who we are in the midst of our own situation....who knows.....just random thoughts.

The precarious truth...

My hope was to reflect on Chapter 2 of Brennan Manning's Abba's Child, but I guess I will save that for tomorrow. Its already getting late and there have been heart battles occuring with a great frequency today.

Relient K - The Truth
And I've collected all these thoughts
And I'm dying just to lose them
And if your words are true or not
I'll die trying to prove them
But I'll just have to accept
That my mind is so inept
And the only thing that's left
For me to do is to trust you

Convince me
Because I really need your help
Oh Convince me
Because I can't see this for myself

I'll put the emphasis on the evidence
Begging for the proof
Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth

This is so unnerving
I know you've never lied to me before
But the things you're telling me
I can't yet believe
Yet can't ignore
But I'll just have to accept
That my mind is so inept
And the only thing that's left
For me is to trust you

It's a world full of cynics
Who say to stay alive in it
You gotta stick with what you know
But the soul is always aching
For the heart to start taking
A chance by letting go

So let go, let go
Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth
Attempt to place our lives into your hands
Confide in what you'll do
Cause sometimes when you're trying to sleep
And all your doubts and your faith don't agree its cause
Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth

Its been a day of fighting against the thoughts of my head that affect my heart. Its the saying that wounded people wound people, and I find how this thought can become reality as the heart begins to fester in its selfishness and allows to skew the mind. I've been battling this feeling of self-pity...this desire to wonder if anyone can really understand how I was hurt. There's an injustice rising up in me and the attacks are against the one that hurt me. Where there was once hope, I see the lens that has crept up is a jaded lens trying to find a skewed perspective to justify the negative feelings in my heart. Oh, how the emotions become the director of the train by which the mind keeps chugging along. How do we come to this roller-coaster of a mental ride? With its twists and turns, the unexpected plots, the sinking feeling in the stomach, all occuring within a 2 min span....only to leave you not thrilled, but waiting just to puke b/c of the anxiousness of which the mind has caused the body.

That is how I felt all day....however, today was a bit different than the other days. Most of the time, I would submit to these emotions...this emotions would be the very prison bars by which I would erect with my own hands. These bars that keep encaged in bitterness and distrust. My heart would plant its roots in a cage so that I would be protected from an outside world that continues to feed this idea that it isn't perfect....it won't be on this side of heaven...and so the conclusion is reclusion....but I've seen where that takes me. I don't want to be that person anymore....three failed relationships...the heart breaks, the emotions, the regret, and so those choices come with a price often more than I have so casually in my jean pocket. It leaves me in debt emotionally and later, I try to forget the unwise purchase only to have debt collectors running after me, and so the emotions I never learned to deal with heathily come back to haunt with such veraciousty as if the interest continued to compound upon the debt of emotions I left behind....to be continued....

The Brokeness of a Day...

Quotes from Ch. 1 Abba's Child

• Blaise Pascal, "God made man in his own image and man returned the compliment."

• Nicholas Harnan "This [brokenness] is what needs to be accepted. Unfortunately, this is what we tend to reject. Here the seeds of a corrosive self-hatred take root. This painful vulnerability is the characteristic feature of our humanity that most needs to be embraced in order to restore our human condition to a healed state."

• Henri Nouwen "Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in teh voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, 'Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.'...[My dark side says,] I am no good...I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence."

It is at this moment of sheer brokenness...where the pain is often greater than you care to experience and the self-commentaries want to shout out the rejectedness of my own heart do I cry out of desparation. Apart from you Oh Lord, what am I? How can I exist except within the confines of your will, of your understanding, or your truth. I have the dissipation of losing myself. The truth is, there are so many things that vy for that desire to claim this heart of mind. Each day I'm awkaen to the thoughts that are contrary to my own identity of who I am as a child of God..forgiven and redeemed. At night, I'm force to live with those contrary choices I made wondering if there is something greater for me out there.

It is in this tension of life that we encounter the brokenness of our hearts. I have come to the stark realiziation that trying to be everything to everybody left me shapeless. I was conforming to the ever changing world...a chameleon to the spectators looking through that glass. Oh, how easy it is to lose yourself...lose that understanding of God. In the pursuit of Godly objectives, I lost the love of Christ that undergirded the being of who I am. I had fallen asleep to the deeper desires and found myself chasing after lesser things such as that of men's approval. How did my heart get so easily deceived? I am not sure, and I don't even know...

How we in ministry find our greatest temptation in the occupation of a calling. The lens that we place on our lives is one trying to find the next best insight into God, another life changing understanding, and all the while in the search of Godly things, we have forgotten to be found by God. Those quiet moments that led our hearts with such clarity into our calling have become but nostalgic moments of the past...a fading memory as the demands grow greater and greater...The voice whispers, there are souls to be saved...all the while God's voice wants to save the soul that is trying so hard.

Never in any year have I tried so hard to make God's kingdom come. I grew in knowledge, in understanding, I grew in capacity and maturity, but what I lacked in was all I had at basic. That was true peacefulness and quietness before my Lord and creator. The agendas overwhelmed me, the expectations became me and I was left wondering where the joy of life had gone. Was I not the one who was suppose to preach of this joy? Its funny b/c it doesn't hit you all at once. The chameleon slowly evolves into its fullness as the child of God devolves so in this delicate balance, I found the subtleties to be so alluring. The change so sublime...

I have lived that paper-thin life that kept me from really having that true in depth communion with God that is necessary to sustain any sort of ministry life. The deposited charisma can carry us far, but the substance by which it works is but a gift poorly managed. The amazing thing about this period is the fact that God still works and God calls us not into perfection, but calls us into relationship. However, it is the grieving in what was loss that I realize what could've been. The deep regret for reaping what is sown is one that is to mark the character of those that follow Him. Not in a way that consumes but in a way that the wound becomes a rememberance of God's deliverance and our wayward ways. The juxtaposition of the two brings into contrast life lessons that portray the necessity to cling to the cross always.

As the drama of my life unfolds before my eyes, I sit here broken for sake of this soul that desperately tried so hard. As Adam and Eve found themselves naked, this charade that I have been masquerading in as come to a close and the truth has been revealed. I stand not trying to hide anymore for the fact is I cannot "Get Away..." This God, my Savior, My Lord, My Creator....oh, how the hound of heaven chases...relentlessly pursues with a love so captivating, a love capable of picking up the broken pieces of my life and fashioning them in way that brings it into more completeness before the brokenness... the non-senseical statement only further exasberates my explanation of the grace by which God responds to this broken child.

God, I trust you...I want to trust you...help me to trust you....

For the moments I feel Faint

Am I at the point of no improvement?What of the death I still dwell in?I try to excel, but I feel no movement.Can I be free of this unreleasable sin?[Chorus:]Never underestimate my Jesus.You're telling me that there's no hope.I'm telling you your wrong.Never underestimate my JesusWhen the world around you crumblesHe will be strong, He will be strongI throw up my hands"Oh, the impossibilities"Frustrated and tiredWhere do I go from here?Now I'm searching for the confidence I've lost so willinglyOvercoming these obstacles is overcoming my fear[Chorus]I think I can't, I think I can'tBut I think you can, I think you canI think I can't, I think I can'tBut I think you can, I think you canGather my insufficiencies andplace them in your hands, place them in your hands, place them in your han

I have found myself in a position harder than I expected and getting attacked in ways that I don't know what to do with. God, I just don't know how to go through this...help me to find you in the deepest parts and to trust you with all of my heart. I'm sick of this perpetual motion of trying to hold on.

God there are so many emotions in my heart, there are things that I don't want to feel, I want to know that you are there, help me to understand your purpose and your plan, to be able to come with a submissive heart so that you would be honored and glorified, help me to walk with integrity and honor, to be able to shine your light without pitying myself. God help me not to be selfish, but to be selfless...

God in this brokeness, put me back together the way you want to. Help me to see what you see and want what you want...this heart is having such a trouble of doing that right now...I need you so much more...

I am fighting a heart that wants to get cold and hard...that wants to stop caring and wants to stopy trying. I have such a hard time trusting anyone...and really allowing myself to live in freedom trusting God through everything. I feel my emotions get the best of me and wonder if I'll always be this way.

I have to come to some concrete conclusions that I cannot control so many things. I am helpless in what I can do to change the situations I'm in...well not completely helpless, but when I feel this overwhelming feeling of not being able to trust, I just want to give up. I lose a sense of hope and purpose and I want to crawl into my quiet hole and not interact with anybody. I don't want to really care and I guess my heart feels that it is tired of caring so much.

I can't really convey myself....

David Crowder - All I Can Say
Lord I'm tired
So tired from walking
And Lord I'm so alone
And Lord the dark
Is creeping in
Creeping up To swallow me
I think I'll stop Rest here a while

And didn't You see me cry'n? And didn't You hear me call Your name?
Wasn't it You I gave my heart to? I wish You'd remember
Where you sat it down

Chorus:
And this is all that I can say right now
And this is all that I can give

Bridge:
I didn't notice You were standing here
I didn't know that That was You holding me
I didn't notice You were cry'n too
I didn't know that That was You washing my feet

December Radio - Drifter

I used to have a home
a place i started from a place to call my own
bright lights and late nights the devil took me on a midnight ride
left me out in the desert on my own

Now I feel alone i need a hand to help me find my way back home

I'm a drifter out on a dead end road
trying to find my way back home to get to you, oh to get to you
lord i've been gone for far too long headed to places i don't belong
and i've got to get back home to you

sometimes i think about the past
the road that i was onthe one that lead me home
i'll walk on another day
i may wonder but i never stray
cause i found out the hard way sin don't pay

Now I feel alone i need a hand to help me find my way back home

I'm a drifter out on a dead end road
trying to find my way back home to get to you, oh to get to you
lord i've been gone for far too long headed to places i don't belong
and i've got to get back home to you

And when i feel the night is closing in
and i can barely breathe the air
i just remember that i've got a friend
who really cares oh who really cares

I'm sitting here in Washington DC taking some time to reflect on myself and the past year. Its been one of the most challenging years I've gone through. I'm not quite sure how to start, but I know that I've been pushed, prodded, and broken more times that I would ever care to in a year. Most of the struggles I face are ones internally that express themselves externally.

I'm struggling with trust. It is one of those things that I hate to admit, but it is a sin that has damaged so much of the work that God has been trying to do. I sit sometimes with my hands buried in my face wondering what it is that pokes at the deepest parts of my heart...the insecurities that flare up like a rage.. I am broken before God, before my friends, and before those I minister to. Its the irony that God has shown His faithfulness in so many ways, yet my heart desires control....and in the end that control burns me out. I can't control things that are not in my control, but yet I push my own energies to try to take control of those things. I do not do it concisouly with some sort of devious plan, but it is in the desparateness of my fear that I see my heart clinging to some semblence of stability in which I can provide through my own means.

The damage has been great for myself and my psychie. I have found myself trusting only myself and pushing those closest to me away, especially in times that I do need community. I cannot fully take on a position of ministry with the confidence God has called me to, b/c I cannot trust that in my own insecurities, God would call a man like me. Its the irony that God calls a man filled with insecurities, wondering what God could possibly do through me into a position that requires a strong sense of self and a confidence that can overcome the criticism that the calling often comes with.

God, call me back into your arms and help me find my place with you once again. I have drifted off and tried to seek myself in so many other things than you. God I pray that your truth will resonate within my heart so that my heart would find its rest in you. Help me to trust you, to know you, and to love you more.....God....help me...

Expression of Emotion / A Confession of Anger

I started my class in pre-marital and marital counseling and I started reading this book by Cloud and Townsend about boundaries in marriage. Much of it is about the way you as a person can be empowered in making choices in attitude, perspective, and action that help to change the situation you're in. What really got to me were some of the examples that were mentioned and I hate to admit it, so much of it had to deal with my issues. Not only that, but the issues that were given as examples were those that come from the opposite gender. ha ha ha..so I sat there refusing to have my manhood taken from me by two so called experts, but all joking aside, I am man enough to admit myself to be on the more sensitive side.

However, as I was reading, I've realized how much I've kept inside. I don't talk about my feelings and I just kind of deal with everything around me. Its a pandora box of sorts as I've tried to learn how to do such things. Its interesting, b/c I'm learning more about myself and realizing that some parts of me not being able to open up completely is due to how I've learn to deal with issues, partly b/c I grew up as an only child, and my issues of trusting others. So this kind of way of dealing with things actually creates a facade that keeps others out without giving people the freedom to really love you or even for myself to feel that I can be vunerable. Some marriages become lost as one person does not reveal much and the other person finds the lack of intimacy destructive through their relationship.

I'm taking these steps to try to share and be more open about the things that are going on. It is a mental battle, but one I'm learning to fight....oh so awkwardly now. It has revealed a self-centeredness that I hate to admit when I allow my feelings to be expressed, but it is something I must acknowledge, accept, and confront. I also was driving today and found an anger inside of me as I felt others inpinging on my right as a driver. I actually highbeamed one fella and we got to the stoplight. The anger was boiling and he rolls down the window and starts saying stuff. I sit there laughing to myself b/c I can't believe I'm in this situation, but something else takes over me. I rolled down my window and tell him I couldn't hear what he said. He starts saying that he's not scared of me (....note...don't ever say something like that b/c it only reveals that you are...) but I just shrugged and said ok and then rolled up my window. He drove away and I sat there thinking, my goodness...never in my life have I ever gotten that far.....

Well....much more to write, but must sleep! I hope to be more consistent!