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we all have regrets, things we wish we’d never ever done. things that haunt us in our dreams. things that interrupt our dreams… things that scream that we’re destined to fail. destined to let others down. destined to destruction.
we all have things in our past that we wish we could forget. things, choices we made, actions, words we wish would disappear. would fall off the planet and never again be remembered.
we all have a past. some of us have been able to shut it in a closet. and forget its there. others of us are still haunted by decision made long ago.
we’ve all built castles in the sand. and we, in our own way, have watched them crumble as the surf rolled in. we’ve all faced personal disasters. and ive come to the conclusion that the person hardest on us, is us.
you see, i believe in a God. i believe in a God who promised to remove our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. a God who promised to throw our sins into the vastness of the sea of forgetfulness. i believe in a God whos dream it is to restore us (humanity) to the position we lost thousands of years ago. i believe in a God who offers forgiveness, who sent His Son to pay for our sins. and to allow us a chance at abundant life.
i believe all those things… and yet i still replay my own failures. my own mistakes. i still focus on the diseased part of who i am, instead of the immense God who is waiting for me to step back, so He can step in.
i believe all those things… and yet i still fear. i still fear people finding out who the real me is, or was. i fear not being good enough. i fear not being forgiven.
i believe all those things, and yet… i fear.
i fear missing Gods will. not being good enough for His plans for me. i fear being unworthy of the dreams i carry deep within myself.
there is something to be said about being content with where you are at. with being thankful for what you have, and what youve been given. and there is tremendous truth in that. there is. and im a firm believer in working towards contentedness.
but there is something more.
i fear, but i know. i know there is more to life. i hear it echo off the walls in my heart. i hear it when im alone. i hear the cry in the wind. i hear it in the aching of this generation. there is something deeper. there is a prize worth fighting for. there is life out there, beyond what ive known. there is life.
there is hope. and there is forgiveness.
there is swimming in the sea… and finding your memories being lost in its depths. there is walking in the valley, and finding your life renewed by the presence of the One who will never leave.
there is forgiveness. and forgiving of ones self.
there is life.
there are symphonies still to be heard. symphonies contained within the whole of our beings, within our souls. there symphonies we are destined to play in. to write. to hear.
there is destiny. and there is life.
i give You my apathy
im giving You all of me
i want Your symphony
singing in all that i am
at the top of my lungs
im giving it back
and i lay my head back down
and i lift my hands and pray
to be only Yours
and pray to be only Yours
i know now
You’re my only hope
i dont tell people when something they’ve done has hurt me. i dont. i keep it to myself. i dont speak up. i push it inside and try and forget about it. i put on the brave face and just tough through it.
and maybe, when im alone… ill deal with it. maybe not.
maybe its because i have this uncanny knack to simply talk myself out of ever bringing it up with said person.
maybe its because i was brought up with the knowledge that anything that happened to me, any freakin thing was something i should be thankful for.
i was never allowed to cry. or show any emotion outside of what i was told to show.
heck, that was my entire life. i was always ‘on show’. we had to dress the part of the happy christian family. we had to look like a nuclear family. we had to show we loved each other. even when, at times… we didnt.
we were never ever allowed to speak up. or quesiton. or argue. it was my dads way, or my dads punishment.
i hated him. i hate him.
i hate him for what he did to my sisters. i hate him for how he treated, or didnt treat, my mom. my mom is a freakin princess and he treated her like trash.
and i hate him the most for what he wasnt.
for the fact that im 27 and i dont know how to be who im supposed to be. how i dont have memories in my life to look back on and be “oh, THATS how im supposed to handle that situation”. i dont have a history i want to remember. i dont have a namsake i want to carry on.
i dont have a father.
and i never did
i know, you can say ‘grow the heck up pj’. and you’re right. you are. i cant sit here and allow my past to dictate my future. i cant let my life be controlled by things i wasnt able to change, back then. im responsible, ultimately, for my own destiny. i am.
and im trying. probably not enough. heck, i know its not enough. i know i hide behind my pain. i know i use it now more as a defence, as a… weakness to lean on. its become a part of who i am… and no longer something im fighting against.
part of me wants to live free. wants to drop this weight. wants to be able to look at a pretty girl and ask her out. and not see, or think about… how much pain could have been avoided had my father simply not asked my mother out.
can you belive this? im 27. i cant believe it.
when i was 20, i wanted to be married by now. i did.
i still do.
you know, ive written all of this. all of this crap that ive carried around for so long. knowing full well that there are moments where i almost lose it. moments where you’d never think you’d see a grown man cry. moments when, maybe my boss offered a bit of praise. or, a hug from a pastor.
ive written all this, knowing what was lost… and i know im only scratching the surface. i know there is more. why? because i compartmentalize. because i dont deal with stuff. i’ve never dealt with stuff. i was never shown how to deal. i was just expected to swallow it and move the hell on.
ive written all this. and ive not even shed a tear. someone i care for deeply, once sent me a text message. she said that she wondered if hear tear ducts had forgotten how to cry. im beginning to wonder that myself.
ive written all of this. and yeah, maybe it is only scratching the surface…. maybe there is more scratching to go. maybe this is barely a dent on what it will take….
but i cant quit.
i may end up having to rebuild the entirety of the foundations i never had… but i cant quit.
there are pretty girls out there. there are dates worth being on. there is a hope of me living life. without fear. without wondering if ill repeat the screwups of my father.
i may be scratching the surface, but at least underneath… im still alive.
i know in years passed, ive typically had an end-of-year post. something that recaps what the year was about. something that offers closure. something that allows me a moment to reflect, and move on. i know i didnt this year. i know that we’re already more than a week into 2007. my birthday came and went (blows party horn). and the world celebrated a new year.
more than a million people gathered in times square to watch a giant crystal ball drop. why? well, i’ll tell you… watching a giant crystal ball drop is just the coolest thing evar.. ok, not really. why then? why spend the money, and invest the hours standing in times square? its simple.. and its this reason that all of humanity looks forward to the new year.
new beginnings. a fresh start. a clean slate. new hope.
hope.
if i had to pick a theme that carried me through the final few months of 2006, it was hope. and i only hope and pray, that it continues throughout 2007.
dealing with disappointment isnt easy.
some of us have the ability to put a smile on. to fight through it. to just, chalk it up to another something that didnt work out the way we expected it to, and just move on. some of us can shake it off, gather our things and be gone. moving into whatever is next with all the anticipation and hope of a puppy running through the leaves. i try to be that person. i do. and i think im pretty good at it.
there are other times though…. when i just cant. when i cant move on. when i cant pretend things are ‘ok’. for just a small moment in time, i lose it. and im honest with myself. no, no-one ever sees it. not in its fullness. but it happens.
i think we all live this way. we all find ourselves in moments where we are too exhausted, we can no longer keep our guard up, and the real us shines through. moments, often times by followed by a trail of tears.
im learning that its in those moments; those moments where we drop our guard, where we no longer hold up the facade… those moments when -no, im not ok- breaks through to the surface… that we see true beauty.
its in those moments that, if we’re lucky, we see hope.
there are times when i seriously hesitate about posting something online. be it simple uncertainty, fear, or knowing its just not the right time… sometimes i wonder if clicking “publish” is the right thing to do.
last night was one of those times.
i wont lie and say i was feeling chipper. because i wasnt. i was rather down last night. and to be honest, i am not sure why.
Christmas did rock. flat out. 110% rocked. the whole day was amazing. heck, the whole three day event was amazing. christmas eve was a ton of fun, christmas morning was great. i gave some stinkin awesome gifts:)
sometimes finding the courage to dream simply means being real with what we’re feeling. dealing with it. bringing it out into the light… because sometimes we need to see things, in the light, to see them for what they really are. and that holds true for the battles we face. sometimes we simply need to expose them to the light, to see how small they really are.
and how truly blessed we are.
Merry Christmas
take my silence to mean whatever you wish. wether or not what you take it to mean; is truth, is a totally different issue.
we will always have battles to fight. demons that are ours and ours alone to spar with. some of us will always have areas in our lives that hurt.
areas where, in the heat of battle, we were wounded and we never found the healing we needed. areas that were cut, damaged, broken. and because of the hastes of life, and the possible need to find safety… these areas became scars.
medals of battles long since forgotten.
for some of us, dealing with those areas will always hurt. pain will aways be a reminder of what was lost. some of us may forever walk with a limp. but we will keep walking. some of us may never leave the confines of scar tissue behind fully. but we will still dream.
so, if your asking me if i am ok, if there are no after effects, no damaged areas, no shrapnel? if you’re asking that, then no. im not there yet. there is still pain. but i am still walking. i am still dreaming.
and i will not stop.
i wrote the above a few nights ago. and to be honest, i am not sure where it came from. or for that matter, on all evenings, why i should be feeling this way on Christmas.
i wanted to tell someone that i dont feel happy. that as hard as i tried, as much as i loved seeing the expressions on my moms face, my sisters faces as they opened the gifts… something was missing.
and i dont know what it is. or maybe i do. and maybe im simply chosing to ignore it.
or maybe, i simply dont know how to deal with it.
when you’ve lived so long with pain. with a wound. you begin to identify with it. you begin to believe that it is a part of you. and for some of us, the chaos and intensity of the situaiton(s) that inflicted that wound on us are so vivid in our memories, these wounds become more real to us than the vision of healing.
we identify with our wounds more than we identify with our friends, family, or beliefs. our wounds begin to define us. and we lose the definition of ourselves that we were writing.
part of me wants to simply believe the first part of what i wrote. part of me sees valor in it. sees a simple determination to keep walking. to not care what life throws at you. to look at life like a battle. something to be fought through, and not lived in. part of me sees that, connects with that, almost yearns for that.
because even in the midst of pain, it is safe. if only because it is familiar.
i could continue to walk down that road. and live life alone. i could. but to be honest, i dont want to.
sometimes finding the courage to dream means simply finding the faith, within ourselves, to pray for stronger arms to hold you.
so ill admit. when i asked for your prayers last week, i played down the situation just a bit. to be totally honest, the past two weeks were probably the worst two weeks, physically, ive ever had.
i was taking hydrocodone 4x a day. and towards the end of things, it barley touched the pain.
i couldnt sit, i couldnt stand, i couldnt walk. there wasnt a position i could be in that didnt hurt. and movement, simple movent literally took my breath away.
but i did my best not to complain. and to be honest, i subcomed to fear. i did. i wasnt honest with my family, or the doctors about how much pain i was in. i dont like doctors. and i paid for it.
sunday morning, i couldnt even sit on the toilet to use the bathroom. the pain was that severe. i lost in soon after in the shower. i just wept.
my mom came to tell me she was headed out to church, and to check on me one more time. it was at that point that two weeks of horrible pain, sleepless nights and fear came to the surface. and i did something i hadnt done in a long time.
i broke down. in someones arms.
i couldnt take the pain anymore. there wasnt anything i could do that was “right”. no matter how i moved, sat, didnt move, laid down, knelt… nothing helped the pain. and i simply lost it. and it wasnt just your run of the mill crying. i was sobbing. i couldnt help it.
fast forward 4 days…. and im feeling SOOO much better. im still recovering, so, i still would appreciate prayers. but i am so incredibly thankful to be feeling better. i am.
yesterday, i was on the way home from work. and something struck me. i was mulling over the past few weeks; how i could have handled it better, how i could have gone to the doctors earlier, if i had been a bit more patient, would i still have originally misdiagnosed…. and it hit me.
it took all that, to simply get me to crumble. to lay aside my defenses and simply ask for help. even if all that help entailed was a shoulder to cry on. its funny too, because thats just what i did. i cried on a shoulder.
it didnt help the pain. it didnt help the discomfort. it didnt help me physically, but it helped. it lifted the weight i had been bearing. it made me feel lighter.
then i got to thinking. what does it take in my life? pain, misery, discomfort, sleepless nights? simply to get me to be that real with my Saviour.
for me to fall at His feet. to be brave enough to crumble at the altar on a sunday morning… and find that shoulder. that shoulder to cry on. that shoulder that will carry my burden. and allow me to take His.
oh no
you never let go
through the calm
and through the storm
oh no
you never let go
every high
and every low
Lord, you never let go of me
for those of you who sent prayer my way, i am feeling much better. You have no idea how much better i feel:-)
thank you!
there is no weakness in asking for help. if we were honest with ourselves, we’d probably say that our greatest moments of strength came when we let down our guard; and honestly, simply asked for help.
which is what im doing right now.
im asking for prayer.
for about 10 days now ive been battling an abscess. without going into details lets just say its located in an area that makes sitting very painful. i was misdiagnosed for about 4 days, so i only started on the antibiotics and uber-powerful painkillers on thursday.
to be honest, without the painkillers, i would hardly be able to move.
but you know what? this is Christmas time. a time of hope. a time of miracles. a time for reminding us what is truly important, and in finding that, we find life.
so i would ask for you to pray for healing. but beyond that, i ask that you share your hopes, dreams, and prayers for this holiday season.
we’re all in this together aren’t we? so, here is to the ride. to honesty. to being real, and in doing so, finding out what this whole thing is truly all about.
May you find hope, and have a very Merry Christmas.
its in living those stories out, that we find out what is in our hearts. its in those moments of pressure, of stress, of pain that just wont end; that we truly see the holes in our heart. and what we’ve filled them with. and how quickly we want the circumstances to change.
we dont want the process of change. we dont want the uncovering, the exposing, the embarassment from having our hearts shown for what they truly are.
me? its anger. and its beginning to impact me physically. and it sucks.
and right now, i want to simply be healed. im not looking for the long term cure. i want the instant fix.
i dont want to peek into the areas of my heart that ive brushed under the carpet… that ive kept hidden. that ive hoped would one day just go away. i dont want to go where ive not been in a long while. i want to avoid those areas, take a pill and move on.
but i cannot.
not if i want to live fully. not if i want to continue to hope.
sometimes it takes a thorn in our sides, to get us to drop to our knees and simply say we were wrong. to accept the wrong-ness. to expose it, and to, hopefully, find what was supposed to occupy that part of our hearts in the first place.
life. full on, no holds barred, im all in, life.
whatever it takes. right?
right.
FindingTheCourageToDream.com 