Bittersweet Jealousy

How can I be so angry and something that is so glorious? People getting saved, my friends witnessing God’s glory and love poured out through them, how can I be mad? It is a bittersweet jealousy, it makes my inside cringe with feelings of hypocrisy. I spent my spring break in California, my summer home, seeing all these people that have entered my life during my internship there last summer. For three months, I poured all that I am into the ranch, into those students, fighting battle after battle in the spiritual realm. I saw amazing things, I saw things that broke my heart, the up and down roller coaster that made my time there something that could never be forgotten. God gave me such a love and passion for these kids and the people there, that I have yet to stop praying for God to move in their lives. With that said, my trip to Cali was nerve-wrecking and unsurprisingly discouraging. I go back and see each and every student that I ministered to in my time there struggling, seeing Satan continue to get a foothold and destroy their lives. Also, to see one of my best friends diving back into a deep pit of drugs, sex, and hopelessness was so heartbreaking. So my anger is justified I think, with all these people going for a week somewhere and seeing all these people get saved and some dramatic turn-arounds, and then me returning to a place where I struggled and poured out myself to these students for three months and see that they’ve have fallen back to where they were: That’s not fair! I want to see these things, I want to see my kids lives changed, I want to see God do something glorious! It is selfish, I guess, but it is more a sadness that my family in Cali is still living in bondage. Something else that scares me is that with all these things that are heart wrenching and extremely exhausting, I don’t feel anything towards it. I don’t know if it is just because it is the latter of the whole experience and spiritually and emotionally I’m drained but when I think of those things I’m not sad, I’m not disappointed, I just act accordingly. This has been a struggle for me these last few months of wanting to serve God out of pure love for Him and not obligation, duty, or responsibility. I feel like all I am is works and when you take that away, there’s nothing there. I don’t know a sincere love for God, I’m wishing to serve Him because I can’t figure out what else to do with my life. So in looking for purpose in my future, I justify all these reasons for going to seminary, or doing ministry; “I love God”, “I want to see people know the same God I know”, etc. bullshit, bullshit, bullshit If you peel away the layers, I fear that there is nothing there. I can’t just be. This throws me into a cycle of despair regarding my future because if I go the other way, what will my life amount to? At least if I follow in what I have convinced myself to be my purpose, I can at least have something to show for a lifetime of work even if in reality, it means nothing. I’ll at least having something to fool others with. . I guess I wouldn’t be too presumptuous if I said I was being negative right now, because that what I am. It is a sickness that just overtakes me sometimes. My thoughts right now aren’t meant to be clear or make sense to anyone brave enough to read these ramblings, they are just overwhelming fearful thoughts that are buried deep inside me. I speak them now to expose them to the light, out loud in the open they are shown for what they really are: ramblings of a desperate liar trying to hold onto whatever he can. The Light has exposed them even though my emotions say otherwise. Maybe in time, things will change but now I will try and rest in satisfaction of getting this off my chest.

Happy Birthday!

22 years are only the beginning of a long life and yet I feel like a very old 22. Along with my old joints and grouchy tendencies, my senior citizen club card is being renewed with each year! However, this year I think is the first year in a long time, that I felt my birthday could be a celebration. I spent years hating the day I was born because it only signified pain and anger. God has brought me a long way and was able to share something truly special with me this year. My birthday, falling on a Wednesday night this year, I spent with my college group at our normal bible study each week. Singing praises, I’m learning to initiate a state of thankfulness as my worship, something that doesn’t ever come easy to me. As I stood, God just laid His hands on me and brought me a vision from my past. I love how He does that because there is so much wrapped into one thought, God is so complex and amazing. My mind went back to years of hating myself, depression, and pain. Journals filled with blood and tears and endless thoughts cried out for my deliverance or understanding or anything to show that my God cared. In this moment, I thought about the promise I had made myself in my early teenage years that by age eighteen, I will be free from everything, one way or the other. Whether God saved me or I gave up, only time could tell, but I vowed that I wouldn’t live another year of what I had known to be my life. My eighteenth birthday came and went, and for the life of me I never knew how God had carried me through it all, and I still couldn’t tell you how, but that’s what makes it so glorious. So four years later, I’m surrounded by His people who love me, singing about the little I know of God’s glory, and God whispers, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t keep your promise?” With the pictures of sleepless nights and dyed blood flooding my memory, tears roll down my face, he continues, “Aren’t you glad that I kept Mine?” Breathless, I sit back in awe, unable to respond with anything short of being completely motionless. Void of all my normal brain patterns whirling about, I just sit still, “wow”. With everything that God has carried me through, I can say that I’m grateful for His Grace and His Love. I can’t say that I even know what it really looks like, but I have seen glimpses that leave me hungry and searching for more. Even if I don’t ever see anything more from God, His work in my life do far would be enough. I don’t know how these things finally come together but that’s what makes it so glorious. To all of my friends, thank you for being the love of God in my life and sharing with me what can finally be a celebration in my mind. Twenty-two years old, and hopefully growing younger and younger in God’s sight, always a child, always in need of a daddy.