Realizing Redemption

Oh, to go back to that life without worry,
Going day by day without a fear.
Not knowing what it feels like to have the weight of the world to carry.
I know of a place where I can leave all that fear behind.
But I'm too scared to leave it there.
You see, this... this is what makes me mine.
This is what makes me into the person I see
When I look in the mirror every day.
I wish to wash these scars away
To brush the pain off
To but this bottle down and know I'm okay.
But I can't stop.
I don't stop until I'm broken down,
Forced to stop, to take a look at what I have become.
I cry out to God, "Oh, please forgive me!
I know the things I do wrong,
Please don't hold them against me.
I'm trapped inside, I can't get out
I'm locked in without a key.
Come down and help me find the me that's buried deep underneath."

He brought me back to when I was young
When I could trust for no reason,
And showed me that's the way to go
If I'm going to keep believing.

I need to search deep down inside
Without a bottle, without a flame
Just to find the perfect face
That matches with my name.

I need to let go of what makes me
Break the chains that bind me,
The person who I think I am but wasn't made to be.
To go back to the days
Where all I did was trust
So I don't find myself
Buried deep in my own dust.

Love and Hate Are All The Same

         I think love and hate are too alike to be different anymore. They're both words we all just throw around, "Oh, I love chocolate!" or, "I hate that song, it's awful." I think "really like" and "dislike" should be used in circumstances like that. Love and hate are thrown around way too much.

         Because of the way words like love, hate, and awesome are used, I think we forget the real meaning of them. True love is hard to come by. True love is death on a cross. From my perspective, true love is wanting God's will all the time for someone else's life. That could mean a world of sacrifice for you, but you would do it because you love that person. You just can't love chocolate in the same way.

         The same goes for hate. When I think of hate, I think of disliking someone so much I want them to be wiped off the face of the earth. That's a little harsh, I know. But I think that's what hate is. Which is why I don't think I have ever really hated anyone or anything, no matter how much I say I do.

         I think overused words just give us the wrong outlook. They make what we really mean unclear. I've been wrestling with this idea for a while, and the conclusion I have come to is that in the way we say love and hate, they are too alike to be different. And I don't think that's what they were meant to be for.

         This quote by AW Tozer sums it up pretty well, "Words fail and language is exhausted, but the redeemed heart rises up in adoration... Singing the hymn of the Lamb."

Speak and be.

failure

I finally got my driver's license yesterday. I guess the fourth time really is the charm...

There are several things I have learned from so many failures. Getting your license causes a lot of stress. Unnecessary stress. Also, don't give up. My mom told me a story about her taking some sort of test for something  important, and she failed it the first time. She said she was upset because she did so well in school, and she was sure she knew all of the information. But she didn't I guess because she failed it... She told me when she failed the first time, she told herself she would just try over and over again until she passed. I respect that attitude. I need to get that attitude.

Nobody likes failure. It's annoying. But it's something that comes in this life a lot. Something I think we all need to work out is how to accept failure, and how to strive to do better because of our failures. 

Yes, I have the freedom of a car and the wide open roads (when my mom doesn't need it), but I think what I learned the most was to make something out of failure.

overcome

My ear hears wicked.
My tongue speaks lies.
My eyes see injustice.
But where do I draw the line?

I know of my sins
my struggles, my weakness.
They always shine before me.
They take center stage
Just to show me their ways
And slowly they destroy me.

From the beginning
It has been a cycle.
And now I want to break free.
To understand truth
To know joy and gladness
And break the chains that hold me.

Teach me Your ways
And guide me to truth.
Wash me as white as the snow.
I give You my heart
My broken bones to mend,
Only Your love I will show.

By Your grace
I am saved
cleansed, renewed.
I can't do it alone
I can't walk through the unknown
without being guided by You.
So please, don't turn away
From Your sheep gone astray
We just want to make amends.
We see what we've done,
And by faith in the Son
Find grace that has no end.

Life on the Moon

Life on the moon couldn’t get any stranger.

You think you’re flying,

But you find yourself falling anxiously back to the ground

And once you get there

You find your feet firmly planted to what you’ve always known.

Not much depth,

Not much to stand on.

Just you, the universe, and your thoughts.

Life on the moon,

Life here on earth.

What’s the difference?

We all get lost,

We all fly high

Up on our personal cloud nine,

But what do we find when we find ourselves falling?

When the little bit of gravity,

The little bit of sanity

Pulls us back to where we belong?

Most of the time, when we reach rock bottom

 Is when gravity catches up to us.

Crashing down on our weakness

Down on our pride

Down on our selfishness

Down on our lust

Down on our lies

Down to nothing

With nothing to stand on.

When we reach rock bottom,

We seek out our way back to the top.

Hopefully it’s a top where when you fall,

You’ll fall swiftly on a soft patch of bright green grass,

Rather than painfully on a pile of rocks and dust.

Or have a foundation strong enough to keep you there.

Build on a solid rock,

Rather than a patch of sand

Where you’ll find when a storm hits, you’ll stay strong

Instead of falling right back to the bottom.

bold.

Bold.
A word unfamiliar to many.
Definition:
Not being fearful in the face of potential danger.
Danger.
Something many try to avoid.
Truth is, it's unavoidable.
Danger lurks around every corner,
seeking out its next victim.
Like a lion, prowling in the background for its prey.
One question...
What would you do if you turned around
only to come face to face with the thing that made you most afraid?
Two options:
Be Bold. Or be Fearful.
life was not made for the weak, the timid, the shy, and the fearful.
It was made for the strong, the bold, the valiant, and fearless.
We are told that we are more than conquerors.
So,
what are you waiting for?
go out. run the race. do it boldly.

Into A Million Pieces

It doesn’t matter how many sad commercials people see, how often they hear of starving people in Africa, or how many stories they hear about dead puppies who were all shot and left on the side of the road, they just don’t feel the need to help out. It’s sick. Honestly, whenever I see one of those commercials with starving children or injured animals my heart breaks a little bit. But do I do anything to help? No. I don’t. And you know what? I hate it.

            I hate that I’m too concerned about what my own problems are to help anyone else. . The things I go through are nothing compared to what I’ve seen other people go through. I look at news stories all the time and see nothing but broken people, but I don’t do a single thing about it.

            There’s no hope in our society today, and I’m not going to act like I want to be the poster child for hope. I mess up. I think my problems are too big for me to wake up the next morning, even though in all reality I’ll forget about them in two days. Don’t get me wrong; some things could be a lot harder for other people than they are for me. For example, if my dog died, I would be upset for maybe a week and move on. Not because I don’t love him, but because I just don’t feel like it’s something that I need to mourn over for a super long time. But if my neighbor’s dog died, maybe that dog was twenty years old and my neighbor’s best friend, so he might take it to a totally different extreme. Heartbreak hits us all differently.

            The one thing I’m sick of is seeing people who act like great people, and I know to be great people, leave people starving and mourning on their own because they can’t get over the C they got on their last math test. They can’t look past their failures and struggles to help someone else. I just don’t want to see people being so into themselves that they can’t be there for anyone else. It drives me nuts.

            Because of this, I started something. Something that brings people closer together, brings some people a little bit of hope. I made a jar, kept it in one of my teacher’s classrooms and told everyone to write a problem they’re having on a piece of paper without their names on them, and put them in the jar. Every two weeks we have a meeting, and I pull out every slip of paper and read them out loud. The first couple of meetings there were only a few slips and a few people to show up. Soon enough, the jar was flooded with people’s problems and we all sat after school to listen and give advice to the people who wrote these slips for hours.

            Something stuck out to me in one kid that I have been going to school with since kindergarten. He doesn’t have many friends and looks like he spends a lot of lonely days at school. I’ve never figured it out, but I think a lot of those entries were from him. His name is Aaron. He’s a quiet guy, but once you get him talking he’s sweet and really funny. One day Aaron came up to me and asked if he could talk to me about something. I was ready to hear a story about the friends he has made since this group started, but he told me a completely different story. His life’s journey.

            His parents died when he was three years old. He bounced from foster family to foster family for two years until he ended up with his parents here. They enrolled him in school and he didn’t know what to do with himself since he never had any friends or even much social interaction because he was never anywhere long enough to do so. So he went throughout his school days barely getting by. Always lonely, but always happy when someone would do something as small as smiling at him, or picking up his pencil after it rolled off his desk to the floor. He was sick of always being lonely. He never liked to go to school or be home. He didn’t feel welcome at either place. He felt like a puppet at home and he felt invisible at school. He didn’t know anyone cared about him. He didn’t care if anyone cared about him. He didn’t care about him. He was thinking about taking his own life, but then he heard of this group that started at the school.

            He was nervous to go to the first couple of meetings. He was never well liked, so he was afraid to intrude on a club where no one knew his name. After a few meetings, he decided to come. He told me that he didn’t feel like an intruder, he felt like he had known everyone well since he was born. For the first time in his life he felt acceptance. It was life changing for him to see people who usually are too busy  concerning themselves with their own problems unlocking their hearts and loving each other.

            When he was done with his story, he looked up to me with tears in his eyes and whispered “Thank you”. I was trying to hold back tears myself when he held out a piece of paper and asked me to look at it. It didn’t take me long to realize it. The piece of paper he handed me was a suicide letter he wrote recently. He continued his story.

            “I want this out of my life. I don’t ever want it to come back again. I want you to help me destroy it. You helped me in so many other ways, please, help me get rid of this burden.” He pleaded.

            “Come here, let me show you something.” I replied with a smile on my face.

            There was a paper shredder I knew of in the office and I wanted to bring him there. Ideally I would have burned it, but we were in school and that’s against the rules. So we walked into the office, I handed the note back to him, and pointed to the shredder.

He looked at it, looked back at me, I nodded to him, and he did it. Right then and there the burden that had been on his shoulders for so long was shredded into a hundred pieces. He finally felt accepted. One person’s life was changed forever.

Like I said earlier, I don’t want to be the poster child for hope. Hope isn’t something you can pull out of your back pocket. It’s a lifestyle. A lifestyle I am choosing to live. Now when I see those commercials I’m reminded of Aaron and his story. I am reminded that by a few people’s love and compassion many people’s lives can be changed or even saved. It’s a beautiful thing.  

I have my own problems but they don’t consume me. Something that I hated pushed me to do something that I love. It’s weird how life works sometimes. We change the world with the passion we have for or against things. The most beautiful thing about it is, you can be anybody and you can still make a difference.