I have been struggling a lot with feeling wanted recently, mostly in terms of ministry, I keep feeling as if I put myself out there to help and either it feels as if I just get shot down and basically ignored or I feel like I accomplished nothing for the kingdom while doing so.
I was reading 97 seconds with God yesterday, a blog I was exposed to recently that has become a helpful breather during my day and the writer was talking on "quiet" but this verse popped out to me and I pulled something different.
Zephaniah 3:17:
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
It was just encouraging, that if I continue pursuing God and his Kingdom, to be like him, and He will give me the direction that I seek. Plain and Simple.
These past few weeks have been indescribably rough and ugly and beautiful.
I had found myself combating with an addiction I've had for as long as I can remember more than ever, and the emotions, and turmoil with wrestling with God over it.
I have been struggling with the inevitable up and coming departure of a friend I've only just recently got to know.
And uncertainty about the future and what God truly wants with/from me.
So suffice to say I've been feeling rather stressed and depressed for some time.
Two Sunday's ago was the start of a process of breaking me that I never expected.
We had an unexceptionably amazing service, and I found myself on my knees in arbitration and reverence to God
And then not but three days later I digressed in my struggle with my vice. In the process I began to realize I've been speaking his Name with my mouth and yet my heart has been far from him. And I began to feel as if I can't continue to walk this road, split and torn between my Flesh and his righteousness. I was ready to walk away from my faith.
And then yesterday arrive and I was planning on just staying home and giving up on the myself and the world I live in, when Twila asked me to go to the Father's House's Wed. service. I really really really didn't want to go but I decided to go just because she had been asking me for so long and I still hadn't done it.
So there I am sitting in a service listening to music and people in utter love and praise to the One I used to feel so close to, wanting to just get out.
I was just standing outside of the aisle because someone had to get past me to return to their seat when Viki Orsello comes up behind me and lightly touches my back. Sensing something (undoubtedly the Holy spirit telling her to pray for me), she stops and simply says peace of mind. I'm beyond shocked and I feel wave after wave of emotion, warmth, sadness, guilt, heartache, longing, flowing though my body. She continues to pray and says more simple short words, undoubtably the spirit telling her that I need to hear. After a long, emotional, spiritual confrontation (with two others coming over to pray over me) I felt an amazing burden lifted off my shoulders.
Shortly after the others move on and I'm so drained for the moment I had to sit down.
Twila was sitting close by and I couldn't help but walk over and sit next to her, she hugs me and I break down again, and the only thing I could say was "Free, I'm Free, Twila I'm Free!"
How to break free from these chains
When they bind my very heart, and what seems my very being
It feels of an addiction,
It started as a choice
How did I let it get this far?
I've heard one say "How can it be wrong?"
But if it was right why is there disconnect from God
I had a taste this weekend
On how it is to feel again
Sunshine passed into this prison that I've built for myself
But I've forgotten how to love
When you've loved, truly loved and their backs turned and walked away
No goodbye...
When you've loved friends, and the return was their evanescence
When you want to love new friends
but you doubt that they care as much
How do I love again?
I want to follow the Way, with everything I am
but I've forgotten how to hear His voice
What does it mean to live? To love?
To know that so many are suffering and dying
Even while I write this thats on my heart
and yet feel helpless to do anything...
When I fear to even say His name
I want to love again
But I've forgotten how
Beauty, the seed broken by sorrow and sadness
Beaten down, torn up, and thrown away
I have hid my feelings long
Fearing they will do me wrong
As echoes stir the silence
A broken heart makes
"This to shall Pass"
Continues its ring in my head
An empty promise built on more than ludicrous hopes
So, they lead me along
Caring isn't in their plan
The truth hurts, so here it is
A better world will never be seen
Watch as people kill for It
In the name of It
I'm not one to remember all that you've done
Evanesce and hear these words
Truth told in lies
The most beautiful brought to life
And the most evil, with the best intentions done
The human voice is different from other sounds
It can be heard over noises the bury everything else
Even when its not shouting, only a whisper
Even the quietest voice can be heard over armies
When it's telling the truth
So, here it is again
Mark the paradox of asking this masked man who he is
But heavy has this mask grown, so as to have forgotten who is underneath
So give me but minutes to show you who I really am...
Friday nights bell game is what actually started this thought process. The topic, sexuality.
I know right me talking about this subject, but as I've been thinking about it, it is such a huge area in every human beings life and yet it is the least talked about in the Body as to how we gauge what is ok and what is to far for purity.
What started this questioning was the cheerleader's performance at half-time at the Bell game Friday night. The struggle:
Where's the point where enjoyment of a woman's beauty becomes lust?
I guess this thought was brought up after the performance when a couple of fellow christian males made comments about how good they did and so forth. The bible mentions purity several times and in several contexts 1 Tim. 5 for example but when I read passages on it. I feel as if I miss or it doesn't define or describe where being a human male changes toward sin. We were created with a sexual drive and in the proper ways is a wonderful gift. But when we are single wheres the line?
This morning while reading in 1 Corinthians I came across some verses that play upon what I have been struggling with when it comes to the upcoming election.
The verses I am mentioning is 1 corinthians 3:18-23.
The reason I have been struggling with this is because I disagree highly with a large majority of people on what is truly necessary when it comes to political issues and I make many conservative Christians angry because I don't blindly follow a "conservative" Republican agenda, I anger many liberals because I disagree with several issues because the questionability of them morally. Anyway the reason why I struggle is so many people on both "sides", that I highly respect and trust tell me to vote this way or that, all while using the "lesser of two evils" argument. They boast in "their" candidate as someone who is wise or will establish better ways of running our country. Then again I believe God establishes the leaders he does for a reason, and even though we can't see it now, it turns around in the end.
This past weekend has always been one of my favorite "escapes" but i do have to say this Labor Day weekend has to be my favorite.
Not only was it completely relaxing and rejuvenating in ways i didn't think i needed, but I also got to spend amazing time with God and wonderful friends!
I feel also that God is challenging me to step out of my comfort box and do things that i normally wouldn't dream of doing. I also feel as if he's telling me that if I want to go to santa cruz that he wants me to do it but to be open for spontaneous changes and not to "plan ahead" so much and lean on him
Today a really good friend, who i haven't been able to hang out with for a long time, showed up at The Axiom.
We talked and messed around with photo booth on Chuck's lap top for a while. It was an exorbitant amount of fun, she makes me laugh soooo stinking much, I wish that situations were different and things were like they used to. Maybe they will, but i guess times come and go, thats why carpi momentum (as Garrett would say) is important!
Well boys night in an hour, can i get a wooop wooop!
Love you all,
~[N]
Quote of the Day: " It is like when a house burns down, it isn't for years that you realize the full extent of the loss." ~Mark Twain
The late night insomnia has set in once again and once again I've have been thinking.
Tonights topic: Why God places people into our lives.
I've been able to be with some amazing people, especially over the last month....and I don't know how to emotionally handle it.
Some of these people I've known for years but never had the chance to truly get to know them before now, for only God knows what reason. And thats part of the question why does God place people when, where, and how he does. It feels like I've missed out on so much and yet there was really no opportunity before now for these relationships to form....and now so shortly after they have been formed, my newly found friends have to leave. Thats all it ever feels like, I get close to someone and God takes them away....every time...
I'm becoming, now especially, more and more afraid of opening up and deepening two specific relationships that have been created over the last few weeks. They have become such an integral part of my life in less than three weeks, and yet to know they we'll have to leave in such a short time...wondering if it all matters...for them, and inevitably myself as well. I don't want to appear desperate, and yet I hate being alone, I've tasted what It feels like to not be for the first time in 19yrs, and I don't want to go back. Yet there feels like an invisible wall of already deeply formed relationships and lives in other places, and I'm just a part of a temporary, quickly fleeting chapter. It feels more self destructive then healthy...
Maybe I think to much....part of me knows I should live for the moment and cherish the time that has been given, but the other part questions if I can/do/will make as much of an impression on others as they seem to have on me...or do I just care too much...
And that all leads me to relationships of the past, and how I've screwed up....
I once held the key and now I have nothing, I'm sorry for leading you along, I know its my own faults that have brought me down, it's a constant battle. I'm sorry I'm just a man.
I know theres more to life. I just want to know people, but I feel nobody wants to be known, or even knows what it means TO be known....
Yesterday was my first ever Warped Tour! O and let me tell you it was pretty amazing...
Cue list of Shows: 11:45 - The Classic Crime!!!
12:15 - Norma Jean!!
12:55 - We The Kings
1:45 - Alesana!!!
2:15 - Rise Against
3:45 - Against Me/ Bring me the Horizon
4:15 - Mayday Parade!!!
4:45 - Cobra Starship
5:15 - From First To Last
5:45 - Story of the Year
6:10 - Devil Wears Prada!!!
6:45 - Say Anything
7:15 - Gym Class
7:45 Angels and Airwaves!!!
8:15 - Anberlin!!!!!
**exclamation marks denote extra excitement
So pretty much a full and amazing day....and yet I couldn't get enough, cause right after getting home went to play fugitive at Axiom...yeah I'm nuts...but at least I got chased this time, stupid Caleb =), and distracted them enough to get Kinsey and Natja back to Axiom.
Quote of the Day: "Our lives begin to end to day we become silent about things that matter." -Martin Luther King Jr.
This is the span of the last two days...
It all started yesterday morning when I was supposed to meet with Garrett but he apparently sent me a text, that I never got, that told me that he needed sleep and couldn't meet that morning.....so unknowing of this text i enter the McCoy house to find Garrett sleeping away , and i just happened to think Garrett had just accidentally oversleep...soo i messed with him a little to wake him up...and as you can undoubtedly tell he wasn't very happy....but he took it all well so i left early...poor guy!
Anyway so the rest of the day was pretty much a blazay day of catching up on reading and watching some Olympics. But at four i had my first vocal lesson with Amy Hayse which was AMAZING....she makes it so much fun...we worked on committing to the notes (breathing wise) in general and harmony for the song Marvelous Light. Afterwards I went to our small groups softball game in at the Thermalito fields....which we won by like two points i think...it was sooo close but i got to play left field and hit a double....but didn't get to make it home =(.
Shortly after the game went to Stephanie's house and swam with her Chuck, Tyler, and Jessie...Melinda showed up later and we all played colors and sharks and minnows...Chuck, Tyler and I then went back to the appartment and watched Hot Fuzz while eating popcorn and drinking Big Gulp $.99 refill Slurpees.....finally fell asleep around 2:30.
Today started off by having and outstanding worship band practice...we played so well and it was double by feeling God come in and envelope us as we worshiped...unfortunately we had o end at 10...and i had to head off to work....which went well but i'm just really getting tired of being placed in the last or second to the last sections....I talked to Lisa (the manager that does our schedules) so hopefull things will change soon but who knows....
So i went back to Axiom to volunteer....pretty much extremely boring because not very many kids are coming in any more and none of them want to get any coffee drinks so working the Cafe can get a little dull...but i got to talk to Tyler for quite awhile and he asked me to tell him my testimony which I did but was extremely difficult...remembering all the parts of my life....especially to someone I'm only beginning to get to know....but he's quickly becoming one of my best friends and its about time I'm able to face my past again....
well i still have at least 3 more hours to be awake so I'm going to go make the best of it.
Take luck,
~[N]athan
Quote of the Day: " Love puts all logic aside, or else we wouldn't ever risk it"
Welcome to the beginning of my journey as a blogger!
Hopefully I'll be able to overcome this Alexithymia of mine, and share with you regularly whats on my heart and mind.
I really don't know what to begin with (cue the inability to express in words my emotions)....yesterday was one of the most fun and craziest concerts I have been to in a loooong time! All the bands were wonderful but Devil Wears Prada, by far was the best performance I have seen since Emery. And beside the amazing music, the people also made the night. I mostly hung out with Caleb, Tyler, and Alyssa (Caleb's girlfriend) who made the concert twice as fun. I have to say Alyssa is one of the most spunky and tough girls I have met in a long time, throwing kids around and getting smashed in the faced and still kept on rocking...so cool. So between the music, putting people on Tyler's team, and nearly being shanked outside of the theater...it was one of the funnest nights I've had in a long time.
So theres the most updated snippet of my life to date...
Love you all,
~[N}athan
Quote of the day: Phil. 4:8 " We are spiritual beings, and everything that touches our lives has spiritual implications."...
