Apology

Two years ago plus a day I went through a very difficult time in my life.  I had been in a relationship for two and a half years with a woman who I worshiped ( I felt before writing this post you all should know how i define certain things hence the posts on love).  I gave Elaina everything I could give.  I worked in order to take care of her and give her what she wanted.  My time was hers, including hours I should have been studying and I changed for her more than I can ever repair.  I lost myself in that relationship.

On February 8th 2008 we had our last argument.  It started because I wasn't studying where she wanted me to.  Some reading this may think it is a petty thing to end a relationship over but I want you all to realize something.  This was the last of too many arguments.  I still have so many questions from that time period of my life the biggest of which is this "Why wasn't I enough for her?"  Nothing I did seemed good enough, the way I dressed had to change, the way I spoke, my manners, who I associated with, on the invitation list for our wedding we had cut out half my family and changed the venue three times.  Things were falling apart around me and nothing I did could fix them.

I won't go into the gory details of ending the relationship here.  That's not the point of this entry.  This entry is for opening up.  You see when you lose yourself in a relationship and begin pushing people out of your life you naturally close off the world.  I'm a natural extrovert so closing off so my world could be just Elaina and I was the hardest thing for me to do and the hardest to undo.  Early on after leaving her I began to realize what exactly had happened to me but I couldn't undo it at that point.  I was so afraid to trust people that I could only remain trapped in my world.

The following piece was written one night when I drastically realized this.

Apology

Have you ever stood alone in a room full of people?

Invisible as they pass you by?

What makes this OK?

All we need is friendship

Our souls scream out as you walk by

We are avoided because we are not like them

Who am I that you can ignore?

What have I ever done to you?

I've tried to be there, tried to be a friend

But you walk past me in the end

Why have I put myself out there for you?

Why should I do it anymore?

If I give up on you is it OK?

Or...did I leave you first?

For other things, my golden ring

I left this world long ago

For one of my own

I thought I would be happy

I told myself so

But when that world came crashing down

I was left there alone

Now I'm reaching for you all

Trying to be seen, heard

For someone to help me feel

Forgive me. I never knew how I treated you

I realize this piece does not follow any actual poetic standard.  It was the simple out pouring of my heart in pain one night.  I can't even describe how much I have wished for the last two years that I could share this with people.  It has taken me this long to reach the point of being able to open up.

When you read what I write, no matter the post, you are reading a piece of me.  I do not edit these beyond spell check.  I write from my heart.

Peace and Grease for now.

Love and Worship

I want to continue the earlier discussion of Love.  With the distinction made between the two loves, Classic and Contemporary, I believe further division will help there be some understanding between us. 

There are some poets, songwriters, and other artists who encompass worship as a part of Love.  However this is not the truth.  I will begin my argument from the point of Love.  Love I defined earlier as being something stronger than the butterflies that you get when "falling in love".  Love is stronger and withstands the trials that are placed before it.  There is also truth in love.  Not only in the feelings but between two people.  Those who are truly in Love must be willing to be blunt and honest at times with their Loved on, knowing that what they say may be painful to hear.  This is a scary concept for anyone in a relationship but it is better than the alternative. 

As an example lets consider a couple who have been together for almost a year.  They truly Love each other.  He has only one complaint, when she is around her girlfriends she becomes a rude gossip and often returns home with so many stories about the scandalous things that other people are doing.  He is left now with two choices, if he can tactfully and kindly discuss this habit with her expressing his dislike then things will most likely improve for them.  However if he says "No, its not that big of a deal I can just live with it." Then he truly must.  Perhaps this habit of hers is grating on his nerves and will continue to fester into a viciously infected wound.  Those types of wounds begin to poison everything that they do together.  I believe that Love would dictate that he open discussion about this or steer the conversation elsewhere.  He could ask "What sort of good things have the girls done, things that weren't drama causing." or perhaps be as blunt as me and simply say " I realize you and your girlfriends talk about this sort of stuff but its not something that I really care to hear about.  I'm more interested in how people are helping people." 

So what I am saying here is that Love can care about someone enough to point out their "faults" in order to watch them grow.  I think of parents who discipline their kids so that later in life their kids will be responsible and caring adults.  Or of God with Israel, when they needed rebuke he sent someone to rebuke them, typically prophets.  This was out of love, so that they would be an example to the nations of how to live.

Now on to Worship.  Worship is paying homage to something greater than yourself.  We worship God.  Now if we are to worship the one we love, our significant other, there becomes a problem.  On earth the relationships we have are to be of mutual people.  One of the earliest things that is from God  is this "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." from Genesis 2:24.  Now if we are to take this seriously then by becoming one flesh we are joined together.  If you are joined with something greater than yourself you will either be destroyed or consumed by it.

I once worshiped someone I loved.  And I was both consumed and destroyed by her.  When I came to the realization of what had happened to me I was able to pull myself out of the relationship but it was difficult and still is to deal with the concept of Love.  I think that is why I write about it.  I want to be able and express un-interrupted my thoughts about Love so that hopefully someone will read this and not make my mistakes.

Thank You for reading this

Peace and Grease

I Can't

Matthew 17:14-21

¹⁴ When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. ¹⁵ “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. ¹⁶ I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

   ¹⁷ “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” ¹⁸ Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

 ¹⁹ Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

 ²⁰ He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

            I hate the words "I can't".  Growing up in the farming and ranching world I was taught that there is nothing I can't do.  Sometimes that was the attitude that you needed to take in order to accomplish a task.  As I grew older it became almost a mantra that I would repeat to myself when I faced a difficult task.  The second horse that was given to me was named Effie, and she was stubborn and had a bad attitude at times.  I can still remember my Dad telling me to make her do what you want.  I had to out stubborn a horse.  Most of you know this is a difficult task.  But I succeeded in this.   My confidence and pride in horse training continued to grow, especially when I had my dad around me to help.  I knew there wasn't a horse I couldn't break and  job I couldn't do.  I had a lot of faith in myself.

             My last five months in Texas I was on my own.  Out in the middle of nowhere just me and my dog and a handful of horses to train.  With only my dog to talk to for usually a few days at a time I became lonely and fearful.  I began to get discouraged and lose hope.  Thoughts of doubt and fear started taking root and growing to the point that I gave up breaking horses out of fear, mostly I feared getting hurt and lying in the round pen until someone came and found me which could be a couple of days.  My fear had become a mountain I couldn't climb alone.  I had let it grow into self-doubt that kept me from moving forward.  When I left Texas I was heartbroken and defeated.  I had found that which I couldn't do and that drove me into despair.  I worked on farms around my parents home town that summer.  In August of that year I jumped a fence and sprained my ankle badly.  So badly that I couldn't work.  Lying at home with my foot in the air I was once again discouraged.  My mom began to talk about finding something that wasn't going to be as hard on my body as ranching, dad agreed.  I was utterly defeated.  The only thing I wanted to do, I was being told I didn't have the body for anymore.  I agreed to try enrolling in school.  I knew that God had called me to ministry a couple years earlier but at the time I had run away from Him and what He wanted for what I wanted.  I felt sure that I had lost my chance to be a minister, but I enrolled anyway.  I was still afraid I wouldn't make it, that the school wouldn't accept me, that I wouldn't be able to afford it and be kicked out after the first semester or that some other disaster would befall me and I would be stuck where I was. 

            My discouragement that I had first felt in Texas had followed me home and then to school.  But I had given up on my own ways and had once again put my faith in God.  There wasn't much else I could do.  But at school things began to change for me.  I found the finical aid I needed to stay in school and I began to succeed in classes.  I began to find that things went well when I put my faith in God.  The mustard seed is tiny.  So small that you wouldn't notice them scattered on the floor.  That is how my faith was when I started school. Yet that small faith was enough for me to move my mountain.  

            By no means did life become easy street after that.  I was working at least 30 hours a week while going to school and going to school full time, maintaining relationship and doing homework.  It was anything but simple and at times I became jealous of those who didn't have to work at the same goal.  But I held on to my tiny seed, no matter what came up I would cling to that tiny tiny seed.  I no longer doubted what I could do.  God knew that I needed this challenge to give me back my confidence.

            I hear from  boys where I work at times, "I can't complete this program."  It is a challenge no doubt.  One that you maybe can't face alone but we aren't alone.  The twelve steps of AA, NA and all the other anonymous groups begin with the same three steps.  Put simply they are "I can't" the words I hate, "God can" and finally "I will let Him".  So when you've given up on yourself, when you are telling us or yourself you can't do it.  Let go of doing it yourself, grab that mustard seed of faith and follow God, because He can if we let Him.
          So why do I hate "I can't" when I am saying here that there are things I can't do without God.  Because those words mean that I or others have given up not only on themselves but on God.  They have turned  from God's wisedom and guidance to a place of utter darkness a place that is not fun to be in.  A mustard seed is so tiny that we can all find room for this seed in our lives.  So hold onto the mustard seed and don't give up on God or yourself because no matter what God won't give up on you.