Just three months ago, I was spending 20 hours a day lying in bed. 15 hours of those days were spent asleep. There was still hope. Who held that hope so closely. Who planted that seed into life itself. Well that seed to sprout into the stems of faith. Those stems did grow into the branches of trust. And those branches bore fruit. That fruit did not turn, or go bad, for under its skin was love. Who planted this seed of hope that grew to love. God is the one. Here is what He has done for me.
December 30th, 1993. Shortly after 8:00pm I was born into a winter blizzard. There my mother has confessed, it was written in her heart that I would help people. There I must confess, I was given purpose by a loving child of God Himself. Before age 5 and 6 months, little is remembered, as aspirations were noted, I was indeed wonderfully small. At age 5 and 6 months, a sister was born. Holding her in my arms, asking why her hands were so small. Not understanding, purely marveling. Age 7 and and 6 months. Parents begin a collision of a divorce. Quickly, the marveling of life becomes survival through war. I am thrust into a world of alliances and trust with those that I had already come to form some opinion about. No side was or is today victorious, but the peace in the middle. Somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12 years, I convinced myself to believe in a lie against my parent. Mother or father it does not matter, love has no gender. (My parents are a man and woman, I am their child. I do not refer to one specifically with "negative" insinuations) And neither does love regard gender when it is struggling for survival. Yes love is know at these ages, it is what our parents tell us it is. It is what our family gives us. It is what we share with others. It is the violence after a long day of work and two tired lovers unknown to one another. It is the laughter of a parent as a child raises unquestionable points on why a 6 year old does NOT have to go to bed at the same time as his age. It is the pinching of a new born baby sister on the way home from the hospital, to see it respond. Also the response is felt with guilt once the wailing starts. It is the grandparents with wonderful knowings of things. It is a grandmother to plot against on the mission to sneak past the living room into the kitchen. It is a genius grandfather that shows you the world and creates treasure hunts for you to play within it, all within the back yard. It is the counting of seconds as you hold your breathe under water in the pool to see if your time impresses the one watching as to make sure you do not drown. It is the respect that is gained from thunderous voices filled with anger, and shattering household objects against the wall. Or fists slamming the walls on the descent into the basement. It is curling up on the couch, feeling safer that the thunder went downstairs. It is that same moment on that couch looking out at the lightning and thunder and loving it for being beautiful and wonderful as well as terrifying.
Love is all of these things taught and shared.
Until something threatens it. Then the lies start. You hurt them, so I hurt you so bad that you can no longer hurt them. This is my war tactic at age 11. That parent faced judgements. Humiliation, public scrutiny from employer, and possibly suffered as much as or more than my younger sister and other parent. I believed it, I knew it to be true, and with it I took that terrible parents wonderful children away and also protected the other parent as best I could as they were protecting me.
Things improve.
Age 13, the grandfather that was the grandest father I knew passes away at age 64. A man that lived 13 years longer than doctors expect, considering the cancer.
The world collapses into itself. There is no turning back from where I choose to go from here. Love is clung to for the few weeks after death, but quickly fades to numb the pain of loss. Then it is discovered that love is not needed to exist in some places. With some people. Age 13 I start using marijuana at a "recreational" pace. By age 14 heavily smoking and drinking. By age 15, parent still oblivious, I decide to contact my other parent. I begin to live with that parent, and quickly adapt my addiction to accommodate a more suspicious guardian. At age 15, I begin to and simultaneously become addicted to opiates. By age 17 I have spent multiple nights on the street. Age 18 I spend a few months on the street and in the shelter, sleeping behind a High School, or on a mat 2 inches away from someone even more under the influence than me. Yes of course, between ages 16 and 17 I had several recoveries, but the relapses only increase in severity with false revivals. A 480 dollar drug fine, 30 hours in a jail cell for theft, and weeks on end without being sober, something changed. Of course, between ages 14 and 17 love was found and lost again and so on and so forth. Not at all to make light of it. Only there was no light to it in deed.
I made promises. Promises that I kept. I finally discarded my addictions. And my parent rescued me once more from the streets of much hopelessness. I must have been ignorantly out of place on the streets in the shape I was in. For even then I had hope. Something deep down within me, or way far outside of me, had never given up complete expectation of a good life and future. I stayed with my widowed grandmother for about 3 to 4 months. This is the time and place we started in the beginning. 20 hours a day in bed. 15 hours a day asleep.
Until the planted seed of hope sprouted and grew and blossomed with such, what words to describe it, speed, ferocity, passion, greatness, reverence, gentleness, softness, conviction, determination, detriment, uncertainty, willingly, trustingly, faithfully, gracefully, blissfully, sorrowfully, creatively, imaginatively. And so many other such words of description.
Faith. Trust. Renewal. I was blind just three months ago. This morning I stepped outside. And I beheld, snowflakes dancing in a way I had never witnessed. As the snowflakes rushed towards me in celebratory disarray, I saw them rise above me from the heat of my breath before they landed to melt upon my face. I saw life within water. I saw my hands before me, with all of their lines. And before this morning celebration, I was with God. I was brought before Him with faith. I witnessed and experienced the travel through time and space. There were moments I almost let go. There were times I told myself no, and held myself back. Then the faith of myself let go, and I was brought on high to a level ground. United was I with Him who has blessed me, and has been granting me His grace. How unmovable was I before Him when the revelation of my journey with Christ was bestowed upon me all at once. How high I was lifted when I recognized Him as Father. How the words of my life's prayer were formed as I felt the obscurity of divine and eternal love. How tears did rush forward to fall as I learned that all I have been openly receiving is blessed unto me again and again just for being open to His grace. And so did I fall before Him in person and in heaven. As I was in one as well as both. And how glorious the entrance to the heaven was. And the words that were a piercing truth struck me down. As I was on my knees before Him, and spoke "I can not stand before you." And I could not. The weight of His unforgivable love pressing down on both shoulders, two hands pressing me down, willingly my will was done. And His is what took me beyond this. As I spoke again, "I can not stand before you." I had no choice. I was walking through the halls of His throne room, and I knew who was there. And they knew me. And I needn't speak before them, but to walk through His room. As I cried in approach of the empty throne, I was lifted up from its base, and granted more than I can alone accept. But I must in deed accept it. And so followed, as did previously, my humanity. As I did try to bring some unknown with me. And so as I knew the end of the ceremony before the beginning, so did I learn, I met and was embraced by the beginning before the end. And so now what is left that could tempt me? And what amount of grace surpasses finding those seeds of hope everywhere they are? And they are everywhere. What could put me to death after already having risen before my own? Who could find fear within me when all I have ever feared loves me so. And what is my purpose, desired and willed, other than to beg all of you for mercy, to love, to trust, to have faith. To imagine when you are told you are a sinner, imagine what you believe perfection is. Start small, start big, just imagine. Be creative. Create your path with Jesus, think about Him everyday, think up scenarios to suffer in, think of heavens and new places to enjoy in. Submit. Offer complete submission to God, and beg for the patience of a thousand lifetimes to take just one step in His grace. Expect greatness where greatness is from. Let God originate from you as you originate from Him. You will fall before His love. Or you will fall before His love. Or, if all else fails. You will fall, before His love. I saw life in water this morning. With the beautiful gift of humility and being humble that Jesus has so thoroughly taught me, it would be both and honor never ending in its glorification, and many blessings to share in Jesus of God.
December 30th, 1993. Shortly after 8:00pm I was born into a winter blizzard. There my mother has confessed, it was written in her heart that I would help people. There I must confess, I was given purpose by a loving child of God Himself. Before age 5 and 6 months, little is remembered, as aspirations were noted, I was indeed wonderfully small. At age 5 and 6 months, a sister was born. Holding her in my arms, asking why her hands were so small. Not understanding, purely marveling. Age 7 and and 6 months. Parents begin a collision of a divorce. Quickly, the marveling of life becomes survival through war. I am thrust into a world of alliances and trust with those that I had already come to form some opinion about. No side was or is today victorious, but the peace in the middle. Somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12 years, I convinced myself to believe in a lie against my parent. Mother or father it does not matter, love has no gender. (My parents are a man and woman, I am their child. I do not refer to one specifically with "negative" insinuations) And neither does love regard gender when it is struggling for survival. Yes love is know at these ages, it is what our parents tell us it is. It is what our family gives us. It is what we share with others. It is the violence after a long day of work and two tired lovers unknown to one another. It is the laughter of a parent as a child raises unquestionable points on why a 6 year old does NOT have to go to bed at the same time as his age. It is the pinching of a new born baby sister on the way home from the hospital, to see it respond. Also the response is felt with guilt once the wailing starts. It is the grandparents with wonderful knowings of things. It is a grandmother to plot against on the mission to sneak past the living room into the kitchen. It is a genius grandfather that shows you the world and creates treasure hunts for you to play within it, all within the back yard. It is the counting of seconds as you hold your breathe under water in the pool to see if your time impresses the one watching as to make sure you do not drown. It is the respect that is gained from thunderous voices filled with anger, and shattering household objects against the wall. Or fists slamming the walls on the descent into the basement. It is curling up on the couch, feeling safer that the thunder went downstairs. It is that same moment on that couch looking out at the lightning and thunder and loving it for being beautiful and wonderful as well as terrifying.
Love is all of these things taught and shared.
Until something threatens it. Then the lies start. You hurt them, so I hurt you so bad that you can no longer hurt them. This is my war tactic at age 11. That parent faced judgements. Humiliation, public scrutiny from employer, and possibly suffered as much as or more than my younger sister and other parent. I believed it, I knew it to be true, and with it I took that terrible parents wonderful children away and also protected the other parent as best I could as they were protecting me.
Things improve.
Age 13, the grandfather that was the grandest father I knew passes away at age 64. A man that lived 13 years longer than doctors expect, considering the cancer.
The world collapses into itself. There is no turning back from where I choose to go from here. Love is clung to for the few weeks after death, but quickly fades to numb the pain of loss. Then it is discovered that love is not needed to exist in some places. With some people. Age 13 I start using marijuana at a "recreational" pace. By age 14 heavily smoking and drinking. By age 15, parent still oblivious, I decide to contact my other parent. I begin to live with that parent, and quickly adapt my addiction to accommodate a more suspicious guardian. At age 15, I begin to and simultaneously become addicted to opiates. By age 17 I have spent multiple nights on the street. Age 18 I spend a few months on the street and in the shelter, sleeping behind a High School, or on a mat 2 inches away from someone even more under the influence than me. Yes of course, between ages 16 and 17 I had several recoveries, but the relapses only increase in severity with false revivals. A 480 dollar drug fine, 30 hours in a jail cell for theft, and weeks on end without being sober, something changed. Of course, between ages 14 and 17 love was found and lost again and so on and so forth. Not at all to make light of it. Only there was no light to it in deed.
I made promises. Promises that I kept. I finally discarded my addictions. And my parent rescued me once more from the streets of much hopelessness. I must have been ignorantly out of place on the streets in the shape I was in. For even then I had hope. Something deep down within me, or way far outside of me, had never given up complete expectation of a good life and future. I stayed with my widowed grandmother for about 3 to 4 months. This is the time and place we started in the beginning. 20 hours a day in bed. 15 hours a day asleep.
Until the planted seed of hope sprouted and grew and blossomed with such, what words to describe it, speed, ferocity, passion, greatness, reverence, gentleness, softness, conviction, determination, detriment, uncertainty, willingly, trustingly, faithfully, gracefully, blissfully, sorrowfully, creatively, imaginatively. And so many other such words of description.
Faith. Trust. Renewal. I was blind just three months ago. This morning I stepped outside. And I beheld, snowflakes dancing in a way I had never witnessed. As the snowflakes rushed towards me in celebratory disarray, I saw them rise above me from the heat of my breath before they landed to melt upon my face. I saw life within water. I saw my hands before me, with all of their lines. And before this morning celebration, I was with God. I was brought before Him with faith. I witnessed and experienced the travel through time and space. There were moments I almost let go. There were times I told myself no, and held myself back. Then the faith of myself let go, and I was brought on high to a level ground. United was I with Him who has blessed me, and has been granting me His grace. How unmovable was I before Him when the revelation of my journey with Christ was bestowed upon me all at once. How high I was lifted when I recognized Him as Father. How the words of my life's prayer were formed as I felt the obscurity of divine and eternal love. How tears did rush forward to fall as I learned that all I have been openly receiving is blessed unto me again and again just for being open to His grace. And so did I fall before Him in person and in heaven. As I was in one as well as both. And how glorious the entrance to the heaven was. And the words that were a piercing truth struck me down. As I was on my knees before Him, and spoke "I can not stand before you." And I could not. The weight of His unforgivable love pressing down on both shoulders, two hands pressing me down, willingly my will was done. And His is what took me beyond this. As I spoke again, "I can not stand before you." I had no choice. I was walking through the halls of His throne room, and I knew who was there. And they knew me. And I needn't speak before them, but to walk through His room. As I cried in approach of the empty throne, I was lifted up from its base, and granted more than I can alone accept. But I must in deed accept it. And so followed, as did previously, my humanity. As I did try to bring some unknown with me. And so as I knew the end of the ceremony before the beginning, so did I learn, I met and was embraced by the beginning before the end. And so now what is left that could tempt me? And what amount of grace surpasses finding those seeds of hope everywhere they are? And they are everywhere. What could put me to death after already having risen before my own? Who could find fear within me when all I have ever feared loves me so. And what is my purpose, desired and willed, other than to beg all of you for mercy, to love, to trust, to have faith. To imagine when you are told you are a sinner, imagine what you believe perfection is. Start small, start big, just imagine. Be creative. Create your path with Jesus, think about Him everyday, think up scenarios to suffer in, think of heavens and new places to enjoy in. Submit. Offer complete submission to God, and beg for the patience of a thousand lifetimes to take just one step in His grace. Expect greatness where greatness is from. Let God originate from you as you originate from Him. You will fall before His love. Or you will fall before His love. Or, if all else fails. You will fall, before His love. I saw life in water this morning. With the beautiful gift of humility and being humble that Jesus has so thoroughly taught me, it would be both and honor never ending in its glorification, and many blessings to share in Jesus of God.