During the few precious months after my time at Eastside High School, I made some killer, crazy memories. I went to Centrifuge, the most radical church camp ever. God taught me a lot of lessons there in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. I went to warped tour, Met Anberlin, and got a hug from Haley from Paramore (Talk about a thank you Jesus moment, #shesstillintome, #iwish). I went hiking till my legs were shaking, I camped out, and spent a lot of time with the guys. We watched The Office, played Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo GameCube in the middle of the night, drank gallons of red bull, and played music together. I was Rhythm guitar and my friend Drew played leads. We were only beginners, but I tell you I felt like we sounded like Santana. We even wrote a couple songs.
This is the chorus to one of my favorites.
There really is nothing to be afraid of,
You’ve really got no reason to cry,
Its simply a chance for awakening, a chance to rise above,
A chance to open your eyes.
I love those sweet, crazy, firefly filled summer nights, even though they were a lifetime ago. Maybe a couple lifetimes. I’ve been a wanna be rock star, a super pseudo intellectual (I was probably more pedantic than anything), a serious prim and proper buttoned up all the way to the top hipster, a Beatles fanatic, a Steve jobs fan boy, a wreck ,or, “mell of a hess” as my dad puts it, and a super nice bubbly guy that works in retail.
Now tack well-traveled missionary, tuk tuk price heckler, and Asian market master bargainer to that list. I’ve been a lot of characters, and hopefully developed some good character along the way. The bible says that
He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.- Philippians one verse six
So I have a solid and firm hope in that and I’ve seen God change my heart time and time again.
I don’t look the same anymore, I don’t act the same anymore, and I certainly don’t dress the same anymore (praise God). Even with all that change, I am still loved by the same God. I still play a lot of those songs, and I still hold those memories in my heart.
After that summer came to a close, I started my third job at The UPS store. It was in a strip mall, an old run down strip mall. You know the ones with half of the spaces unoccupied. I worked my first two jobs when I was in high school. They were both restaurant gigs and I loved em’.
This job at the UPS Store was really a great gift to me. My boss was named Jim, he was married to a woman named Grace, and he himself was full of a very special kind of grace. He also looked almost exactly like Dick Cheney. A great many times his meal had been paid for by people in restaurants, usually older, white, conservative, southern Baptist, republican men who would give him a silent nod, because they mistook him for the former vice president.
I started going to chill little bible study around this time and fell for a girl in it. But she was dating another guy in the bible study. So, like in my favorite show, The Office, (Favorite show then and now) I decided to be like Jim, a character in the show. He became friends with Pam, his love interest, who was engaged to a guy named Roy. She had been engaged for years and the relationship clearly struggled. Pam eventually breaks it off. Jim patiently waited for her the entire time. Ultimately, Jim and Pam get together, and get married. I saw good promise in that so I put it into practice. It actually worked. I saw a good example and I reflected it, and it worked.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, This girl that I liked ended up breaking up with the guy because he kissed another girl. It was trivial high school stuff. I had to get this guy back though. I was full of Red Bull, adrenaline and relatively misplaced passion the night I found out about the kiss.
I went over to this guy’s house, and I wired his break to his car horn. So every time he hit his breaks when driving his horn would go off. Imagine the joy I felt the next day when I was eating my bacon, egg and cheese biscuit in the parking lot of the McDonald’s on Pelham road, watching him drive by. It was Pure jubilation. My favorite part was watching him slam his hand into his wheel and yelling in his car, and watching the faces of others around them watching him thinking he must be crazy. #toptenpranksivepulled.
Since I was this girl’s closest guy friend, we ended up spending tons of time together, and eventually dating. There were fireworks (Literally, because she had crazy neighbors at the end of her street that launched them nearly every night). It was good, then it wasn’t, then it was over. That’s a long story short for ya if ive ever seen one. Jim from The Office taught me a lot of lessons in patience, and they are still true to this day.
I was quite lucky to have Jim from the office, not The Office as a boss. He saw that I wasn’t carrying myself like normal and asked me how the girl was. He asked me this because he was perceptive enough to see that we had broken up without really having to ask ((#iwasafreakingmess). He led me to a place of vulnerability with him because he knew that I would be too proud to arrive there myself and ask for help in dealing with my feelings the right way. It was before we had opened the store when this conversation went down, and when he asked I started crying. He pulled me into his office and showed me a video that someone had sent to him by yahoo mail.
It was an inspirational video about God, the Gospel, and resting in His peace that transcends all understanding. This video was cheesy and beautiful. It was one of the ones with the soft music, pictures of the ocean, and birds, and flowers, and people standing very close to a cliff edge, staring dramatically off in the distance.
The sentiment was truly appreciated by yours truly, however. It changed the atmosphere of my whole day from the feel of a dreary cold English morning to a warm afternoon in the shade of a tree on a beach in Phuket. I was focused on the truth in that video for the entire morning and evening.
I even went home and sat down in my rolling office chair, and played my piano, my old 1877 Davenport and Treacy Upright for a few hours, just pouring myself out musically to Jesus. I remember this day and this impact because this man didn’t just tell me to keep my chin and up. He didn’t even tell me that everything was going to be alright. He simply told me to look to God and lean not on my own understanding of things.
I gave this rough sketch of a former relationship, not for sympathy or for you to feel sad, but to illustrate the fact that serious patience and trust will always play a part our lives. Plus I love telling the story of that prank. Had that relationship stuck, I wouldn’t have gone on this journey at all.
Even though that brief romance didn’t work out, many things in my life that required patience and care have worked out. The World Race is an example. It took a great deal of trust to be sitting here today. Had I gotten a lot of the things I wanted without having to wait, I would have missed out on some incredible lessons. Plus, even though I get impatient about different things on a nearly daily basis, (usually wifi speed because, Africa) I have gained an incredible amount of patience on The World Race in areas that would have driven me insane before it.
Doing art, and music, or making films, really any of the creative pursuits that I have has taken patience. Writing spoken word is another renter in the crammed and only mildly dingy apartment building of a creative mind. Some of my favorite things I’ve written came with time. A lot of times after I wanted to give up on writing it at all, but I stuck with it and cool hooks happened. That very same gift has given me the opportunity to share the Gospel in front of large gatherings of people. God gives me something for me to give back for His glory.
Honest confession. I always want to trust Jesus and his timing because his is better than mine. I don’t want to have stuff figured out. I don’t want to know how stuff is going to work out. That sounds boring and terrible to me. I hate knowing the endings to movies before Ive watched them. I don’t like it when they are predictable, either. It just feels like a waste of time to even finish them.
I want an edge of my seat kind of life. I want to hold my breath because I can’t do anything else. I want my heart to race faster than Usain Bolt. i want to run this race with endurance. i want my heart to be full.
I take serious comfort In having a plan, even though I might not give off that vibe, but I also deeply want to go with the flow. I have been endlessly surprised when I’ve let go of control and surrendered my day to God. That’s the way I want to live from now on. Jesus invites me to come and see, and that sounds great to me.
Jim from the office and Jim from The Office were both great examples that I could look to in loving people well, investing well, and bringing joy and laughter to people’s lives. Jim from the office poured into me like a father, and forgave me often. He forgave a lot of people often. He saw the best in people, in our customers and in the people that worked there. I want to emulate him to the best of my ability. Jim from The Office taught me to never stop being creative, to always have fun with my friends, and to always work to excel in life. I also wouldn’t mind being in a Jim and Pam kind of thing one day. His dedication to her, is the same kind of commitment i want express in all areas of my life, and the same kind of commitment i want to share with a girl one day.#relationshipgoals
I’m excited for the rest of my life with Jesus.
Because seriously, with God on my side,
There really is nothing to be afraid of, ( Because God is bigger than all of our fears)
You’ve really got no reason to cry, (but its totally okay if you have to)
Its simply a chance for awakening, a chance to rise above, (Because God brings us above our circumstances)
A chance to open your eyes. (clear eyes, full hearts, cant lose.-Peter Berg)
