Yeah so just to start off this blog, it could get pretty personal. Love and lust are two topics that i’ve dealt with a lot over the past couple of years. In both a positive and negative aspect. God has healed and mended a lot of areas of my heart and is still doing so. I say thank God and amen for this. Though its been extremely challenging at times, I can also see how far I’ve come as well. With that said, The World Race has been great for me in bringing up past events and almost forcing me to deal with them. Especially if I’m wanting to grow, which I am so that means I have to deal with my STUFF. There are certain areas of my life that I’m not particularly happy about or proud of. There are also things that have happened that taught me so much and even still to this day are teaching me things about myself. Oddly enough living in co-ed community, things that I used to could just easily push under the rug and never think about, somehow make their way to the surface. All that being said to let you in on a little more of what God has been doing in me on a more personal and internal level. Let’s get into love.
Love is a good thing right? Right, love is great! Loving people. Loving your friends. Loving your family. It’s this awesome connection we get to have with people to build and to grow on. There’s also having this love for strangers that we’ve never met but just being able to love others like Jesus does is so cool. This is also something I have talked a lot about that Jesus has been working on in me. Sometimes though, with love comes different challenges that when worked out properly, can make us love that person even more. I talk about love a lot but “love” isn’t what I’m really wanting to discuss in this blog. I want to talk more about being in love and the affects this has had on my life. Depending on where you’re at and your experiences, being in love could either be the best thing or worse thing that has ever happened to you. For me I say yes to both, having been in love is the best thing and worse thing that has ever happened to me. I found a standard for loving a significant other that I will never be able to settle for less than. I don’t know if that has been a blessing or a curse leading up to this point. (LOL)
Being in love had it’s ups and downs for sure. On a good hand, I was crazy about this girl. I had a a connection that ran far deeper then any other relationship in my life. We shared things that you just don’t share with other people. Especially me being a guy, guy friendships are pretty surface level basic. You good? Yeah I’m good. You good? Yeah. Cool let’s ride. Sometimes you could go deep but guys don’t do that a whole lot. At least with me and my guy friends. Anyways, she was the first person in my life I ever truly opened up to about anything. I think for the first time I was able to truly be myself. I didn’t have to put on a front that I had it all together or that I was someone that I was not. If there was something wrong or buggin me she would usually know and vice versa. It was just a comfortable relationship. We could laugh, cry, be honest, vulnerable and argue when necessary. On the other hand, I was young and dumb and didn’t fully realize and appreciate what I had either.
So like every good thing I’ve ever had I either break it or lose it. Not much was different with the girl of my dreams. A few years into our relationship I started partying a lot and with partying, for me personally, came bad decisions which ultimately grew us apart. No we didn’t break up immediately but come on once you cheat on somebody nothing will ever be the same no matter how much you lie to yourself. That’s a hurt that doesn’t just go away. Anyways, sometime later we broke up and so on and so forth and there I was no longer in-love. At this point I’m realizing what once was and what I was missing out on. My best friend. It took sometime and it was a hard process to go through. I could sit and talk for days the struggle I went through over the course of some years honestly. I’d never been in a state like that I’d never lost someone I was mad about. I found myself completely lost and at times totally alone. How did I deal with those feels and emotions you ask? Well, only the best way I knew how. More drugs, alcohol and women.
Duh, replace what you’ve been missing with more of what got you to this point in the first place right? Wrong! I spiraled out of control real quick. I found myself partying real hard. Drugs constantly. Women yes and if there wasn’t a woman, sure porn will work. Sex drugs and EDM. The not so perfect antidote to counter balance a broken heart and really looking back on it, some deep seeded issues that go well past my broken hearted emotions. I had some internal battles that I had never dealt with and it seemed like all these different pains were surfacing and escape was the only way I knew how to deal. Up to this point I had yet to deal with my parents divorce. Which may seem to pale in comparison to some of the other struggles that people go through like rape or abuse but I lost a lot more than a parent that day. Not only that, I remember the first time I watched porn I was 9 years old. Thats a pretty young age to jump into the world of lust. I don’t think i’ve ever told anyone that either, Sorry mom! My perception of reality was skewed and I never saw it coming.
I can’t sit here and blame anyone for anything that happened. I can’t sit here and say it was my parents fault I ended up the way I did. I knew right and wrong, I always have. Decisions I made were mine and I own them. My mother, God bless her did all she could to protect me the best way she knew how. My dad even though we had a rocky patch there for a while. Ehhh Lets be real, I hated him and swore I’d do anything to not end up like him. Well I turned out just like him and I’m ok with that. Since then though, I’d consider my dad my best friend and I’d do anything in the world within my power for that man. Yeah of course they had their struggles and their problems, we all do but they’ve always loved me the best way they know how and I don’t for a second blame them for anything that I’ve been through.
With that, here I was stuck in what seemed to be a never ending cycle of debauchery. I couldn’t be satisfied with anything. More drugs more women more alcohol. Over the course of sometime this life gets freaking depressing. Nothing seems to get me to that perfect place of comfort. Peace. Processing this as I go I’m realizing the whole time I was really just searching for peace of mind. The more and more I was answering these voices of ah, thats not enough do more. Or she was ok go watch this though and see how you feel. Or I’m not drunk enough see what a couple more shots feels like. The whole time I just want my brain to shut off and the only thing I’m feeding it are the things that are making it louder. I was in a desperate search for some sort of peace and never even knew it. Yeah so really when I said I wasn’t sure if being in-love was a blessing or a curse this was the curse I was talking about. My over working mind and broken heart had led me down this dark path of destruction and all I ever wanted was for it to stop. At this point I had no idea why or how I had gotten there. It didn’t matter. I was lost, it was dark, I hated it and I wanted out. I tried the best way I could, not realizing that the treatment I was using was only pulling me even further into this hole I was trying to escape. This went on for a long while. I’d say the first few years I used the struggles I was going through as an excuse, then the excuses vanished and this was just life. No rhyme or reason to why I was living the life I was living, this was just how it was by this point. But by the grace of God he saved me. Yeah it took years and I probably could’ve saved myself a whole lot of trouble far earlier but that’s just not the way the cards were played.
Yes as corny and cliche as it sounds God saved me from myself. I’ve written this out many times and you can read more about my story in earlier posts but to get my point across I’ve got to transition from the dark side of life. God’s pursuit of me is a whole other story in itself. My finding myself spiritually was not an instantaneous phenomenon that just happened out of no where. No, it took a few years. It took a lot of me questioning and searching and trial and error. It was hard I messed up I got back up I kept seeking. And through my seeking I had no idea that Jesus was in full pursuit of me. As much as I tried to run the opposite direction he never left my side. He never let me go. He never let me run this race alone. He ran me down and wouldn’t stop till I said yes. Eventually my stubborn ass got tired of runnin from him and I gave in completely. He found me and for the first time in my life the peace I had been searching for all along, I found in the name of Jesus. Jesus really? He’s what I’ve wanted and needed for so long? That’s it, Jesus.
So I gave in. I’m such a flake for anything bigger and better then me. Jesus was so far outside of my understanding, all I wanted was more of him. Heck all I want still to this day is more of him. There’s not a single drug or woman that makes my heart sing the way he does. None the less, the day I told him he could have my life was the day my tiny little bubble popped. I became undone. Radically transformed. Madly in love. Totally devoted to the life of the man who gave it all for me. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into either. I had no idea that I even had a single scar on my heart or there was such a thing as spiritual warfare or that God even cared at all about me. I was totally wrong. This walk hasn’t been easy it’s been real difficult honestly. Supernaturally trusting Jesus and this whole “faith” thing it’s freakin bizarre. It’s hard at times and at other times it makes absolutely no sense what so ever. Would I trade this life for anything in this world? Not a chance! He changed me, I don’t care to know how or why either. I just know that I’ll never be the same.
He did it in the most unconventional way too. See coming into this whole faith journey I didn’t have anyone to disciple me. Sure I had men in my life I could go to with my issues and talk it out and pray and share experiences. For that I’m forever grateful but I never had anyone to sit and counsel me on what was to come, how to go about dealing with this issue, what does scripture say about this, better yet I didn’t have a counselor to work through the deep stuff. God put amazing men in my life to disciple me I lied, men that were willing to lean in with me and speak life when needed. As far as working through the heart issues and learning how to become a true man of God, well I really got to be “fathered” by the best Father of them all. He took the junk from my past and he got me through them on a level I could manage. He got me spiritually up to date I guess you could say. He worked me through the basics of how to live life on his terms and not mine. BUT and that’s a big but because he isn’t done.
This entire race for me has been somewhat of a cycle of things he’s already taken me through. He’s bringing my heart and soul into a deeper level of healing. He’s renewing my spirit every single day. At first I didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on. God! really dude we’ve already worked on this why are you bringing me back to this place. He’d show up and he’d show me more areas that needed work. I never understood why he wouldn’t just heal our hurts and our wounds immediately. Then that whole christiany thing everyone always says “He’ll never give you more then you can handle” started to make sense. Thank God sometimes the healing gets overwhelming. I can’t imagine having worked on all these things from my past all at once. I would’ve been a basket case and took off the opposite direction. He knows that. So I guess this place of where I’m at currently is God just chipping away broken pieces of my heart and making them new. Yeah there will always be scars. There will always be memories of what once was. I’ll always know the person I used to be. But my God how far he’s brought me!
In the 2 and a half or less years since I put my trust in him, is literally like night and day. I remember laying in the hospital bed after trying to take my life and a very important man in my life ( That’s you Edward Schaefer) told me, “There’s literally no where to go from here but up, the sky is the limit.” Sitting here in Kazakhstan on my first lap around the world those words have never rang more true. I always had these grandiose dreams of what I wanted to do with my and never could follow through more then a month or two on any of them. It was once I fully let go and gave God full reign over my life have I actually been able to stick to something. He holds me to my word every single day. I didn’t invite him in to my heart, he invited me into his. Well, yes I did but I was afforded the opportunity to be invited into his heart I should say. So yeah, I’m sure I have a long ways to go before complete and total healing comes and maybe I don’t, honestly it doesn’t matter I’m rollin with the punches as they come and if not great. I’ve found contentment in the wilderness only simply because I know what’s the outcome. More of HIM!!
