Sooooooo

I'm beginning to understand, with understanding, why this season has been so trying, stretching, frustrating, and sometimes angering. I've been asking God for a long time to bring testing into my life, not out of vanity, but because like every young man growing up, we need that to build our character and our confidence. There have been alot of situations mainly at work where I have felt hung out to dry, taken advantage of, used by people, etc. It doesn't help that getting up at 5 every morning and driving 45 miles gets tiring. So my rest is sporadic, and my appetite was going downhill because I had a month-long affair with dipping snuff. I liked it, and wouldn't mind trying it occasionally still, but it was killing my appetite and running me ragged.
I feel anger lots of times because I always seem to mess up at things I do. There's probably some curse on me, whether it's generational, something spoken over me, or something I myself agreed with in my younger years. It's very frustrating when it seems like I always screw things up and am clumsy and inefficient. I've got to face it. It's not about me being good enough. I've got to quit letting it get the best of me and let it go, but before I can let it go, I've got to face it. You can't let something go/put it behind you if you're trying to ignore it or numb yourself to it. There is a difference. I also feel alone quite often, and all this anger because of what I feel has been unfair treatment by my father figures makes me feel resentful towards older men as a whole. Sometimes I just want to break down and cry because this root of fatherlessness is just too much to bear. I really do feel lonely and long for a place in a father's heart. I never was aware of it in years past because I had my mechanisms that my flesh learned to deal with it to pacify the void. The Lord asked me earlier this week 'How can you help others your age who deal with fatherlessness and all that goes with it if you haven't had to walk through it and deal with it'. He's going to resurrect me from this, I just don't know when that will be, probably when I least expect it. Anyway, I'm beginning to see that God really wants me to grow up into the man I was meant to be, and part of that is developing my own strength. I talk alot about survival and how that is the flesh's natural desire. I'm not meaning that this is a survival season for me, Life is always the point. It's what we were made for, and it's what we must have. I do believe that previous generations have become stuck because they have locked their focus on survival - trudge through, suck it up, and keep going. All that is vanity if you're holding yourself up. It leaves no room for God. However, God does not want us to be leaches, vegetables. We must be totally leaning on Him and dependant on Him. That being said, we were meant to be fruitful and to do things and to live. That means there is a part for us to play, not to save ourselves. God wants us to have our part that we are the initiator in. that's one reason why He wants us to work and to sweat for our produce/provision. It's not at all about getting all our ducks lined in a row, but He would be crippling us and our ability to grow if He bottle-fed us our whole lives. that is what this is about. I must learn that I have what it takes and that my God is with me when I succeed and when I mess up. Jason said that the Lord told him that He is going to allow whatever He can to happen in our lives to show us that we are more the conquerers. that seems to me that this is what is happening. It's uncomfortable and is stirring up in me some feelings from my past that I used to feel when I was in these same situations. I'm tired now, so I'm going to go to bed.

It's time

I've talked about this before, but it's really starting to sync in. It's time for me to move out on my own. I talked with my mom tonight, and she believes it is. My parents have done all that they can for me, and if I stay here I will only continue in my limbo of holding on to home life because it's convenient and comfortable, all the while not growing into the person that I know God is drawing out in me. I feel like I've been smothered yet neglected all at the same time. I've seen other people that I noticed this with.
I am so confused about what to do for my family. They have a heavy responsibility to offer what they can to help me grow and help me to understand the hard lessons they have learned. There are lots of good life lessons that they've learned, and I often underappreciate just their insight or their desire to at least say something. At the same time, I have always felt like they will not see my point of view, and certainly not my spiritual points of view. I've noticed that it has been ingrained in people's mind that you will succeed in life if you are honest, responsible, courteous, and hard-working. All of these are Biblical traits that God wants, but it is self-salvation if you are trying to conjure these things up out of your own strength. Performance is important, but if that is the center of your worldview, then you are trying to save yourself. This may make no sense to some people, but every choice we make we are either trying to arrange for our own version of Eden(whatever that looks like), or we die to self and choose the only Person who can save us from this vanity. I have talked before about how the verse 'Whoever seeks to save their life will lose it', and how this can be broken down into every choice we make, and it is the dividing line between the carnal, self-centered flesh, and the redeemed self, God-centered. Anyway, there has been a constant contention that I have felt since I began being drawn closer to God to 'get my &^%$ together' and grow up.
I believe that their motives are caring and they really are trying to offer what they know, but quite often my spirit-man just cringes when I hear the constant responsibility preaching. I feel the prodding almost to take matters into my own hands to avoid possibly being in an uncomfortable situation such as vehiclelessness, debt, homelessness, etc. All of these are important because they are meant to meet a need, but that cannot be the center-focus, once again. Jesus came that we may have Life, not that we may discipline ourselves more so that life may be easier.
I really am at a standstill as to what to do for some of those I love. I don't know what I can do for my father. He has been shut down, battered, shamed, angered, broken, ridiculed and then thrown that baggage onto anybody whose actions step on his cracked soul, adding even more shame. My step father, I don't know either. I've seen God in him before, but for about 6 years it has just seemed like he checked out. That was my senior year, and my heart has only over the past year recieved Healing from that. I go through cycles of hardening my heart because I'm so sick and tired of feeling ridiculed and looked down on because once again I'm never good enough for somebody(and, of course, a father figure). Then God reminds me that my heart does remember those days when I felt like I finally had a father who could pick up where my father couldn't come through. I do still care, and my heart breaks during these times because of the grief and the void that I feel from this. I don't know how to reach through to him because he is so stiff and biased in his opinions, and when my mom has tried to reach through to him he rejected her or claimed that pointing out an issue is being 'negative'. He won the NHRA Division 4 Bracket Finals last monday, and when I found out I cried. He has waited 25 years, it has been his dream since he start doing recreational drag racing. I used to go to the races with him every weekend, and I felt like I had an identity as his son there. that fizzled out right around the time that I graduated high school. I still go to the races every once in a while, i did especially when I was going to UNT and he would race at Denton. Still, it hurts to go out there sometimes because it reminds me of the days when I had a place of identity that just dropped off the face of the earth. I sometimes wonder if I got into racing because I was so longing to have an identity with which to follow into a father's footsteps. i raced for two years, and the first year I won the NHRA Division 4 High School Championship, and the next I runnered-up. I was somebody that came out of nowhere, but people knew who I was, and they knew whose son I was. I've lost my interest in it over the past several years, mainly because I find more delight in my friends, even if it's just sitting around chilling, thinking of something to talk about. I have not really felt like I've had a complete home in years - half a home. I am loved, cared for, but that caring is often presided by values of staying on top of things(performance-mindsets). I ask God constantly to work out these false and distorted mindsets that have been both ingrained and learned as part of how our carnal nature learns to deal with Paradise lost. sometimes I truthfully wonder if and when it will happen. It just seems the same ole same ole. I know that if I stay here, I will continually be in a see-saw of resenting and rebelling against them due to the contention that the Enemy tries to bring , and then being renewed to the need of honoring and submitting, while not knowing how to keep honoring them when it seems like sometimes it's compromising who I truly am. It's time for me to grow up. Period.
I must move on with my life. I want to travel the country and the world, living the adventures that I know that God has put a longing in my heart since childhood. It comes out in my love for all things Native American, Old Western, anything to do with mountains and exploring. Totally new arena, but I must move forward into this.

This past week was really trying. Work was so frustrating because we were short-handed and i felt tugged 50 different ways all at once. It's bringing up alot of anger because I feel like I'm being fed to the wolves and then if I make a mistake the world will end when we're so swamped that there's hardly any time to think about what we're doing and contributes directly to mistakes. today, though, the Lord blessed me with a break, and I got paid, which relieved me from my financial pinch that I was in the week. I am being stretched, and it does not feel good. I long to continue in my writings for my future books, but I'm so tired when I get home, and feel so withdrawn at home that I go to my room and sleep, but am still exhausted the next morning. I think that the Lord is indeed saying it's time. I want to move in November or December, whichever works out with the Lord and strategically. I am excited and I believe that things will be much better for my relationship with my parents since that pressure to try to show me what they think I need to hear and know won't be on them. I just don't want any problems to be swept under the rug that could be at least somewhat brought out to give God something to work with.
That's all I have for this time.

Thank You

Five months is really not that long, but for three years I think I've gone maybe a month without seeing you.  As we said goodbye tonight, I knew that everything will be ok and this will go by like it's no time at all.  A big shift is coming in my life, and my life in Johnson County seems to be coming to a stagnation, as do things lots of times when it's time to go in another direction.  

 I have to say thank you.  Thank you for being there when I would be all alone up at college and it seemed like no one else wanted to take the time to even just say hi.  Oftentimes, you would be the only one who would do so.  Thank you being sort of a venting source that I can go to and not have any fear of accusation, false assumption or judgement, or slander.  I have to admit that this is harder on me emotionally than I thought it would be, you've been like a sister to me that I never had before.  I think there is soooo much more life out there for you, and it is time for you to go live it, as it will be for me very soon.

I hope you read this soon, but whenever you do(however soon or later on), you will know that's it's for you, even though others will read this.  

Change for me has not always been easy.  I never liked leaving my dad at the end of every summer, and I even didn't like leaving my mom for two months out of the summer.  This will take some getting used to, but I know that no matter what, we will always be like childhood friends that keep in touch no matter the distance or the time.  I look forward to hearing from you and hearing about your travels and adventures.  I am so happy that you get to do this, as it is something that I am patiently waiting on the Lord to release me to run on the open road as the modern-day Spiritual Frontiersman that He has put in my heart to be.  

I love you like my own sister, and I wish the most abundant Blessings, Peace, and Wholeness and that you will grow into what we all long for, to be more who we were created to be. 

My heart is a well, full of stones, water, mud, bricks.  The water flows, but seems to get stopped up right before the wonderfulness sets in.  Unclog these stoppages, Lord!  I'm tired of becoming hard, resentful, and shallow.  I'm tired of judging based on my own selfish need for filling that happens to not be met right when I want it.  I miss that season from two years ago!  I long to be opened back up to those days when I sat in Your lap and cried and laughed and knew without a doubt that I was delighted in.  When I knew that my Daddy cared just for me, and I didn't have to hit the ball perfectly to have Your approval.  

I'm weary from feeling like I'm never enough, like I have to hold up my world to hit the mark.  I feel so lonely sometimes, like nobody want to understand my sadness, like I should be ashamed for wanting more out of life.  Like I should just 'suck it up' and be a man, all the while compromising the very thing that You offer - building and making me into the man that you created me to be!  Self-made men are hard, critical, prideful, and performance-minded. I resent middle-aged men and generally shy away from relationships with them for this reason - because I'm afraid that I will once again be invalidated just as my fathers figures have done so before.  

I want to help You in rescuing those who have this heart-cry, but before that can happen, I need rescuing myself!  Experientially, I mean.

So often, out of resentment, I feel like calling out men who are posers - who hide behind fig-leafs of machoness and sexual conquering and 'get'r'done'-aholics.  It's prideful to look at people only through this lens.  This leads me to a conclusion - in order to see in the unregenerate what You see, I need to know what You see in me.  It's not unhumble to be secure with yourself, if that's what God has validated, redeemed, renewed, rebuilt, and molded - your TRUE self, not the carnal self.

I know that I have posted blogs lately that have been farely downers, but that is what my heart-cry is, and I'm not going to withhold that out of fear that people may assume that I'm rolling around in self-pity.  I withhold myself so much because I'm so used to being picked apart because I'm not doing what others think I should or what they would do.  Ahhh the frustrations of trying to be what God wants while still having a servant heart towards others while all at the same time trying to not delve in the counterfeit-mode of people-pleasing.

Starting to enjoy work and the people there.  I'm learning to be amused by the little things, but I'm having a difficult time dealing with the constant pressure to come through for customers.  I sometimes have to take calls from people who want some oddball part that I have no idea even where to order it from, AND take care of customers that walk in, AND pick up the slack when the warehouse workers are not doing their job.  They are quite often swamped, though, so I don't know if I can blame them totally.  It's pretty stressful trying to do customer service when you're pulled 5 different ways at once.  Then there are the customers that are just plain jerks when we don't have what they want, and pride in me wants to cuss them out and ask them if they 'want some cheese with that whine' while shame makes me cower and not call their bluff(ass-kissing).  I'm afraid learning how to stand up for myself and not fold is going to be messy at times for me, but it's a lot better than falling into resentment, self-loathing, and anger because I let somebody get the best of me.  Man, it seems like the smallest things set me off sometime.  It's busy-busy, go-go, and we certainly can't short the customer.  I just don't like how a lot of people twist customer service into customer WORSHIP.  It's self-righteous and just plain ridiculous.  I'm tired now and through ranting.

Until next time........