Things Are Not Okay.

I'm not Okay

Sure, I smile at things I enjoy. I laugh at things that are funny. I go to work which I generally enjoy. We get up in the morning and check the phone, get dressed and get on with our day. We eat lunch and dinner and binge Netflix at night while we chill. Meanwhile we fight our brothers like it is still the 1800's. We eradicate thousands of unborn humans before they have a say in the matter. We desensitize our brains with tweets and snaps. We refuse to have conversations with someone who has differing and conflicting perspectives to our own. One of my best friends in High School puts a pistol to his head and pulls the trigger.

I'm not Okay

Am I just a husk? Sometimes I don't feel anything anymore. I see other people, friends even, as inferior. I put myself above all of them because they don't have my experiences and therefore can't come to the perfect answer that I have; whatever that may be. What would it take for someone to truly see me? Just me. Not my many faces and slew of characters that I pull out of a hat at random to wear for the day. The me that is naked and suffering, broken and unhinged.

To Be Continued...

It's been a while, sup Blogger world. I have this habit of wanting to write, then not wanting to, then wanting to again. It is a vicious cycle. Anyway, here I am, back to writing mushy feelings and fleeting thoughts.

 Fellowship is important. Whenever I begin to see a decline in my general emotional, mental, or spiritual health, I can often track the beginning of that back to myself disconnecting from the people around me. Why do I disconnect? Who knows. Possibly because I feel that I've been wronged by people so why let them get close. But this doesn't make sense to me because I believe that I am quite open and vulnerable with friends about what is on my mind and things that have happened to me previously. Or possibly, I think that I am better off on my own without all these inferior minds and emotions getting all up in my way. But then that's not what I'm all about either because I really do love my friends. Hmmm. Quite an interesting place to be now that I realize that I've been anti-social (partially) and seeing again the value of fellowship with my Bros and Sisters.

 My Current Jam:

Mercy vs. Grace

Mercy = Pardon

Grace = Forgiveness

Mercy = No emotional change necessary

Grace = I love you regardless

Mercy = I still don't necessarily like you or what you've done

Grace = I don't care what you've done but I care about who you are.

Current Jam:

Love

Fun video I made in Highschool. Probably my favorite project to work on.


Love is such a loaded word in not only my life, but society in general today. What does it mean? Unconditional? Passion? Care? Friends? Relationships? Sex? Recently God has been pounding the principles of love into me. Personally, as a Christian, I've been growing tired of the here's love spelled out to you in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. It's often referred to as the "love" chapter, but as humans we can never fully completely understand what depth of love God has for us. But just like so many other times as I read passages and single verses of scripture, I forget the context of the passage. Sure 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 can stand alone, but we often forget about verses 1-3 and 8-13. The context is that of spiritual gifts, especially Prophesy and Tongues. Paul is talking about having these gifts and not having love, and how you gain nothing through that. He then goes into what Love is and is not. Then he states that Love is eternal, but these gifts will pass away, that they are only necessary in the short term. Three things will last forever, faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love.

So now that I've preached to you on the context of Love, what does that mean, and why am I talking about it. I'm someone who is looking for love, aren't we all? But it's not always that unconditional Love God has that I'm searching for. I as a human in the flesh, desire worldly "love" or as the bible calls it, lust. I have to admit, I've definitely had some pretty bad moments, being caught up in lust, and day to day, I walk the fine line, sometimes walking on the lust side, and sometimes walking on the love side.

I've had two serious relationships in my life, both lasting just for a few months, but pretty serious none the less. For being a 21 yr. old guy in today's world, that's a pretty empty list, and coming from a guy in today's world, it's an empty list. Currently, it's been about a year and 4 months since I've been in a relationship, and seeing my friends and peers, both older, and younger, be in relationships is starting to take its toll on my desire. Yes, I have friends that are much older than me, and similarly experienced in their ways of relationships, but I am writing about me and for me right now, so sorry if you read this and think I have no reason to be struggling since you have been for more months and years than I have.

Me right now = multiple girls, who I have decent friendships with and can see myself dating them, even marrying them given the right circumstances. All of them, I've told that I liked them at one point in time, but have since backed of because of other relationships, current circumstances, common sense, past history, and straight up fear of rejection and disappointment. I like these women, not only because they have nice teeth, and are awesome, and great to hang out with, and know a good deal about who I am and where I've been, but because I desire something that they can give me, whether it's a good idea or not. In the sermon my pastor preached this morning he said "Love can wait to give, Lust cannot wait to take" This is extremely true. However, I find myself rationalizing it because for me, it's not sex and extreme physical encounters that I desire. I want a relationship to be gentle, caring, honest, and extremely laid back. So, in my mind, i'm not really "taking" anything, however, I can't wait. So if I truly desire Love, I need to learn patience, unless I want to live a lust-filled life.

Probably like many of you, I often ask the question, "when is it my turn." "where is the love of my life" "why can't I be in a relationship, or married" I thought I had found this my Senior year. We had a great friendship, never dated. We decided we were going to the end of april prom together, mid january. We got to know each other really well. We have a heart for ministry in a camp setting, we love music(or do we lust music?haha), I hadn't really let her know that I liked her as more than friends till around may or so (yes, I am extremely timid and scared when it comes to these things) however, due to circumstances of our paths of life and current schooling, it was basically Impossible. After a year of school, that flame had for the most part disappeared, more for her than me, but what can I do, force someone to like me. It wouldn't have worked anyway because of circumstances with the next year of school. So here I am, one relationship, and a year and seven months later, and I find myself thinking about her, but in a different way. It's at times when I'm worshipping, or reading scripture, especially passages that mention love, and I get a desire to pray for her. Coincidence, perhaps, God working, definitely, for what purpose, I have no clue what so ever.

Questions that you may have: would I date her if things worked out? Heck yes, but if it doesn't, that's not God's plan. Are you saying that Guys think about the little stuff too? Well I do, but I'm not like a lot of guys, so, they should. Would I date you? Depends on who you are and why you want to date me.(was a fun questionnaire thought like the facebook survey's and stuff.) Are you saying that Love and Lust can look the same? Absolutely, at least they can appear the same, it's the motive that determines which you have. (question time is over)

God has recently been putting a lot of scriptures about love in my life, and I've been eating them up. They're delicious.

What this blog basically amounts to is:
I'm impatient, selfish, extremely open, and I want to be dating someone right now. In my mind, not necessarily in a lust-filled way, but the fact that It's difficult to wait makes it appear so. I relived my senior year, and didn't get mad or regret parts of those days(weird). Scripture needs to be taken within context, even the love chapter. God knows and I don't and that's really hard to swallow. I'm like a girl with my emotions?

And, you probably want to date me.

Relax

So I was at Eastern this weekend with a friend of mine who was visiting the school as a prospective student. It was so great to chill on that beautiful campus again and re-enter college life. It is such an awesome atmosphere. I took time to just relax and enjoy the beautiful weather by playing ultimate with some people from their club team. I didn't get much sleep, but not much was required because of how great the days were. This also makes me excited to return to college (audition pending). I have officially been accepted to LBC but I still need to get into the worship arts program through my audition which is a week from today. I think I finally decided on songs that I want to do, which is a relief because that part was extremely hard with all the great songs out there. Also really contemplating a tattoo in the next month or two.

Current Jam:

Madness

March Madness is probably my favorite sports "event" of the year. So many teams, many winners of their respective conferences, come together to determine the best in the nation. And always, the unexpected happens. This year, two 2 seeds lost to 15 seeds. It is so improbable that hardly anyone picks them to be upset, which results in many brackets (including my own) being busted and chances of winning a pool go way down if you had them going far, or go way up if you had them losing early. It's so much Madness!

Current Jam:

Spring

Even though I am ready for Summer to be here, Spring has to come first. A time of regeneration, growth, healing and newness. So far this year, my "Spring" which is still Winter technically, has been just that. Moving forward with shows, getting into a regular schedule, revamping the other aspects of my life that disappeared during rehearsals. Now that I am having time to myself not involving sleep I have been able to work on my audition for LBC. I am still figuring out which songs to play, but I am really excited about it and pray that God leads me, and those I am auditioning for, into a place of worship, if even for a short amount of time while auditioning.

Current Jam: