Time rolls on…

Over the past few months, really more during the course of this year that is soon ending, I've had so many different events & occurrences that it would all maybe t in a short stories book. I'm not even going to try to jot down the majority of them, as that would truly be an impossible task.

As the title of this post alludes to, time rolls on. We lose things & people, gain things & people & in the end, we look back, I look back & thank God that when my brain sends the signal, my lungs take in oxygen & my heart pumps away to circulate it. When I do thank God at the moment, its fighting over the acceleration & sudden feeling of heaviness in my chest & the fight to keep my contacts in while the tears start to pour out. I fight to stay composed enough to be able to sneak out the words “God, I need strength”. I struggle to even keep typing this as I think of what & what feelings I am writing about. In any case, I will write what I can as this post will probably be written in the next few days, seeing as I've got scheduled events coming up in rather quick succession, which is something I do to keep my mind busy & my heart from melting down.

This year, 2010, has been one of the hardest years I can remember. It has had many good points, but has also contained many hard, tough, struggled moments that have ended in victories, some lost ground & the crumbling of things right in my h&s & in the h&s of many others. I’ll start off with a few of the bad, so as to try to end this post on something of a good note.

One of the things that took a lot of attention brought a lot of contention & brought me down personally this year was my dad. Not as in “oh gosh my dad is evil”, but in the “I love my dad & hate to see him sick” kind of way. This year, my dad has seen an escalation of his diabetes to a level that we never really thought we would see. My dad has always been a picture perfect image of strength & resilience, even in the worst of times. I always saw my dad, & still kind of do see him & this undefeatable, always strong, unbreakable figure. I'm not saying he’s Bruce Willis in “Unbreakable” but rather that he was someone so strong that nothing could break him down. I was proved somewhat wrong this year by a bad guy called diabetes. Sure, diabetes ain’t got NOTHING on Samuel L. Jackson in “Unbreakable”, but it’s a pretty bad guy.

The fight against diabetes has cost my dad 2 toes & has cost my family a shakeup that was only compounded by a whole list of other events, mostly personal individual events. I do have to add here though, that I would never have thought something like this would have affected me the way it did & continues to affect me. The fact that on this thanksgiving I was able to actually sit & laugh with my family; mom, dad, brother, sister & nieces, was something that did fill me with joy, but even more than that, filled me with calm.

Moving on, as I said, the events of the medical ordeal with my dad were compounded in effect by other events that happened that truly didn’t help in one way or another. To run through a few, the youth pastors of my church decided to leave & open up their own ministry, one which I pray for always & know is going to reach many people. Their departure however was something of a downer for me. They have been my youth leaders for, well, for as long as I have been a young person. They were of great inspiration to me, even past disagreements & upsets & such. They were my youth pastors, they are part of my family & well, I was truly hurt when they left. God knows all though & he has a plan.

The hardest & most difficult, emotionally wrecking & single event that seemed to compound all that had gone on is the one thing I will talk of the least. This is because, as you can imagine, it’s a topic that I can’t think of too much at a single time because of the pull it had & continues to have on me. Maybe it was just my attempts to avoid it, but ill give you a piece of advice: don’t be blindsided by something you feel but choose to ignore in the hopes that the feeling goes away. The relationship I fought for &, incidentally, continue to fight for, but now in silence of course, with tears & bouts of angry, frustration & hopelessness that turned into a new dawn, ended. It didn’t just end though; it ended with a pretense that leaves vague hope & just unsettled confusion. Like I said, I wasn’t going to talk much of this because, well, simply put, it hurts. All that matters is, maybe only to me, my heart, “this heart, it beats, beats for only you”

So, it’s been maybe 2 or 3 weeks since I began this blog post & I’ve decided to finish it up, all before my birthday, which is about 23 mins. from right now. I’ve had a few rollercoaster weeks.

The Uprise has had a gig, for it we rehearsed & in those rehearsals we worked with J.U, which was Sam’s old bass player. I had some reservations, but I get along just fine with him both personally & musically. I'm praying we make the right decision on it all in the hopes that it will be an addition for which & with which to give a great worship to God.

A few Fridays ago, we had a particularly different kind of worship Friday service. Within 3 hours I realized I’d be doing the worship by myself. God knew beforeh& though & had placed a desire for a certain kind of worship. The idea was seeded, if you will, thanks to a song I heard that just made me think. I sat thought & realized that I could complain. I could spend time complaining about all the things I've lost that I loved, or I can celebrate that which I have. Most of these is love. I know love. I know what it is to love, be loved & then be left being the only one with love. Maybe I'm foolish. Maybe I should move on. But I can’t. What would have happened if while he was here, Jesus would have just given up on being loved by his own people? If I am to be called by that name, then I can be no different. Sure, I'm not Jesus, but he was true to that which he planned to do out of love.

I am alive. Time rolls on, but I'm ALIVE. Maybe now I have fewer friends, less of those I called family, less people with whom to watch a movie with, but I've got some new people who I get to enjoy music with. Some new people with whom I get to laugh with about dumb things or even someone with whom I share an odd tradition of one awesome piece of cake every week. Heck, I dare say her sarcasm sometimes makes up, even in a small bit, for some stuff I've lost. This other person makes jokes of obviousness that I miss from someone else. On & on I could go comparing what I have with what I've lost. In the end, all I need, all I've needed, all we ALL need… All we need is love. Love that brings people together.

Love that reminds us that we aren’t alone in any way… That’s all we really need…

I'm ending this blog now… I pray if you read this you gather from it at least this one bit… No matter who, what, or how many leave you… There is a love that will never abandon, or forsake you. It is the love of the father. The love of the one who wove you within your mother womb. The love of the one who gave it all. The one, perfect, amazing example of true love… God in heaven, creator of heaven & Earth… HE loves you, even if no one else does…

Goodnight, God bless, be safe. Arise & be all that you dream. All that you’ve ever dreamed… <3=)