Morning

I don't want anything else, but just to know and feel his presence. I haven't felt close to him for so long, and I'm dying to feel him again. I just want that sweet taste, and I just want to know that I'm still  in love. I never wanted to get so far away, and I've let my mind wander. I just pray that my spirit would keep growing stronger and my flesh weaker. I pray that my heart would grow bigger so that I can stand against all difficulties and sin. I pray that my spirit would surround my heart and mind, and I would hear his voice in my head. I pray that I would be like David, crying on His face to you. I don't want to be like I have been. I don't want to be the same. I don't want this to be a routine, and I don't want this to be just The Way It Goes! I don't want my heart to be the same day by day. I want to be alive again.

Teenagers

Ok so to be honest I think teenagers are dumb. Just so stupid. Why blow your whole life away doing crap that ultimately isn't that cool or awesome, it's just bad which apparently makes it cool.

See I have no problem with kids. Kids are crazy and do things that are dumb, but it's all for the sake of adventure and normally what they do is just something that could have broken an arm. But generally these ideas are so creative, so unique that they end up over reaching for the impossible and get hurt.

See teenagers don't do that. What do we do? We follow. We follow each other. Just the blind leading the blind. Or we follow something dumb we saw on T.V. We become obsessed with things that are unnecessary and hold us back. We look up to people that only bring us down. And as far as the creative aspect, we have very little imagination.... We just don't do anything.

At the beginning of your teens you just are do excited to be called a big kid... But you just gave up all the imagination and creativity that you had... You have it up to be big, to be cool. And then once you figure out how lost you are... You spend the rest of your life trying to find that child again. Or you move on to the next stage: the big teen.

 

The big teen life is just being in your twenties and 30s and just wanting more. What's the point of drinking yourself to death? What does it do for you? And the next part of being a big teen is looking back at your teen years and wanting them all back. You become a dead old man who never learned to grow up.

And then there are actual adults. They understand responsibility, but they don't just do whatever, they have a purpose. You have fun still, but life isn't about a party.

I think I never got into the whole party phase, but I've waisted so much time wanting to stay in the teen phase. I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of only being around people that have no respect for others or themselves. I'm tired of people just killing themselves....  But sadly that's just the way it goes.

But it doesn't have to be that way! It doesn't have to be just a purposeless life of death! Why don't we just grow up! I'm happy that I'm finally becoming a man. I'm tired of being a teen. I'm ready to commit.

Going

I realize just how lost I've been. Whether you believe in God or not, you can argue that we're all looking for comfort and something. Some kind of truth. Some sort of love.

I try so hard to run from God. I read thee verses about how we are all bound to worshiping God forever. I think to myself... Man what a drag... I have to spend the rest of my life worshiping something... I don't get to relax or do what I want... I don't get what I really want. And it's funny because I believe in God, but I still struggle to want to worship Him forever. 

So I run away. I tell Him that I'll stop, but I can't handle the responsibility. It's like the job I had a while ago. I was making $11 an hour but I worked for 10 hours on a Saturday about once a month. And I didn't want to give that up. I wanted to be able to do what I wanted for once, get everything I wanted. But whenever I finally do whatever I want I find it unsatisfying... I find myself more empty than before. I try to run away from all I've done.. I try to run away from God.. I try to live all on my own, but I can't. I physically, spiritually, and emotionally can't. I feel so alone... I keep running.

And I listen to songs about doing what I want and I get on a high of pride and self esteem. I get into a groove of doing whatever I want, not caring about anything.

But when I fall on my face again... I find myself desperate for his love. 

I love the lyrics to this song called the sinner:

"I know I could never run far enough to escape your love, so why do I keep running?" 

It hits me hard and I just realize how much I love him and want him. 

Whether you're looking for love in Drugs, sex, money, whatever... There's only one kind  of love that will satisfy.

And I have to realize it everyday.

I Wonder What Happened

Honestly I look back on the past 2 and a half years of my life and I ask what happened? How could life turn to be this way? I ask myself everyday why I still ask myself this everyday. Why do I ask how I got here, I already know.

I've been a mess for a while, struggling with an addiction, and my parents are now divorced. My mom remarried, my sister lives with a guy that she doesn't like completely (but I mean every young couple fights), my dad is finding another girlfriend, and now I'm graduating. I have a job, but I'm scared out of my mind. I had a girlfriend, but now that I don't, I find myself insecure everyday. I find myself looking for a girl that I don't need, and I find myself trying to please my selfish greed for lust and sin. I look back at myself as a kid, at least I was good at masking everything and pushing everything away, now all my mess is out in the open. I keep trying to get closer to god, but every time I fall down, I just want to stay there and weep. I want to belong in the dirt sometimes. I get headaches from thinking about all of this too.

I think I can't handle life hahaha, but who can to be honest. I cry all the time for my friends struggling with addictions like me. They all try so hard, but none of us can seem to shake them. I don't know how people I look up to did it. Sometimes I wonder if they just lie to me and they still are addicted inside. I cried for my best friend as he dabbled into somethings because of a new friend. I seeing him around all the time, but you know, that's just the way it goes when you live a life surrounded by misery.

I don't want to be this way anymore. I don't even think I am like this. Maybe I have a problem. Maybe i just over think everything. I don't really know what I do anymore. I have written hundreds of poems but was always too scared to publish any of them, because I feel like they're not good enough. I feel like everything I do is not good enough. Right now, while writing, I just had an epiphany that I never feel like anything I do is good enough or ready enough, and that's a problem I have. I'm scared and I want everything to be perfect. Sometimes I wish I could talk to my future self and  younger self, I feel like they would have a lot of great wisdom.

I've been trying hard to love, but every time I come back to my addiction, love doesn't come to mind, just regret and frustration. I don't really get confused, just frustrated. I know exactly what I'm doing is the honest and sad truth, but under pressure I reject all wisdom I had. I abandon my conscious. I don't understand why I do that.

I pray to God every morning, but I don't know why I feel so distant from God. I realize now that it's because it's just about loving Him and pursuing him, and I know I haven't. I think maybe that's why I'm writing now. I'm trying to figure out what happened to me.

Ever since I started writing poems frequently, I haven't been able to not think. I'm always thinking. And it hurts my head so much. I have no idea.

I love love though :). I love seeing people everyday. People make me so happy. I have the best friends and brothers and sisters anyone could ask for. I'm a blessed man, and I'm blessed to be able to think. I wonder what God says about me in heaven. Sometimes I really wish I could hear him whispering in my head instead of my own fantasy. That would be amazing.

Sometimes life is rough, but I guess That's just The Way It Goes.

-T.J

Listen

Let
Everything
Tempting
Go
Out

And
Never
Dare

Letting
In
Voices
Enticing

Don't Close Your Eyes

Let's just be quite while they speek
And let down our minds for a moment to sleep
Understand that I don't mean to hurt
I just want you to hear my words

I never knew that you could make such a daring choice
Sounds to me like you only love your voice
Trying to bend the truth with the sound of your beating heart
With your thoughts more twisted that the darkest parts
You could never know
How hard it is to let go
Because You've been holding on to what you think
Is the best thing to hold on while you sink
Into the thick cold black, blue hole
Where you bury the sounds that speak to your soul

One day we could try
To open our blind eyes
And search for something more in life
Than just our mistakes
And see what turn life takes
Instead of holding on the the crust of the city
While the besieging sounds of sin start sounding pretty

I know my mind has been lost in the streets
But I know that I can overcome the stress I meet
Because I've been planted on the solid ground
Where I finally see my strength is found
And I don't have to give up at the sign of death
While I keep a steady breath
I'll show them that I will not be moved

Lets look out
One more time
So that we can see
That sun shine
Before out minds doubt 

Reflections from a 15 year old about living in Africa: Let Go Of The Earth

The below entry is a reflection which I wrote shortly after turning 15 years old. To give you some context and commentary:

My family and I were still living in Malawi, Africa at this point, but were about to make the move back to the U.S. We had lived there for over 3 years at that point. During those years, the only time I had been back in the States was a few months prior to this entry, for a funeral. I had strong feelings about America, and thought that life in Africa was much better. 

I had a lot of deep thoughts as a kid (I still do), and I reflected often on God, the world, the meaning of life, what the best way to live life would be, where I should fit in the world, what other people really need, and how I should help them. I can see elements in the below entry of trying to make sense of some of these topics and proclaim my opinions to the world. 

Unfortunately, I was somewhat angry and was definitely self righteous. I was also dealing with a lot of fears, hurts, and points of confusion during those early teen years. A year or two prior to this entry, some pretty palpable spiritual warfare had become a regular element of my private life after having given the devil a foothold through sinful strategies of coping, namely cutting myself and regularly listening to destructive music. By the time of the below entry, as a 15 year old, I had started receiving intrusive suicidal thoughts and impulses (which I attribute largely to demonic attack.)  I remember having these thoughts quite intensely while visiting America a few months prior, and feeling very scared. 

I longed for God, and to live for God. Ever since I was a very young child I have had an abiding desire and longing to glorify God and help others know how wonderful, beautiful, and powerful He is. However, I felt far from God at this point because of my wicked behaviors and because of how close the devil felt...  

I was always trying to figure out how to live life correctly, so that I could enjoy the world the way God intended it, and so that I could be most productive and effective in serving and exalting God. I think ever since a certain point in early childhood (at which I had felt like "my dreams were crushed" and my "sense of awe and wonder" was hampered) I was always trying to get back to "the way things are supposed to be."  Clearly I had some things pretty mixed up during those dark years of my early teens though and I was a little directionless, but I was reaching. 

In the below entry I can pick up on some of that "reaching": Trying to reflect and make sense of how to reach for God and live a meaningful life that acknowledges Him and lives in line with His paradigm for life. The main point of my entry seems to be that things in Africa were not "on demand" or dependable the way things can be in the U.S. and to me these "inconveniences" and "difficulties" seemed beneficial.

In my case, I did learn to think about God more often through these unique elements of living on the mission field. (That does not mean everyone else needs to live without reliable running water in order to encounter God however, as I almost seem to assert below!) God used many things during my time in Malawi to help me grow and gain perspective that I did not have previously. Clearly, though, I can also see in this entry that I did not have it all correctly figured out. In many ways I lacked peace, grace, and rest in the hope of the Gospel, and I can sense that as I reread my 15 year old ramblings. 

I admire the way I recognized as a 15 year old though that there is meaning and hope beyond the things of this Earth. I was learning that so many things in life are temporal and fleeting. I was learning to look beyond, toward the "more" that God has in hand to promise to us. 

Enjoy. I left it unedited, including original typos.

5/24/13 2:08 PM

Living in Malawi is good. You learn to let go of the world.

 Best friends leave every year - friends who live everywhere on the globe, who you very well may never see again; The power cuts and you loose work and website addresses that you may never be able to find again; Electronics or other things get stollen every now and then, and you have to just get over it; Fuel prices go up and weekend plans have to be cancelled... You learn pacience, self conrtol. You learn what is really important and what doesn't actually matter. You learn to lean on God and wait for Him to give you what you need, and take things away if it's time. You learn that life isn't about oneself, or even the world at all; it's more. Think outside the box, dang it!  The earth is in a great big box, but outside of it, there is such a thing as 'purpose', and living for the Kingdom.  There are things that really matter out there, things we should find - that we should hold on to - but they aren't of this world.  One must let go...

There aren't the same pressures in Africa as are in America, and not the same concerns and prioreties - shoved down your throte by TV and other media.  You see a different side of things after living in Africa for a while. You see God in things, and love that you didn't quite feel as deeply before.   Africa is more real world to me; people KNOW the world isn't perfect here, and they don't/can't really try and make it that way.  American culture is alot about self and comfort - making life, somehow, perfect... It's just not realistic.  I'll get comfort in Heaven, or here from the Holy Spirit - The Comforter. And, honestly, it's never about self - can't be, won't be, isn't.

There is more.