Raindrops

Consider this another *hopeless* romantic post.

I bought this song because I've been itching for some fresh Lifehouse. I was pumped when they announced this single was available and I thought to myself, "FINALLY! I've been waiting three freaking years for something else!" I just started listening and this yearning began to stir once again in my heart. I hate that music can so easily elicit such deep emotions within me, but it happened tonight. I was just listening and all I could think of was, "I cannot wait until I finally get to be beside her, whoever she may be."

If anything, these past two years since graduation has really shown me how hard it is to be alone. I mean, I got ripped left, right and center from my co-worker for different things, how I didn't conduct myself well at world youth day, how immature I am, et cetera. I cannot help but think, "If I just had that one person that I could confide in, that I could let myself just be me around and not fear being rejected by." It's hard not having someone to be able to go home from a long day of work and just say, "I just need someone to talk to," or, "I just want someone to hold and be held by." Life is hard, and rain happens, it does, it's part of what we have intrinsic to our human experience. I just wish that I had someone to be able to walk through the rain with. Someone to not only relish the rain with, but have beside me, and to be beside that no matter what, she's there. Someone who I can look at in love and just say, "We're better than alright." That at every step, we've got each other.

Maybe I'm feeling especially melancholic, fall always conjures up this desire to have someone to watch the fall rains with, to walk down leaf-littered paths beside, to hold close when it gets cold. Yet, here I am, hands empty and heart aching. I have this sick cycle, where I desire this so desperately, and yet continually think to myself, "I'm not good enough for that," or, "God just doesn't want that for me." It hurts, there are mornings that I wake up and have a hard time getting out of bed because although I know God is beside me through everything, sometimes I just want a hand to hold.

The other day I was walking to the church for confession and this huge rainstorm had billowed up and was dropping a deluge of water from the skies. I had my big umbrella in my office, so I opened it and walked to the church as the umbrella opened all these memories came flooding back to me of why I had bought the umbrella in the first place while I was in college. I wanted to be able to walk alongside Sarah and just enjoy the rain and being close to her. There's something that I simply find romantic about rain, maybe it's because I grew up in the desert and never really got to see too much of it, but, still. I want someone to enjoy not just physical rain with, but even the hard times, even the struggles, the hurts the pain that comes along with life. Just a woman to love through the hard things. Too much to ask for?

Praise

Sometimes, praising is just the only thing that can be done! Tonight, confirmation started, our ministries are pulling out strong and the Holy Spirit is truly breathing into the ministry! All we are, is His. He is holy, the earth is His, I want to be His more completely. God uproot all that would separate me from Your love.

Growing

I think that there is something that I really just connect with about Matt Wertz and his music. I think he and I have kindred spirits, cut from the same cloth and share some of the same fears. 

Today, by all accounts, was a fantastic "lazy day." I slept in, took a nice drive, read a book and watched netflix through the day. I thought as I looked longingly out through the window next to my bed, "This is such a great day." Then, tonight, as I begin to settle in for bed, thoughts begin to parade back and forth across my mind. A mixture of gratitude and contentment collides with feelings of longing and hope. Especially as the evening began to cool and the clouds drifted lazily along in the sky, I couldn't help but think to myself, "I just wish that there was someone here I could share this with, hold tight and just be with." Then, the thoughts snap across my mind like a rubber band stretched too thin, "Nope, that's not for you," followed by, "don't get your hopes up," and, "maybe in some other lifetime." 

I think to myself how childish I can act sometimes, how I still enjoy things like video games and such but how I just so desperately desire a hand to interlace fingers with. I have such vivid mental images of walking along a leaf-littered path enjoying the crisp autumn air and being content that finally, there's someone who I can really dote on, who I can express my love to without shame or fear of rejection.

Yet, this is not my lot in life. Perhaps it will never be my lot in life. It could very well be that God sees it best for me to spend the rest of my life alone. The question becomes: am I okay with that? Am I so detached from even the vocation that I truly believe He has called me to that if He were to simply leave me empty-handed, would I be content? It's a tough question to deal with, that leaves me feeling like God has a mean-kid-with-magnifying-glass mentality regarding my time here on earth and my temporal happiness.

What gets me, I think, the most, is this overwhelming feeling of "waiting." The feeling of desperately desiring that deep soul-connection with someone who I could spend the rest of my life with. The possibility of it seems so good that it almost feels like everything else is simply a waiting game. Yet, this  cannot be true, because I do realize that marriage is hard. There are reasons that over 50% of marriages end in divorce today. There are reasons that even my parents are teetering back-and-forth on the edge of divorce after 30 something years of marriage.

If I could be selfish, even just a little bit, I would simply want a woman's hand to hold. That's it, nothing staggeringly more, nothing insurmountably less. I think about how the last, and first, time that has ever happened was over 8 years ago and it's hard to not feel like there's something intrinsically wrong with you as a person.

So, where do I stand? Just... waiting, and growing I guess.

Inadequate

Sometimes there's this feeling that resides within the depths of my heart. Like a herald it shouts out to be heard, taking up a place of primacy before all other emotions, thoughts, loves that share in the turmoil of the day-to-day in my soul: I'm not good enough.

I consider all that I am and cannot see accomplishment or good, but only inadequacy and fault. Areas that need to improve seem so much more overbearing than those that are good. There are days I take inventory of my soul and simply ask myself, "What am I doing? Is anything I'm offering good, or am I too jaded, too prideful, to immature?" This tension exists between the gospel that desires to cry out, "You are loved!" and ten thousand different experiences that scream otherwise. More often than not, my weaknesses and failures define me much more than any love that I may have experienced. I look in the mirror and can only see weakness, brokenness and doubt. How could anyone ever love someone like me? It is so difficult to believe that I could ever be capable of love or being loved in return, when love is simply recognizing the good in something or someone.

Where is my "good?"

Yet this tension continues to exist. As much as I would rather drift into the abyss of depression and linger in the swamps of self-loathing, there is this tiny whispering that continues to persist in the back of my head, "You are loved."

I know the love of my family.

I know the love of my closest friends.

I know the love of my mentors.

I know the love of my God.

All I can do is lay myself down and simply sob quietly in prayer, "Take this all away."

Down

Today I came into an even greater realization of my failures. Rita laid out for me several things: my immaturity, my pride, my pessimism and called me to something greater. She questioned my drive, saying I valued community more than ministering to the teens. All I can say is:

Duh.

How can I minister well if I have no community to lift me up? How can I be the best that I can be if all I ever do is pour myself out without taking time to fill myself back up? She even told me that since I'm planning on leaving in the spring to, "just leave."

All of this I appreciated her bringing to my attention, truly, but as the night has dragged on it's made me become even more palpably aware of one thing: I don't belong here. I know that I've probably been a huge let-down to St. Thomas, I know I've probably screwed up more lives than I've helped, but all I can say is that I've been trying my best with the limited love that I have to operate from here. I can only hope I've been a beautiful letdown. 

Pray for my teens, that I don't screw them up too much. Pray for the ministry that I don't screw it up too much. Pray for me, that I don't screw me up too much. What can I say? I don't belong here.

Melancholy

Ever since I was introduced to Kina Grannis' music a few years ago I've become enamored with her voice, her musical constructs and ultimately her lyrical prowess. She's always been my celebrity crush because there's a part of her music that resonates with who I am. As I've been looking around my personal life and taking inventory of a lot of different things are coming to light and showing me the depths of what makes up my soul.

Lately I've been on a quest of self-discovery and healing. I've been looking at my flaws and trying to make some concrete changes to address my personal shortcomings so that I can finally reclaim myself. These past two years in New Mexico have stolen my joy, deprived me of peace and left me feeling low. The reality is though: I am a melancholic type of person. I think Kina's music sticks so much to me because she has this incredible way of expressing melancholy without being whiny or contrived. One of the things that I've come to realize about my melancholy and need to improve myself is that I play the victim far too often. Things happen, hearts get broken, and it's natural to hurt and grieve as necessary but ultimately, work it out of your system and then move forward in joy.

Ashley decimated my heart, my desire to be romantic and my drive to improve myself. I've completely stalled out as a human being and as I look at myself I've been forced to ask, "What happened to me?" I'm tired of being stuck in the rut. I'm over Ashely holding my heart, despite my tugging and slight attempts to take it back. She made the decision that she's better off without me, and damn it, I know that I'm better off without her. I'm done with the mourning, I'm done with the apathy that chokes my life. I need to make some serious changes and one of them is it's time to rein in the melancholy and use it for the betterment of myself and those around me.

Away

These past few weeks it seems like "grown-up" life has just dominated my consciousness. It seems every time I open up facebook, pictures of weddings, babies and engagements seem to crop up all the time. I sit back and look at my own life and I think about where I've landed myself. The past few weeks I've been plagued with thoughts of a some circumstances from my past that simply confound me.

I look at one of the women that I pursued in college that it simply didn't end up working out. Now, four years later it still astonishes me that it did not come together. I can honestly say she was one of the most incredible women that I've ever had the privilege of knowing, regardless of the fact that it didn't work. I can honestly say that I am indebted to her still, for showing me a kind heart, a gentle spirit and a genuine love for the Lord that is simply infectious. Every once in a while, when my mind slips from me and goes wandering off, I catch myself thinking of that one cold February night when she simply said, "This can't be right now," and I responded, "You didn't break my heart, God has it."

How in the world did I go from there to being shattered still a year after my last foray into romance? I look at this past attempt (who, was another one I could have seen myself with) and I think, "Where has my heart gone?" She took it all away because my heart wasn't God's any longer, He was the asterisk to the equation, an afterthought at best. Ever since then I feel like my life has been stalled out, reeling. How in the world could it be that I felt it was taken all away? I was tore up and still continue to be tore up, but for what? A love that wasn't requited?

The time has come to reclaim my life. It may have been taken all away, but now, the time has come to take it all back. One small piece at a time, it's time for John to be John again.