Seasons

            Seasons of life engulf our years, weeks, months; seasons of learning, seasons of family, seasons of friends. The lives we’re given are revolving doors that push people in and out at staggering rate. The emotional side-affects of such brutal pairing, and tarring can be heart wrenching. Making lasting relationships is known to be one of the signs of a truly healthy life, but not all people in our lives will remain with us. Sometimes individuals within our lives are the cause of great pains, sometimes people die, sometimes differences drive individuals apart, and sometimes it’s just the season. This relational season of my life has been one of letting go.

            It’s never the want of any heart to break ties with some of those who are closest to us, but a time comes. A time comes when the questions must be asked; what is healthy? Where does the line of compassion, love, want, and desire to work out issues, stop? How do you freely give forgiveness, understanding, want, while not becoming weak, overly vulnerable, and exposed to hurt over and over again?

            The answer I’ve found is when one party decides the issues are no longer worth working out. If two parties are actively moving toward each other, they can move mountains within their lives to resolve any relational obstacle that comes. If one party has continued fight, but the other has given up, there’s nothing left to be done.

            Exiting with closure should become priority, to draw lines of where you stand, to take a healthy step back. This process is delicate for the individual taking that step. It’s important to leave lines open, to not burn bridges; but it’s important to have a stance of indifference, to announce, “I still care but it will no longer take up any of my emotional capacity.” To say, “I need to move forward, with or without you,” while leaving the lines open to say “you can join me at anytime, when and if you’re ready.”

            It’s important to have self-evaluation, to talk with people both close, and neutral to the issues. It’s important to think, to self-reflect, to draw good conclusions of what went wrong, why, and how to learn. It’s even more important to ask how to love.

So today, I had to took a step back, a step back from two deep friendships that have both encouraged and ravaged me. While keeping lines open, knowing that I’ve done everything I can, I will walk into my future knowing that I gained from loving those individuals. That the time we spent together was incredibly valuable, that they poured into my life in ways I’ll never forget. Though, I never saw a day such as this coming, it’s pivotal in moving forward to say goodbye. The memories I will harbor shall always be heart warming, for these friendships were beautiful from the day they began, until the day we parted.

A focus on remembering the good, the wholesome, the beauty, is important in a world with too much hurt and pain. These relationships had their share of problems that did ultimately end with a shutting door, but they still had a season of life, growth, and love. I choose to remember the good.

I encourage you to do the same in your own seasons.  

The Sun is Rising 

Beginning and End

            The idea that everyday life is hard, that it takes everything we have to keep moving some days, is true. It’s easy to lose sight of all the opportunities that are presented on a daily basis. It’s easy to get wrapped in the bad, the awful, the horrible things that do happen to good people.

            After years of hard work, after countless tears, pouring out of my mind, body, soul, my undergraduate career is coming to a close. I’m terrified of making a decision for my future. It’s my time; the clock is coming near with decisions of grad school, career choices, and opportunity. Does that mean picking up everything I know once again, and moving to New York City to fulfill another dream? Does it mean settling here, where I’m comfortable, and growing the relationships that I’ve started? Does it mean doing something that I’m not expecting?

            This is what I do know; the past four years have been vibrant with hurt, and healing, laughter, and learning, growth and understanding, failure and success. My hearts full, my life a colorful story of God’s grace, and mercies made new everyday. I am on fire; my calling to pour out the love of my heart has never been so clear.

            New chapters are opening, the world is spinning, but I know that I have a direction that I will follow faithfully. My heart will continue to sing as my days move forward, past Moody Bible Institute, past the friendships that will soon extend the vast stretches of earth. These people, this place, have brought depth to my life; the relationships I made here have grown my understanding of what it means to be distinctly “human.” I’ve learned it’s okay to want, that it’s okay to dream, but that having wants and dreams means doing something about them. I have accomplished much, but the dark, star-filled sky is the limit, my story is just beginning.

 

            In every moment, dreams, wants, longings, are important; they relentlessly drive us to action. Fight for the dreams of your heart, because dreams aren’t just rooted in your heart, they are rooted in a story larger than you. They are rooted in the connection of a story that pulls people together into the overarching story of humanity. If your dreams are whole, pure, good, they are worth your time, they are worth your fight. People need dreams brought to action, passions lived out in love. God as the creator of all has instilled humanity with the ability to dream, and if those dreams are of good intent, those dreams are rooted also in the heart of God. You are responsible for what you do with what you are given, it’s your burden to share the dreams of your heart, and put them action.

The Sun is Rising 

The Little Boy

            A little boy plunges his head into my shoulder as he pours the horrors of what’s happening at home into the pit of my arm that’s snuggly placed around him. His tears mixing with mine; my tears falling on a face of such innocence.

            No one prepares you for what you think in those moments. No one prepares you for what you say, or how you react, or the anger that fizzles through your every limb. Sadness, so deep and compassions that want to throw him in my backpack and shield him from the world, forever. This seven-year-old boy knew more about what it meant to be an adult than I at twenty-two.

             In my sparing moments, before I had to make that call, before I had to shed him away from me into the hands of a cold world. I grabbed his hand and placed it on my heart, I looked him directly in the eyes, and I spoke.

“You have been hurt, and I can never truly understand how you feel, or what you’ve been through, but know right now in this moment that someone in this world cares for you, I love you, your story is heard, your pain is not silent. I will fight for you. Work hard, become someone, never give up, pray, I know you know God is with you, because you feel him in me, and I see him in you.”

“Mr. P, I will, I will because God is with me, because I see God in you. I will be good, and work hard in school, I will be like you someday."

            The police came that day, after I made the call. I held his hand as the woman pealed him away from me. His teary eyed face looked back at me as the car drove away, his future hopefully brighter, but I’ll never know for sure. It’s during those moments that I have no choice other than to believe in God. God has to exists, He has to exist for me to stand during those moments, for that little boys future, and for my sanity.  

            I wasn’t ready for what happened that afternoon. I wasn’t capable of helping that child, or holding it together; but I did. My heart was filled with the love that I’ve known for years, the depth that is only in God. God held me as I held that child. I was given words when I had nothing to say. I found strength in a moment when all I could think of was weakness, and God’s arms wrapped around my soul, and around the soul of a child that I had known for years. We were brought together for a deep reason, and that child opened up to me, about the bruises, the cutting, the emotional abuse, it all had been done to this little boy that I had known for years, and he never said a thing.

I asked him before he left, as the social worker stood above us, “why, why tell me?”

“Because you care, because I know you love me”

LIsten

My writings span three years now. It’s a compellation of pains, lessons, and heartbreaking accounts. It’s narratives of truth, gratitude, grace, joy, and blissfulness. These stories are outpourings of risk. These stories are my vulnerability. They let the outside in; they peak into the inner struggles and imperfections of who I am. They declare my humanness.

Her hands reached to grab mine; her fingers interweaving around my tight clinched hands as I finished telling her a piece of my story, my narrative. “This is your story Steven, this is your one and only life, it’s all you will ever truly own, you can change the world with your stories, you can move mountains with your pains, you can help people, and even more, you can love them. The God of the universe lives in your stories, and he has given them to you. Go, Steven; move your mountains, take that leap of faith, take the creator of your universe hand in hand, and walk with him in bravery and boldness.  Change our world, because you’ve changed mine.”

Today I haven’t changed the world, but I’ve changed me. Today, I own my story. As I watched the sunrise this morning, I stood bold. I haven’t arrived in any area of life, but damn I’m growing; I’m healthier as a person, I’m stronger as an individual, I’m braver in my relationship with my creator, and I’ve learned; learned how to listen.

When you listen to the narratives of the lives that you interact with daily, you hear their reality, you hear their bittersweetness, you hear their pains and joys. People aren’t born into the persons they are at birth; people are shaped by their individual accounts and experiences. They’re a culmination of the people who have surrounded them. Their stories are important, as your story is important. No one is special, but we are all important. When someone shares their story with you, listen intently, listen for what you can learn.

Your story is all that you own, and though it must be shared, share it with those who deserve it. Don’t flaunt your story to those who won’t hear it, and resist those who tell you to share your story with everyone. Your story has meaning, and it speaks to certain people, in certain circumstances. Find those people, seek them out, hear their stories, and share your own. Listen, wholesomely with intent, listen; hear emotions, find their truth, give compassion. Save advice for someone who asks for it, what people need in this busy, consistently moving, always stimulated, culture, is someone who will listen.

Surrender
Burden

Grace
Love

Empower
Hope

This isn’t easy
 it isn’t clear
 and you don’t need Jesus until you’re here.

The Sun is Rising

The Couch

            I have this couch; it’s an old grey, slightly tattered, cheap, Ikea, piece of something that kind of resembles a couch.  It’s been scratched, washed, thrown around, slept on, sat on, spilled on, laughed on, slobbered on, and a whole list of other absurdities. Why bring up the couch?

            My couch sits in the middle of our living room. It’s where we watch movies, where we have family conversations, where we cry, where we laugh, where we think, where we watch music videos, where we read, where we sometimes sleep, and where our guests stay. That couch represents hours of laughter, deep conversations, and plenty of tears. I have held, and been held on that couch. It knows all my secrets, and the secrets of those I have lived with, and currently live with. That couch represents home.

            Tonight I’m sitting on this couch. The house is quiet, and I’m the only one home. Tonight I sit on the couch and listen. Tonight the couch and I have something in common. The fact that the couch and I are both growing, and as it has aged, as I’ve aged with it. We are the different in essence, but the same through change.

            Tonight I sit to analyze where life has taken me in the past three years, and how much I’ve grown; the dreams I’ve watched come to life, and pass away. The possibilities of tomorrow, and the growth within myself through the changes and encounters that have came, gone, and currently presenting.

     This is what I’ve come to know by laying on this couch tonight.

I’m terrified of what tomorrow might bring for me, but that won’t stop me from jumping into life tomorrow.

Bittersweet is always better than sweet or bitter alone.

Laughing and crying, pain and happiness, they shouldn’t always be seen as separate.

Home is where your family is, and family doesn’t always fit the dictionary definition.

Love is worth nothing, unless you give all the love you have, away.

Life should always be lived as a measured risk.

             I’ve lived here for three years, and every crazy teenaged dream I once had about moving to the city, taking wild adventures, and traveling at a whim have been met. A new chapter of this amazing life is unfolding, and I’m so excited to see what happens next.

            Pain will be inevitable moving forward, but with an open heart, happiness will come with it. To feel true happiness, is to willingly take on the possibility of true pain. I’m ready.

The Sun is Rising