Falling Slowly

Two of the greatest people in my dads life died within three days. One of his best friends and co-workers, and his father. I've never seen him this vulnerable in my entire sixteen years of living. It's terrible. But it makes me think that if this is how vulnerable my dad is. Then so much greater is the vulnerability of God's heart. How vulnerable my heart is.

Everytime I think of God's heart I think of playdough. I LIKE PLAYDOUGH. But. Anyways. Those of you who read this and have young'uns surely know that no matter how hard you try and get the point across. Your children will always mix the two (or more) colors of playdough. C'mon. They won't keep it all in one place and make sure it never touches the other colors. Almost impossible.

Annnnnnnnnyways. Back to the point.
God is like playdough.
We are lik playdough.
Playdough is vulnerable.
Our playdough like hearts get mashed into God's playdough like heart.
Which ends in an unseperable mix of God's heart and ours.
I like playdough a lot. I like making rainbows with it.

POIN PROVEN.

Stay for a while...

Stay for a while
I've got nothing else to lose but you
Though you're in pain
But I'm begging you to hold on tight
Tell me I'll be alright

No matter where you go
I will keep you safe
Don't ever be afraid
The stars are shining bright
Through cold and endless nights
I will always always be with you

Chained to your bedside
but I never wanna be set free

Somehow I see more life in you
yet I'm the one without a disease
Oh please tell me that I'm alright

No matter where you go
I will keep you safe
Don't ever be afraid
The stars are shining bright
Through cold and endless nights
I will always always be with you

Lou's Song ~ Jason Upton feat. Micah Lother

Breaker.

For Today is an amazing band. These are the lyrics to four of their songs. I know you might not think this could match up with what you're feeling. But it does. It does with everyone.
We're all in this together.


The Breakers Origin~

Fear
Pain
Confusion
Powerless
Hopelessness.
How can I break this cycle of hopelessness
When I'm broken, soaked in the spirit of anger
With the roots of bitterness
Rooted in the marrow of my bones
Flourishing through my soul
Oh my soul.

The Breakers Valley~

Sick and tired
Trapped
My body wrapped with sharp pain because my body wasn't made to contain all this rage
My mind wasn't made
My eyes weren't made
My soul was not made to behold what shackles my soul now
Bound by the memories of being innocent
Uncle sinning against me, sexually
Momma knew he was molesting me, smacking me across my face
I could do nothing
Pops wasn't around to give me the time of the day
All I wanted was the and the place where I could be loved
A hug from my mom was too much
So I turned to the net while I was hooked like a fish
As I click, click, clicked to watch porn flicks
Trying to find intimacy
Or an outlet at least
But as I try to breathe and be at ease
I see my mom in hell and the devil's breath through the glass pipe
I'm shattered in a flash
Fright and brokenness is the aftermath
Brokenness is my aftermath.

The Breakers Encounter~

As I was thinking
Back to a day
Where it was mid-day
But the sky was black like midnight
Seeing a lifeless body impaled by nails
Suffering at the blast of hell
Caught my attention cause it looked like a blood bath
As I looked past
And saw a broken man
Soaked in the white hot wrath of God
And I asked why
I found some answers in His bloody face
A face I began to recognize in the background of every instance of my life I ignored
Suddenly sense these spirits flooding, soothing my rude, rude soul
Though ruined by the world's view
He wooed me
Though crude and screwed up out of my mind
He pursued me
He made me holy
Whole.

The Breakers Commission~

Life
Love
Forgiveness
Acceptance
Stripping demons right off my back trying to leach life off me
Get off me and feel my Fathers fury, oppressor
One day you'll feel the full blast of His vengeance Beelzebub
But for now I'll love
Cause our God's strength
He blew courage in my backbone
Now I'll stand straight and militant lining up in Jehovah's battalion
Knowing you can't change Him so we march forward
Swift as eagles ready to grip souls from your grass
Slick snake in a crass
My Lord sees you and vengeance is His
But for no I retaliate
Propelled by a holy mandate to heal
Because I know how bad it hurts
Full of madness at first
But now
Gladness bursts out the seams of our beings
Cause we overflow with the oil of joy
The ointment of the anointed
Mending any torn soul
Healing any broken bone
He is here
He was there
He is peace
He is faith

When everything's said and done, You're all I really have. Amidst these setting suns...

A dear friend of mine and my families passed away this morning. When my parents moved to Virginia in 85 and my father started a construction business, my dad hired his first employee who just so happened to be the same man that died today. My dad was in this mans wedding. My dad worked for the man when he didn't have any work. And vice versa. I can't recall a single moment when I was in the same room as the man when he was being serious. Even when he was talking about something as serious as God, he never was super duper serious. Just mildly serious. And he'd always be cracking jokes.

Now.

You may think. "oh great he'll say 'lets take a lesson from this.'" but no. I don't like lessons. You go to Chemistry and History classes for "lessons". This man has a story. I don't even know what it is. I'm not even allowed to read his story unless he lets me. But the most beautiful thing I've realized today is that it's still being written. But even better. It's being written without any pain or trials incorporated into the script. It's being written in the most perfect handwriting. It's being written under the most elaborate scenes. It's being written by the hand of the one who created him in the first place. Kinda like that perfect book you know you have to find. So you can sit back and relax reading it under a tangerine sky. You know what I'm talking about. Anyways. It's things like these that keeps hope alive in the sense that no matter how much crap is forcefully shoved into our lives. There will be unfathomable beauty in the end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11
Look it up. And my point shall be proven.

Here's to you Dan White.
Can't wait to see you soon.
And soon it will be.

The Tin-man has got nothing on me...

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.



What is your first reaction to hurt? Shriveling up in a corner. Obviously. Is that what you should do? Probably not.
Everything our lives are based upon is either made of beauty or pain. God created you inside of your mothers womb and it was beautiful. You were born and your mother had to go through the pain of labor but something beautiful came out of it. Something incredible. YOU. Adam was created in the Garden. Beauty. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Pain and suckyness. Jesus died to take away that hurt. Beauty from pain. What am I getting at? I don't even know.
What if we had no pain? What if hurt was gone. There will be a day that we all enter past the gates of heaven and it disappears. But we're obviously stuck on a world with a lot of pain.

Kids are aborted. Children are starving orphans. Parents get divorced. And through the thick of it there is this weird, crazy guy named Jesus standing there. I know a LOT of people that wish they couldn't feel any pain. Or feel any hurt or rejection. I for one wish a lot of things didn't hurt.

But what if we found out how to make our hearts no hurt anymore? Obviously that's impossible without a crap load of help from the Jesus dude. But the point is this.
If it weren't for hurt and pain and suffering. We would be nowhere. We would be ghosts walking across oceans and bare hills. We would be the Tin Man waling back and forth looking for a heart.
The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz originated when Nick Chopper (aka the tin man before becoming the tin man) had a spell cast on his axe by the evil Witch of The West. And in using the axe he accidentally kept chopping off his limbs. He replace them with prosthetic "tin" limbs. Eventually. Everything in his body was replaced with tin. And his heart was left out.

We go through life chopping down our trees then something comes along and makes it to were we start chopping off our own limbs. And we're forced to replace them with quick and easy "tin" - like answers. But in the equation we leave out the thing God put in us to keep us real and sane. Our hearts.

I say this to make you realize that if we become neutral and numb, then everything around us doesn't matter. Everything you love and have loved becomes ash. It really does. Hell, I can't tell you what to do. But you go around saying nothing matters and that you don't care and then you tell me that you're happy. You won't be.

The quote at the top of this page is from Lord of the Rings. Gandalf and Frodo are sitting there chillaxen and Frodo says he wished none of these bad things have happened. And Gandalf is like "dude. It did happen. We have to deal with it. But we also have to decide what we're going to do with what opportunities we have." Can I get an amen? We can wish all we want that things never happened. But we more so need to look at what's on our plate and decided if we're going to throw it away or eat it. Got that? Beauty evolves from pain. It takes time. It always does. But we have to decide if we're going to sit there saying "i don't care. i'm numb. i don't want to feel anything." Or look at this ever present beauty and love that surrounds us in the arms Christ. It's real. It's so real.

Lou's Song ~ Jason Upton. Look it up. Kay? Kay.

Topics

She spent the night out with a guy who gives attention when she cries herself to sleep, I heard her say...
And so she gives him what he wants as long as he can make her feel okay, but she's not okay

And we avoid the topics, we make the kids have secrets
When they are exposed and everyone else knows
We'll say we never knew it, that they had a problem
'Cause if we would have known, we surely would have solved it
But we can't, it's too late, I said we can't it's too late

He's skipping classes 'cause he hates them, hopes he passes, not to take them all again, I heard him say...
He escapes them with the pills, the ones he takes to make him feel like he's okay, but he's not okay

And we avoid the topics, we make the kids have secrets
And when they are exposed and everyone else knows
We'll say we never knew it, that they had a problem
'Cause if we would have known, we surely would have solved it
But we can't, it's too late, I said we can't it's too late

God you've gotta save us, we hide behind the faces that we make to disguise
The things that were ashamed of and all the ugly things that make us close our eyes
They make us close our eyes, why do we close our eyes?

We avoid the topics, we make the kids have secrets
When they are exposed and everyone else knows
We'll say we never knew it, that they had a problem
'Cause if we would have known, we surely would have solved it

~ Nevertheless.