The Path

As I read the journey of Marc Driscoll and his wife Grace I am caught up in a whirlwind of emotions. Just the opening pages cut deep as I thought about some of the things in my journey that are so similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08WeoqWilRQ

Man on Fire – Edward Sharpe and the magnetic zeros

I feel like I am sitting at the edge of a cliff, staring at an impassable abyss. I know at some point something has to happen, yet I sit at the edge. I run around the circumference a bit, do pushups, I improve myself. Yet there is something beyond the dark inky blackness ahead of me that I cannot see nor reach. It is here that I am finding Victor Frankel was so correct, my existence moves from that of looking ahead to the provisional existence he experienced amid the life of the concentration camp. Days blend into weeks, but they melt so slowly I feel as if days are years in fake clothing trying to convince me they are skinnier then they really are.

On my journey I have came leaps and bounds and now stand like a horse before the race. My breathing is deep and the hot air passes through my nostrils as I stir and paw at the ground. There is nothing more that I desire then for the gate to lower and the world to fade in a Gaussian blur as I gallop onwards. It is here that anxiety once beset me. The voice of devils used to cackle and laugh, a cacophony of sound, screaming that I would fail. They masqueraded as wisdom and truth, rather then fear and passivity. They yelled that I was frail, not made to race, but merely in the wrong place and time. That My race was in vain. Now I know it was never about the finish line, it was about the race. I long for the wind to pull my hair back as I tumble forward gaining ground. I no longer fear defeat. I merely fear the death of the race. The death of the chance to inhale deeply and press on towards what lies ahead. To risk it all for the great adventure, the great pursuit of Christ.

So here I am at the edge of this abyss. Marc Driscoll shared his story so poetically and my inner being sighed as I longed to understand some of the same things. I longed for that elegant and frail hand to be in mine as I walk onwards in life. His book made me shudder inside to see the man I was playing out before me merely months ago. I had become a beast. Like Psalm 73, I become brute and arrogant. A mere creature of emotion and lusts, desires and defeats.

There once was no abyss, merely a well laid out path, yet as the Lord so amazingly does He has crumbled my roads. Struck down my comfort. Torn the path I tried so hard to walk across down brick by brick. As the stones crack and I find myself here, I am in the strangest of predicaments. A year ago I had a path and no direction. Now I have direction and no path.

I am not sure what the wise would rather have but I know that there is a promise in scripture that I used to understand the wrong way. In Proverbs God says these ancient words that I always heard but never understood.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.”

For some reason my eyes always looked at those words as if they were something I knew too well to reread. I would glance at them and a haze would envelope my heart. The words would seem stagnant and a voice inside would rise in a yawn and whimper, “I know, I am trusting Him, found the path, cool.”

Yet I totally missed the meaning…

Noah Gunderson – Winter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxOQV6epL4Q

I was foolish to think that what God was saying was “find the path and it’ll work out.”

Nope. Doesn’t work that way. Rather He was saying I can’t trust in my own understanding. So strange. It’s not the path I am seeking, it’s God, and He promises He will make a pass. Now this may be a slight difference, easy to miss, but therein lies the rub.

For so long I thought I was pursuing a path like Sherlock Holmes, looking for clues, signs, and the work of God. Yet what I am looking for is God.

I’m looking for God. It’s when I lean on Him that abyss starts to grow. The edge of the cliff I am on seems to get thinner. It is when I draw close to God the paths around me fade and fog envelopes them. The left, the right, and I stand practically on a tightrope. A thin bridge. This is where God wants me, because I am not looking for the path. Instead God will MAKE my path straight.

I don’t need to see left or right, in fact it’s so easy to look around be so distracted by thoughts and possibilities. Rather God does something crazy and says “Cling to me desperately and I will make your path straight.”

It’s so crazy. It’s like instead of looking at the map and the road we just drive forward and the road leads us. Maybe that goes against instinct. Maybe that sounds like Rob Bell Voodoo Jesus Magic, yet what I’m learning is that as I stand here I am at the edge of everything and the only thing that will keep me from tripping into that abyss is ruthless trust. It is here I finally have no path, but I have a direction, and the path is building naturally. Maybe that makes no sense. That’s ok, I’m pretty happy where I am. Not making sense and babbling on as the keys to wisdom and the universe start to swirl in my mind. I have learned so much.

Bringing it back to the point. Victor Frankel in “Man’s Search for meaning” talks about how when we know nothing about finality our existence moves from one of hope and purpose to provisional living. Tomorrow becomes absent in light of today. While we need to plan and think it is here that I find myself. I don’t know where I’ll be next week. I don’t know if I’ll ever see some of my best friends again. I don’t know. I simply don’t know. So I’m clinging to Jesus, I’m holding onto daddy, like any child who is along for the ride. And I guess now I’m finally just saying, “I’m glad were going.” Instead of “Where are we going.”

Am I a man or a Muppet?

I think the catalyst to my thoughts is often movies. I watch my thoughts fizz and pop as movies slowly activate the inner workings of my mind. In the most unlikely of places I found myself thinking about so much I’ve been learning and working through the last months.

The new Muppets movie has it’s slew of hilarious and genius moments but underlying it is this innocent relationship between Jason Segall and Amy Adams. What intrigues me so much about it is that although it probably was a filler plot element, the very nature of the relationship was almost cringe inducing to watch. I have been Jason Segal, the passive and extremely co-dependent male who is slowly suffocating the relationships in his life with his actions. There is a slow fade as you watch the relationship exist as an external attachment to Jason’s world, rather then him including Amy on his journey. Or when he does include Amy he includes everyone, specifically Walter. I watched and kept seeing stupid things that Jason did, things that in my now right mind I would never consider or think about, that I had once done. It was intriguing to think about it.

Now I am sitting here, listening to the Muppets soundtrack, and thinking about deep things. They seem like they don’t go hand in hand but I’m thinking about my generation. How I wasn’t fathered in a way that said “Jake, you can set boundaries. Jake your allowed to say no.” It’s been refreshing as I find myself refusing things, as I find myself speaking my mind in ways I wouldn’t have dreamed of even six months ago. I wish, oh how I wish someone would have just pulled me aside and shaken me and said “Jake your co-dependent”

I had never heard of it. I see all the symptoms now as I watch movies, people, friends. I talk to friends about old relationships and see how passivity is murder to a relationship. That our generation is full of men who either know how to be to aggressive, or too passive, but they know not how to treasure a heart. I’ve been told the new muppets movie is very self-aware. That’s what I’m becoming, able to look and see the different stupid things I’ve done. Choices that amounted to hurting people, failure to do enough. It’s not a guilt trip for myself either. I feel pretty awesome, I’m learning that I am a child of God and as such don’t need to feel the pain and condemnation that Satan hurls at me. He’s forgotten the refrain that Jesus Saves, as Shane and Shane put it so well.

Jason is interesting, there is this moment where Amy says “Ok, what are we going to do tonight?” It’s their anniversary. And Jason says “I don’t know, what do you want to do? Whatever you want to do.”

I think in my own desire to love and help people I used to think that offering the freedom of choice was an act of love, yet I’m learning that it is enabling me to be passive. A girl doesn’t want to make every decision, she doesn’t want to create the adventure. I was particularly struck by that lack of knowing what to do and that hesitation of Jason in such an important moment in the relationship. A tinge of sadness rose in me because I have done the same thing, suffocated a heart with my passiveness and lack of knowing what to do. It reminds me of that oft quoted military mantra that a leader need not go left, nor right, but he must do something. I wondered how many men have sat there staring and lacking the ability to decide. How many men have shunted there own passive nature onto another person.

Christ has given me so much freedom these last few months. I acted passive because when I wasn’t passive I got extremely wounded. Yet I let go of the pain three months ago and now I am learning more everyday. Turning the flashlight on myself has been one of the hardest and most painful things I’ve ever done. Yet I am getting better and that is freeing in and of itself. I no longer fear making decisions, I am able to fight that passive nature, I am seeing real victory. For the longest time I would try to well up thoughts and found myself frozen. A hindrance or a block would come and I would sit there dumbfounded like I was watching a train wreck and unable to stop it. Going back to the past and looking at how I got there, at how subtle rejections built up over time to create this wall inside of me has been one of the most freeing things I can imagine. Once I let go of that pain it was like I took the first breathe in years. Now I am finding my mind racing with thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions. I find I am able to not fear things that once honestly froze me like a child. That is wonderful. It’s nice to watch the Muppets and be reminded of some deep things today. 

Emotional Puberty, My Hearts Open Wide Again, and Garden State

Sometimes the mirror is the most foreign site I have ever gazed upon. Every once in awhile I stop and gaze. Not like Narcissus, ever to lust after himself, although I can’t always feign innocence from such ventures. Rather I look and gaze into the years of change and growth purpose and five o’ clock shadows, beards, tears, dirt, wrinkles, hope, and loss. I’ve changed.

Peter Bradley Adams – The Heart of a Girl

I don’t remember puberty much. When I was a kid I grew hair in odd places and my voice got deeper, now I’m losing hair in odd places and my voice is probably getting higher. Perhaps I do remember those strange days of natural and physical change, yet I perceived not what was happening. We all go through it, well the ones lucky enough to live long and finish out childhood. I am enamored today by the thought of emotional puberty. The constant changing and shifting of my self and character. Who I was two years ago does not resemble much of who I am now. My eyes are the same color, yet they are not same shade. For awhile the weight of grief has stolen a little bit of the light from them and withheld it despite my pleas. Now they are alight, brighter than they had ever been in the past.

There is this movie that is transcendent. It’s about nothing and everything at the same time. Garden State. The movie speaks quite a bit to me as it taps into the biggest problems and feelings of our generation. We are lost. We are confused. We have degrees and an education but lack the significance of purpose that was handed down for thousands of years.

What great battle is there to fight? What great place is there left to explore? What can we invent? There was a time when the world had bright eyes and there was so much mystery. Yet the devastating blows of science and television have rendered our sense of mystery dull.

In Garden State, a young man is living a life he doesn’t want to live. He is putting on make up to pretend to be Asian as a waiter in Los Angelos. Throughout the beginning of the film we see he is so heavily medicated that a plane crashing won’t shake him up. We see him stuck at one point at an audition for a screenplay. This is his life, the professional actor. The white shirt no name that is trying to be someone else. The imagery in this movie is stunning, yet hidden deeply. One day he gets a call and his mother has passed away.

It is this strange event that causes him to be brought back home, and for the first time in years he has to deal with the past. He has to deal with what has been going on. He has to reconcile the strange memories of his past, the father who was distant, the relatives he never really embraced. It is in that moment of humor and quirkiness that the main character stops taking his pills. As the movie rolls on, he finds part of this generations journey, a girl. A beautiful girl. One who is quirky and crazy and is more like him then he knows. She is a compulsive liar. He is a shy and withdrawn individual. Yet her zest for life makes the young man start to look at his life and what’s going on.

Throughout the movie we see him reconcile his past, stand up to characters he never had before, talk to his father, and stare into the infinite abyss. There is one scene that has always been burned into my mind where he finally cries after all these years of being reserved. He isn’t crying because of how hard life is or deep pain. He cries because he is himself and for once he finally feels safe.

The film ends with the main character choosing between his old life, or staying to deal with his past and the new life offered through the girl he met and the journey he’s been on. It has only been three days yet he is rather changed. The movie ends not with an epic kiss or a scene of bravery. It ends with the shy boy who is becoming more of himself, bold, and funny standing there with the compulsive lying girl who is just as lost as him. It ends in confusion. It ends without resolving. I think that is poetic. Because when the main character faked his life, the ending could be seen so easily. Yet when he became himself, well that was when not even a minute into the future is visible.

I could talk for hours on Garden State. Someday in fact, maybe I will. That movie is dear to my heart.

I am not Zach Braff, although sometimes I feel if I was to meet him on the street we would exchange one of those nods that says “Your world, should be friends with my world, but alas, we are in a different world.”

Feeling has rushed into my soul these last few months in ways that I can hardly describe. The color has came back to my face. My life is new and fresh. I am thinking about how perhaps if I was seen by the same old friends, 12,000 miles removed, I might look quite different. Time does strange things to a soul. Not nearly as strange as a loving God does though.  

Sometimes I wonder if I had my Garden State moment years ago but got on that airplane. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve been running when safety was right there all along. It’s probably good not to wonder, sometimes my face leaks and I look silly.

Mmmm, I’m having my Garden State moment right now too though. My pills are gone and emotion is free to breathe. I’m open. I’m confronting the things I numbed myself too in order to ignore them so many years ago. It’s strange to look in the mirror these days. I’m thinner, but not in a gaunt and unnourished way. It’s the thinness that comes from the hard labor and strengthening moments of life. I’m funnier. Maybe not in a tangible sense but I can feel deep inside my humor boiling up and my personality feeling free to thrive and grow. It’s a great time to be alive. A strange time. One of those times where I wonder what will happen. Where even brief friendships will water and plant, flourish and change me more than deep long ones can, because my walls are down and I am moldable. I just want to scream into the infinite abyss.

I used to write a lot and long for an audience. As I am returning to my craft I find that I am somewhat relieved for the anonymous and never-read things I can publish into the open space. I think writing was never about being listened too, it was the deepest working out, thinking, and expressing of who I am. It’s nice. I feel free.

Peter Bradley Adams – I tell myself

I think everyone of us is afraid of the light, when we really think we are afraid of the dark.

The false self is a strange man. He wears all of our masks upon his face. Yet he is a more convincing imposter than my real self could ever be. And I can play a pretty convincing pirate.

 The false self convinced me I was a different person than I was. As I told one of my best friends earlier, I pulled an Inception on myself. Everyone watched. Yet no one got the plot or applauded at the end. I couldn't even eat the stale popcorn on the theater floor afterwards. I merely played a story that was interesting but unresolved. I tricked everyone including myself into believing my fake reality was reality. Some said it was fun to watch, normally when I got hurt and didn't get mad at God. Yet they were usually just being nice because they still went home and thought about Breaking Bad and the doorknob that sticks rather than me. They didn't really like the story. Well, enough to watch it twice.

Happiness - The Fray

Rather than spinning a little top to see if I am living a lie, I've been turning to the Word of God. Sometimes I think 90% of the people who read what I write walk away when they read "Word of God." Posers. That's ok, I use fancier christian words sometimes. If people are afraid of big words, they will be afraid of me, or just tune out and think about money.

There is a verse in that dusty fabled book of old. Some people crack it open once a year, I am learning I need to once a minute. Ephesians says "For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." I mean there are probably many other verses. Like a million of them. This one though talks about how we were once darkness.

Inception is a movie that intrigues me because it is about what happens when we fall asleep. Most of us place a natural and ruthless trust in reality. When I watch Braveheart I usually feel good inside. When I eat Lava Sauce at Taco Bell, I usually feel bad inside. Yet happy. That is reality if I have ever seen it. You can try to deny it but you will probably have to buy new clothes.

 Sometimes I sleep and there is a long-lost beautiful blonde haired girl who says she likes me and how I look and that I have too much stubble for just one day but that doesn't make me a terrible person. Sometimes I sleep and old friends and old fathers long passed embrace me, tell me that the journey didn't end with them, it began. Sometimes dreams are such intimate and emotional rollercoasters. I will never forget one dream I had years ago where a girl I had liked for a long time was getting married to the wrong man. We held each other as she and I wept. We knew that it was in too deep. It was the end. I woke up wondering why that dream shook me so much to my core. In fact my dreams often feel more real than life itself because the happiness is so raw and strong, the reconciliation of the past is so tangible, the hurt is so real. I will also never forget a dream where I was Spider-Man and I remember bricks and dynamite and possibly I was also Bruce Willis. I will cherish that.

Dreams invite us into this new and overwhelming reality that offers emotions, sights and sounds, the ability to fly.

Yet then I wake up. Sweaty. And sad.

Dreams are nice. It can feel good just to feel. In a broken cursed world where we watch people get shot on TV and feel a little bit of internal guilt that we are helpless to fight tragedy. When television has numbed our core and smart phones have made our personal relationships dependent on Wi-Fi. Inception asks that question each one of us thought about when we were five, "What if it's all just a dream?" And then we thought we were really smart for confusing ourselves at such a young age when Vanessa the six year old down the block obviously has it all together but has never transcended time and space with her solliqey.
Life is like Inception, we can trick ourselves so much that we forget who we are. That we forget who our real self is. It's hard to wake up from that. Sometimes it takes honesty, sometimes it takes a bucket of water, sometimes it takes looking at a three armed Indian man and thinking "This probably isn't realistic."

It's easy in our own darkness to believe anything. Darkness has no shape. For all I know, when the lights go out, Woody and Buzz do wake up and there is a monster in my closet. That would be nice, Taiwan has few energy drinks. Darkness is a land that can be more familar than light. Light is so hard, it shows us the dirt, the filth, the creepy man in the window with a cleaver. Light is hard. Yet it is beautiful. God tells us to walk in the light. He is light. It's wonderful what light adds to the darkness.

I think everyone of us is afraid of the light, when we really think we are afraid of the dark.

Some masks I wore until recently were quite heavy. To take them off took a brick and Jesus. The brick was a lot less gentle, but neccesary. Now as I look into the light my eyes are burning a little bit like when the lights get turned off after a lan party and it's seven in the morning. I am trying to keep them open as they scream with pain, adjusting to the beauty and glory. Taking in and feasting upon all the sights and beauty of this reality. Some pretty heavy masks are coming off. I'm learning...

I like running.

I like Soccer.

I am meant to speak in front of people, counsel hurting people, marry a sweet lass.

I am meant to be that brave single confrontational voice in the midst of compromise.

I am meant to walk with integrity.

I am meant to be fearless.

I like phones.

I like driving.

Video Games don't really interest me that much outside of the social interaction.

I love the stage, I could live there.

I am not worthless, inferior, weak, or timid.

I am not shy, I am a people person.

Those are the public ones, I have learned that I metaphorically shot the sheriff and killed the deputy when they were trying to help me. I ruined the best relationships in my life, I wasted so much time, I drank bitterness like Starbucks, smiled afterwards, and thought I was doing good. I lived a false self. As he is fading and I see my motives, my problems, the things I did, I am understanding all the more what I have done and who I am. I'm excited to see more of who I'm becoming.

Happiness - The Fray


Happiness was just outside my window
I thought it'd crash blowing 80 miles an hour
But happiness is a little more like knocking
On your door, you just let it in


Happiness feels a lot like sorrow
Let it be, you can't make it come or go
But you are gone, not for good but for now
And gone for now feels a lot like gone for good


Happiness is a firecracker sitting on my headboard
Happiness was never mine to hold
Careful child, light the fuse and get away
Cause happiness throws a shower of sparks


Happiness damn near destroys you
Breaks your faith to pieces on the floor
So you tell yourself, that's enough for now
But happiness has a violent roar


Happiness, it's like the old man told me
Look for it and you'll never find it all
But let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day you'll wake up and she'll be home


Home, she'll be, she'll be, she'll be home
She'll be home, she'll be home, she'll be home
She will be home, she'll be home, she'll be home
She'll be home, she'll be

Into the Wild

Boston - Augustana

I keep sitting down trying to write. Mostly about Child abuse. It’s not as funny on paper as it is with voice inflection or the occasional song from Annie. Today I thought about a movie. Sometimes movies have stories that remind me of my own life, but mostly when they are about awkward boys who fall in love with awkward girls. Sometimes when the movies are about superheroes they also remind me of my life. In an inverse way, like the way seeing a car reminds me I don’t actually drive. Today I thought about a movie that I watched in Texas about a year and a half ago, it was sad. Everyone died. Well really only one character, but he was kinda the whole she-bang. It was called Into the Wild. Sometimes when I watch a movie I get absorbed into it and connect with everything. Every scene of romance reminds me of memories and kisses and cats that bite the skull, every scene of victory reminds me of those precious moments in life where I succeed. Normally at Halo but occasionally at something like falling down stairs.

During these films I invest myself into the world of the characters, I escape and become them, memories line up like little sailors and wave huzzah while looking for friends in the movie. When life is fun and dandy, a movie is quite the escape. When life is hard and people stop talking to me and I sweat all day and sometimes my bike tire goes flat, well then a movie can be quite an immense form of torture. Every moment aligns with a memory, much like songs with nice lyrics, and Ice Cream places like Coldstone. They call out from the past and invade the present. Today I thought about Into the Wild. In it, a bright young lad named Alexander Supertramp or possibly Christopher, decides to leave everything and wander. He wanders around and around. I haven’t seen the movie since I watched it about a year and a half ago on a white sofa that was kind of uncomfortable to sleep on. The whole movie came over me like a wave. It’s about that eternal search for something different, for purpose, and how sometimes in our best meaning ways we run from what is really important. After traveling the United States, Alex makes it too Alaska as a wandering Vagrant. There he discovers the meaning of his life, he understands everything, and then promptly dies.

Eddie Vedder - Society

It’s a bit like winning the lottery and getting hit by a car although that is cliché’. It’s more like finding out you were wrong all along and then dying sadly in the woods clutching that answer, perhaps with a bus as well. What makes it even sadder is the story is based on a true story. I don’t know what that means. I say stuff all the time that is based on a true story but occasionally unicorns get involved and in the muddled mess it perhaps lends itself to be less believable. Today I thought about Into the Wild, and Eddie Vedder. I don’t know what he looks like, but his song Society is quite musically pleasing to my ear canals.

After I watched that movie I hugged my best friend and we cried. He cried. I cried. It was a strange and tender moment as we both knew that I was going Into the Wild. It was the night before I would leave on my own journey. Although it did get delayed a few months, which made the somewhat infinite purpose of that night seem more emotional and dull then it should be. We talked though about this trip. I would leave friend and family, searching for a lot of things. Healing. Ministry. Jesus. I would leave behind more than I can say without going back to my base instinct of tearing up and feeling feminine. When I am really a man. A man who cries though. At that moment we both knew I wouldn’t come back the same, he wouldn’t come back the same, our whole world would change.

It did.

That night was one of those moments where I knew I couldn’t turn back, I ate pizza rolls and animal crackers covered in sticky frosting and wept. The stale pizza smell of a bachelors pad with tears and sweat is quite the combination.

Our whole world changed.

I found out strange things about myself, like I really like Curious George and California even though sometimes I tell people I don’t. I found out I love America. I had always thought I hated the land of the free. I know that is unpatriotic, so I am probably off of the watch-list because unpatriotic behavior is acceptable in America, but now I am on it cause I really like America. I think that is where I belong sometimes. I know I’m not supposed to say that. But I did. I really developed a compassion for my own people. Strange I know. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of it, I know a Mexican from Colorado who had a similar experience in Uganda.

That was the start of a strange journey. I have now come to the end of myself. A mumble mumble friend of mine prayed that this year would be the most healing time in my life. For about 9 months that didn’t seem to be so. I had lost a lot, been hurt a lot, kicked out of houses, and I also was really bad at Jenga. Yet… In an ironic twist of fate. I only say ironic cause it’s what people say when this stuff happens. Really I just think God is a funny God. He’s hilarious. He healed me with the deepest wound I could have never asked for. My father figure passed away, yet I found the grace to move on and heal. I found the grace to ultimately allow God to bestow masculinity on me when I thought that was the job of someone I would never find. I lost friends that I thought I would have forever. Three months ago my own filth and trouble confronted me. I had become bitter, arrogant, and ultimately had refused to let God heal me from a wound struck against me two years ago. Getting into that wound was the first piece of an indescribable process. Two months ago, I was brought to my knees and there found a strength in Christ that has me giggling like a school girl. And sometimes I also feel like Eyore. I also can’t spell the name of most fictional donkeys, except for the one from Shrek, Donkey. In all this God has restored me, made me myself once again. It’s so sad to see the wreckage that I made of my life by living out a false self. I was fearful, timid, passive, and jaded.

Lifted Me Out – Chris Tomlin

Most missionaries aren’t supposed to be those qualities. I think this is right. Yet I was and yet God still used me. That was nice. It’s good to know God takes weak little boys and lets them do man things. Like use hammers and tell people about there eternal destiny. So I am a new man these days. Maybe not even knew, maybe I am just who I was before I was wounded. The irony was God had to wound me in the same place I had been wounded before. It’s ironic except I guess we break jaws to make them beautiful sometimes so it makes sense if you’ve ever drank food out of a straw for six weeks. Today I walked into a thunder storm and asked God in my head to show me His wonder. I asked Him to show me He is big. I think before I would rather just think He is big and never really get shown that, cause it’s kind of scary and when I was twelve my Mickey Mouse lamp exploded and electrocuted me.

So what do you do with your life when you finally look at yourself two years later and say, “Aha! I got it!”? I kind of hope I don’t have to die in a bus eating berries. That is hard. Yet it is not unreasonable. I have learned to live with silence, extreme isolation, illiteracy, food I can’t really understand, and few friends on a Saturday night. I have learned so much, overcame things that once held me back. It feels good. It feels nice to look at the scale and see it says 95 KG instead of 112 KG. I didn’t even have to eat only subway like Jared did.

For me I guess I have lived the life of Alexander Supertramp. I ran 12,000 miles away from home. I explored, lead people to Jesus, and now I have finally seen my lesson. I have cut it into the wooden board above my cabin. I have learned my name. It isn’t such a big name, and perhaps I still have nicknames left, but I have learned who I am. I have learned I am a man, a good man, a man of God. I have learned that despite my failures, insecurities, and stubbornness that God gave me a new life, spirit, and sees me as His son. It’s pretty nice to know that I can probably play catch with Him.

It cost me my own heart to get it back. It cost my life to gain. I lost everything. Yet in that everything was found. I stand here at the end of myself, wondering if there is anything left. God is funny. Maybe He will do more funny stuff. Doesn’t matter though, the fact is I am ready for life, excited, and I have another challenge left. One more test of integrity, grace, and growth. Now I’m asking myself, not what do I need to do, but what makes me come alive.