Prayer
I want to express my secrets
but there’s no one who will listen.
I push away those who draw near
because it seems they’re insincere.
I hope to find my hiding place
before my soul loses to death.
I drown in my own loneliness
bearing everything on myself.
I need to trust a little more
building bridges as I stumble.
I want to express my secrets
but I know I’d be far out-cast.
If only people could transcend,
behave as if they truly loved,
I know I would no longer hide
behind the mask I’ve learned to wear.
You
How can I trust you when I know you have a motive?
How can I receive trust when I think everyone has a motive?
How can you speak like that when we both know better?
How can I reply when I know I know better?
You’re just acting, to me.
If you want more, challenge me.
Torn Between Two Worlds
“I’m caught between one and the other.
In the middle, I see both.
My heart misses one and longs for the other!
Is there no way to have both?”
-Tina Clark, “Torn Between Two Worlds”
I’m already looking forward to both this summer, when I’ll be learning intense guitar and meeting up with old friends, and next school year, when I’ll be having the time of my life living with my closest college buddies.
I remember in the summer when I was looking forward to college, I didn’t know exactly what to expect, except that it would probably be better than my boring life at home. I just never knew that the few times I went back to the Bay, I’d grow closer to the people there way faster than when I had been taking them for granted. I’m pretty sure of all those few times that I went back, the youth retreat in Twain Harte was definitely the most important of them. It showed me that I could have that closeness of brotherhood that I enjoy so much in college in the Bay Area, as well as how the “older” group was less intimidating as I used to think (I was forced to join their after-speaker small group, since I’m in college instead of high school).
Now I get sad even thinking that when this school year ends, I’ll have to say goodbye to most of my college friends, and later, when the summer ends, I’ll have to say goodbye to all of my Bay Area friends.
I know I’m going to make the best of the summer, though. I’ve learned from my lack of activity to never do the same again; I’ll become involved, I’ll become closer to my friends, I’ll become more than invisible.
I’ll become a better person…if only I could drive.
I Think Sugar Depresses Me
I wish the focus of our fellowship was always to glorify God. On Friday we had a pretty lame “Live Bang” game night. It was a chaotic disorder of a supposedly western theme. Honestly, I don’t think it was even good fellowship at all, considering how the few new people there were turned off either by the lack of God during the night (okay, there was worship music, but it was only for like 10 minutes) or turned off by the lack of overall organization that might have made the event a success. Despite what could have happened if it were planned better, it still nags me that we didn’t really glorify God through the game that night.
I keep having two thoughts that bother/disturb me though. The first is that I could have been at home doing something else, probably glorifying God just as much as that night did. What I feel disturbed about it is that those types of thoughts would be what is driving me away from the fellowship and, ultimately, Christ.
The other thought that disturbs me is that that’s exactly the type of attitude my high school fellowship had. It was the “Friday/Sunday churchgoer” mentality that I hated about that fellowship. Though a fellowship is arguably simply about the people, there’s no such thing as a Christian fellowship if it doesn’t glorify God. The kicker here is that the point of such an event was to bring more people to Christ, and it did not manage to do that at all. I know that if I was visiting my fellowship for the first time and that’s all they did, I would be disgusted by their so called “Christian” fellowship and would never visit again. I suppose in high school it was a little more acceptable because…well, because I didn’t have a passion for God throughout high school as I do now. But I really wonder about my own authenticity/credibility: is it acceptable to be so critical of this even though I didn’t care or didn’t mind it in high school?
Things are changing.
Now that you’re near
Everything is different
Everything’s so different lord
I know I’m not the same
My life you’ve changed
I wanna be with you
I’ve considered making a blog for a while now (since maybe the middle of February?), but I hadn’t gotten around to actually making it until now. I suppose I should be thankful for this gentle lapse of spare time, though many around me would argue that I’m never working anyways. I suppose the purpose of this blog would just be to jot down whatever feelings I have at the time that I feel I can’t express in real life, but it’s impossible for me to be honest with the blog as if it were a completely trustworthy friend (and I haven’t found that in real life, either).
To be honest, I doubt that this blog would somehow make some of my more serious internal conflicts that I shield to myself emerge such that I would willingly discuss with an audience, nonetheless the rest of the world. I don’t even know if I’m willing to discuss them with myself. I know for a fact that if someone tried to talk to me about them, I’d make up something on the spot that would help my new “counselor” feel better about him or herself.
That seems to happen a lot to me. I always end up letting my “other side” talk to their “other side”; nothing gets done except us wasting our breaths and me wondering why those problems are dug so deep. Sometimes I wish that everyone just dropped their masks and spoke honestly with each other.
So if that’s an impossible, idealistic dream, I suppose that dreaming is what I was meant to do. I’ll try to express my true thoughts, the real me, without putting up a barrier of phoniness in front of myself in this blog.
—
Two days ago, an older person who went through college shared with me some of his experiences throughout this time in his life. What he said about the smallest events being used by God as part of his plan got me to think about how I turned back to Jesus, after having several months of shallow darkness, and a whole 18 years of profound wandering. I am truly thankful for those small, but consecutive events that led me back to the Lord.
It reminds me of the book of Esther and how God works in wonderfully mysterious ways. Until the fruition of what God has in store for me, I suppose I won’t know at all what each and every tiny thing that happens to me is supposed to mean.
The only thing I’m sure about, though, is that I am definitely growing and changing.
