The New Mayor

Today, there is a lot that I could talk about. Last night was rather incredible to be honest, and I definitely did not expect it, but I am really unsure of the consequences for such a night. I do not know what this means for my life and my own health. Last night I went over to Jason’s house to celebrate his dad’s recent mayoral victory and sat together, for what was supposed to be a short celebration. Jason shared some of his pain he has from his childhood, and how that plays into the raising of his two sons. He shared that he is afraid he is not very creative with his boys, that he does well with them in other areas, like hanging out and playing cars, but not so much in creating fun ways to play their games in unique fashion. Jon then shared a little about his own fears in marriage and being afraid of carrying over some of his father’s habits of completely shutting out people, going months on end without talking to him or his siblings. This is an incredibly difficult thing to imagine. How incredibly painful to be so disgraced that you are not even spoken too. I am not sure that I understand all of this, but Jon’s story is an interesting one, one that is filled with heart-ache and pain, and also full of God’s mercy and grace. Jon and I are quite a bit different however. He said that he ran fully into God’s arms, waking up every morning at 6 am to go into a field to be with his dad…he would spend an hour or more there every morning. I did not do this. He said that God was all he had, so he would get up early go to this field and lay face down on ground, just spending time with God.
Jon and I are different. I am not really sure why I did not pursue God in this way, perhaps I was afraid, I mean, I spent a lot of time reading the Psalms, and was able to relate with David in quite a few of his psalms, I prayed those earnestly from my basement bedroom. I cried a lot at night. I felt a lone. I felt scared. I was unsure that God even really cared. But I also was able to learn that there had been a lot of other people who had the same kinds of fears. I never quite got to the point that the “floodwaters were up to my neck” but I did feel like I was left a lone in an incredibly large dark room, with no sign of light or anyone else…just myself, wandering if anyone knew where I was, or if anyone cared to find me.
I met a friend around that time, a friend who passionately loved God, not just by going to church, but loved him with his whole life. I learned that the simply answers I had been struggling through were not where the story of Jesus ends, he is in the dark open room with me. He is actually there protecting me from the things that I cannot even see, the things that are threatening me, that I am not even aware of. Mostly, he told me that I was loved. He had been through a lot of the same things that I was struggling with, and heck, he was ok, he was really, really happy and actually enjoyed his life, maybe that was something I could do to.
I am actually going to wait a bit with writing on high school and some of the rest of my life actually. I need to take a little break.
Have a great day, and may the grace and peace of Christ be with you.