In a way, I feel like me typing this out makes it real, makes it concrete. Makes a checkpoint in my life. The Missions Trip in '09 started this whole transformation and now it's coming to an end, more or less. I'm here. I've arrived.
This began as a blur, and I remember the day I woke up from it. A 2-year-plus blur. And I remember how the blurry life was. It was like watching my life on a screen and only every once in a while pushing a button to just gently influence a tiny bit of my life, but never enough to make any lasting impressions. No. The lasting impressions were done in the blur. And the days leading up to my "awakening", I remember thinking "there has to be more than just crawling along, barely being alive" and "how did this even begin?". Or even better "how long ago did this REALLY begin?". And I remember when I woke up from this blur thinking "what was I thinking?".
As I'm typing this, I've realized what put me in the blur. Solitude. I forced myself into something I wasn't, away from the people who made me who I really was: family.
Blurs are bad. End of story.
So then, once I was out of the blur, there was this bitterness. This anger. This resentment, towards myself and everyone around me. I felt like I had screwed up so bad, I'd never find my way back. Like I didn't deserve to be happy. That the family and friends coming to embrace shouldn't want to embrace me. So I pushed. As hard as I could, and I plummeted into a dark world, where hate was my threshold.
But then my threshold was forced to move. To cram into a van with people I hated for hours upon hours to a place I didn't choose to go. I loathed it. I loathed it all. I loathed myself. But then, something shifted in my heart. Deep, deep, deep inside my heart. As I saw others interact with people all around me less fortunate than I, something clicked. Something moved. Something shifted.
And then I heard these people speak of a moment. A moment I thought only existed in my dreams, and even there twas hard to find. A moment where God would meet them. A moment where they could speak with God. I wanted this more than I have ever wanted anything in my entire life. A way out. A way better than anything I could have ever thought up.
Now I'd be naive to say that my despair began with this horrible blur-stage, because that's not where it started. No. My despair flows through my childhood. My emotions towards my father. Towards my fears caused by that. My pressures to be something greater than myself. Everything starts there and flows into more chaos.
As we drove towards this place that all the other spoke of: the beach, I did something I rarely do. I stopped talking and focused on a single thought. Hope.
As we drew closer to the beach, I felt all my demons rising to the surface. Like I was collecting everything dark inside me and just holding it above my head, ready to let it drop into the ocean. And when that van finally stopped, I ran as fast as I could. And as soon as I settled, I separated myself from the group. I walked and walked until I was far away from everyone else and pleaded; screamed to God, cried to God, begging for Him to just speak to me. And I got nothing.
Then, after worship in the van, I heard a whisper in my head. Not an audible whisper, but something say, and it couldn't have been me, because what it said is what I never wanted to do. It said "People follow you. Lead them".
I've shortened this immensely, but, at this point in my life I find myself slipping slowly back to where I was just a year ago, and I type this to remind myself of something. There's hope.
This whole next part is just an excerpt from the paper we had to write the week after we got back from the Missions Trip, but I want to include this so I can always come back and read this whole thing together, so bear with me, as if anyone is actually reading this at all, ha.
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Right now, if I was asked about my shore, I’d say it’s pretty smooth, but lately there’s rocks and bits and pieces of things I thought had washed away forever have just washed right back, and started to once again get covered and stuck in the sand. Wow that sounds pretty lame and cheesy, but when I picture and think about my shore, that’s what I see. The sad thing though was that on the trip, once I had been on that shore, my shore was clean and smooth. I feel like things would be easier though with someone to keep me accountable. Proverbs 15:22 says:
“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed”
One moment I had with God was one day when we riding to our worksite and we were listening to Coldplay. We were passing all these houses and stores that looked rundown with homeless people here and there too, and the song “Fix You” came on. A calming sense came over me. I started to think of the reason why we had come to Texas. To fix what we could and let people know that someone cares and God is good, or at least that’s how I looked at it. But then it hit me that it’s so much more that. This isn’t just about us affecting them. It’s about them, and this whole trip, and all of that affecting all of us. Then, one night back at the church, we had our first devotion time, and I remember it clear as day.
Ben and I were shooting hoops in the gym when Candace and Steve told us we had to all get together and have a devotion time. We both immediately were kind of ticked. After a long day of work, now we would have to sit through this. So, we went, and for some reason, there was a chair in the back, separate from everyone else, and I sat there, of all places. I think I might have been having a bad night or something like that. Anyway, everything Steve and Candace said during their thing is sort of a blur, but whatever it was, I overwhelmed with this sadness and light all at once. This sudden realization that I had been living in a haze and all of a sudden the veil had been lifted and not only did I see where I was going wrong, but how to fix it, just like the song had said earlier. I broke down and began crying, and after the service, I saw Ben was crying too, which blew my mind. Semi-quiet, quite reticent, and very too himself about his feeling. But, for this one rare occasion, like a lunar eclipse, I saw it. That even the hardest shell cracked. And now that we’ve all come back to school, it’s like it never happened. But if there’s one thing about divine movements like that that I’ve learned, it’s that things like Ben uncontrollably sobbing and wanting nothing in this world but change, or the feeling I’m getting right now as I type these words, don’t happen just to be forgotten. There is always a reason behind it, always a plan, even though we don’t always see it.
The last moment, and I promise I’ll stop, is on the shore, ironically. I think it was the day after the whole devotion night we were finally going to the shore. It had been a delayed trip, but it was right on time. You see, when I talked to Candace the night before till pretty late, we talked about this. God’s timing was perfect. The Coldplay moment, then the devotion (and all kind of little things in between), building up to the one, pivotal moment: the shore. I kept hearing time and time again how Steve and Candace couldn’t wait to see the shore, where their Papa was going to speak to them. I wanted that so bad. I ached for that feeling. For what seemed like forever, I had waited for God’s voice. For God just to say one word to me, just one. Now that I look back, I think I just wasn’t listening. But this time, I told myself, would be different. I prayed the entire drive just about to the shore, praying for God to speak to me on that shore and change me. As soon as my feet touched the shore, I had my whole plan in mind. Spend some time with friends, and then go off on my own. Of course, Emma followed me and asked if it was okay if she came with me, but Emma, along with so many other things, was one of the main distractions keeping from listening. Nothing against Emma, but she’s a huge part of me, like music, another distraction. So, I just said politely I wanted to be alone for a bit. So as I walked alone down the beach, I prayed and prayed, and then stopped, and turned towards the open sea. I looked around to see if anyone was around, and there wasn’t. I said in a whisper “God, speak to me. Please, anything”. But, I got nothing. So I began to take a couple steps into the ocean. Again, I begged God for a anything: a word, even a letter would be better than silence. But I got nothing. So I took some more steps. The water began to get close to the bottom of my shorts, and it also began to pick up in intensity, it seemed, as I stepped out farther. I raised my voice a little louder. “God. Please. Something. Anything. I can’t do this anymore”. But once again, I got nothing. Tears came to my eyes and took a couple more steps in the ocean. It was getting harder to stand and I began to fear more and more what I might step on if I walked any further. And this time, my heart ached so bad, I couldn’t keep it in. I let go of holding my shorts up higher and held out my hands, and I screamed at the top of my voice “God! Tell me what to do! I’m lost! I need direction! Anything!” and for a reason I can’t explain, I grew calm. My heart stopped aching, and I walked away. I came back to the group, Ambrose spoke, told us to now go by ourselves, but I was already done. So, I joked around with Luke and everyone else I passed for a little bit while walking on the beach, and then caught up to Emma. Eventually, it got dark, and we all crawled into the van for one of my most nerve-wracking performances yet. Emma and I played some songs, and then came to this one song that had been stuck in my head for the weeks right before the trip. Never heard it before then. We played it, and the whole van grew quiet.
Whatever happened in that moment, when we played that song, changed my life forever. Steve said everyone sing along with the chorus, and everyone did. And they still were, even when we got home.
“I finally found where I belong. I finally found where I belong, in your presence. I finally found where I belong. It’s to be with you. To be with you”
It was like the words were written just for me, just for that moment. The van ride home was amazing too. Nothing but 45 minutes of just straight up worship music. No talking, or anything, and once again, Ben Sparks was breaking down, feeling the same thing I was. And then, it happened. God said “This is what you’re supposed to do: lead”. It’s simple, I feel guilty a bit saying I’ve always known it, but I have. For as long as I can remember people have said I’m a leader. Don McNally, our old youth pastor at Naz; the night he told everyone he was leaving and we were all crying, he told me something. He said “One day, God is going to do great things through me, and it would be my choice to let him or not”. Steve and I have had talks about it for a while sophomore year. About a week, if I remember correctly, before we left for the trip too, I ran into Brannon, and he didn’t say anything really but a couple sentences. He said “You’re the only one that’s gonna change things”, or something to that effect, referring to the school and chapel and whatnot. And, the night when Candace and I spoke, she talked about my undeniable leadership...
My eyes have been opened though to just the lack of openness to the Spirit among peers. Supposed Christians aren’t acting like Christians, and non-Christians teens have no one to go to it seems as if they are barely any teen Christians making any big impact. It makes me just that much more determined to do something big, and I will, but just not on my time. I have to have a lot of patience. I might want this now, but who really knows when this will happen. I know it will though. I just know it.
