You are Like a Bag of Fireworks

Your face. Everything about you is in your face.

I never wonder what you are feeling or what you’re thinking. I can see it on your face like when the sun is in my eyes in the late afternoons. You scream with the best of them, but when you love, it’s with everything. You can’t hug tight enough, you squeeze my cheeks like old ladies pinch babies’ faces.

You announce yourself. You are the least subtle person there has ever been, and I’m smiling just thinking about it. If the sunrise creeps into the morning, you are the joy that comes with it.

You Fight for Love

I want to be the one who fights for you. I don’t know what that means, but it’s from the complete center of my heart. I want to be something other than a protector, because I know you can stand up for yourself. It’s more like I want to be the guy wearing a t shirt with your name on it. But more than a fan. Because I want to do all I can to see you become who I hope you can become.

I want to cheer you on when you’re brave, because you can be so brave. I want to tell the world about you when you’re kind, because you are insurmountably kind. 

Maybe he wants me to hear the music like he did

He laid down on my twin bed. The overhead light was on. I stood between my bed and my closet, holding an acoustic guitar my aunt gave my sister, but she never used it. I stood straight, not knowing how to be calm about it, but he asked me. He heard me practicing in my room, and he didn’t want to make a big deal about it. He just wanted to hear me.

The guitar was out of tune and I didn’t know how to play all the chords in the song. I remember everything sounding muffled and my face being red. But slowly I played a song for my dad and he said nothing while I played. He just laid there and watched me.

And Then He Met Me While I Looked For Him

When I was in middle school, I played football.

I was a lineman and second string. So this meant that most games I played for about a minute and then hung out with my friends on the sidelines while the other (read: better) kids played football.

One game night was different. We were playing against a playground team, and the big deal was that the other team had a girl player. I remember our coach talking to us about it on the bus ride over like it was a big deal. She was a lineman like me, and there were a couple plays where we were lined up against each other. That’s mostly it for her. She played football in middle school just like everyone else who played football in middle school.

I can be completely satisfied if I want to be

Who I am presently is an image of who God is and has forever been.

Presently and without qualification, my existence is intrinsically tied to the Lord. How I am in my imagery and in my understanding of who I am, whether I like it or not, will forever have its foundation in the altogether eternal and infinite existence of the Divinely Loving God who is Beauty and Goodness Itself. In other words, as God is so do I reflect Him. And yet I know that I don’t love like He does. I am not satisfied with myself like He is with Himself.

Guilt is a Symptom

Some have described it as a kind of shaking…

Others see swirls and spots. Some cannot exist with harsh lighting, like they’re cave dwellers. Still some talk about nausea and spinning sensations. For me, the most pronounced feeling I experience when I go through the cycle of a migraine is this incredible and pointed guilt. That I should be and want to be a different kind of person with a more fulfilled-potential kind of life, but no matter why I will be stuck feeling what I feel with no end in sight.

It’s a lie. It’s always been a lie…

Running From Death

I found myself smoking behind a classroom around midnight, looking up at the Pali mountains in Hawaii…

Vulnerability Heals Doubt Part 2

I moved there to do something with my life. I also moved there to run away from a life of dynamic, loud, Christianity teetering against drug addiction, depression, and the fear of losing more than I could handle. James was diagnosed with cancer, and Jessica filed for divorce, so I wanted to get out before this death caught up to me…

• • •

I had countless nights in Hawaii where all I did was sit in this plastic chair, watch the night sky, and sit with the Lord. Some could see that as faithfulness, but He and I argued with each other night after night for months. It was hardly faithfulness; this was a reckoning.

Becoming a Father: “Just Wake Up for A Minute…”

I was sitting at the table reading when I noticed these small red dots on my arm.

(Written on a quiet Saturday morning in early July, 2017)

Small red dots wouldn’t alarm most people I suppose. Especially during the summer months and allergies all around us, small red dots wouldn’t seem all too noticeable. Maybe it’s a little reaction to the peppers I was slicing earlier. Maybe I brushed against some plant when my daughter and I went for a walk the other day. Maybe my skin is dry. Sure. Small thing, that I could choose to look past and move on. But as I looked down at my hand, my mind was transported to the seventh floor of Oschner Hospital in 2003.