 Saturday, May 26, 2007
This entry is for all the readers who stumble upon this. Those few that ever do. Over these last three years this blog has provided me a place to work things out in my new found struggles. To start I was in a mid-twenties crisis, but now am desiring change.
There has been much change over the last three years. Change I would never have thought of. I just don't have the words to share on here much these days. Most stuff I write on open and paper. I have been doing a lot more writing. So if you ever wander what I am up to please email me at mrbranch@gmail.com
posted by Tom at 9:40 AM
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Sunday, May 20, 2007
Dear readers (if anyone is left),
This chapter in my life is coming to an end. It is not a journey seeking any more. Now life is more about becoming. So I will here soon put out one more final entry to this long running blog. It's been over two years. I will keep it up as I will be pulling info so that I may write a book on this perhaps. So enjoy it while it is here. A journey seeking is coming to an end.
posted by Tom at 8:33 PM
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Why am I angry? Why am I wanting to give up? Why am I now demanding something back from God?
Listed in no particular order. I.Job situation I have been searching for over two years now and noting. I may get a good interview now and then but they are false hopes as they do not go any further than that. I search job boards but without a degree they will not even talk to you. Even if you have experience in the are, they still will not look at you. So I want to try to go to school. I have to pay for it all out of my own pocket. Needless to say my work hours make it hard for me to wake up every afternoon and do anything until I have to. My hours I come home and sit alone until I can manage to fall asleep 2-3 hours later. I have to cut short church and groups many nights, the times I normally need for me, my wind down time to ponder. I no longer have that. I am often too tired by the time I come home to focus on anything that requires thought. II.Health/Weight I am trying to get my health back in order. I have been drinking more water, eating better, eating less bad foods, excersizing a lot more.....and I cannot break the 300lbs mark. No matter what I do I cannot loose this weight to regain my health. I stay fat. I know that I need someone that can help keep me motivated, give me that push when I need it. I have asked but no one. I know there are several people I know that Go to the YMCA, yet I cannot get anyone to ever meet me there. It's everyone for themselves. But when I ask for help, humbly as I possibly can, I get nothing. So I must do this alone and have no external support. Even one of the websites I am on it's ok, it has helped me alot....but it lacks the human touch and is filled with women. No men. So I cannot relate to them. I am able to go to the gym at work most nights, but I am by myself. I have to watch Futurama for an hour while I work out so I forget I am alone and can keep on walking during the time. But I still cannot break the 300lbs mark. There is no hope in myself, and no hope from others for me in this. III. I Cannot finish this list right now as Iam getting very angry thinking of it. I have called out to God for help, admitted I cannot do this alone. And he sends me no one. Those around me that I do get some little time with are married, and it is growing harder to connect with them. No one is like me anymore. Everyone around me in life has something to live for, a job, a family, career, education, etc. I have nothing or no one. Only myself. I am tired of being by myself and tired of being selfish, but when it is all you got you tend to go with what you know. I need help and no one can or will give it. God wont communicate with me. I want to know there is reason for this suffering. And I find none, not a single reason nothing to cling onto. Right now I am ready to quit all spiritual affairs. I need God to take a step to me. Much like my mother, she has abandoned me as well. Where is God when I need him? Why do I not feel forgiven? Why can't he let me know, not just hear some pretty scripture but KNOW.
posted by Tom at 3:40 PM
1 comments
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
***Please note this was written in poetic form. I needed a way to get my feelings out. This is how I feel right now. God has left me alone in my walk by man and him, he has hidden his face from me, he leaves me angry, frustrated, and hurt...I feel he may wish me condemned. A few people have emailed and commented on this blog, but the feelings are still there. This is a curse upon me and to difficult to work through of my own power, yet I cannot cal upon god's power. ***
Where are you? I see you here and there But not with me I do not feel you I live downcast. You say seek and you shall find I have sought and I have not found. I feel alone I do not feel you So alone I feel How can I trust? My cross I cannot bear alone I wish to take upon your yoke But you will not help me take off mine. Humbly I came to you or so I felt with my heart And now only feel that you wish to condemn me to hell Is so far all I am getting in return. For hours each day I hear only my voice The voice you despise. Even in crowds I am not there. When I am weakest where are you? The red man finds me Very often he does. So I go onward living living only for me The very one thing you ask me to give you The only thing you gave me And you ask leaving me with nothing. Where are you? I cannot step off the cliff without you My faith is very little And running lower Yes I have heard this life would be hard Nothing was said about lonely nothing was said about self inflicted pain. I did not want to believe psalm 77 I wanted to take up my sins As it was me who hid from you But no it was right all along How long will you hide from me? Your words are not comforting any more Even listening to the red man He is not satisfying Both leave me without I cannot take solace in your words right now I feel empty with you I feel empty without you This is why I feel condemned You give me many desires to change desires to grow desires to become desires to become family with all your children And you leave me wandering. Angry frustrated hurt and alone. Maybe one day I can ask to seek you again Until then forgive me but I cannot call upon your name Until I know again that I have not been orphaned
posted by Tom at 5:17 AM
1 comments
Monday, March 19, 2007
Will I snap out of this? Will I come out of the depths of my anguish? On the surface things are not that bad. Deeper they very well may be.
Not all has been bad. A friend came over late Saturday night and we talked some gospel stuff. It really did help. I found some great insight on the way somethings have been for me lately. It actually has given me an anchor point to start off again. I have been reading scripture again. But still at work I judge. I still get tempted and sin badly, speak ill of others and more. BUt it seems that the book of James is speaking more clearly to me right now. Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor? James 4:11-12 (New Living Translation)I am a resistant hard headed, Um I could insert a nice expletive here, but I won't. Even last night I still did the same thing. I did not want to follow. I wanted to show my disgust at the powers that be (at work). I am still trying to learn to trust God. It is still difficult when I pray for forgiveness and repentance and I still live enslaved tot he same sins over and over. It gets hard to simply follow. I am so not a morning person and it takes me a long time to get up and started. So I can;t really have a morning devotional. But at nights when i really need to like after community group or service on Sundays, the time I need to stop and focus, I have to go to work. It gets forgotten. It becomes something to do like a checklist of social activities. Then i go to work. I go from supportive Christians, to nothing. Into a world where performance is demanded and perfection as well. So the life worked out for me is going off into the wilderness alone. very frequently. Then I come home and the roommates are asleep so I have even more time alone. My sins are selfish. And so far life works out for me being alone alot. God said in the bible it is not good for man to be alone. Yes I am alone ALOT. How can I trust him right now? I find it harder to believe the word these days. I see so many others around me that have help or a support system and I get the ones that are married or always busy. So following God is a very lonely road? And I am to just follow? Bear burdens alone? Have an ever burning desire for marriage and Christian relationships but not get them? It is not God who tempts me to sin, but the devil. But God does not seem to be delivering me from these sins. I feel he is just leaving me there. I now see that Satan is really warring with me. He hits me when i am weak at work, alone for hours after work, and away from other Christian fellowship pointing each other towards Christ. So God has left me alone and Satan is attacking then. Right now I am not really falling completely for either God or Satan. Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. "I will give it all to you," he said, "if you will kneel down and worship me." Matthew 4:8-9 (New Living Translation)So there we have some insight. Satan does the same to me but instead of the nations ofthe world it is my desires, thoughts, all my hearts desires. He gives me the visions of power and happiness. But Ihave not caved in and started following him. Yet at the same time I don't follow God as much to counter this because it hurts. And I feel I cannot completely trust in him. I am alone in my own strength so many times, or at least the strength he gave me, but that works like a glass filled up to the top and told to hit the hot desert where it evaporates quickly. So I am always going back for more. but the watering hole is not always nearby. So here I am. Left alone by God and attacked by Satan when I am weakest. I love this journey and am also hating it at the same time. Yes the Christian life is hard, but I feel it is more lonely than hard. What have I done to anger him so much to not love me in this way? Not love me by leaving me so alone and allowing these sins to come through. Why?
posted by Tom at 2:59 PM
1 comments
Sunday, March 04, 2007
I am stuck between a cross and a hard place.
"The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-bye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing, it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more." A.W. Tozer, the Best of. I know I have quoted this before. But this is where my soul wants to go. But in the midst of it all my heart is not at the same place. This story is familiar.
I am right where this guy is. The weight of my cross is heavier than I ever could have imagined. I am come to the shadow of my cross over these last few years. And I see it and run. I hear what God asks me to surrender and I run. It hurts to even ponder it. Labels: A journey becoming
posted by Tom at 3:02 PM
1 comments
Monday, February 26, 2007
Here lately it seems am growing a challenge to think artfully. I put a photo into a show for the "Love" exhibit at church here this month. And the photo sold. As a photographer this is a milestone to have my first piece sold.
Then I have two more photos going on display in a "Documenting place" exhibit. But the newest challenge is for cultivating beauty month we have every year at church. But this year I have two ideas of art to submit. One that will require some antique shopping. So this means I will need to find a woman to go shopping with cuz I lack those antique skills as a guy hahaha. But the heart of the matter is cultivation. And I really want to express some more of the inners or reflections I have come to as of late. Thinking of it God has been cultivation in me into something of greater beauty. He uses the ugly sinners of the world not the pretty sinners. Well we all are sinners. Some are realistic in how they look in it. This journey is taking on a whole new level. Most of it due to much reading and pondering. And the class from How People change is about to wrap up, and I will be taking the class again when it starts up two weeks later. And who knows. I am defiantly now an Journey Becoming. But in return of the love God has bestowed upon me, I should cultivate in return with the provisions given.
posted by Tom at 2:16 PM
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