untitled

i always wanted to be a writer

a musician

a artist

someone who loves the skin that hugs their bones so comfortably

someone who just plain and simple loved their self

but when i tried to make myself into the things that i was not

tidy

on-time

emotionally detached and unable to feel hurt

i became something i was not

pretending to be tidy made my mind a mess

trying to be fifteen minutes early everywhere made me stay home

and denying myself the ability to process made me

n u m b. 

in this search of myself

what should be a pursuit of joy

i had merely just organized chaos and shoved it in my heart

and boy does it hurt when it explodes...

but

when i let go of myself

when i bury the control that i want to keep

i became free to write a poem about the sky

sing a silly song about the trees

and smell the paint stained on my old t-shirt

and suddenly it's not about what i can do

but it becomes about how beautiful it is that there are things i cannot do

because after all this time,

i am not defined by what i have the ability to do or become

i am defined by love that is so graciously given to me

that my friends

is what it means to be f ree

-jr

the thief

what a shame it is, i thought to myself

as i watched other people die out

the passion that they had, now gone

because comparison came and ate their flame

had they only seen what i saw in them, i said

they were almost there, they almost saw the end

until they saw the people who were already there

the people who already peaked

the people who had their dreams in their hands

but your dream was so close, you were right on the verge

you could not see it

but i could

still you let it die

along with your heart

your passion, dreams, and victory, you let them all part

how could you do this? i said again

are you just going to let the enemy win?

but while i was watching you, rise then fall from your dreams

i forgot about myself while comparing to you

and

i let go of my thoughts

i let go of my dreams

i unraveled at the seams

i 've forgotten how to be me

seasons of change

change, changing, changed.

A junior in high school and those three simple words in different forms still seem foreign.

They crawl around the back of my mind, pulling on the what ifs. 

I push off the thoughts and cling to what I know, but I know that the change, the impact, is coming for me. 

"I don't want to move to Georgia"

"I don't want to quit dance"

"I'm not ready to grow up and have relationships"

"I don't want to leave my friends"

All this change, these possible life moments and unknowns looming around my conscious.

When did I tie my own wings to the ground and say I wasn't allowed to fly further than the leash I put around my own neck?

Fearful of the grass I can't see because I limited myself to a four by four patch.

I put up a wall around my heart, my 'comfort zone' wall. It's filled with the same places, faces, and smells. It hardly ever changes and if there's a bump, I jump over it and keep going.

When I reach the wall I silently note, 'no need to go further, JacyRayn, you are doing just fine right here'.

So I don't.

I stay right there in the same place around the same people in the same places.

---

What I never noted though, was with this exile of change in my life, my heart grows cold and numb. It can no longer help the new people who need the warmth and love of Jesus to fill their holes to the very brim. The wall does not allow for me to overflow on to bare soil and wait for the new to grow.

When you limit yourself to the same grass, it stops growing eventually, and withers.

"There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. "  

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8;11

There's a reason that the farmer moves his cows and horses from one field to another.

It's not because he wants them to be shocked by the change of atmosphere or because he just feels that they got too comfortable in the other one; it's because he's taking care of them and wants them to be well fed. He cares about their well being! 

God does not bring change out of hate or 'because He feels like it', He does it out of love, my friends. 

I am learning that while change can be unnerving and reckless, when you take yourself off the lead rope you receive freedom. Freedom comes with responsibilities, but wouldn't you rather be free to experience life from every point aside from just one? 

Keep your love, amigos.

-jr xx