The road ahead is tough. I don’t know where it will take me. All I can do at this point is waste zero time in trying to become the person I want to be. I think I have a good idea about who that person is. Things to look forward to: Just so you all know, I’m going to try to make one post a day just saying what’s going on in my life and how I am progressing. As suggested my an old friend and pastor, I will be reading 1 and 2 Peter (which I’ve already read as of last night but need to dissect it and analyze/study it) and post my thoughts and findings when I am ready.
I may have mentioned in my previous post that for my personal journey it starts with the music I listen to. My mind has been filled with nothing but sports radio—which isn’t so bad; I was the go-to person for thoughts on my boys on the San Francisco Giants for friends and family. (The posts before this new journey would probably indicate my love of baseball and the Giants.) When I wasn’t listening to KNBR 680, I was listening to rap/hip-hop music—which is fun to listen to and I really just like the beats and the way the words go with those beats. For the most part I could care less about the words, but I never realized how they could become a part of my every day speech. Granted, it’s not like that music was the sole contributor. The college environment isn’t the most PG-rated place to be, and not that my friends are bad people, but we all dropped the F word and others as if they were substitutes for saying ‘like’. Lately I’ve even heard my little brother talk this way, and while I want to walk up to him and tell him to cut it out, I can’t because I realize how hypocritical I would look. I haven’t been the best role model. I hate that the things my brother feels comfortable telling me are about his escapades outside school and things that I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing at his age. (I won’t explicitly name them because they aren’t the point I’m trying to make). What I am trying to say is, I want to be a person who my brother wants to be like for the right reasons.
However, as of Wednesday, I’ve created a new CD with old music. Not like 60s and 70s pop hits, but music that I listened to when I was at my high point in my walk with God—music that encouraged me when times were hard, music that challenged me when I was feeling on top of the world, music that comforted me when I was at my lowest, music that moved me in a way other music has never been able to do. I have had a really tough time picking today’s song of the day, but I know each of them will have their time in the coming days. Though I guess I could throw out a teaser. Jeremy Camp, Lincoln Brewster, Aaron Shust, Big Daddy Weave, and interestingly enough, Uncut Faith (a band my friends formed in high school) have taken over my 30+ minute drive to school and continue to fill my mind. However, I’ve decided (as it currently plays) that today’s song of the day has to be “Give It All Away” by Aaron Shust.
The soft, quiet intro feels like and have become my prayer for the day. “Search my heart, search my mind, search my soul. Make me clean, make me new, make me whole.” That’s how this song starts. And that’s not even the part that gets me, but it’s what I desire in light of my abrupt awakening: to be searched, cleaned out, and made whole by God, finding and weeding out all of my shortcomings, and then filling those holes with forgiveness, repentance, and love.
The next part epitomizes what I’ve completely and utterly failed to do for the last few years: “All of my plans, all of my dreams, I lay them down before Your feet. All of my time, all that was mine, I now submit to your design.” The power in that literally hurts my chest. Especially in the last year, I’ve started getting close to the home stretch in college. I’ve been thinking about finishing up, trying to get this internship that will set us up for success, and occupying the majority of my time in my schoolwork. Now, that ladder isn’t a bad or wrong thing. However, when I use it as an excuse to skip out on my relationship with God, skip out on Church, and skip out on wanting these things for my relationship before school, that’s when it becomes unhealthy. Not just the stress that comes with it, but the added stress of not knowing that things are going to be okay when God has a plan and a plan that always works out in our favor for our own benefit. I’ve completely missed that. When I was dismissed from Cal Poly after three grueling years, I was angry at God and practically shunned him for simply showing me the exit after I’d worked so hard in the hopes of providing my future family and the family we would create would be financially stable. Those too aren’t bad hopes to have for a family; ask any man if he wished he could provide more for his family and be able to give them more than what his paycheck can afford—things like college education, a house to grow a family in, a car to get to work, food on the table with an occasional nice dinner out, all kinds of things that I have been most fortunate in receiving from my parents. I can almost guarantee that most husbands and fathers would agree with this. But what I didn’t realize until today while talking with my former principal is that these desires, while admirable, are not the most important thing and it’s not the only thing women want. Women want to be loved first beyond all things, cared for, heard, respected. I always thought I was doing those things, but I realize that I’ve slipped at times. I’m not a person to blame anything, but rather a person that is ready to admit anything when I realize I’ve been wrong. Alcohol isn’t what made me lash out at people at times in frustration about nothing, but my choice and decision to consume it in excess was. I see that now. I thought I saw it earlier and I apologized to those I had hurt to the utmost degree promising that it would never happen again. And I’d keep that promise for a while until, as a friend pointed out, I broke it and tainted my ability to make that kind of a promise. I’ve been forgiven for these things, but the scar will always be there until I can prove that I am capable of keeping a promise. In other words, my character and my honor have been compromised.
But there is an answer. The song continues, “’cause you are the one and only one who dared to give it all away for me. You are my strength, You are my God, You are my King. You make me laugh, You make me dance, You make me sing.” I still acknowledge and believe in a saving God as I always have but never talked about, despite being mad at him at times. Probably because I am a people-pleasing person who doesn’t want to impose my beliefs on others, and that sometimes I am even scared to because of what they might think of me and how it would affect our friendship. I know he gave everything he had away when he gave himself up on the cross for everyone. The ways He made me laugh and dance and sing were obtained from my old youth group at First Baptist Church in Windsor, CA. The place where I really got to know my partner and finally got smart in 2005 when I realized that I “loved” her. I mean, what 14 or something year old kid knows he loves someone and says he wants to marry them? That same principal I mentioned earlier said no way, that just doesn’t happen, and we continued to be told we didn’t love each other for years. A really good friend of mine even called it infatuation. If you want my side, it was that I knew she was something special and had never had a person care about me the way she did, never had a person make me laugh the way she did, never had a person that made me want to spend every second I could with her. She was and continues to be the greatest gift God has ever provided me with aside from His own love and His own Son. Genesis 2:18 says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” It continues to talk about how He created the animals of the Earth, but no suitable helper was found (2:20) and so he made Eve and said “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh” (2:24). I’ve always felt like I’ve found my other half that was to make me whole, and so years past, high school passed, college was hard with a year of separation and then separation again once I came home, but it passed, and now we’re both back in Windsor together and I never thought I could be more overjoyed that we would never again be separated. (the song is on repeat and now it has caught up to where I am once again as it breaks into a hard distortion [grinding guitar] for the second chorus, “all of my plans, all of my dreams….”
I cannot rely on myself on my journey. I have to trust that God will continue to make my life complete and guide my steps, regardless of the outcome. However, I firmly believe that He will guide me back on the path I was once on and is using this journey I am embarking on as a way to grow me and make my relationship with my partner stronger than it has ever been before, before we start an incredible life together with each other and God Himself, and raise a family on those values as well. I have taken so many things in my life for granted up until this point, but one thing is for sure: I couldn’t cherish her and our relationship more than I do now. I am excited for where His light will guide our feet. However, I’m even more anxious to get there—though I know I must take it one step at a time.
The rest of the song is pretty solid, reiterating the previous verses I shared above and is well worth a listen to give confidence, support, and hope. I highly recommend giving it a listen even if you’ve heard it before. Sorry for writing a brief novel here, but I hope that it has been beneficial or inspiring or applicable or anything to you. In the future, I will try to keep these posts to under 1000 words but I just couldn’t stop myself from expressing everything on my first go-around. Please keep me in your prayers and that God’s Will will be done in my relationships. Thank you and God bless.
-Spencer
Song of the Day: “Give It All Away” – Aaron Shust
Spencer Vaishville 