Everyday our lives are filled with fights, battles and wars. Some of those battles may be with an enemy, a friend, could even be both, but I think the hardest battle is ones self. There are days where you reach a point of desperation, you come to a sense where you’ve had enough, and some try to run away from their problems. The hardest thing I know is waking up in the morning and having to find out that my biggest battle is myself; I can’t simply run away from it. There are many times where I feel stupid, selfish, full of regret of something I knew I shouldn’t have said or done, and it becomes hard. But every time I fall, I get back up, every time I mess up, I brush off the dirt from my knees and keep going, keeping my eyes fixed on the prize. To put away ones self, ones dream, ones vision, ones own desires…all for something and someone who is greater. It’s not easy, it’s never easy, nor would it be easy to climb Mount Everest. Life just isn’t always going to be easy, and it isn’t going to be so pleasant. But where my hope begins to rise is when I keep running, and I take my eyes off of me. In the end, the only thing that is left is me…and eternity. So as I keep running this race of life, I’m reminded of the next life that is to come. To not loose hope, to not give in to pain, to not give up.

“Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle. He’s gonna fight and he’s gonna lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself. This battle is not over.”

I’ve been living in a new place for about 8 months now and I can definitely say it has been a crazy adventure, both good and bad. I’ve realized so many things in my life, like the things that matter most and what to value, and my biggest fear was letting go from where i’ve been. I’m not talking about destroying my past like as it was a mistake. I held on to what I valued most, in which I soon realized didn’t value me in return, and that was what kept me in my circle of insecurity.

I grew up around a lot of people, friends and family which made who I am today and I never regret that, ever. I always had great friends in my life, some that left scars and others the covered them, and I thank God for those who covered and stayed with me. I honestly thought I had a lot: was making a decent amount of money for my age, was driving a decent car, and had decent friends who had decent jobs. This made me believe that I was something I never was, you can call it pride, but I like to call it insecurity. I embraced this because it temporarily filled that void. I definitely had people who really loved me, but I didn’t realize who those people where.

Once I left my hometown in which I spent 20 years of my life, I left everything: my family, friends, church, and job. I was brought into a world I never knew existed, as if I was Bubble Boy, boxed in my own little world. I dove into conversations with people I never knew existed and talked about things I had never thought people could talk about. I was indeed an exile. This fascinated me as I had lived my life thinking one way, talking one way and looking down on those “other” people who were different from me. This new discovery brought me to a place in which I blankly stared at, with no direction or agenda…and I embraced it. I embraced it because I finally chose to let go of everything I was holding onto that brought me down. Soon I realized what was of worth, of value in my life that deserved it. There were many sad moments, but the joy was so overwhelming that there was no need to look back.

I now what I want in my life, who I really am, who God’s been shaping me and molding me to be, responding to His call, and it was all because I chose to let go and jump. I laugh so many times thinking about what I’ve been through, tears of bitter joy overwhelm me, and there are still times where I still hold on to it, but it’s only a matter of time before I will need to jump once again, to break out of my comfort world.

One of my favorite writer/artist wrote something that I recently related to, he writes “I never knew the world until I saw through your eyes, I never knew my self until I ripped off my disguise.” and does that give me so much joy! So much joy to look forward of what’s to come, to see where God takes me on this crazy buck wild adventure we call life.

There are times where I walk through life seemingly formulated, thinking I have figured out some parts of this road, and it makes me wonder if there is something more. I know indeed there is something more to this road, but I think we hardly every think in that perspective. It is like we have the answers in our hands, but yet we raise it in confusion. We tend to follow certain traits that will sustain that void inside of us, and we all have voids in our lives, yet those traits never satisfy. It’s like if that answer we hod onto is so simplistic yet so we respond as if we’re oblivious. We all know what’s valid. I don’t think we have much of a problem with that, it’s more of a reality issue. When it becomes authentic, that’s when the perspective of your road shifts and you see it in a way you never knew existed.