the bartending nanny

thanks for continuing to read here. i often find myself hesitant to write; scared of failure and even success. i feel about writing as i used to feel about playing high school football. there were moments of football practice that i looked forward to experiencing, but i honestly only wanted to hit somebody, something, and get to game day as quickly as possible. i knew hitting stuff would help me deal with battles within, and i knew friday night’s game would bring me glory. i was right about one of these two.

i didn’t know how much i would miss it until i was sobbing through a prayer with my pastor dad on our knees in the end zone after the final game of my senior year. i wasn’t going to play football in college. most folks thought i was too small. in those final moments, i would’ve given anything for just one more practice.

you see, the games, much like published pieces of writing (as i understand it), don’t bring lasting peace. it’s been said many times in many ways, but the journey is the destination. it’s “on earth as it is in heaven”, not on earth until we get to heaven.

so i keep writing, hating every first few minutes and loving every second after those. i’m still hitting people and things, but with words this time, which someone once said are mightier than tools of war.

i have to write, or else i begin to feel physically sick. it’s as if my body can’t contain the thoughts and words i have within and begins to give up on me if i don’t release them. secondarily, i have to write because i want to document what i experience.

it’s not narcissistic, i promise. the first person who ever encouraged me to journal told me “write as if even your mom will never read this”. i do write things that others will read (this blog, for example), but i try my damnedest not to let that knowledge of other eyes season my words and how i present them. it’s not whether someone will read it. it’s whether i write as if someone will read it.

i mentioned in my last post that this blog’s content would be changing or at least include other things besides bartending and nannying. this entry is one such example.

i will be more specific in further entries, but let me say this now: i believe i am on the precipice of answering a stirring in my heart that i remember as far back as 14 years ago. god has been calling me, and i am finally beginning to listen.

this all started, well, when did it start? not to discredit god during my first 16 years, i vividly recall sensing a stirring in my spirit in that 16th year and believed that i was created for, as we called it, “full-time ministry”. as time passed, the definition of and my resistance to those words became altered and even twisted. i didn’t want to wear a suit to work or sit in a church office all day. i eventually told myself that any christ follower was in service to god at all times, so i could do whatever i wanted as long as i still claimed jesus as my savior. hell, at times, and often for lengthy stretches, i didn’t want to serve god at all anymore.

this all changed when i moved to new york. now, i don’t believe that geography determines who i am. i’ve run from problems and left relationships and situations on bad terms all in the name of a fresh start. i rarely found freshness or a start of any kind in any of those new places.

new york was different, though. i moved here because i missed my brother and his wife. i wanted to see my nephew grow up in person and not in pictures or ever through the glass of a jail visitation again. also, i believed there was something special happening through trinity grace church here in the big apple. still, something within me had to change; not simply my surroundings. i can’t stress this enough: physically moving won’t fix you, for you must be renewed from the inside-out.

moving here in august of 2009, i met a man named gary and had an immediate stirring within upon our first handshake. it took me until late march of 2010 to act on that stirring. on the first wednesday of april, gary and i met for breakfast at coral restaurant. during that first meeting, gary asked me why i wanted to meet with him. i told him that i wanted to know what my calling was. he told me to abide and not do. we’ve met once a week since, only missing a handful of times, and that was the last time we discussed my calling until sometime in november.

sometime this past fall, this 14 year old stirring began its fight to the surface of the pit i had buried it in over the years. because of specific words of truth i’ve received from gary, tyler, sara, ted and others, i believe i am closer than ever to realizing this stirring’s purpose; my purpose.

i don’t know what it means specifically yet, but i believe i am to be involved in what is happening through our church and my friend, sara, in the south bronx here in new york. i’ve tried, tested, been scared of and embraced this as something directly from god to me; not just the things christ calls all believers to but to what he is calling one believer: me.

i have shared quite a bit tonight, and there’s much more to it. if you pray, please pray that i will be still, listen and obey. i believe the next months leading up to this summer may hold an enormous change that is already happening in my heart. i guess it’s been happening since i was 16.

thanks for reading.