8.21--In It, Not Of It

My wife, Jessica, and I just returned from a 5-day vacation to Texas. We flew into the Arlington area, then drove down to San Antonio area, from there went to Burnet, and finally back up to Arlington. When we were trying to decide where we were going and what we wanted to do while down, we realized that we have too many friends and family to see and that Texas is just too spread out to see all of them between Monday and Friday. So, we made the best of the situation, had a whirlwind visit with about 18 hours clocked driving around the state, and we saw everyone we could for as absolutely long a time as we could.

And I realized something very important about myself while there: I am a Texan, through and through, but now New Jersey is starting to seep into me and take root! I am a much more aggressive driver, I expect my corn to come straight off of the cob in the summertime, and it took me a few seconds to remember that I have to pump my own gas down there! Now, I don’t know exactly what to think of this. I have always seen myself as something of a spy, or infiltrator here in Jersey. I have come equipped with the best that Texas has to offer in regard to hospitality, gentlemanliness, more “y’alls” than you can shake a stick at, and a good ole southern outlook on life, and my job was to infect all of this into the hustle and bustle of all them yankees in the northeast.

8.14.11--Be Strong and Courageous

I firmly believe that somewhere in my history I am related to at least one of the great explorers of history. I get too excited about adventures and learning about new places for this not to be the case. And, I know that the rest of my family is affected by this as well. We love to go explore.

I remember one day, while we lived on Guam, we decided that we wanted to check out the parts of the island that were, shall we say, less traveled than others. Now, for those of you who do not know much about Guam, let me first say that you’re not missing much. There is not much to know about it. The entire island is smaller than the county in Texas in which I was born. It’s tiny, and there are only so many roads and trails you can have on a tiny island. But, that being said, we loved it. We would go on these treks called boony stomps. The boonies were what the locals called the jungle areas; these boony stomps were hiking trails that you could take to get to secluded beaches. I have to tell you, they are some of the most breathtaking beaches I’ve ever seen. Even though I was young, my 6 and 7 year-old self still logged away the images of the waves and the sand and the fish that would swim right up to you. These boony stomps were always great adventures and wonderful times spent together as a family, and I absolutely loved them.

7.31.11--Golden Earrings and Scarred Ears (Exodus 31)

So it’s no secret. I’m a big guy. I have been for a while now, and honestly, it’s just within the past few years that I’ve started trying to do something about it. Throughout high school, I somewhat foolishly tried to act as if this was not at all the case, though. I thought I could hide my weight from everyone and myself if I layered properly. My solution? I wore a Hawaiian shirt and t-shirt almost every day of school for four years. It became a trademark-like thing; people knew me for my Hawaiian shirts. Did they really hide the fact that I was overweight from the world? Absolutely no. Did I somehow trick myself into believing this was the case? Absolutely yes. 

I decided the summer after I graduated that I was going to be more confident about who I am, that I was going to turn over a new leaf and not try to “hide” who I was but be happy about the person God made me to be. But this confidence would come at a cost: to truly leave behind the destructive self-consciousness and self-image I had harbored for so long, I had to cut off all ties to it. So I said goodbye to my aloha shirts, and didn’t pack a single one to take with me when I moved out to TLU in the fall.

To get to where I wanted to be, I had to let go of the things that anchored me where I was.