I am an outcast...

I am an outcast.

I do not fit in your mold.
You can place me in it if you like, but I will never look like it
Either I will spring out of it, or I will blow it wide open.
For I am an outcast.

I am on the outside of your circle, and yet you welcome me.
I sit silently on the sidelines, watching, observing,
Seeing things that others overlook.
I make entrance, and am accepted, welcomed, encouraged.
Accepted because I look like you, act like you, talk like you.
But I am an outcast.

I stay among you for as long as I choose.
I will not be pushed away easily.
You will love me or despise me once I break the mold of your perceptions.
Which one you choose matters not to me.
You cannot make me change my path.
Because I am an outcast, and I have no permanent place.

I have travelled to realms you cannot imagine.
I have seen things that you cannot comprehend.
I have stepped into places and things that would cause the strong to shudder.
Things that would cause the weak to faint.
Things that would drive normal men over the edges of insanity.
Because I am an outcast, just like them.

I am relevant, because I have been there.
They see the scars, the wounds of familiar battles, and they know I will not judge.
They know I will not lie or feed them fluff.
Why would I have reason to?

I am an outcast, just as He was.
Because He was cast out for me, I will choose to be an outcast for Him.
Because He was and is all things for all people,
I will be all things in His power and plan to all people He places around me.
Because He loved me without shame into death itself,
I will love without shame until I draw my last breath.
Because He was mocked and ridiculed before men,
I will dance before my Father, regardless of the mocking chatter.
And if it means becoming a fool,
Undignified in the sight of man, for the Glory of His Kingdom,
For the reaching of even just one of His precious children,
Then I will be foolish for Him.
Because I am an outcast.

(c) Copyright 29 June, 2010
Eric C. Henry

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Testing :-)

So I saw this wonderfully awesome new geek tool today in an email and I'm trying it out to see how well it actually works. If it does what I intend it to, then I will have posted a new blog from a terminal command line (or DOS Prompt for you non-geeks :-]). Google is clearly trying to win back my affections :-)

Love...

I don't truly know why I am writing this, all I know is that it has been on my heart lately, and I must get it out before it consumes me. That being said, let me first say that regardless of what anyone might think, this is not directed towards or about any particular person, think what you will, this is simply my thoughts. This is also not about whining about not having anyone, just a few observations. I will admit, sometimes I am jealous of my married/engaged/dating friends. Just being real. God said that it was not good for man to be alone, and gave him a help-mate. I get frustrated sometimes... I'm getting close to 30, and I still have nobody to share my life with. The pastor that came to New Vision with Master's Commission spoke at the Awakening service this past saturday, and it was very timely. One of the things he said was to just get real with God in your prayer time... He already knows everything you're going through, everything you're thinking, so when you're frustrated and want to know what's going on, don't pander around it, tell Him... "God, I don't understand. You said this, where is it? I believe you, I know you'll provide things in Your time, when You know I'm ready, but can you at least give me some idea... I don't like this, it hurts, and I need you to help me through it." If you pooh-pooh it and just play it all off like you're not really worried about it, then you're not broken enough to really truly cry out for His help. He has been teaching me about love lately. Like I said earlier, this isn't about any person in specific. I won't deny liking someone, but this isn't really about that... this is about love itself. Love hurts, it cost Jesus His life. I've loved before, and been hurt by it, and as such, I've gotten scarred, cynical, and jaded. Several years ago, a saying stuck in my head, I had never heard it before, it just ran through my brain and stayed with me... "Love deeper than your scars." I had always kind of done this anyways. I don't know any other way to love someone than to go headlong into it, and either falls into their arms or crash on the rocks below. To me, that's the only way that you can love. I wish a lot of times that my faith was as risky as my love. Every time before that I've jumped, I've fallen flat, and every time before, I've laid there and mended, picked up the pieces, and gone on with the mask of everything being alright until I had finally convinced myself of it. That was another thing the pastor from MC talked about, how guys and girls say that they can't be hurt anymore, so and so hurt them, and they're over it now, and nobody else can hurt them... No, they aren't over it, they're just good at holding together lots of broken pieces. Like I said, I've been learning about love, and it's more than just goosebumps and giggles. If you love someone, you have to be willing to give up everything for them. I mean everything. Money is meaningless, material things are meaningless, all of that can be replaced. If you love someone, are you willing to follow them wherever they might go? Are you willing to leave your family to be a part of their life. If God calls them to the darkest jungles or the driest deserts, are you willing to put aside your posh American spoiled life to sit in junk heaps with kids dying from AIDS and malnutrition every day. Most of all, are you willing to lay out before them your bare soul, your raw emotions, everything you think and feel and believe, to lay it out before them and put the you that nobody else sees, the you that is behind the layers of masks that are so deep that you don't even realize you are wearing them... to put that at their mercy to either cherish or destroy... If you are not willing to do that, to have enough faith and hope to stretch out that far, to risk all of you, then to me, you are not worthy of the one you love... Apply it spiritually, apply it naturally, think what you will... these are just the ramblings of someone who is taking off the masks and screaming WHY...

EDIT: I forgot this earlier, and God just reminded me of it. A couple years back He gave me a vision and said that if I would not quit dancing for Him, if I would never be afraid of looking like a fool to worship Him, then He would never remove the mantle of love that He had placed on my life. He brought me to a place of brokenness saturday night where I realized that part of what was causing my problems wasn't that He had removed that mantle, but that I, through my actions and lack of communion with Him, had taken off that beautiful garment, ripped it to shreds, and threw it in the trash. Saturday He reminded me of it, and told me that if I would come back to Him, it was available to me again, that He had made it brand new, and would clothe me with it once more, so this time, I want to be serious about it... I don't want to let my Daddy down again.

A Lament

      America, O America, why have you made bastards of your sons and daughters?  Why have you stolen them away from their Father, from your first Love.  “Enough,” you have said. “Enough of His ways.  Does He know better than I how to raise my children.”  Oholibamah had a daughter, the splendour of the nations.  In her infancy, she was right and pure.  Innocently, she welcomed the nations of the earth to come unto her, to share in her blessings, the blessings of her Father.  Then she began to walk in the ways of her mother, lusting after the riches and idols of the other nations.  She prostituted herself to them freely and without remorse, throwing away the blessings and protection of her Father’s house like a rebellious teenager.
   America, daughter of Oholibamah, a lament is raised over you.  Scorn now of the nations, you have spent your youth in lustful pursuits and now fight to hold the very last of what was yours.  Will you not return to your Father’s house, and will He not take you back, for you are the jewel in His eye.  Yea, though you have grown tarnished, will His love not restore the brightness and vitality of your youth.  Will He not restore you to your place in the seat of the nations.  Return to Him, America.  Return to your Father, your first and true Love.