My Sex

It’s a masculine longing.

The kind of tenderness where you run your hands over her curves and through her hair
The kind of tenderness where you want to feel her skin next to yours
And feel her hair in between your fingers breathing in her scent with long, full breaths
The kind of tenderness that isn’t apart of lust
But the kind that longs to draw her into you as if you’re trying to bring in her very essence and make it apart of who you are
The kind of tenderness where you lay with her naked back against your bare chest cupping her breasts in your hands and smelling the back of her neck, her hair, and her shoulders
Where you feel the smooth bare skin of her legs beneath the naked skin of yours, drawing your knee and inner thigh up and down the smooth sloping length of her legs and thighs
Where you open the breadth of your palm and place it on the bound of her abdomen acknowledging the possibility of life within while you both freely express the possibility of life without.

My sex will not be curious and awkward the way youngsters do it
My sex will not be rabid and choreographed the way over-sexed 20-somethings do it in bars
My sex will grow out of tenderness and vulnerability.
The free expression of love and sensitivity.
Honest and worry free,
The outpouring of longing borne of possibility.
This is my sex.

And it is a masculine longing.

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It's hard to post poetry here because a lot of my poetry makes better sense when I can get the correct line breaks and stanzas in it. The window where I write my posts and how they turn up are completely different.

So I have done some work on my research paper, but probably not enough. I try and try to get work done on Saturday, but it's almost like God has other things planned for me. He's slowly forcing a Sabbath on me when Saturdays roll around. It would be good to finish it tonight because I have to go to church tomorrow and see some people. Actually I need to see a new brother of mine named Matt. We had a GIG on Wed. night and he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into his life. It was a moment that I had really wanted to be apart of for most of my life. I've always wanted to be there with someone while they vocalized the prayer and made what they feel on the inside real for themselves on the outside. I've been focusing on this girl issue for a while now, but I think that God would have me focuse on the work He completed and began with Matt on Wed.

Man, that was a hard day for me. I was feeling physically sick and emotionally drained. Not to mention how mentally zapped I have been ever since this semester started. And yes, one more "ally" -- I was spiritually at odds with many things that day. I had sent text messages out to everyone from IV on my cell phone telling them to pray for me because I was not sure that I could do the GIG (group investigating God). In fact, I even called and left a message on Matt's phone telling him that I was physically unble to make it to the GIG. I had a migraine and was on the verge of some stomach problems. Not to mention all the other "allys" that are constantly drained for me. I had thrown in the towel, but I kept imagining someone else in my shoes and what I would be telling them. "Don't give up!" It just kept going through my head. So I didn't. I called Matt back and told him that I wanted to do this one last GIG with him. Ten minutes before we began the GIG I text messaged everyone on my list again and told them that I was unsure if I could physically be there for him. I still had a migraine and was inches away from vomitting all over myself. We began the GIG and it went over well. He made the dicision and as soon as he did, I felt my headache go away. Y'all may think that I'm crazy, and making this up; but I'll tell you what. This semester I have learned above all else that there is an active Spiritual realm and me serving Jesus has put me at odds with a very violent portion of that realm. I haven't had pots and pans fly at me or anything like that, but I have felt things thatI haven't felt before.
Leading that GIG with Matt was the one thing that absolutely put me over the edge. If there was a proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, that would have been it. But the Lord brought me through it, and Matt became a Christian. I am once again going to sacrifice to be sure that Matt gets fed spiritually. Even though I NEED more time to finish my research paper, I will make time to take him to church tomorrow, and the Lord will ensure that my needs are met.

It's so hard trying to convery to y'all through words just how charged these last 6 months of my life have been. Since college started, I have been working like a crazy person, but these last 6 months have been more then I ever could have handled. I have seen things about myself that I never knew existed. Imagine an explorer from the Ancient (Egyptian, Babylonians, Greeks , Romans, etc.) times pushing on to see more of the world. The things he finds out about the world at once humble and amaze him. On one journey he will see things that amaze, frighten, disgust, and cheer him. This has been my life these past 6 months. I feel like I've seen the very edge of myself; I have pushed the boudary of the frontier as far as I care to puch it right now. I am greedy for more. I want to know how much farther I can go before I find my absolute limit. I've become so addicted to this pace that I am reluctant to quit security, although I know that that would be the best course of action for me.
So here I sit on the frontier of who I am. Looking back I see all the trails I have blazed throughout my life. I can't belp but think of another poem that I wrote:

Home

A place where I can feel the sun on my skin
and watch the wind
whisper across the tops of the grass
on a hill with nothing surrounding me,
but soft slopes folding into a serene horizon.
What lies behind me
doesn't matter, only the soft sloping oblivion before me.
Where I can
cradle my knees to my chest and
reach out my hand to
feel nothing in front of me.
Where I can close my eyes and
everything that I feel,
everything that is wrapped tight
inside me can unwind itself into a soft poem that I
breathe into my cupped hand and
let the wind carry away.
To sings songs of letting go and
softly breathe sighs of relief until
two words wait on the edge of my lips
to be heard by the emptiness around.

I'm home

I belong

I hope

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Have I discovered that brink yet? I don't know. I know that thigns are so much different inside of me now. I feel, see, look, taste, experience, think, enjoy, lust, long differently that I used to. A year ago, I used to say that I am excited to see the man that God is bringing out of me. Has he brought that man out? I think that He is on the brink of bringing that man out for the world to see. I am SO reluctant to say that the man that God has prepared me to be is finally out because if I am wrong then that means living in the fire longer than I want to thinking that I should be out. I would rather not assume that the Man in me is out. If God has brought him out, then great, I'll discover him eventually. I always imagined the picture of the Man in me being rounded out with a beautiful women by his side - but then I 'm sure that most guys think like that. If I am not ready for a girl, then I would rather stay in the fire until God is ready to put a women in my life. I don't want to waste my time anymore and I don't want to have to go through confusing heart break.

I certainly feel more grown up, which is perhaps why I am confortable posting a poem that I wrote about sex.

Oh, who knows. As I stand on the brink of the frontier that I have discovered within myself, I look around and see no one around me. I don't know who could keep up with me. I feel so much higher, farther and further than a lot of people in my life. I am reluctant to type this because it makes me sound pretencious; but it's the truth. I feel different, and I see a lot of the people in my life as the same. And I wonder what God will do in their lives. But I turn away from that thought and push on through because there is more to be discovered about me. There are more secrets to uncover within me.
One thing that I learned about myself sitting up the many hours that the Girl and I did together, is that there is a burden that I carry. I am very unaquainted with this burden, and how it has grown on me. I know enough about it to know that it comes from deeply held childhood insecurities. Bah, but right now I don't want to ruin this victory I am seeing. There are a few more things that I have yet to do, but I made it! I can't but think how much better this moment would be if I didn't have one more year to go until I graduated... *grimace*

Right now, I am looking back down this mountain that I have climbed and I'm looking ahead. I don't know what I see. I would love if there was a women in my life to journey with from now on, but there isn't and I have to embrace that right now. I still sleep holding a Bible next to my chest, but it has grown into so much more than a desperate move to fight off lustful masturbatory urges as I sleep. It has grown into a complete dependance on Him. Two nights ago, when everything with the Girl fell through, I slept with a stack of three next to my chest all night. I just don't know what else to do. I am desperately lonely for a girl to share my journey with, but until one comes along I have to be content with God, and I have to work for Him.
I came across a verse today: Galatians 1:1o - For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were striving to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. So there you have it. These trophies I have showing how far I can push myself have to be for God, otherwise they are wasted and I am not truly devoted to Him. I certainly know that I want to know God more than I know just about anything, and that's hard because knowing God means being acquainted with heartache everyday. The OT prophet Jeremiah knew God, and he was quite the miserable man. Jesus knew God and He was put to death. Paul knew God and he was constantly in fear of losing his life. The only lasting joy in my life has come from God, which is why I need to adjust my perspective. It hurts to see the bottom fall out with this girl, but Matt became a Christian. I was there and helped to show someone how to make a truly eternal decision. That is the victory that I need to focus on.
And so here I stand looking at the next semester and wondering what it will be like, wondering how it will compare. When I look around me, I do see people. Our paths have been unique to ourselves, but we are standing together. I see Josh and Catherine, Cheb, Rachel, Zach and the rest of my Bible Study. I see Wes from IV, and I see Mac, Amy, Spencer, Austin, and Sarah. I see people around me that matter, and would help me with this burden if I let them. Perhaps I should, and perhaps that would be the last step before truly stepping out as the Man that God intends for me to be. I'm so relctant though, this burden has pushed me to the incredible hights that I have seen within myself. How would I be here if it weren't for this burden? How will I function without it. I feel like this is maybe the one last thing that needs to go before I am ready for... I don't know, the rest of my life? But how do I learn to share it, and how do I learn to function without it. God knows how close to the edge I've come because of this burden, and He knows how much I need to be rid of it. But I'm so used to hearing it's voice telling me to go further and word harder.

I am closer to whom I need to be. But right now I am not sure how to take these next steps. Do I take the path to the right and keep climbing or do I take to path to the left? I can't say for sure right now. But I am comforted by Isaiah 30:18-26. God has taken me down His hard path so that I can hear His voice better, and I certainly do. For now, I guess I'll wait.

God is real, you guys. Some of you know this and others don't. Your very life may demanded of you this night. You need to be acquainted with the finality of God's existence. Yes, there is a God. Yes, He wants His creation back, and yes He will get it one way or another. I choose to answer His call now, while he may be found. The events of my life have taught me no less than this: God is real. He is standing beside you. You must acknowledge His pull on you, or He will end you. This message is the absolute truth that I feel God has taught me about Himself and about His creation. He exists and His creation is at odds with Him. He wants His creation to acknowlege to reality, finality, and eternity of Who He is. And He will make His creation do this one way or another. God is frightenting and part of becoming a mature adult means understanding that God lives and breathes for His creation and all of His creation lives and breathes for Him. If they are at odds with one another, one will not survive, and that one is us - His creation. So you must ask yourself. Will you turn and respond to the infinite figure standing next to you or will you go on looking at the stars and call all of this one great big accident?