I hope it is me, I pray for better than me

Dear     ,

I am so conflicted right now.

I know that I love you and that you have a special place in my heart and life

I don't know exactly what that is but I have a feeling

Part of me really wants you to choose me

Part of me wants to the the one for you

Wants to be the one to hold you, love you, care for you, serve you

Wants to be the one who was meant for you

I want the very best for you and that is where the conflict begins

I don't know if I am the best for you

Part of me wants you to be with a man who is better than I am

One who has waited for you, prayed for you and lived for you before he knew you

I want you to have one who has not lived as I have

One who has not messed up the way I have

One who would serve you and love Jesus with you and raise a family on the foundation of Christ

I would love you and pray with you and grow in Christ with you

I would make you my one and only

I am changing, not just for you but because Christ has called me to change

To be different than I have been, to be the man I am supposed to be

I am not that man you deserve but I might be but there may be better than me

My honor is to serve you in whatever capacity I am to serve you

I want your man to be me but I want the best for you for yo to have the best you can

you have been hurt, cheated and lied to. You have been wronged 

I dream of taking care of you bringing flowers to you dancing with you 

Falling asleep by a fire with you, going to church with you, 

kneeling down to pray with you. I dream of eating dinners with you and cooking them

doing dishes with you, watching movies with you going on trips with you.

I think of going to church with you and spending holidays with you and reading scripture with you

What if I am not the one?

I would be my best for you. what if the best for you is someone else. 

Whoever he is I pray that he makes you happy, makes you laugh, 

strengthens your love of Christ, gives himself for you as Christ gave Himself for the church

I pray he pursues you like Christ pursues his church.

I pray he loves Jesus more than you but that he shares his love for Christ with you

I pray he pursues you every day and asks himself every day how he can best serve you

I pray you find the best man for you, the man God has chosen for you.

I hope it is me but I pray for better than me. If it is me I pray that I am the best man

That I love you like Christ loves the church, that I love you like the man I pray finds you 

Coming home, far from home

After years of wearing green, blue and brown

after many months spent in the mountains and desert

a lot of time away from home

a long time spent away from US soil

I have come home

It may not be for the last time

If my country calls I will answer

It is my act of service

I will go and protect you from the world

I will leave home

I am home now whether for now or forever

I have come back to your arms

The people I love friends and family 

back to my blood from blood

I have come home

We all dream of our shores

The grass in the yard, church pews

fast food bar stools fast cars and lifted trucks

we dream of this place we knew

This was my home

Now I see my world in black and white all is gray

this home has not changed but it is not the same

I am a foreigner in my own land

I am a stranger in the neighborhood of my childhood

This is not my home

I wander the streets of my country

people talk with no understanding

they mock and joke and complain of what they don't know

They call what I love and sacrificed for foolishness

This is not my home

My eyes are opened through pain and sacrifice

I see the truth that many will never know

I fought and fight for freedom that they want to give away

It was mine to fight for not yours to give away

I want my home

We all in uniform make an oath and form a bond

we leave our homes to ensure they are there when we return

we give of ourselves our lives our future

we leave home

to never find home again

I left home once for you and me

I dreamed of this place I knew so well

I have come back and made a life

I love my country the place of the free

I have no home

Many of us leave home

some die and never return

some live and return home

some find a new home

Some of us return and never make it home

I dream of home

I search for my home

I have come home

I can't find my home here at home

I am far from home

 

 

 

~Jonathan Gomez
Prior Service SGT
Army Infantry
OIF, OND
God Bless America
 

Cost

I have caused pain

I have brought trouble to my land

The decisions I have made have hurt those I love

My actions were my own

Bourne from desires  common and known

I have not lived rightly

Now my sins are made know

I am lucky this time

No life was destroyed

No damage that can't be undone

A temporary plague of trouble and dismay

But the effects of my choices

Shall haunt me many a day

There was one that I found honest and true

Not perfect by any standard by perfect for me

A pain in the ass and strong of will

Her heart is scarred and fearful

She fears the past may happen again

But courage she has to try again

A decision made before she was known to me

One that has followed me even to this day

This sin that had nothing to do with her

May be the end of the hope I had with her

I meant her no harm only strength hope and love

All may be lost for the perception of betrayal

I do not blame her for the choice she might make

My sin is my own and the consequence my wage

I take upon me the wage of my sin

I give it away to He whose forgiveness  I pray

My life must chance and His forgiveness  I'll take

But for that of the others, hers I will pray

If I lost my chance of ones heart who is true

I bid you farewell with my heart and my care

I hope you can forgive me and move on to better

I begrudge you not, for my failing was mine

Know that I do not give you up or quit hoping for you

But I am letting you go for if this be my wage

I take it deservingly and the price I will pay.

Harmful Ripples

The decisions we make and the way we live our lives have a huge impact on our own lives and happiness but also on the lives of those around us, those on whom we have an impact.  That can be a great number of people. While I don't think that we should necessarily allow others have a negative influence on us and we should not use others as an excuse for our own state they do. As this is true, others will have an influence on us, both positive and negative we need to evaluate ourselves and see how we affect others. We need to judge our own actions, attitudes, our words and how we choose to live our lives so that we are not a burden a negative influence or hindrance on others.

Even actions which are not meant to be harmful can still have negative consequences or influence on the world around us. Those things which are not necessarily harmful but selfish and even inappropriate always have a negative impact even if they are not harmful in and of themselves. This is a lesson I have been forced to learn.

The harm caused has a rippling effect unless it is realized and stopped first at the source and then dealt with  at each individual ripple that has been directly influenced by the stone that was cast. On cannot take back the stone thrown into a pond and if the sin is not dealt with the ripples can turn into waves that will envelope ones life and those who are in the path of its destructive power. Such a tsunami can destroy quickly if it is not dealt with before the waves rise.

If it is too late to stop the damage it is still our responsibility  to  deal with the aftermath and take responsibility for our actions and help repair the damage if we are able. Sometimes we can not repair what we have done and that is our penalty for our sin, for the wrong we have done to others. It is also a penalty a consequence that is paid by those who have been  affected by us.

We do not pay the price by ourselves. Those we love who are around us pay for our sins as well. This also is the price we pay. Knowing that we have caused pain in others that we can not take change. Take care in your decisions for we do not know who else we will hurt by our decisions, by how we live our lives.

God please forgive me and I pray that those in whom I have caused pain and harm forgive me one day. 

Silent

After two years I came home from the war

My family came to meet me at the airport

I hugged them, I kissed them, I held them close

Dinner was great I missed mamma’s cooking

But conversation was hard

I heard what they were doing and what has changed

My sister had her degree

My dad had a new job

My mom was teaching at a new school

On and on life was the same old

They asked about my two years and I was silent

Later that night I went to the bar to have a brew

See my friends and learn to dance again

They bought me my drinks

They were all there nothing had changed

They laughed and joked about the week before

And that time last summer at the lake

They asked me about my time in the sand

I stood silent

I got another beer

I was dreamin asleep in the sand

Of momma’s cooking

Dads work stories at dinner

My sister’s hugs

A beer at the bar

A dance with Lacy

All the same ol stories

The bull at the bar

But that’s the life I left

I am not that man anymore

I know you. You haven’t changed

You don’t know me you can’t understand

So I stand silent

I have fun with all my buddies dressed in green

We tell stories laugh and drink

We work we train we fight

We live together we go to war together

We know each other

We will die for one another

But I go home and

I am silent

Mom and dad, sister and brother

Girlfriend and lover best friends forever

I love you all and always will

But you don’t know me

I go to our reunions

Watch movies and play uno

I go to the bar and drink with my friends

You don’t understand me

You don’t understand

That’s why I am silent

The Ones We Can't Get

The ones we can not get
A product of time and fate
Desire and hope
We reach out for them as a star
Like a star we know we will never reach it
If we got close to that star we would be burned
Our life would turn to ash
As it does many times when we get close
To the one we can't have
We want them because they are unattainable
They can not burn us because we can not reach
They teach us to reach out and climb higher
We can reach a mountain peak or walk on the moon
We are forced to go higher in the hope we will one day reach
The truth of the matter is
We wait until one day the light of that one we can not get reaches us
She brightens our day and chooses to be the light
The one that brightens our life.
The ones we can not have are not chosen by us
But if one day we have that one
It is because she chooses us.
I will try to be the perfect man
The one who makes her dreams come true
So that one day she chooses us
And our day is brightened by the light we could never have.

"You bleed just to know you're alive"

My heart has reached a desperate point of question and desire. The welcome unexpected happened to me and now a seemingly perfect picture threatens to be torn apart. A woman that I had met touched my heart as though I had no armor or walls to guard it. She did it unknowingly and non-forcefully with nothing but a smile and a good and open heart. I didn't fall but I was knocked over backwards by this ever so brief encounter. To this day I do not know her but for a few words and a light in her eyes. She was hit just as hard and I did nothing to will it. Our hearts just fell with the lightest brush of a quiet breeze.

I have not been touched so deeply since I was still a child. I had a huge heart with unmatched desire to love. A heart and desire that since has been bridled and walled away by disappointment, hurt and fear.  All at once my heart was like that of a child's, innocent, fearless, and unwavering.

This girl I met was everything I had wanted and looked for when I was young before I closed my heart. The fire in her eyes is one of love, passion, and hope. It is a fire that is rare and one I have not seen but once in my life but it is unmistakable. I spent no more than a few minutes talking with her in the few days that I was able to see her. I visited her at work, she is a waitress, and spent my time enjoying her kindness and unshielded heart. I know very little about her but I know that her life has been hard and that it may not get any better.

I left NM to go back to Iraq for my remaining 2 months in theater with nothing but a phone number and the promise to keep in touch. I texted her through email and she responded. This lasted 3 days and on the fourth I had gotten potentially heart shattering news.

When I met her she was in a relationship with a guy, who I was told was not a good guy. I was told that he was the sort that I would want to come back and teach a lesson or two to. A real piece of work. When asked, she told me that it was a bad situation and that she intended to break up with him but didn't know how. She said that she was afraid to. I kept in touch knowing she was with him but with the knowledge that she would eventually be rid of him. I didn't do anything with her while I was home. I barely gave her a friendly hug, the only physical contact I had with her. I was being honorable about the situation. I wanted to do things right. I wanted to wait until I could love her and she had nothing to hold her back.

On the fourth day I received a short simple message, one of finality that could mean the end of this short lived dream.  This message said that she would have to work things out with her boyfriend because she was pregnant. She said it would have been unfair to not let me know. That was it. This could be real, this could be a message written because she got scared and overwhelmed by what was going on, or fear because of the situation she was in with this guy. I still don't know. I have a tendency to come off strong when my heart gets involved. I don't think it is that. I think that her message was true and that she feels trapped as I now feel trapped.

I wrote back saying that it was up to her but I was not giving up so easily. Whatever she decided was best was what she needed to do but that I would still be here to talk and that I wanted to talk about it. The heart is so reckless when it gets attached. Since then I have felt my heart panic and my armor started to strap on and my walls began to go back up. Still though even with this surprise and certain hardship my heart is unwilling to give up and quit. I don't want to give up and quit. Even though my mind knows I should and I would counsel others to just move on I find myself the fool who does not want to give up on this woman, a rare wonder who was able to get to me. I fear now that I am headed to a heart break that will send my heart into another 10 years of self proclaimed exile. An exile where my heart seeks to feel and love but can not break free of the walls it has built.

If she were to choose me I think that I would take her and make her mine and I would be hers. I don't believe in coincidence. The events of my trip back home directly led to our meeting. My heart foolish as it is does not make mistakes. Every woman I have fallen for has been of the utmost quality even if I was the only one who could see it at the time. I have not been wrong about them. I was only wrong about thinking they were the right one for me. For each one it took only an instant to realize and for all of them it took years to recover. It was no coincidence that we met. It was a fate of some kind. Even if that fate was to show her a few moments of love and sincerity then so be it. But it was meant to happen. Now I wait.

In the last few days I have looked back on the women I have loved and I see now with clear vision that none of them ever could have been. I pursue those that never would have worked out, those who deserve the best, those who I could never be right for. I didn't see it then but I wonder if I didn't know it somewhere in my heart or the back of my mind. I wonder if I don't somehow intentionally torture myself, if I choose the ones who are so right but wrong for me on purpose.  Am I some sort of emotional masochist?

The words of the song "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls seem to ring loud in my head right now. I have lived my life for others for most of my life. Since I was a child I put the welfare, care and happiness of others before my own. Also, I know part of my calling in this life. I know it is not all pleasant and that my life was not made to be easy. I was called before birth to live a hard life and to be a part of unpleasant work. I was made for it and I go to my destiny with a joy that comes from having a purpose. I wonder if the possibility of my own happiness is a reality. Others tell me that I will find it and that I will have it one day. Others who sometimes know things of tomorrow that normally people shouldn't know without the Lord imparting that knowledge. My doubt is not in the Lord or His will but it is in the things unseen in my life.

It is a sad thing to live every day expecting to be let down. Even more sad when you are right in living with that expectation. I can live that way. The hard thing is I had lost hope. Not hope in the Lord, hope for eternity, or even hope for others. I had lost hope for this world and for my own life. I know my eternal salvation is secure and I have that hope witch is in Christ for the promise He has given for eternity. I have not lost hope that I my live exists to serve Him and that I have a purpose that I will live in service to Him. I have lost hope for my happiness. The promise is not for happiness, or for satisfaction or for my personal desires. It is for His love and for a place with Him in eternity. That is enough. That is what I love for. I just wish would be for a little bit for me. I don't even know if I can truly hope for or wish it anymore or if I have even been able to for a long while.

Yes, I expect to get hurt on this one. I have and will continue to put my heart out on this one even though it is almost certainly the death of another part of my heart. I can do nothing else. I don't know how to quit. It is possibly one of my greatest strengths but also the greatest source of heartache that I have. Regardless I will not give up. The fate of this situation is in her hands and in the hands of the Lord. My heart is out there with all the love it has to give as it is to all those who need it, those who the Lord sends that need to see and feel His love, for my friends and those who I call family. Beyond that I continue to walk down the path that the Lord has set before me to the tasks he has ordained for me, and the fate he has set for me. Not my will but His.