Overwhelmed

This morning started off like a typical morning as of late. Wake up, change and feed the little one, wake up big brother and get him started on his change of clothes and breakfast. Then I get ready, kiss all my loves goodbye and make my way into work. I get the music going as it helps with the 40 to 45-minute drive in. About half way into work, a song comes on by Big Daddy Weave. It’s one that I’ve heard multiple times and I really do like it a lot. For those of you that know the artist, you can see now where my title originated from. I’ve heard this song so many times before on my playlist and thought today would be no different than those other times. I was wrong.

As I was singing along with the song something hit me and hit me hard. It was like the words overcame me and just opened up something inside me. By the time I hit the second verse, the tears started.
God, I run into Your arms
Unashamed because of mercy
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You

I know the power of Your Cross
Forgiven and free forever You’ll be my God
And all that You’ve done is so overwhelming

 

“All that You’ve done is so overwhelming”.  That hit me and just sat heavy on me for a bit. There are a lot of things going on within our family and also in our individual lives. Things we’re struggling with and things we’re so so happy and excited about. But when I lift my head up for a moment, out of that mega cloud of life, I just see the fact of how extremely blessed we are. How extremely loved we are and how undeserving of it all I am. The tears just kept coming as I kept thinking about Him and how He loves me so much. How every day I fail Him and I stumble and fall and sometimes even just find myself HATING me. But not Him. Never. His love is beyond my comprehension and it hurts my brain when I try and grasp it.

All of that was just flooding my head and the boom, my mind clears and I can just feel His presence. This is something that I’ve felt before, and it’s so hard to explain, but I feel Him. My whole entire body starts to tingle and I get goosebumps and my heart feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest of just pure love and joy. It’s like you are feeling every wonderful sensation all at once and right then at that very moment I just want to do nothing but give Him one BIG HUG. I hear the words in the song that only amplify this feeling right now.

You are Glorious, You are Glorious
Oh God, there is no one more Glorious
You are Glorious, God you are the most Glorious

I know most people hear the word “overwhelmed” and think of something negative, which is natural because that’s how we hear it most. But this time, I was overwhelmed by God and His perfect Love and Grace. At this point, the tears are just flowing, uncontrollably and I’m not even sure if anyone saw me at any of the stop lights but I’m not really caring about anything like that. At one point I thought maybe I should have pulled over.

There’s no real message from me here today, and I’m sorry if you were maybe expecting something enlightening. It was just an experience that I wanted to share and try my best to put into words, even though I already know that they won’t do it justice. It’s something that I pray that everyone could experience just once because it is a most incredible experience. But I will leave you with the music video to the song by Big Daddy Weave.

 

God’s Love For You

I think as a child of God one of the things I struggle most with is feeling worthy of God’s love. I’m like that one son that knows better but yet still stumbles here, and God is always there with opens arms ready to hug me and love me as He always has.

But I worry that one day, God will say, “ENOUGH! I’m done with you. You don’t listen to me! You don’t love me enough to be good, so I can’t love you anymore”. The death we know is when our body stops working, but TRUE death is separation from God.

The other day I was reading my bible and I came upon these verses that filled me with joy and reassurance.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39

If none of those things can separate me from God’s love, then surely the stumbles that I deal with every day can’t as well. I hope that if any of you feel this way, you read this and realize that you too are loved by our creator and there’s nothing that you can do that can change that.

The Great Debate

It astonishes me… no, it saddens me the support I’m seeing for either Hillary or Trump. How did this even happen? How did these two become the front runners of both parties? I’ll tell you how, there is either something severely corrupt in our system, or there is something severely wrong with WE THE PEOPLE. I find it hard that I would see so many supporters for Bernie or Ted that these two would some how come out as the winners for their parties. And I’m so tired of hearing the excuses for supporting both, because they’re all so shallow.

Trump Is Racist
Yeah, I’m pretty sure he is. But if you think for a minute that Hillary isn’t, then your head is deep underground on that one. You have one that’s open about it, and the other one is keeping it all tucked away.

Hillary Is A Liar
They’re ALL liars. They’re politicians, they will lie and spit out just about anything to get in the office. It’s how they all work. Only some people’s lies and mistakes have caused the lives of people, but I’ll leave it at that.

We Can Get A Woman In Office
This woman? You want a woman in the office so bad, you want to vote her in? The thought and argument itself is pathetic just as those who wanted Obama in the office because he was black. How about we get the BEST QUALIFIED person in our lead seat? I see the same stuff in the workplace. People being hired because of their race or gender or who they know. What ever happened to the days we hired the person that we thought was the best for the position and would get the job done right?

Trump Is PRO AMERICA!
Trump is PRO MONEY. When have you not seen this dude talking or bragging about money? We all need to wake up a little more to see that most politicians are in it for personal gain. If you could only see the money big corps are putting into their pockets behind the scenes, you would understand a little more.

A Vote For Third Party Is A Wasted Vote
Is it? With that kind of mentality, it is. Everyone seems to truly believe this, so they don’t want to vote third party. Because if you vote third party you think it will be wasted. Imagine for a minute that people would get over that mentality and vote third party. We would get to see one of two things. You would either get to see the absolute power that each voter truly has, or you would get to see how absolutely corrupt this system is and how it was all rigged to begin with.

You have absolutely EVERY RIGHT to vote who you want to vote for. Please do. If you ABSOLUTELY think that either Trump or Hillary will be the best, then by all means, vote for them. All I’m asking is that you not vote for someone because you hate them a little less than the other person, because that’s what it seems to be as of late. “I hate Hillary and her supporters so much, I’m gonna vote for Trump! I hate Trump and his supporters so much, I’m gonna vote for Hillary.”

This is what our nation has become, full of hate. We hate the other side so much, we don’t even bother to see the side we’re supporting. We fail to see that we are doing the exact same thing the other side is doing all along and we all lose.

LOVE Like A Child

The other day I was at Reno’s school/daycare picking him up and as I gathered his things, he was still dancing and playing with the other few children there, still waiting to be picked up as well. I love watching them all play and act silly with one another as they usually do at this time of day. We usually get there toward the end of the day, and only a few kids are usually left when we arrive, so it’s usually free time for them to dance and play.

When I grabbed his things I motioned and called to him, letting him know it was time to go. He walked over to me, still smiling from his play time. “Are you going to say goodbye to your friends?”I asked him.

He turned and waved and let out a little “buh-bye” as we walked away. But then he stopped, and turned around and ran over to them and gave each one a hug. Not one of them hesitated as he made his rounds to them individually. My heart swelled with joy.

And for the moment that seemed to slow down just a little bit I thought to myself, “What happened to that? What happened to that love?”

I honestly believe that their love is the love we should follow. There are no boundaries or segregation that they set for one another. The love of an uncorrupted child is as pure as it comes. What would this world be like, if we all loved that way?

It reminds me of when the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in his Kingdom:

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

² He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. ³ And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

-Matthew 18:1-4

13.1

I remember as a kid my father running in fun runs and we would join him as a family to help support him, but also to run in the kids runs. It was something fun and different for us to do, and to be honest I never thought anything more of it. It was just running. It was easy for me, despite not having the best respiratory system, I could just run.

Fast Forward About 26 years later…

November 14: The Night Before

We just got to my in-laws’ house that evening after celebrating my father’s birthday with my family. I was already starting to feel a bit nervous and it was hard not thinking about the next morning. This would be my first half marathon ever, and I had no clue how I would do. All I could do is stare at my bib and think, “What did I get myself into. I haven’t been training like I should have.”

November 15: Run Day

5:30AM – A Little Over An Hour Till Start Time
I still remember my wife waking me up telling me it’s time. Of course when she told me at 5:15 I knew I wasn’t going to spring out of bed, that’s just not me. Finally I get up off of the sofa bed, thinking how I missed my bed at home. I sure hope it would affect me today, not sleeping too well. I look at the clock and think, “In a little over an hour my run will start.”

6:20AM – It’s Time To Go!
No, not start time, we were still at the house and we hadn’t left yet. By this time I was nervous I wouldn’t make my start time. Everyone else running was doing the 5K and had a 7AM start time. I told my wife I needed to go,  and started walking the mile and a half to the start line. I got a little down the road and I realized I didn’t have my shades. I texted my wife and see if she could somehow get them to me.

6:38AM – I’m Not Going To Make It
I felt like the mile and a half was taking so much longer to walk than I would have expected. At one point I started to jog a little, but I didn’t want to start running yet, I needed to save every step of that for the actual run, but I had no choice. A volunteer on the bike passed me as I was crossing one of the major streets along the way. He looks at me and my bib and says, “You better hurry!”

6:42AM – I’m Here! I’m Here!
The National Anthem has played, the talks were over with, and everyone was pretty much just waiting for the start gun. I stretched the little bit that I could. I was trying to get my headphones properly in and stretched as much as I could before we started.

 6:45AM – We started?
I didn’t even hear anything, I just saw the crowd moving. So I hop down onto the road, find the pace that I felt I would stay with (12:45/M), and slowly walked up towards the start line. “I can’t believe this is about to happen. Crap, I don’t have my shades”, I thought as I hear the announcer say, “See you guys in two hours and forty-five minutes!” Then my thought went to, “Crap! I’m gonna be running for almost three hours!”

6:47AM – My Shades!
It happen to be by pure luck that I turn the corner and see Erin walking towards me along the side of the runners, looking for me. I waived at her and she handed me my shades. Perfect timing I might add, because it was around that time that I started to get a little emotional.

6:48AM – Santos, Allyson and Sgt. Bearden
As soon as I got my shades and started focusing on my run, I thought about these three and the people that love and cared for them so much in their lives. I dedicated my run to these three, special human beings who lost their battle with some form of cancer. My eyes quickly became watery, and it was hard holding back the tears. Their memories, and the memories their loved ones have shared with me, would help carry me all the way through this.

6:59 – 1 Mile Down
I’m feeling pretty good. I had to slow myself down a little because I was running faster than I wanted to be at. I don’t want to take the chance at tiring myself out. “Find a happy pace!”

7:12 – 2 Miles
I decided to try and keep myself around the 13 marker. I’m thinking “No 14. We will not see 14!” Getting to two was a breeze, no worries, steady pace. Soon after this I get a text from my wife, “Your whole family is cheering you on, love.” It made my heart expand.

 

7:24AM – 3 Miles
“Had I’d been running the 5K, I’d almost be done!” Yes, my mind was already here. I can’t help it, I usually think like that, and I’m sure it doesn’t help. Then I thought, “I have ten more miles to go. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

7:37AM – 4 Miles
Still feeling good here, nothing too bad. Except for after I passed the three mile marker I had the urge to pee. I really don’t want to stop! Stopping is VERY bad for me.

7:53AM – 5 Miles
If you look at the pic above of me seeing the fourth mile marker ahead of me, you can see two ladies, one in a lime green shirt. She was setting a pace for the lady in the gray shirt. But what she didn’t know is that she was also setting a pace for me. She kept me close to a 12:32/M which is about where I wished to be. I still felt okay at five. Not as great as I did the first few miles, but still good.

7:53AM – My First Nike+ Cheer
And also my only one. I posted this run on my wall on Facebook, and I was hoping to get some cheers from likes and comments. But only one came through. It was my mother-in-law. I hope she realizes how much that meant to me. Thanks, momma!

8:02AM – I Could Still Be Sleeping
I don’t know if I’m the only one who thinks about things like this, but this though happened to cross my mind at this point. 8AM, I could still be sleeping. But then I thought, “I’m ALMOST halfway there!”

8:09AM – More Than Halfway!
I got this! I’m over the hum now! No turning back, right?

 8:14AM – 7 Miles
I’m feeling okay. Still have to pee. Still behind my pacer. I’m thinking I’m gonna be okay in this.

8:27AM – Leg Pain
Eight miles into it. My right leg is starting to hurt a little. This is not a good thing. Pain shouldn’t be happening this soon in my run. It hadn’t previously, so I’m a little confused where this is coming from. I also have to pee SO BAD! I see port-a-potties! I had to stop and pee. So unlike me, but I couldn’t take it anymore, it was just something more to have to worry about in my run, and I didn’t need it. To make things worse, I lost my pacer and her partner. No bueno.

8:41AM – The Hunger Games
Mile nine and I was starving. “Dang it. Why? This hadn’t happened before. I ate a peanut butter toast in the morning, and I never eat!” Grrrr… a bit frustrating. But not as frustrating as the knee pain that started at this point as well. I still have four more miles to go and I’m in pain. I was a little deflated, but my wife’s texts kept my spirits up. So I changed my mind to think, you ONLY have four more miles to go. Let’s go.

These signs along the way had been funny to read, so I took a pic of one, to share with you all. Whoever put them out, thank you, they kept a smile on my face.

8:54AM – Record Tied…… Record Broken
My previous longest run at home had been ten miles. I felt great that day, not very tired, not hurting. That was not the case today, but breaking that point helped me a little. Every step I took would be one more step breaking my previous record. Not long after the ten mile marker did I make the turn onto the long home stretch back to the high school. This was it.

9:07AM – Run With Me, Santos
For four years, I marched along my good friend, Santos Herrera Jr. We marched mile after mile carrying the two biggest bass drums of the line. At that point, I was in the best shape of my life. Today, I talked to him and asked him to once again, run alongside me. My pace on my app weirded out a bit and not sure what it was, but I can tell you that I was NOT running a 21:32/M at that point. Maybe my friend was there with me and it was just catching both our paces together. I like to think that at least. It wasn’t too long after that mile marker that I saw the entrance to my in-laws’ subdivion. I’m close. Really close. I already walked this earlier this morning.

9:19AM – Sweet Allyson and Sgt. Bearden
From eleven to twelve I thought of Allyson and Sgt. Bearden. Two warrior that fought so hard, and wanted to live so much. My eyes began to tear as I thought about them and their families.

Allyson is the daughter of an ex-coworker but still great friend, Pat Conner. Allyson kept a blog about her dealing with it all, and even though I’d never met her, I felt like I knew her. She had a foundation setup for her, which I think is pretty awesome, called Ally’s Wish Foundation.

Sgt. Wayne Bearden was a near and dear friend to my brother. I’d heard stories about the dedicated Georgia Bulldogs fan for quite some time. My brother only spoke great things about him and his family, and when he passed I could see the hurt in my brother.

Oh how I wished they were ALL here with me, running and about to finish this run right alongside me.

9:32AM – 13 Miles
As I approached the thirteenth mile, I couldn’t believe that I was here. Just a little more to go. These streets, I drive them before visiting my in-laws and here I am running this. Finishing this.

The Finish
My feeling of being accomplished quickly got swallowed up by pain and tiredness. When I turned into the high school driveway I thought the finish line would be near, but see as my mileage wasn’t close to 13.1 I knew I had a little more to go. But if I could just catch a glimpse of that finish line, I know I would get strength. More curve after curve of road, and no finish line in sight. My body hurts. I’m tired. I don’t think I can make it. Yes, even after all that running and less than a tenth of a mile to go, I thought I would not make it. I’m past the starving stage, and the bottoms of my feet were hurting/burning like never before. I have to stop. I have to finish. Where is the line.

Then I hear it. The faint sound of the announcer in the near distance. There’s a turn up ahead, that must be it. I turn and there it is. The beautiful finish line. It’s right there. “Do you see this, Allyson? Do you see me, Sgt. Bearden? Are you still running with me, Santos? Because I’m seeing all you three at that finish line right now.” Tears are building up in my eyes right now. For them. As I approach the line I see a group of kids come around a corner like a heard of little deer running in a pack, running so fast. It lets me know how slow I’m running right now….. but I’m only steps away from the line right now. Doesn’t matter if my pace has dropped….. I’m about to finish this. Then I see my family, right to the right of me, cheering me on. I had pictured me blowing them all a kiss as I passed them, but I didn’t have much strength in me, except for a half smile and a half waive. But my heart smiled fully when I passed them as I was a few steps from the finish line.

And then it was done. It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t pretty, but it was done. And then the pain hit me. My legs felt like they’d been stung by a thousand bees, swollen and in pain. I had to keep walking. I don’t even remember being handed the finisher medal. Everything was quiet around me for those next few minutes as I slowly walked toward a secluded section behind all the crowd. I did it. I actually did it. Then here she comes. My #1 cheerleader. The one who helped me keep my head up when I was down on myself. I could see tears in her eyes, even with her shades on. “You did it! I’m so proud of you.” I hugged her and my son.

I did it. For Allyson. For Sgt. Bearden. For Santos. I did it.

THANK YOU
To my family for being there to cheer me on. Even though you could have went home, you waited for me. My family over the texts, cheering me on, thank you for encouraging me.

My wife, Erin, thank you. For those of you that don’t know, my wife was supposed to run this run with me. She trained harder than I did, longer than I did. She was meant to CRUSH this run. But a week before the run, she rolled her ankle. She was disappointed to put it very lightly. She wanted to run it. She was ready. More ready than I was. But now, she was sidelined and was limited to walking the 5K with her dad and my son. But what she didn’t know, was how much of a factor she played in helping me through it. I know she hates that she missed this run, but without her and her texts, I’m not sure I could have made it without stopping. She’s already signed up for the run in February in Katy, where she WILL complete her Half Marathon. And I hope that I can be the encouragement to her as she was to me. I love you, Erin. Thank you for helping me finish.

Am I Successful?

Tomorrow, I turn 34 and yesterday my wife asked me if I considered myself successful, as part of a bigger conversation we were having. I pondered for a few seconds and responded with, “It depends on what you define as successful.”

Successful to me years ago doesn’t have the same meaning as it does now. When I was younger, success was measured by my bank account, social status or my possessions, you know society’s standard of success. I wanted to be rich, and travel and have the kind of job that others would envy and get paid big figures for it. Having not so good luck with relationships, I figured I’d probably never be married and just be happy that way. Heck, more money and time for me, right?

Success. A word that can have a different meaning coming from different people. A word truly in the eye of the beholder.

I don’t have all that money. I see people younger than me with money coming out of their ears and bank accounts. People with so much money, they don’t even know what to do with it, except buy useless things. And while I have traveled, it’s nothing the sort of what I had envisioned in my dreams for my future. I don’t have that dream job/career and I certainly don’t get paid loads of money for it. That successful story, never happened. It never came true.

That story, never came true, but God. God had a different success story for me.

I don’t have the money. Not like that. But I have enough and then a little left over. Sometimes I stop and just look around and see how AMAZINGLY blessed I am, because there are far too many people in the world that don’t have a tenth of what I have. And I surely can’t forget where I came from as well. I just cannot complain about my life and my wealth.

I don’t get to travel around the world. I’ve seen a few places around this region and that has been awesome for me. I still dream of going places, but it’s been great to see the little that I have. I still remember when we were too poor to go anywhere but to Mexico to see family or to the state park to enjoy a swim. So to me, yeah, I’ve come a long way in that area.

I don’t have, what most would call, a dream job. I work at a church, and sometimes it gets pretty busy and stressful just like other jobs do. I certainly don’t get pad big money working at a church, even though it’s a big church. But I have a steady job, that I enjoy doing. A place that I get to serve God while I work and I have an awesome team around me. I’m not out dealing, stealing and who knows what else, which was a path that was not only easy for me to take, but one that was offered to me a lot growing up.

I never thought I’d get married or be a homeowner, much less be a dad. And yet, here I am with an AMAZING and beautiful wife, and the most awesome three year old anyone could ever ask for.

I don’t want society’s success. I’m so happy with my success. And I just can’t help and smile because I know God’s not done with me yet.

Drive Smart, People!!!

Driving and dealing with traffic and dealing with “not so smart” people (trying to be nice), is probably my biggest annoyance. I wish I could telepathically go into every driver’s mind and say:

– Be aware of your surroundings. Be aware of other drivers… AT ALL TIMES.

– Don’t drive like a psycho and don’t drive too afraid/cautious. You’re doing the same damage either way.

– Be courteous. Be civilized. Be respectful. (I could go on about these, but I’m keeping it short. We are mostly adults here, this is a no-brainer.)

– Stop trying to multitask and drive!!! Put your phone down, put your makeup down, put your dog down, put your food down, stop TEXTING and just drive. Focus on driving.

– Don’t brake just because you see flashing lights, a patrol car or an accident. If you haven’t seen an accident by now, I don’t think you should be driving. Focus on the road, instead of causing MORE traffic. You could become the next show that people are staring at if you’re not paying attention!!

I would love to see how much traffic we could cut back if people would just drive smart.