Father, heal me. Show me the areas in my heart that I need to take back. Reveal to me the places in my mind that I let go, and give me the courage and fortitude to reclaim them for you. I understand that the first step in forgiving others is forgiving myself. I ask that you help me to understand forgiveness as you demonstrate it to us. Allow me to heal my heart with forgiveness as well as the hearts of those around me. Thank you for the Warrior that you have made me, help me to recognize the battles that are worth fighting. 

Finding a Way Back.

We all say we won't get to that point, we all make promises to ourselves assuring us that whatever it is we won't allow it to change us or make us any different. But still, no matter how hard we fight, no matter how tough we battle, we change, as time goes by, we become different.

I sat alone, it was becoming quite a regularity these days. Not necessarily the alone lonely type sitting, but more of the alone contemplating sitting. I was searching my mind for something, something that was lost, some sort of answer or explanation. I was searching for that part of me that had ever so slowly withered away. I almost couldn't remember what it was actually like. After all of the I love you's, all of the promises, all of the little pieces of my heart that I had given away here I was...struggling to remember what it was in the first place that inspired me, gave me strength, faith, and courage to even do those things in the first place.

I've reached a point where I can't tell if I don't trust other people or if I simply don't trust myself. I know exactly what I did to get to this place, but I just don't know how to get back. The easy way is to not try and figure out how to go back, the easy way is to just try and pickup where you left off and go with what you have. But I'm not sure anymore if that is the best way, and I know that if I keep taking the easy way out then I won't be able to handle any type of hardship.

I'm so locked in to what I'm used to that I don't want to step out. I don't want to try anything knew because of what it could do to me. I don't want to trust anyone else because of how they could hurt me. I don't know what to expect. The worst part about all of this is that I can picture it in my mind. I know exactly what I used to be like, I know exactly how I've changed, and I want nothing more than to take those areas of my mind and heart back to those places that they were before, to those times when I wasn't afraid to do something thoughtful or sweet, where I wasn't always worried about getting hurt.

I had seen it all along, it was right in front of my face but I had just continued to ignore it. How could I fall in love with something I couldn't see? The saying, "seeing is believing" had become all to real in my life. I had begun living my life by faith through sight. The weird thing though wasn't that I hadn't been seeing it, it was that I had been seeing it all along, I just hadn't recognized it for what it was.

All of those beautiful things I saw every day. The smile from a stranger, the helping hand from one person to another, the undefinable passion seen in someone's eyes unwilling to give up, the determination of someone who hasn't slept in two days, and the love that can only been seen in the eyes of one human to another. All of these things stood out to me. They stood out as beautiful things, as wonderful things, but I never saw them as from the creator. I never saw them as his way of communicating with me.

God is in everything that we see, and if that's so, why don't we always see him? Because it isn't always the God that we want to see. I don't want to see God in the pain in my life because it hurts, because its hard to see what good God could be bringing out of it because its painful, and our minds would tell us that there isn't anything good to come of it.

Father, today I ask that you help me to see everything as from you, the good and the bad. Help me to resist immediately and not to allow the enemy a foothold in my heart or in my mind. Show me that every door that you close, you will open another. I thank  you for the opportunities that you have given me for, I thank you for your mercy and for allowing me to have second chances in my life. I beg that you help me to remain humble to your name, and give me the strength that I need to fight this fight. Amen.

Destroying a Warrior heart, with a Warrior mind.

I looked away deep in thought, and then I quickly looked back at the screen trying to make my decision. Did I dare do it? Would it work? Would it change everything forever? I was scared, I was nervous. My heart raced and my hands shook from the adrenaline that was now pulsing through my veins. I swore I wouldn't, I swore that I couldn't, but here I was. I watched as my hands moved across the screen in slow motion, and then it was done. Before I could contemplate what had just happened it was to late. Now I could only pray that I was man enough to step up, now I could only hope that the Warrior heart inside of me remained strong enough for one more battle.

"No one cares," they would tell us. Over and over and over again. They said that "the faster we accept the fact that no one cares about us, the easier all of this would be." You shake it off at first, you think to yourself, "no, that isn't true, my family cares, or my wife cares, or my girlfriend cares." Everyone could think of someone that they were sure cared. But after a while without even realizing it, you start to believe it. You start to accept it as truth, that no one cares, that no one ever has, and that no one ever will. And then you dig in deep. You drag your mind down to a place where it will see nothing but what is in front of you, to a place where you're surrounded only by the men to your left and right, a place where feelings are nothing and surviving is everything. Its weird at first, but after a while it goes from a mindset to a reality and no matter how hard you try you can't shake it. You start to hate everything around you, why? Because everything sucks, and if it doesn't suck, then you know something is wrong. Welcome to the life of a grunt, a life where we are taught to love to hate our lives.

After a while you get to a place in your mind where if everything around you doesn't suck or isn't hard, then something must be wrong. So you get paranoid, and you remind yourself that no one cares, and you start searching for every possible thing that could go wrong, and in some cases, you make it go wrong, just so that once more you can hate your life. Just so that once more you can believe that nothing is wrong, because everything sucks.

I'll never forget how I felt when I stepped off the plane. I was done with my training and I was so happy to be back in Texas. Finally I had freedom, finally I was out of that wretched-Marine-hating state and back to my home. I felt on top of the world. I was a Marine, and an infantry Marine at that. A born and bread pure devil dog killer. But here I was back in society. The first two weeks were like leave, it was great to be home, it was relaxing, but that's when things started going down hill. I went from going 200 miles per hour to nothing. I would pace back and forth in my parents house begging for someone to do something. I was the first one up, and the last one to bed. But the longer I was home the harder it got. Eventually that feeling of leave left me, and I realized that I was home for good, and that I was alone. And I started to realize that no one cared, no one cared what I did, no one cared what I had been through, and no one cared what I might have to go through. I know this wasn't the case, but because I believed it so intently, it became my reality, and I became bitter. I resented everyone I talked to because I knew that they had no idea what I had experienced and I knew most of them never would, and because of that reason I automatically assumed that they didn't care and that they never would care.

I was so hateful. I wouldn't admit it to anyone, but I judged everything I saw, and anytime someone made a mistake I was like a shark that smelled blood. And I was merciless, because I was no longer Jesse Carr the home schooled kid. I was now Jesse Carr the trained killer. Not only had I spent six months having "kill, kill, kill them all" beaten into my head. I had spent two of those months at one of the finest and most intense basic infantry schools in the world. I was being shaped, molded, and formed into a machine that would shoot first and ask later, that would die without hesitation in order to accomplish the mission.

As my days home progressed everything just built up. I was miserable because I felt like no cared, much less understood how I was feeling. I was alone, the only man of my type and I was stuck with a bunch of "gross and nasty civilians."

And like most stories it took a harsh awakening for me to realize what was happening. It took me losing the one thing I cared most about, it took me hardening my heart towards God and turning my back on everything and everyone in my life before I finally woke up and saw what was happening. And that's were I found myself now. Alone, struggling to repair countless relationships that I had inadvertently not just ruined, but completely destroyed. I found myself standing in a room, I was alone, I was empty. Everything that I had once held dear was gone, and that passion, that inspiration that burns deep in your heart to do things, to succeed, well, it was nonexistent.

My Warrior's mind was ever present, like any well trained Marine, but my Warrior's heart was bloodless, lifeless, because I had cut off the people and the God who nurtured it, who inspired it, and who gave it life.

My bones were so brittle and my hollow shell of an excuse of a body could barely move, but I knew that if I didn't move now, then I would never move. I knew that if I didn't start somewhere, I would never start.

What is perspective?

Some days all we need is a different perspective, someone to show us how to look at something a little bit differently than what we are used to. Many times this different perspective will change how we view someone or a situation, but even that isn't enough sometimes.

How is it that someone can be so selfish? How do we throw out complete disregard for someone else and how they feel, or think, or look just to meet our own needs. I don't understand how someone can look so deeply into themselves that they lose all focus of whats going on around them. It makes no sense how people can go day to day and ignore the heartache and suffering that walks past us, that surrounds us, that riddles us. Every day there is someone else with a new struggle, and sometimes all they need is a helping hand, a generous heart, or a warm smile. Some days all they need is to know that in this lonely world there is someone else out there that sees them and that actually believes in them. We want so badly to turn everything inward and to focus only on ourselves. But the truth is, is that there are people out there who aren't as strong as us. There are people out there who want to survive but don't know how, people who want the answers that some of us have, and who are we decide whether or not we should help them.

If we can for one second look beyond ourselves we would see not what the world has to offer us, but what we have to offer the world. It won't always be something great or marvelous because that is left up to perspective. But it might be great or marvelous to that person in need.

What are these?

My best guess is that its something we can't control, something we can't decided or dictate. It's just this feeling we have, this connection that forms like a bond, and every now and then we are lucky enough for that connection to be formed both ways, and out of that connection blossoms a beautiful friendship that grows into something that cannot be explained. It grows into something that can only be experienced, and through that experience comes a wealth of fond memories and cherish-able moments. You see, these are the things are should be thankful for, those moments of pure joy, pure happiness. Without them what would we be?

Just as its those connections that inspire a passion in us that can't be replicated by any other, it is those lack of connections that can drag us to our lowest points as human beings. Some of us will refuse to admit that we need them, and some of us will go through life spending all our time convincing ourselves that we don't need them. But the truth is, is that we do need that connection. We need that connection to reassure us, to believe in us, and to trust us, and without that connection we are alone, we are by ourselves, and we wonder around day by day wondering if what we are doing is right, wondering if what we are doing has any type of purpose whatsoever.

When we lose those connections it creates within us a chasm, a hole, gaping and mocking us that no matter how hard we try and fill it, we will never replace it. Everyone of these connections is to be valued, cherished, and remembered, simply because in the blink of an eye it could be gone, and we may or may not ever have one like it again.

Breathless

It felt like someone had sucked all of the oxygen out of the air and that no matter where I went, I couldn't catch my breath. I tried everything, different food, different people, different music, but nothing. No matter how hard I tried I was breathless all the time, I was drowning, and I reached the point where I no longer knew why. When you reach that point in your life you find yourself asking questions you didn't know existed. You find yourself in a place that you never thought possible, and in that moment you don't know what to be more scared of. The fact that you are there, or the fact that you don't know what to do. Some people understand that place only because they've been there before. But it still doesn't answer my question, am I here because I've allowed my own weight to drag me down? Or am I here because I've allowed the weight of other people around me to pull me under?

It seems like the answer should be simple enough, but we all know that it isn't. And so once again we find ourselves at this place where we are wondering what the world has to offer us and what we have to offer the world. We wonder what the difference is between the "right" decision and the "best" decision, and better yet, we wonder if there is even a "better" decision. Some days its easier to believe in things, to see that mixture of faith and hope and use it to propel yourself forward. And other days you just find yourself wondering if you've reached the dividing line between fantasy and reality, dream and fairy tale, possible and impossible.

Life is, without a doubt, what we make it. But for some of us that comes easier than others. Because some people are able to turn their focus inwards, some people are able to forget about the pain and heartache that they are surrounded by, and yes, those some people are able to then move forward with their lives, solely focused on themselves. Some would call that selfishness, others would simply refer to it as drive or success. But out there, there remains a handful of people who are able to rise above and carry those things with them. That handful are able to take responsibility outside of themselves and continue forward. Is it because they dream? Is it because they believe in achieving the impossible? Or maybe its because they refuse to focus all of their energy inwardly. I don't really know...All I know is that I'm still here, and I'm still drowning. No matter what I think, no matter what I dream, I still wake up in the same place, breathless and struggling to survive.