36

Never in my life had I anticipated

I’d not want to celebrate my birthday

A tradition I thought would stand the test of time

Has found time a mighty opponent

And I, constantly at a loss in this war

What used to be hope turns to sorrow

The things I planned to do

Are starting to feel like things I wish I did

Life seemingly passing me by

As nieces become adults

Nephews enter high school

So many kids to get to know

Yet, when they ask where are my children…

I don’t know

What parts of life I thought I was figuring out

Only revealed greater mysteries to me

On top of hypertension

Coupled with my heart feeling like something’s wrong

My body tried to throw cancer on me

Defeat ever on me

I wonder, what promises can I really keep?

What dreams can I really accomplish?

The roadrunner forever fleeing the coyote

But my knees sting from playing football as a teen

And my legs grow weary under this fat I’ve earned

What’s another year?

More time to struggle?

More time to watch the world destroy itself?

More time to work at a job that does not fulfill me?

What will be the next battle to fight?

What is the next debilitating change to overcome?

I am afraid of the next step

Terrified of whatever else will be attacked

Troubled by the possibilities of battles I did not expect to fight

God, what is the point of pushing forward against the decay?

First my weight

Then, my knees,

Now, my veins and colon attack me

Shattering what little security I had found

In muscles and youth

Forcing questions like

Am I right to burden my wife?

Do my kids deserve to see dad struggling in his fight?

Will I outlive my mother?

Darkness consumes like flesh

And in my twenty years of a walk with God

I still feed it when no one’s looking

Did you watch this week?

None of your business…

But yes…

God is the most important thing to me

Yet, I betray Him daily

Demanding He put up with me

Sometimes, I can be such a sick human being…

Perhaps, I deserved internal bleeding

Because I walk with my head so high

I look down on arrogance and smile

Needing to be brought low

Because low is the only place I know to reach out to God

Eyes constantly on the mountaintop

Thinking I am too good to deal with medicine

Arrogance wrapped around Godly confidence

Can best be prescribed as stubbornness

Or foolishness

And foolish I may be

But one thing I still love about me

Is that I believe in miracles

I still have the audacity to believe

God will pave the way for me

Not because of anything I did

But because of who and Whose I am

Son of the living King

As much as these fears haunt me

And how painful reality hurts me

I will continue to believe

I believe my wife will be found by me

I have not dismissed her already

I believe my family with have three or four beautiful babies

I believe my writing will reach the furthest corners of this earth

I believe my films will bring billions

I believe my health will maintain until all my hairs are gray

This isn’t some mantra

Chanting, “I believe”

I am praying

So you might be reading, pleading,

“Finish the poem already.”

But this isn’t some rant

This is my life

This is my wife

This is my family

This is my destiny

Called, according His purposes

Some things you won’t believe until you speak

Some efforts you won’t make until they hold you accountable

So laugh at my dead-end job

Mock my lavish dreams

Undermine my finances

Take jabs at every decision or indecision

Throw everything you have at me

Show me just how much God loves me!

Show me just how many things I can defeat!

Including me

I did not come into this life just to be beat

I am not set up to fail

I am the son to the Most High God!

I will know victory!

Hear my prayer and tremble!

The gates of hell

The misery of failure

Both will remain foreign to me!

I still hunger

I am still motivated

I will remain expecting

I welcome you, chapter 36

Whatever you may bring,

May it be in alignment with the will of God