I do not know the path before me,
Or which way it goes.
Only that one is full of hardship,
And the other; no one knows.

There is One who goes before me,
There is One who knows,
But He keeps to Himself
Which direction the future flows.

Prayer and failure come hand in hand,
As does peace and storm,
But I only wish to see the horizon
And view its shape and form.

I see I must fight, plan, and work
Much more than I thought.
In order to maintain a gift given,
that which was bought.

My heart troubles me
Only as long as I let it.
As I sift through its lies,
And seek while trying not to sweat it.

I die to live,
Not live to die.
I sacrifice and give,
As I try to fly.

Now I decide
How to live in this gift.
Now I determine
How to die in this Present.

This ink on my Arm:
Lept from the page;

As I endured:
Love, death, and pain;

Because my Father gave me:
Life, Peace, and Rain;

On a Date:
09-27-17.

As servants we commend ourselves in every way:

In great endurance;
In troubles, hardships, and distresses;
In beatings, imprisonments, and riots;
In hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger;

In enduring purity;
In understanding, patience, and kindness;
In Spirit, sincere love, and truthful speech;
In wisdom, maturity, and knowledge;

With weapons of righteousness in our right hand,
And in our left;

Through glory and dishonor,
Bad report and good report;

We are:
Genuine, yet regarded as impostors;
Known, yet regarded as unknown;
Dying, and yet we live on;
Beaten, and yet not killed;
Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;
Poor, yet making many rich;
Having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

We serve and sacrifice;
Forcefully advancing the kingdom;
Where we have been given the gift of entry.

I see a familiar face,
Yet it is not mine.

My face is like a clock,
Each second revealing its true nature.

This one is more like a mountain,
With a depth and fierceness unknown to me.

Do not worry about your life,
Or what you will eat,
Or what you will drink,
Or about your body,
Or what you will wear.
Is life not more than food?
And the body more than clothes?

Look at the birds of the air.
They do not plant or harvest or store away in barns,
And yet they never lack anything to eat.
Are you not much more valuable than they?

Can you add a single hour to your life by worrying?

And why do you worry about clothes?
Look at the sunset in the sky,
It does not work or mend,
Yet not even the finest apparel can match its beauty.

If that’s how the sky is painted,
Which is here a moment and is lost to time in the next,
Will you not be clothed in even greater majesty?
You who cannot even see past the horizon?

So do not worry about:
What you will eat,
Or what you will drink,
Or what you will wear.
For men run after all these things,
And get lost in greed and emptiness.

But instead seek first:
Truth;
And Love;
And the Well Being of others.
Then you will never be lacking in anything you need.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
For tomorrow will worry about itself.
For each day has enough trouble of its own.

Fail and fail again,
Fail ever forward,

Success?
Accomplished?

What has man ever done on his own?
What idea was ever built on nothing but itself?

Change is built on a network of time, energy, and sacrifice.
The only true way to fail, is to quit.

Giving up is the end,
Preventing the continual effort towards the future, is its death.


Tomorrow is not promised,
The present is not honest,

Each day is a gift,
Do not get lost in the shift,

The past is a treasure of wisdom to be gleamed,
But it is not as simple as it was dreamed.

Sleep is not the end,
Only a turn around the bend,

Sleep is a comforting daily death,
While fear of something eternal takes away breath.


To have work to do is a man’s success,
To complete it is his death,

To grow and stretch and refine is his task,
To eat and drink and work is his joy.


Each day has enough trouble of its own,
So the challenges of today become the success of tomorrow.

Things are proved by the testing of time,
So then Man, is also.

Step by Step,
The Future becomes the Past,
The Trial becomes Wisdom,
The Impossible becomes Reality,

All when Perseverance finishes its work.

I am trapped,
I can't nap.

I would like to fly,
Up in the sky,
With the birds,
Or in a herd,
Of sly gazelle,
Who cannot tell,
If their blank cell,
Is crafted by their jailer,
Or if they are the tailor.

The smell engulfing,
I want to die,
I cannot breathe,
Or think,
Or stand,
Or sit,
Or lie.

I am trapped,
In my body,
And my mind.

I feel as if,
We will never arrive.

If I die before the end,
And others live on,
To journey on,
Until the adventure ends,
Which then is the true end,
To an ambling existence?

Which side shall I awake upon?
A mortal march towards death,
Or an immortal stroll through eternity?