I am trying to do ten things at once in this moment. Homework and sermon preparing for Monday night combined with listening to worship while also staring at Luke 9:62. I was just down in the south OC for Halloween and I went to visit the Trader Joe’s that I used to work at. Its been about 6 years since I’ve worked there and most of the people that I used to work with aren’t there anymore. The idea of our past lives always comes up when we move forward in God. This is a reflection of a lot of isolated phrases that have appeared in poems in that season of life( 2009 and 2010).

I am loosing focus,

The past is the onus,

Carbon ribs for breakfast,

By the son was the fisher’s men

I am not focused,

Christ has split this sea I so

Comfortably live in, swim in,

Salt for the wounds that cry

Out to you, if we did not praise

You the world would follow me

With sounds of Your grace and mercy!

Stocking the dairy shelves,

The diary selves of my broken soul—

The nightly memory of hot water

Burning all over me,

Cigarettes for the taking,

2009 in the making,

Broken car for the faking,

Mixed tape days, tennis doubles

For the courtside wishes,

The couch family reminisces,

The last season of Lost,

The final ways I could still

Count the cost, Luke 9:62

Has a fresh renew but won’t I

Too always look back at those

Orange County days? At those Trader

Joe memories? What now is required

Of me—is it simply just to embrace my

Own story?