I have legitimate complaints. What most people that know me do not know about me is the extent of my trauma. What I have endured, what I have experienced, what I have observed. The cycles of abuse and abandonment that I have witnessed firsthand. The issues and habits that had become tradition and routine for me.

The hurt, the pain, the silence.

All while the me that you know was smiling. Smiling and laughing and trying and doing and being. Chipping away at the hardened reality while growing callous to it as well. Healing and hurting, simultaneously.

Hoping that there was a “tomorrow” that would erase or reverse my yesterdays. A future that would reward me for the past that I’d endured. A “there” that would/could take me away from the “here” that had long been my problems.

I struggled for years trying to grasp ahold of the concept that religion had suggested to me. That there was an eternal existence I could obtain that would vindicate my current suffering, after this lifetime. If I believed and trusted Jesus. If I followed the commandments and walked by my faith in the law of God. If I honored the Bible as the manual of instructions for that purpose.

Ignoring the human frailties and faults that undoubtedly and consistently presented themselves as contradictory notions to the ideology of this system I was to adapt.

What did qualify my journey though was that my personal experience was always endowed with spiritual enlightenment and miracles that could not ever be coordinated by man. These were my confirmations and gave me absolute confidence in the trueness of God. For the longest time I attached my witness to the ways by which I had been worked over by the concepts of faith. I’d been indoctrinated a particular way, so when God revealed God to me I attached that to my “church” rearing.

I didn’t know how not to. And there was the notion that I’d attached what I knew of God to the people that had introduced me to God. I connected these thing’s seamlessly into my psyche. This lowered my standards of expectation and released certain people from the penalty or punishment that should have accompanied my rational ability to acknowledge what was human versus what was divine.

I settled for suffering. I rendered my own self a victim of circumstances and situations for the sake of my soul. I allowed misery and mess and mediocrity for the sole purposes of quelling the dominant impression that guilt and shame had pressed upon me. It got bad.

It was sickening. I was sickened. That sickness caused a disease of deficiency. My deficits became standard and sure. But I know God and that God is real. Before long I was entrapped in this idea of being unworthy and not valuable. Not measuring up to the God I was taught.

Then I left the church, as a member. I stopped listening to the sermons, as infallible mandates. I stopped acknowledging the people, as saints.

I stopped seeing God, as inaccessible.

I’d been experienced God. But I’d always found someway to, or had help to, write the experience off as some coincidence or mischaracterization of my imagination.

January 31, 2010 the voice of God said something very specific to me. I shared what God said, to my then-girlfriend. I acted upon what God said. A few days later I told God that I was ready to do something that I’d long been wanting to do. I pulled my car over and prayed for a very specific thing. 24 hours later I had that thing. In the midst of getting that thing I got a very clear message from God. A voice that was so loud and clear said this to me: “No excuses”.

It has taken me 13 years to interpret that message. In that time, well it’s been a time. But the message is clear:

There is no reason to wait.

I will only speak for me.

There is no reason for me to wait.

There is no reason for me to not live in my now as opposed to any expectation of what happens “then”. I am a creation of God and that is enough for me to walk in and take full advantage of the power that I have through God. I get to be happy and free and full and at peace and loved and consistent. I have every right to experience the joys and enjoys of being human. I get to live.

Whatever happens after this, I will find out about after this. I will not accept that God created me in this time for me to only suffer in this time. I will live NOW. Unapologetically, authentically, immediately!

What good am I to myself, or anyone else for that matter, not being the best version of me? What good am I doing by feeling guilty and ashamed of doing human things, while I’m human? Why will I accept the flaws and shortcomings of individuals, systems, governments, and society, but not my own? I deserve the forgiveness and grace I so freely (or by force) give to others.

I get to be kind. Considerate. Dependable. Trustworthy. Positive. Powerful. Successful. Balanced. Healthy. Experienced. Vulnerable. Honest. Alive. Trustworthy. Flawed. Tested. Tried. Bold. Intentional. Acknowledged. Recognized. Respected. Forgiven. Forgiving. Wise. Loved. Satisfied. Wrong. Right. Corrected. Considered. Appreciated. Impulsive. Adventurous. Curious. Satisfied. Unpredictable. Accountable. Whatever else my journey/path/life is. Human.

Because that’s what being here is about, the experience. Anything else is useless. And in my opinion:

God can’t use you like that.

The time is NOW.

The moment is this one.

There is a whole world to do;

Things need to be done.

I’m not waiting.

-see

©️2023 Cornelious “See” Flowers

@seethepoet