September 30, 2000 – Saturday – 11:03 a.m.

We are leaving the Breaks Interstate Park that sits on the border of Virginia and Kentucky. I’m in the van with Mark, Susan from Ireland, and Lisa. Mark agreed to let me play the Legend of the Fall soundtrack since it fits in perfectly with the fall colors that have begun creeping in on the mountain sides.

The past three days have been wonderful. Some many from the church came: Ron, John, Roger, Amy, Ginger, Holly, Kevin (my small group leader), and Kristen, who was in Dang!. Kevin asked Kristen to marry him at Breaks Interstate Park two nights ago.

At the Mountain Mission School, we painted, did yard work, some landscaping, etc. It was fun and rewarding work, and the kids were so thankful we were there. The best part though was simply getting to know everyone on our team.

I performed my velociraptor impression for the kids countless times, and the little 7-year-old girl named Vanessa became my little buddy. She cried when it was time for us to leave.

The past few days were full of endless laughter, and now I have this perfect drive through the mountains with one of the greatest soundtracks ever recorded.

I just realized it was the last day of the month. Wow, I loved this month of this year. I didn’t write much, for I was living life to the fullest. What a wonderful month of friends and filmmaking! Dan and Abigail were married, but that first weekend of the month was about so much more for me. I awoke on the first day of the month in Sharon’s house and got to have breakfast with a family that truly knows how to love each other. I also was able to spend a little time with Mason and Maresa. Then, Sarah and I shared a nice walk. I hugged a pregnant Jeni goodbye very close to the place we first kissed nearly six years ago.

After that beautiful Labor Day weekend, I quit my first ever salary job and started making videos every day for Forefront. That church is a gift from God. It helped bring me to this corner of Virginia, where I was able to bless many girls from Ethiopia.

It’s great to feel tired for the sake of others. I’m worn out, but I gave all that was in me. There is no greater joy.

Okay, I’m going to stop writing now. The world outside is too beautiful, the music is too good, the company is too sweet.

I let go of September of the year 2000. You were a perfect month. Welcome October.

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September 3, 2000 – Sunday – 3:16 p.m.

Yesterday’s wedding was very beautiful and extremely centered on Christ. It was an absolutely perfect day that cannot be summarized in words.

I did get to see Jeni though. She is seven months pregnant.

So now I sit in Dan and Abigail’s new home as I listen to the Seven Stranger’s first CD, By Duck Tape and Faith. Seven Stranger’s is the band formed by Tracey, Abigail, Paul, and a few others.

My time in Banner Elk has come and gone. I grow more thankful of that fact every time I visit. I’m glad God moved me on beyond this place. If I lingered here too long, I’d just get stuck.

This place simply isn’t for me anymore. But it does bless my soul to come back. I pray the same thing happens to Virginia Beach.

I went to Heaton Christian Church this morning. It was wonderful, but I went on my own, without any friends. Curtis and Megan have already left for Atlanta.

Sarah and I never went for our second walk. Instead all the guys built a bonfire, but we got rained on.

Now my whole life is ahead of me. I don’t think I want to get married for quite a while. I often wonder if God designed me to go it alone.

So, send me out God. Thank you for a weekend of renewal.

August 4, 2000 – Friday – 11:45 a.m.

I’m sitting on a slanted picnic table in a park near the Library and Community Center of Sterling, Virginia.  I left at 7:30 this morning to drive up here, because someone associated with a sister company of Acoustic Works is going to train me on Dreamweaver.

My meeting isn’t until 1:00 p.m., but I left early just to spend some time alone in a new town.  Three kids are playing loudly on the playground near me.  I’m glad they are happy.

I received Dan and Abigail’s wedding invitation in the mail.  It makes me both happy and sad.  Only Vince and I have yet to get married, and he is in Bolivia.

After Dan and Abigail’s wedding, I wonder if I should stop visiting Banner Elk.  I can so easily get stuck in the past.  It may be better for me to not see that land for a while.

. . .

I’ve sat here in silence for a while now.  I fear I have a broken heart.  I feel Jeni, Sarah, Emily, and Marie have each broken it in their own slight way.  But most of all, I feel I have broken it as well.

An older woman just brought two little blonde girls down to the playground, but then she turned around and walked away after she saw three Black kids playing on it.  And now the two white girls are sad and asking a bunch of questions.  They don’t understand why they can’t play.

Such a sight makes me so thankful I grew up with Marcus, Danny, and Peter.  And that I even had a Black youth pastor for a while.

Life seems to get harder as I grow older.  As a child, I would have never noticed the subtle racism I just experienced.

Jesus, you are my savior.  Am I living fully in your salvation?  Am I accepting all your mercy and forgiveness?  All I want is you.

When it comes down to it, I just want that treehouse covered in snow with the Braveheart soundtrack in my ear.  I want you all around me like that.

Can I have that everyday?

I just realized this is my second time in Sterling, VA.  The first time was with Rachel’s mom when she brought me up to Chrysalis in 1997.  In fact, that was exactly three years ago, for I remember it was in early August.

Is there any love left in me?

It feels like I’m losing all my friends.  I can never have Banner Elk and Lees-McRae again, so I should stop looking and waiting for it.

Do you still have a plan for me God?

Thank you for the leaf that just floated down and sat next to me.  I want more quiet moments alone with you.

Please don’t send me a girl if she’ll only distract me from you, or if I’ll distract her from you as well.  Too many hearts have been bruised.  I want to give all of my heart to you.

February 26, 2000 – Saturday – 10:14 a.m.

Life has recently been spent in rehearsal, class, work, and with Marie.  We had our most favorite special “friend day” yesterday on a little peer out at Munden Point Park.  It is a perfect place of reflecting light, green trees, and blue sky.  We were barefoot little kids playing in life-giving water and spitting on mosquitoes.  A perfect day, an eternal instant, we wanted to spend our entire lives there.

Sarah emailed me this past week.  I emailed her back and let her know that I did not want to continue to keep in touch, that it was not fair to Marie.

I spoke with Tracey this morning.  Charlie was punched in the face and knocked out cold by a resident.  He felt the school didn’t support him, so he quit his Residence Life job and left Lees-McRae.  He’s staying with his parents, but they don’t want him there.  Kate moved down to Franklin, NC with her parents who recently moved there.

Dan is back in Colorado.

Tracey and Abigail’s Seven Strangers band is making a demo tape.  Everything is supposedly going really well for that little band.

Vince and Natalie have spent the past two weeks in New York with Vince’s dad.

And Lindy is trying to get certified in aerobics.

The Regent community, or rather our small group of Communication School acquaintances, are beginning to put two and two together when it comes to Marie and I.  Many guys have asked Marie if she is seeing someone because she has this “certain glow.”

She tells them yes.

I think it is funny.

I applied for an office manager job for a children’s theater company in Norfolk.  I pray God blesses me with it.

Children are playing outside my window now.  It’s very clear that March begins in four days.  The sounds are in the air.

I apologized to Marie last night for kissing Jeni and Sarah.  I told her I wished I had waited for her alone.  I regret the words and phrases I have written in past journals about other girls, thinking and believing I wanted to spend my life with them, thinking and believing I loved them so deeply.

Forgive me God.  I wish I could erase those pages from my journal.

I love you Jesus.  Thank you for this redemption.  I place my past and my sin before you.  You are holy and beautiful.

September 16, 1999 – Thursday – 6:49 p.m.

This has been a lonely day even though I spent some good hours with Dan, Theresa, and Amy from the bookstore.  The power went out and we got together to play a board game.

I have a bit of a headache.  My neighbors above me have really heavy footsteps.  I wish it would snow, so I could feel quiet and clean.  I wish I could ride horses against a Kentucky sunset.

David, my roommate, is as introverted as Matt.  I knocked on his door earlier and asked if I could come in and he said “no.”  His door is always closed to me.

Abigail and Jeni have recently had birthdays.  September is half over.  Then only three months left.  Some days I get so scared.  It all seems so big.  But there are other days in which being alive is the easiest thing there is.

I had a neat conversation with a Greek named Bill last night.  I was the first to get deep into his soul since he’s come to Regent.  He told me I’m the first and only person he has met who seems well rounded in all the gifts.  I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it was nice.

I also pitched “To Fly” on Monday.  Afterwards I was complemented by so many classmates telling me I was an amazing writer.  Why am I still so lonely here?  Was I this lonely at Lees-McRae?  I must like the wide spaces the mountains provided, it gave my heart room to grow.

Jesus, it is so hard to share you.  I feel like you’re all mine.  It feels like you spend all your time with me.  How can you be in my room and in David’s as well?  How can your spirit pour while I’m at church and also while I’m alone?  Can you be the leader of this dance?

I don’t know where to take you that you haven’t already been.

 

August 20, 1999 – Friday – 1:30 p.m.

I feel haunted by every moment.  Memories of these days here in Virginia Beach have already begun to linger in my mind and heart.  It seems I live every moment knowing it will never be again.  I do believe that true love lasts forever.  Veronica, Jeni, Emily, Sarah, these loves did not last forever.  Who they are now is not the person I once knew.  I’m sure I too have changed.

The summer is slowly closing, and I wish I could be back in the arms of Mary.  I wish I could sit above the city of dreams and overlook L.A.  I wish I could wake up once more under the thin slice of the Vermont moon.

I am missing days I haven’t even entered.

Oh to be 22 again.  To have just returned from Africa, to be working with the beautiful Dawn, to be sitting in class talking about movies, to be directing fifteen teens in a Christmas show.

I visited eleven new states while I was 22.

I miss the wife I have yet to meet.  Forgive me for looking for you in others’ hearts.

I want to sleep in the arms of the one who knows me.

March 5, 1999 – Friday – 1:05 p.m.

See, I hardly have the time to write, it’s already March 5th!

It’s been a hard week.  Thursday night was nice.  I went over to Kimberly’s and Marion, Michelle, and Rebekah came to watch Sense & Sensibility with us.

But yesterday was horrible.  Outside of beautiful girls who are much younger than me, I have no one to hang out with.  No guy my age seems to care around here.  No one seems to know how to love and I fear it is happening to me.  I fear the busyness of this place is causing me to forget how to make time for people.  No one knows me well enough to trust their life and heart in my hands.  I try to give my time, but no one wants it.  No one wants my heart either.  I have beautiful girls to laugh with, but I have no truly close friend my age to cry with.

What I need now is someone to cry with.  I need Vince, Curtis, Dan, Allen, Charlie, Jeni, Tracey, Josh, Abigail, and Lindy.

Could the season of truly close friendships be over?  Does it only happen in the college dorm lifestyle when you share a bathroom and share a cafeteria?  Is it true that it can never happen again?

I’ve been sitting here for a minute.  I think I’m just angry because Amy rejected me and my roommate Matt and I don’t really get along.  I tried to befriend him, but he no longer talks to me.  I don’t even think he’s attending class anymore.

I need a friend God.

A true close friend.

Will all my friends remain in the mountains?  I hope they come see me soon.  There is talk of a few coming to visit over their spring break.

I hope, I hope.

August 27, 1998 – Thursday – 5:10 p.m.

We had a youth ministry meeting last night.  I’m excited about how God is using me at Parkway.  I also talked to Jeni over the phone last night.  It is so great to know we have a wonderful friendship.

I got an email from Sarah.  It was rude and cold, but I wrote the nicest letter back.

Orientation is tomorrow.  I only have classes on Monday, which I guess is nice, but it is very different from what I’m used to.  I want to go to class, I like it, but now they are all crammed into one day.  How different my new world is.

Matt called last night.  He went to Minnesota because his girlfriend’s dad has brain cancer and might die.  I’ve had the place to myself and it’s simply insane with how well I get along with myself.

Emily is supposed to call tonight.  I wish I could hold her.  She makes life normal.  She makes it romantic.  She adds so much and she does so little.  I do hope the day will come when we can see each other again.

I need to share my heart, to share my life.  I need to ride out and see the Grand Canyon with someone.

 

May 17, 1998 – Sunday – 6:00 p.m.

A very wonderful weekend.  I spent Friday with Sarah and friends.  We had a picnic in Reynolds Gardens.  It was so beautiful!  I swung on a swing so high that I kept hitting my head on tree branch.  Sarah and KT showed me the Stevens Center, a beautiful theater in downtown Winston-Salem where she ushered.

We hung out with her friend Madelene for a while, then Sarah went to train for her summer job at the YMCA.  I ate dinner with KT and her family, took a nap, then picked Sarah up and went to her father’s house to watch Conspiracy Theory.  I spent the night at KT’s house, ate breakfast there, then drove to Banner Elk where I met up with Allen.  We drove up Beech Mountain to the house where the girls were staying.  Lindy, Abigail, Ann-Marie, Tracey, and Abigail’s parents were there.

Allen stayed up there the whole week and I later found out through Lindy that they would stay up late every night and make out together.  Wow!  Lindy feels great about it, but Allen doesn’t.

It was nice to see everyone.  We went to Jeni’s wedding.  She was absolutely beautiful.  I was very thankful that our relationship ended when it did, that we never went too far physically, and that I wasn’t the one marrying her.  I hugged her and said congratulations.  Then, surprisingly, she kissed me on my mouth.  It was just a little tap, but it was a nice moment, a nice goodbye, and I greatly enjoyed seeing her getting married.

Thank you God!

I drove to Winston-Salem that night and met up with Sarah at Madelene’s house.  Sarah and I went for a late night walk on those city streets.  The sky was purple, and it felt more like summer than any moment thus far; a very peaceful walk.

This past week I have been working on a book for Sarah that is basically just a collection of poems for her.  I let her read the thirteen poems I’ve written for her so far.  She has been doing a similar thing for me.  I love her so much.  It scares me, because I know I would do anything for her.

I came back that night, slept, then went to church this morning.  Cheryl was there.  She seems to be doing really well.  We talked a little and plan on doing something later.

And I just now returned from visiting Wynne, a guy a graduated high school with.  He caught me up on how all the old high school folks were doing.  Apparently, many are totally messed up.  One guy died, others are already divorced, but a few did finish college on time just like me.

It’s time to go to church again.

May 14, 1998 – Thursday – 7:00 p.m.

There are “final episode of Seinfeld” parties happening all over the country tonight, but I won’t be at one.  I never watched the show.  College was too much fun to spend it watching TV.

But I will talk to Sarah instead, for she is supposed to call tonight.  And I will leave tomorrow to go and see her in Winston-Salem.  After spending the day with Sarah, I will drive on to Banner Elk to attend Jeni’s wedding.

Weird, Jeni was the first girl I kissed and now I’m attending her wedding.  I remember when Tracey said our friendship after our breakup was better than most people’s marriages.  Jeni’s a good friend, and I’m happy she found someone.