The New New Year

2012 has gone and it was quite the year. I sit and I contemplate the moments of last year and I'm never amazed at how much has happened, how much has come and how different my life looks now in comparison to this time one year ago.

Alvarez, Shawn Sanchez and Myself

The hardened men of the Leather shop

My Mentor Ralph Maser

The USP Leavenworth Softball All-Stars

I woke up this time last year in a prison cell in A cell house Leavenworth. The anticipation and anxiety that consumed me was enough to drive me out of my mind. I had so many thoughts of what life could look like that I laid awake most nights tossing as the images of a life I never lived danced past my closed eyes. Here I had spent 3 years being told what to do and when to do it with very little freedom for my own choices; now I had to think about a job, responsibility and making a life for myself that seemed so foreign. The questions were many, "Could I do it? Will I screw it up? Will I fall back into the same patterns?" That confident part of me thought I had it all figured out, as though in hindsight there wasn't going to be any difficulty in the transition from living a life as an outlaw to a responsible driven man of Christ.

The Christians of LVN

My Friends visiting

Little did I know how difficult it would be. I was faced with 6 months of endless torment from a facility that existed to help yet somewhere in there functioning forgot that fact. January through July I was continually at the mercy of counselors and case managers who were hardened to the difficulty of reintegration and decided that it was easier to send men back to prison than to allow them the assistance needed to change their lives.

My hero Chaplain Hughes

But I made it. I saw a change in the attitudes of the staff responsible for my care and watched as they were stunned by my submissive attitude with each overwhelming command they gave. See, I resolved early on to never respond out of anger towards anyone. Being in Leavenworth gave me a lot of time to think and build a character that had its foundation built on living out the principles of Scripture: bless when cursed, love when hated, seek peace and be compelled by Christ.
It was through that surrendering the situation to God that I was allowed to marry the woman of my dreams when it looked like it wasn't going to happen. God blessed me in spite of the situation and I was able to see one of the best days of my life happen on April 29, 2012.

The first day I met my Nephew

It has been...joyously tough being married. I say joyous because I have never felt so sure of God, myself, and my future like I am standing next to Beki. I say tough because I've never had to be accountable to another human being before. When problems arose I just drowned them in drugs or left them in a cloud of dust as my tires laid was of the pavement.Now I face challenge and work though problems as one part of a two part life.

She never missed a weekend

Through this holy union I've come to know a life I never thought possible. 2012 has been the first year since high school (aside from prison) that I have stayed in one place. It has been the first year that I have welcomed the thought of waking up each day under the same roof, with the same person, with the same friends. 2012 has been the first year where I finally felt a sense of belonging in a world once too foreign.
I know there are many this time of year who set out to make resolutions and they come up with grand ideas to change their lives. I used to do that, mostly it involved promising myself never to use drugs again or resolving to make a different life in a different town with different people. We could spend hours thinking about the many different ways to change ourselves but I prefer not to do that. I'd rather focus only on becoming a better version of me by, as my father in-law says, "Living out of my heart and making each day matter." Because no matter what may come in 2013, it is far better than where I spent most of 2012, and all of 2011, 2010, and 2009.