This Love, This Thought, This Passion

Today is March first. Well, the moment I am writing this it is in fact March first. Whether it will remain to be this day when this writing finds it way to my blog… time will tell. It has been almost nearly exactly a month since I landed in the US, about three weeks since I left Colorado, and I have been home for almost two weeks. I know I didn’t expound upon my DTS much in my previous writings, I just sort of wrote what I was feeling at the moment. While some of my readers might be lost as to why I feel this way or how I came to the conclusions I have. I feel that this will be the best way for me to express myself and the most rewarding way for you to learn or glimpse what changes took place in me. So rather then delve into the past let’s delve into the present.

I’m back. I have remarked to several people that I feel as if I have stepped out of a coma. Try to see with my eyes for a moment. I have been gone five months. I have seen things, experienced things, and lived a different life then the past 18 years. Any kind of routines I may have had, I had many, were gone. I started a brand new existance, old habits were broken, new ones established. Old relationships not forgotten by any means, but certainly my energy was very much invested in new ones. So I come back from this drastic difference to a world that only time has touched. To a place where the people are the same, but different. Where people look different, but act as they always have. To a place that is strangely familiar.

I have lived here before? I think to myself. It seems like a distant disconnected memory, but the more I am back the more I remember how familiar it is. My brain is in an odd position trying to compensate for this change. It’s not culture shock, it’s something akin to it I think. I am not shocked by the culture, I am merely displaced in time. I knew lives would go on without me, obviously! What I experience is a reminder that I have just given five months to pursue something, five months spent seeking one thing. To have blinders on is a wonderful thing for a time, but when you remove them there are so many sensations to experience. So many different things happening. It was hard for me to adjust, or rather it is hard for me.

This sounds all very depressing, or at least in my head it does. I don’t mean it to, I am just being honest and trying to best describe my feelings. I digress. All this is a reminder of who I was and who I am now. I am saying these disconnections I feel are good and will help me to better the place I am in now.  These disconnections keep me from slipping back into old routines and habits they drive me forward to continue creating to change the face of the place where I live. So consider it in a positive light that I have awoken from a coma to a place where everything is different, but nothing is. It is good!

Truly it is a strange and fascinating experience. The scientist comes out in me more often when I stop and write. Perhaps it is because I have begun to intentionally work things out over longer periods of time, to catalogue, and collect data on a singular subject. The current subject only a months worth of time. This shall reflect in my muddled communication of it! Still I have come to conclusion that while I may feel displaced I will hold on to this feeling so I can gain the focus for the future it offers.

The dissonance will hold me to a standard and a place of responsibility to refuse to let my world be unchanged. I have been forever changed by my experiences it would be a slap in the face of those changes to revert. So to build my altar, to honor my King, and to show my deepest affections toward Him I will let the feelings come and use them to my advantage. To better the world in which I live. I have deep ambitions and passions, people think I’m crazy, and I know it by the things they do. For all one knows I am crazy, I am crazy for the one who loves me more than any other it is this love, this thought, this passion that drives me toward the goal, the prize. I seek ever earnestly with peace in my heart. Trials come and go, but He remains the same. Well put.

Dear reader I apologize for my tardiness and lack of forthcoming I vow to do better in the future!

Blessings upon you,
Alexander Helmer

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither”
- C.S. Lewis

Missions

Missions Week.

In light of all of this teaching I find myself wrestling with these questions: Could I live a life where I did not go? Could I live a life here in America? Would I ever feel fulfilled? I have dreams, sort of. I would love to be a musician and play for people or play at IHOP or whatever. But at the same time I don’t know that living my life here, and being an example, in a sea of examples, would satisfy me. I do love America, it’s people. I am not a masochist, I do not has some perverse idea that I need to suffer to make myself be worthy. I could never be worthy except through Jesus’ blood.

There’s a quiet longing, a still voice beckoning me. There’s a deep sense of disquiet in me. When I consider going home, when I consider living a nicer life. I begin to despise the thought. I desperately want adventure in every form. I want to walk by faith, I want to be dangerous for Jesus. These things can be accomplished here. But for what? I was made to love God. And I do. I want to love God by going and doing everything I can where many people can’t. I want to walk with faith into the places where other people think it is impossible. Not for my sake or exultation, but because God loves the people there just as much as He loves me.

I do not wish to sound condemning to those who are to stay. No! People in America are just as important as those that aren’t; however I desire to go where there are no Christians. Where there is no truth. If I don’t go who will? If I don’t serve God in this way who will go? Someone will go, but for how long and how many people will be lost? How much justice will be lost? And what’s more how many will go? If I go one more will go. There will be another pair of hands to labor.

The speaker this week wrote 21 things on the board that we will have to give up for full time missions. He related to us the story of Adoniram Judson who went to Burma as a missionary and had many trials because of it. He lost children, wives, and eventually his own life. But he changed Burma forever. If it were not for Him the Karen people would not be a Christian group fighting for independence! As I thought about the 21 things he put up there, things like: Finances, Plans, Nutrition, Comfort, Children, Relationships, Friends, Family, etc… I came to the conclusion that I as I am now only have one thing to stand in my way. There’s only one thing that I have right now and that is Family. And I can truly say I do not desire any of the things mentioned above. It’s not a dream of my heart to have money, comfort, relationships, etc. The only things I treasure are God’s justice and my family.

Bearing in mind the fact that I have hardly anything holding me back, shouldn’t I be one to go? I looked around at the other people in the room, we did some exercises to see what was in our way. Many people had 4, 5, or more standing in their way. I only had one. I began thinking about my past and the way I was raised. The more I thought the more I realized I was bred for missions whether on purpose or accident. There have been trials and pain in my life not planned, but out of that God has brought me to an understanding of hardship. It is normal. It is easier for me to bear. I can’t sit here knowing that I have an advantage to go and decide that I want comforts. I don’t even know what they are. I have the striking suspicion they are shadows and I feel in my heart that there is no other fulfillment, for me, than living a life in a trench. Living on a battlefield, living rejected, living in a place of deep physical and spiritual hardship. All of those things are here in America, but my mind will rationalize as it pleases. If I don’t go, when I can, who will?

I am not ‘sacrificing’ myself to go so others can stay. No! I would not dare steal glory from God. I am simply trying to give Him glory for taking events in my life and giving them a purpose and I feel this is it’s purpose. I was made for loving Him, but I was brought up and bred for a mission field of hardship and tragedy. I love America, it’s people, and the ones called to be here. I love my Christ and I love His people. So I will not sit by in a life many deem comfortable because, for me, it will be a life of torment and discomfort. I do not want to get to heaven and look back on life and realized I didn’t live it 100% for Him, even unto death. Do not be surprised when I wind up in a jungle somewhere in Asia or a sandy city in the Middle East. I am willing to give up everything for the sake of the Cross. I will bring justice to Jesus, He deserves what He paid for. For Him? I would gladly die.

 

Blessings, Alex Helmer

 

 

In response to these feelings I wrote a poem (rare occurrence).

“I often feel lucky for my upbringing
For I have already relinquished many things

Not because I chose them
For I would not choose to be worse off who could?

Life and this world like to be cruel
These things I’ve lived without do not seem difficult to divulge

However the things that I have had to cling to
I still want, yet I don’t mean to

I know wherever I go you will be with me
Whatever I choose your hand on me is steady

The thing I love is my family
But for you I would give it up happily

For I desire your justice and glory
God you can take all of me

I hold not a single piece back as many think I ought to
For my life would mean little if not lived for you. “

Alexander Helmer
December 8th, 2011

 

 

My Treehouse.

Greetings!

Recently in my quiet times with God I have felt the sense and the urge from Him to begin writing, blogging, and/or recording my life. I too thought, why on earth would God tell me that?.

Well after much deliberation I still do not understand why I am supposed to write. I do see the benefits to it though. At any rate if the God of the universe impresses something on me I want to do it. So here I am. I am willing to grow as a writer and a thinker. You know there’s something to be said for being able to put ones thoughts on a piece of paper (or ether) and come away with a well thought out logical structure or flow. I am willing to put my jumbled thoughts, personal revelations, and life out here for anyone who wishes to read them.

On that note I feel as if blogging and vlogging may be an easy way to keep the masses of my life informed of my activities. I now realize that all the people important to me will not always live where I live and will not always be involved in what I am involved in. A harrowing thought if I truly dwell on it. I will not always be within driving distance of those I love. This is something I have always known growing up, but as I grow older I realize again and again that it is different than I ever imagined.

Is anything as we ever imagine it to be?

I would like to imagine that my grammar and writing style is perfect; however I cannot. So therefore I apologize to you mother for failing to pay attention in all the hours we poured over my textbooks. I am and will always be a student. I promise to learn how to best convey my thoughts; please grant me grace as we embark. I look forward to writing my musings and discoveries here for you.

Peace be with you and blessing upon you,

Alex