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October 23 - October 24, 2017
But while she held on to a sliver of hope, Jake was awakening to a great deal more. Not the man inside. That part was locked down behind a steel door and concrete-reinforced resolve to crush any kind of belief in a magical land. But the little boy inside was not so easily dismissed and right now would not be quiet. A place where you could get what you wanted most in the world? Just thinking about the possibility shredded his eight-year-old heart.
What are you proudest of over the past twelve months? What do you regret the most over the past year? What has been the most painful? Who did you meet this past year that you’d like to get to know better? What happened that you felt the best about? What are you most looking forward to in the twelve months to come? How can we help you get there?
“I stopped being enough for her. I couldn’t be what she needed any longer.”
For the first time, he didn’t fight that look or try to rip it from his memory. Jake embraced it, let the pain flood his mind and body and soul and heart.
“Who I was. Losing my legs is about more than just yanking me off the dating circuit. It’s taken me away from . . . I don’t know who I am anymore.”
I think you have a few typos in your text because of certain life events.” Susie twisted to face him. “In fact, I think you have more than typos. I think you have whole sentences blacked out and lies written over the top of them. But that’s only what you’re seeing. I’m still reading the old label, all of which is still true.
but if you really want to continue to help people see what’s written on their souls, you need to be willing to read what’s being written on yours. Not what was written back then, what is being written right now.”
You need to take a journey inside the bottle and forget about what people are seeing on the outside.”
“You have a decision to make. About what kind of man you are. Are you going to stay on the fringes, circling the deep pain of your life for the rest of your days, or are you going to risk it all and step inside and face whatever you find?”
“All who call themselves humans want the same thing. We want to be known. Fully. Fully known and, despite being known to our core, fully loved. We want to be in a place where all our fear, our shame, our worries have no hold on us.”
“Instead of allowing your mind to convince your heart that what is happening here isn’t real, why don’t you let go and continue to believe. It will serve you better.”
“Here? Ah, yes, therein lies the crux of your lack of faith.” Ryan spread his arms wide and his gaze swept over the field. “Here you have reached a realm where there are no boundaries. But you fail to believe this.”
“I have to know if I’m enough, if I have what it takes to do this.”
“Nothing worth having, in this life or the one to come, is free of risk.”
“There are forces in this universe that desire life, and others that are twisted, their only desire the destruction of all that is good.”
“What is bluffing but pretending?” Susie spread her hands on the table. “Saying something is real when it isn’t. Putting up a false pretense and trying to get everyone else to believe it. But it’s not just poker, it’s life, too, right? We all wear masks and desperately hope no one will peek underneath. And yet there’s a big part of us that wants to take off the mask. That would be freedom.”
“You’re the label guy, so let me read a few things on your bottle. You inspire people. You encourage them. Bring them light. You’re a three-in-the-morning-phone-call friend. You show people what freedom can look like, then lead them down that path. “But Jake, baby, you’re not free yourself. You’re in a cage. So while I don’t know what you’re going through, I do know that it’s time you face whatever is keeping you in the shadows. It’s time to do whatever it takes.”
“I see it in your eyes. The war raging deep inside. And fear. I just want to say, whatever it is, don’t back down. Trust this God of ours, and fight with all you have. Not for anyone else. Fight this battle with everything you have, for Jacob Palmer.”
“Go back in time. Do life over again. Be whole again. Wipe out the red in my ledger and be what they needed me to be. Be enough.”
“No, I don’t think you need to be enough for another woman, I think you need to be enough for your mom and for your dad. That is the root. That is where it all comes from.”
“What would life look like if you could accept yourself, Jake? What would it look like if you realized the fault in your growing up was not yours, but parents who were just children themselves? Parents who tried but simply did not know how to love you because of their own brokenness? What if you realized you are worth being loved not for what you look like, or how powerful your body is, or what you’ve accomplished, but simply because you are?”
“For something to be reborn, something else has to die.” “Die to the man I was—to the lies, my beliefs, the way I lived my life—in order to become the man I always was destined to be.”
My looks and my ability to help were my shield. I used it so no one could see the real Jake, because I thought the real Jake, the one who lived from his true heart, wasn’t enough.”
What would happen if we talked to other people about our fears and scars and burns so that those lies lose their power, and so maybe we give other people the chance to tell us what’s not written on our labels?”
“Jesus, we need transparency. We need to step out of the shadows. We need the freedom to live out of the strength and glory you’ve given us rather than live the lies about ourselves we’ve swallowed. We need to see that the bottle we all stand in is nothing. We need to see that we have put so much worth on a shell that is dying from the moment we are born. We need to look past the costume we wear to what is inside. We need to see it, and live from it. “We need to tell others what is on their labels. You’ve changed me, but there are days I still struggle with what happened to me. There are days
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