You Are More

The second semester of my freshman year and first semester of my sophomore year in college I was head over heels for this one girl. Now you may think “Well that’s college. What’s the big deal? Everybody has a little crush here and there.”

There is one thing you have to understand about my college. It’s a small institution of higher learning hidden up top a mountain of a tropical forest. There were about four hundred students, total. Yup, that’s in the whole college! So you best bet that every one knew who you were the moment you stepped foot through those “pearly gates.”

Ok back to the head over heels part.

I really liked this girl. I pursued her for over a year. EVERYONE knew I liked her.

She didn’t like me back. She didn’t know what she was missing out on. (Ha ha ha, yes I’m being funny)

The first half of that first semester of my sophomore year things changed. One day my friends decided to go out to the beach. I don’t know why I didn’t go but in those days it was almost certain that a lonely Javier, meant a depressed Javier. So, I locked my self in my room, cranked up the Cypress Hill and went “insane in the membrane.” After listening to the music and getting pumped up I decided to leave the relatively safe compounds of my room and walk around campus, which was desolate like any other Sunday.

There I was. Sitting in front of an empty water fountain. Sulking in my depression.

Then a “bright” idea came to me, “Let’s walk around the fountain.”

Then another “genius” idea popped into my head, “Climb the fountain.”

It wasn’t weird that I wanted to climb the fountain. Many people before me had done it. Even up to three or four at a time.

So I climbed.

I felt like King Kong dangling from the Empire State Building. I even let out a scream and a few unmentionable words. And as I decided to climb down, I shifted my weight towards the lower lever of the fountain. I immediately felt not just my weight shift but also the weight of the fountain. In my desperation, I felt that I could hold back that pile of solid concrete coming my way, only to have to try and escape being crushed by it at the last moment.

I ended up in the hospital. No brain damage according to the doctors, although that’s debatable. I have a scar if you want to see it but the biggest scar was that to my reputation.

From that day on I was know as “Javier, the guys that broke the fountain.” It means that I was immature. I didn’t have control over my emotions. I was just a kid seeking attention. I wasn’t taken seriously. I was a joke. And even though my friends rallied around me, the rest of the four hundred students in that school believed everything they heard about me. The negative, the ugly, the shameful was what the vast majority believed. So, I decided to leave. I changed my major and flew back to California that December.

Recently, there is a song that I have been playing consistently. It’s by Tenth Avenue North called “You Are More.” Here is the chorus:

“You are more than the choices that you've made,

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

You are more than the problems you create,

You've been remade.”

I wish I had heard that song during those hard days where I didn’t feel I was much.

I have no idea why you are reading this today but I can assure you that the mistakes in your past do not dictate who you are or who you have to be. I certainly make mistakes as often and maybe as bad as anyone else but the Bible gives us this assurance “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Take assurance that God can make you new.

If you feel like judging anyone, remember to give him or her the benefit of the doubt.

God has restored me. He continues to work on me everyday. Even though I may feel broken beyond repair, he still finds a way to make me whole.

'Cause this is not about what you've done, 

But what's been done for you. 

This is not about where you've been, 

But where your brokenness brings you to 

This is not about what you feel, 

But what He felt to forgive you, 

And what He felt to make you loved.

"You Are More" -Tenth Avenue North