Experience and Expression by Joshua Adam Haltom

There was a time that I defined my husband as a person who communicate himself
using extensive metaphoric expression.  Yes he was perfectly aware about it in fact in the lyrics of the song he wrote for me
which entitled “Lady Bug” he said there, “words and feeling do not
so much define my meaning.”  

This is funny but true that  even the people he was talking with, sometimes
had a drop-jaw experience whenever they talked with him because of the words he was using to communicate himself and even his ideas.  Amazed and stunned, they turned and looked at me saying, Josh is smart.  Different people, same comment.   

Before, the moment he opened his mouth he spoke ideas that totally out of this world.  The most concealed, something that came-out from pandora’s box.  Ideas that enveloped with  courage and braveness and certainly someone that conformed to what is familiar will not say.  One of the oldest person that knew him well advised me to pull him back, back to earth. 

Here is another fact about us, we grew up in a different country, different culture and mostly different languages.  His primary language is English, and mine is Filipino (Tagalog).  Though I was thought to use the English language when I was in elementary (age 6) sometimes his southern accent was also a barrier for me to fully understood what he was saying.   So it was really a BIG effort on our part to established a good communication. 

Now that he is back in doing his online-home schooling again (he stopped and give way his college to helped me rearing Abigail) I am thankful that he is becoming more fluent in expressing himself using words in a layman’s term.   In which of course a great helped on my part because I don’t need to grab Mr. Webster just to find what words he used (I am just kidding on the latter part).  One thing that I also noticed is he is becoming more open to express himself far from being intellectual but with a “soul” what I mean is straight from his heart.  

With the permission of my husband, I am sharing the article
that he wrote for his class called “Experience and Expression.”  As part of
their task they were instructed to write an essay of a brief introduction of
themselves using a brief examples of  their life. 

Our Family

My prayer is that every word that is written here will bridge the message of hope that comes from the love of God to each of us.   That the life experience of Joshua will expressed the hope he found in Jesus Christ and being transformed because of God’s grace and mercy that bestowed upon him.   Be blessed.  

John 15:27 ESV 

And you also will bear witness, because you have been with
me from the beginning

Author: Joshua Haltom

Course: Experience and Expression

Narration/Description
Essay

My family was truly engraved by the fullest desire of my
soul.  I believe that, of course,
everyone reaps exactly what they sow. 
So, this essay is about the divine forming of my still blooming
family.  My submission to the unity
consciousness is a walk still becoming everyday more and more well directed by
this creative nature I call bestowal.  It
began when I was 13 years old, and having been a regular guest at the local
Baptist congregation, I listened attentively to the message of Jesus saying,
“Ask whatsoever you will in my Name, and you shall have it.”  And, so, almost on a lark, I made my way alone
down to the Alter  (word he used to describe Altar). 

As a teenager, I could not fully comprehend how such a
promise could be possible, but it made sense to my budding metaphysical
understandings, which I cannot expound upon so fully here.  So, I forced a few tears to come from my eyes
as I considered the implications of the Creator of the universe coming in human
form, suffering, being pierced, dying and being resurrected in order to advance
the correction of the world.  This truth
was, and still is, certainly inspirational.

There I was, ready to make what I now know was a conditional
commitment for my service.  I asked God
the Father, “if” what I have heard here is really for me, “then” I ask you for
a sign.  In prayer, I uttered silently my
heart’s desire, which was to merit being with my true soul mate forever.  And so, I started to imagine who she could
be.  There was then a song by a rapper
Ludacris that was popular, and the line that stood out to me was “we want a
lady in the streets but a freak in the bed.” 
Maybe it was my teenage hormones thinking about such things, so as an
alternative, I requested “if” it is not the sovereign will of the Creator,
“then,” I would like to be a famous musician and die at age 27. 

I thought, as long as I can receive whatever
I ask for, I might as well lay it all out here, just in case. 

Now, I can see that God is the producer of this movie called
life, and the producer is charge over the director, not the other way
around.  Not long after this, I continued
to live for myself only, and just so happened to be involved in a tragic auto accident
wherein I almost lost my life.  Then, for
about a decade after having woken up from a coma, I was wandering in a hazy
state, and experimenting with various drugs. 
I did try my hand in music with only minimal success.  Since, after trying a few times to be an
employee, I applied for and began receiving Social Security Disability Income
due to the traumatic brain injury, I stayed at home a lot.  Most of my time was spent on the world-wide
web in Yahoo! Christian chat-rooms discussing what was still so very sacred to
me.  

After about 7 or 8 years of doing this daily, finally, at
age 27, I met a lady whose name happens to be Lady.  We met after she was praising God, someone
ridiculed her, I defended her, and she messaged me in private to say thank you.
 We talked most everyday afterwards and
we each found love.  After a lot much
paperwork for the government and much waiting, I flew to the Philippines to
meet her and her family.  About a year
later, she flew to Tennessee, and we were married on March 19, 2013.  I had made my way to the Alter again, but
this time I was not alone.  It was a
beautiful wedding.

In conclusion, the difference my wife has made in my life is
all the better.  We have a newly born,
wonderful little bundle of joy, our daughter Abigail Exodus.  Abigail is by definition, “father’s joy,’’
and Exodus means out of exile.  The Alter
is not a strange place for me anymore, nor is it foreign to any of us.  We lead the worship ministry in a church that
is just beginning to grow.  Our daughter
is truly anointed by the Lord, and we are acting together to make the world
ever more suitable for her to express her undeniable joy.

 

Reactive Addiction

Just today, I had seen the deepest condition of my heart.   The part that was hidden for a long time and unknowingly sugar coated.  It was unveiled after a long stretched of denials.   I admitted it to myself, I had a “reactive addiction.”   I admitted to God that I had nurtured and fed this addiction for a long time.  At first, I was in denial.  I thought, I was right most all of the time.  I thought it was a righteous anger.  Is this real?  I prayed for this first and evaluated myself before sharing it to  Joshua (my husband), to our Pastor and the whole body of Christ (during the early morning service with my husband permission).  I decided to make a decision of breaking the crazy cycle of my reactive addiction (reacting on a certain situation or circumstances based on the first impulse of my emotions omitting the principle of responding in faith in God’s words).

The first decision I made was to admit first to myself that I had an addiction that if prolong can be a self-destructive and harmful not just to my family but to my personal walk in Christ Jesus.  I decided to confessed this first to my husband, and be accountable with him for I desire to be healed from this by bringing it out in the open, and for him to be praying for me.  It says in the book of James 5:16a, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”  I am ready to hear corrections and stand corrected.  

I mentioned earlier that I thought it was a righteous anger (mostly dealing with re-occurring cigarette craving of Joshua, with his permission the story about this will be share in our next article).  


The moment spirit of wisdom and understanding helped me recognized this kind of reactive addiction was when we were at the grocery store (Piggly Wiggly).

Joshua were fixing to start our car engine and about to leave the parking lot of the store when I suddenly turned to him and said. “Bab’s can I tell you something?”  He stopped for a while and turned his face to me and said, “Sure, what about?”  Our daughter, Abigail was strapped on her car seat (which installed in the passenger seat just behind Joshua) and busy playing with her toy.  We just finished our grocery shopping and about to head home.   I cleared my throat then looked straight to his eyes and opened my mouth.  I said, “I just recognized that I have a kind of addiction and I think its called reactive addiction!”  I saw that he smiled.  I continued…”Remember when we were at store’s vegetable section, you said come on let’s go (because he thought we were done getting what we need from that section) and I suddenly said, “please don’t rush me (I was a bit agitated!  On my part,  here he go again, being Mr. rushed!  I just started enjoying looking to those greens and veggies).”  He actually responded saying okay.  But deep within me I couldn’t accept what he responded.  

There was a battle in my mind that wanted to react and doesn’t want to accept the word, okay.  I felt a sudden rushed of pressure into my heart, it pumped faster that it was.  I also felt that my head became bigger trice that it was, wanting to process words and push it out from my mouth.  My whole system acted weird.  Though my mind was urging me to say something,  reasoning…(come on Lady say something,  you will feel better) but I decided not to  say anything anymore. I felt the stressed of taming my tongue.  (I suddenly stopped and asked myself, why I am being like this?) At this point, I admitted that there was something that was not right within me.  

My story to him doesn’t ended there.  I said, “Remember when we were getting canned fruits and I suggested the brand that was much cheaper and I tried numerous times but you grabbed the other brand which was costly because your reasoned was the name sounded like more of a nature, I felt aggravated.”  At this time Joshua were still patiently listening to me but smiling more.   “Then you wanted to move in the next aisles as if nothing happened.”  But instead of following you, I burst out impatiently and irritably said in a lower but firmed voice that can you please let me enjoy this moment.  This should be a time of relaxation while slowly moving from one aisle to the other aisles.  Please stop rushing me!  This time, I just opened my mouth as quickly as I could.  No more taming.  Instead of apologizing in the way I reacted, I chose to justified my reaction by telling to myself that it was okay besides I had a point.   

My point was, Joshua were completely aware how I enjoyed doing grocery shopping.  He knows that this is one my favorite relaxation time.  Not to mention that I was being practical and plus I am a woman.  On my part I was thinking like this, “he should take my suggestion highly mostly dealing with the products that I personally patronized for a longer period of years.”  I was completely aware that these reasoning were not harmful, but the way I conveyed it to my husband whom I love made me wrong when instead of being kind,  I became irritable.  The word of God in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 that, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” 

I also admitted to him how wrong I was about the
way I reacted impatiently instead of responding to him with mercy.  As Peter Tan-chi said, “Respond, don’t react. Pause. Resist the first impulse. Ask the Holy Spirit to control you. Yield to God.” 

Photo Credit:  CCF Ortigas

Joshua and I, kissed and make-up

I apologized with him (heard by Abigail)the way I reacted with him using the first impulse of my emotions and as always he immediately gave his forgiveness without being bitter.  We ended laughing together when we realized how God always sent people to rebuke the argumentative spirit between us.  Like, when
we were in the baking aisle and he acted like getting the other brand of the
baking flour after we just agreed that we were going to get the brand
that we want in the other store since it was not available there.  I said to him, “why you are changing your mind?  I thought we were going to get the flour at the other store?”  (I was talking in a lower tone and controlled temper) Joshua was about to respond when suddenly a christian friend who were doing a grocery shopping greeted us.  My conversation with Joshua was cut.  This doesn’t happened once but many times in our marriage.   Whenever our conversation about to jump to argument, God always intervened and rescued us by means of natural way like a phone rang with a friend testifying how she received the sign she was asking from the Lord regarding her pregnancy. 

My prayer in Jesus name is that we will be reminded every minute of what the word of God says in 1 Corinthians 10:13 (New American Standard Bible)  
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is
faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are
able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so
that you will be able to endure it.”

Also that our lives be changed daily through the help of the Holy Ghost.  That we will walk by the spirit for us not to do what our sinful nature craves.  Instead of reacting with a sudden impulse of emotion or dictate of our minds,  I pray we will respond in faith whatever the circumstances will be, don’t react, and making it a habit .   I declared and fully acknowledge that God is Sovereign over our human limitations and even to our unveiled addictions whether physical, emotional and mental.