bradglenn79

If you know me you know I love to learn, like it’s one of my favorite things to do. If you don’t know me, Hi, I’m Brad and I am so thankful you’re here. Back to learning, I honestly feel like I need to learn something everyday, no matter how small or inconsequential it’s a need in my soul.

I try to learn everything about the people in my circle and ones that I meet. I may come across as aggravating or nosey but in all actuality it is because I want to know you. I need to know what makes you tick, what you think, and why you feel the way you do. I need to know what makes you, you. I will ask questions about you, your family, your job, even your childhood.

I strive to learn as much about everyone as I can. I want to know how I can help you, how I can serve you, not necessarily because you need me but because I feel a need to serve that lives deep in my soul. I serve to alleviate the unease in my soul that comes when I am living for myself.

In my learning about others and serving others I have learned that I also fall short in many other areas. While I strive to know everything about you, I often only share a very small part of who I really am. I am very guarded, to the point that a lot of my hurt in this life I have gone through alone and people very close to me have not known. This is not healthy. We are not meant to carry the burdens of this life alone.

I am currently in a small group with my Church that is about praise and worship. The group was to discuss why and how we praise and how we worship. I spent last night in this group in tears telling how I let someone’s words convince me to never try if I couldn’t be the best. While I know now he was trying to convince me to try harder, to get better, I took it as discouragement. I have tortured myself with this for years I haven’t shared it with others.

A majority of the people in this group I have just met, yet in this group I have found a comfortable place to let go and worship. I have found comfort in my shortcomings. I have found peace in the fact that I am WORTHY and I am ENOUGH. I have found a gift in the people that share this time with me each week.

I have learned the Praise opens the prisons we have trapped ourselves in, it frees us from burdens that weren’t ours to bear, it frees the soul to see yourself through God’s eyes. You are created in his image, your walk with God is your own, but the way you come out will show God to the world. While we are not needed, we are desired, we are free, and we are LOVED. No matter your struggle his grace is sufficient and his love is never ending.

I Love you!!

I think as a species one of the greatest desires most of us have is to make a difference. I know it is a desire that drives me through a lot of my life. There are a ton of reasons people want to make a difference. What we often miss is our opportunity to make that difference.

I have had so many amazing people in my life. I have had people pour into me and guide me when I had zero direction of my own. They have put theirselves out to put me in a better place, and they have done it when I have had no way to repay their sacrifice. I will never forget those people and I am more grateful for them than they will ever know. From family, to friends, to strangers that have become more important to me than I believed was possible.

There have been so many times in life where I have wanted to make a difference, sometimes to change my situation for my own gain, sometimes because I thought that it would benefit another, or a group as a whole. I am often in situations where people are looking to me for advice, or guidance, and I fear that I have squandered those opportunities. I know what you’re thinking, and I agree, if you’re in a situation where Brad is your guiding light, you may need to rethink your path.

After all of this it makes me wonder how many times in our life are we missing the opportunity to make a difference caught up in our “storm.” I know that God has placed opportunities in front of me that I have missed because I wasn’t listening to him and seeing his desire. I also know that I have let so many people down by walking away from opportunities because I didn’t feel worthy, because of my mess, or because I have placed too much importance in what others have said or thought about me.

I am struggling with my worth, I am struggling with my ability to make a difference, but I am working on it. I am believing that if I am making a difference for the right reason then I will be placed in more places where I can use the gifts God has allowed me to make a difference. I am believing that God can and will use Brad to make a difference in this world for the Kingdom of God. I will find my worth, I will strive to see myself through his eyes, and I will help to show others that God can use all of us no matter your mess.

More than anything I want y’all to know I LOVE You!!

I was having lunch with some friends that I hold dear today. I love these people so much more than they realize. One of the things I love about them is we can talk about anything, literally nothing is off limits. Today we got on a subject that we all feel very strongly about and have a wide variety of views.

In this conversation I began to notice the difference between the optimist, the pessimist, and the realist. I have always wanted to be an optimist. I want to believe that everyone is inherently good, and if they ever hurt you it was because they didn’t realize they were doing it, or didn’t mean to. To feel that way though leaves you making excuses for actions you don’t necessarily agree with.

I lean more pessimistic sometimes, way more than I want to admit, maybe even more than I realize. While it doesn’t force me to make excuses for people it often leaves me disheartened by people’s actions and their seeming unwillingness to care about others. It often allows me to find fault in others, as well as myself in a split second and dwell on it much longer than I should.

I honestly try to be more of a realist, which is in my opinion where life makes the most sense. You are able to take things at face value. You don’t assign intentions to someone’s actions and you don’t make excuses for them either. You understand that as humans we are inherently flawed, and allowed to navigate our way through life with full use of the free will God endowed us with, when he created us. The realist doesn’t see the glass as half full or half empty.

As we are moving through life, dealing with the ups and downs, having our feelings hurt or possibly hurting the feelings of others we love, let us not see this glass as half full, or half empty. Let us see this glass as having room left for Laughter, for Hope, for Faith, for Friendship, for Caring, and most importantly for LOVE.

Let’s fill that glass!!

I love you!

Whirlwind, that’s how I would describe life lately. Inside, outside, where people can see, and definitely through the things I hide. There have been so many emotions, fears, doubts, sleepless nights, and days where I wish I could just stop the ride and get off, not for good just for a rest.

Being the strong one is easy for me when I have it all figured out. Here lately I haven’t even been close. I feel like I am heading in the wrong direction as fast as I can go, watching the life I want disappearing into the darkness in a ever so tiny rear view mirror.

I don’t deal with anxiety very well. I get through it but not before it has caused me significant issues. Worry is the worst for me. My Mama has always told me that worrying comes natural for me, because she has always been a worrier, however I think mine might be on another level.

A lot of my worry comes from self doubt and the uncontrollable need to have everything under control. I never feel like I am good enough, smart enough, or professionally successful enough. Unfortunately for me in this season of my life these seem to be never ending. Wave after wave of doubt, I can’t seem to get through one without getting knocked down by the next.

Dealing with these doubts have left me in almost constant fear and worry. Scared I won’t be good enough at work, scared I won’t be a good enough provider at home, and terrified I won’t be a good enough father.

I have found some peace in an analogy. I am a big fan of analogies. It allows me to more easily understand things sometimes. Currently I am living through what I call my “Bus” analogy, it’s not mine I know I heard it somewhere else I’m just not sure where. Basically I believe that in this life we are all on a bus, in a seat, working our way through this city we call life. I believe that everyone has a seat, a seat that belongs to you, made for you, comfortable for you. Now this seat isn’t without some hard times, rough patches, or some bumpy roads but you feel more comfortable in that seat than any other.

The tricky part is riding through the city in the wrong seat. It can be so very difficult. It’s because you’re living someone else’s life, their truth. You are going through trials that are meant for them, that they are equipped for, trials that will make them the person they are supposed to become. Now you are encountering these struggles, going through this pain because you are in the wrong seat. In some cases not only are you in the wrong seat you’re on the wrong bus entirely.

I feel like I have been in the wrong seat, on the wrong bus, fighting battles meant for others for so long I don’t know how to do it any other way. I live with so much fear inside, scared to change seats, change busses, scared to make a move not knowing if it will get harder, and just how much more I can pile on before I break.

I am working on overcoming the fear. Working on finding my seat. Working on finding myself, on the right bus heading in the right direction, to become the best version of myself.

If you’re in the same place as me just know I am praying for you. If you’re not in the same situation, if you’re living your best life, I’m praying for you too. We will get through, we will find our seat, we will be better tomorrow than we were today, and if not maybe the next day will be better.

I love y’all and thank you, each and everyone of you.

As some of you know I have struggles, a lot of which are brought about by self doubt, inability to say no, and the need to be everything for everyone. Yesterday I was in a situation that reminded me, the selflessness while it may cause hard times it often doesn’t go unnoticed from those who’s life you touched.

I ride my motorcycle, a lot. I average around twenty thousand miles a year, most of the time it is my main mode of transportation. It’s better on gas, it’s nice here in NC most of the year, and you never feel so free as when you have the wind in your face and your cares fading into the road behind you. With that being said I have never considered myself a “Biker.”

It’s not that I have a problem with bikers, I know a bunch and I love them like family. There has always been a negative stereotype about bikers that I have tried to separate myself from. I knew the stereotype to be false but worried that I wouldn’t be able to change the minds of others in mainstream culture.

Yesterday I was invited to participate in a charity ride for a biker who had passed while riding his motorcycle. I absolutely adore riding for any reason, but if we can attach it to a great cause I’m in regardless of the time invested, or the cost to ride.

I have been in over fifty charity rides over the last couple years, some for people who I hold so close to my heart and others for people I’ve never met, dealing with things I couldn’t imagine. I can tell you the ride yesterday was different, I realized that even if I didn’t consider myself a biker, outsiders do, and honestly there isn’t a group that I would rather be a part of.

There were over three hundred bikes, more than six hundred people all to say goodbye, thank you, and you are loved to this biker who had touched so many lives. There was no shortage of stories about the impact he had made on so many peoples lives. There were smiles, there was laughter, there were a lot of tears, but there was SO much love.

The motorcycles filled the streets sometimes taking up the entire road for as far as you could see. There were people waving from their porches, standing on the side of the road holding balloons and signs, and people parked to watch as we paraded through the county that this man Loved on so much. It was at this time that I realized what I wanted, where I wanted to be.

I think the most we could ever hope for is to make such an impact on the people in your sphere that they are able to celebrate your life when you’re gone. To be a soul so loved, no matter how long you lived it wasn’t long enough. To also be a person who lived every single day.

When my time comes I want to be that “biker.” I want everyone to be able to tell stories about how I helped, how I made a difference in their life, how I Loved everyone. Lord guide me to do more with what you have given me, to spread your love to people I come in contact with, to be a light in a sometimes dark world.

I love you!!

Thank you “Tinker” Ride Free

Ok so let me tell you. I have been on this journey for a little over 43 years. I have been through ups and downs as has everyone else. I don’t think my life was worse than yours, in a lot of ways I was truly blessed, but I have always, always, always struggled with self worth.

I have never felt qualified to do most of the things I do. To be honest most of the time I have felt insanely unqualified just trying to “fake it, till I make it” through my whole life. Just hoping no one found out that I truly had no idea what I was doing.

It has been like a movie at times. Sometimes I’m the star of the show (hush, I mean it’s my life). Other times I am an uncredited extra that is no more important than shear set filler. The problem with this is for it to be my life, I have spent way too much time as the extra with no speaking part, no back story, no importance.

When you’re just an extra you feel like no one notices, no one cares about you, your wants, your desires, your goals. You just exist. I got real good at doing that because I allowed myself to feel that, I have allowed myself to be treated that way, a lot of the time I put myself in that box.

I have been told I’m not good enough by so many people in this life. The bad part is very few of them were doing it to be mean. They were doing it to help me, to guide me, to push me toward something that was better suited for me. All I heard was the fact that I wasn’t good enough.

I’ve been disqualified from doing things I loved by people I once held on pedestals. Had my candle of hope snuffed out over their jealous desire to keep me where I was, or over a difference of opinion over some innocuous topic that in the grand scheme of this life meant nothing.

What hurt the most is the fact that I have disqualified myself from the love of God over the opinion of others. If they can’t love me and they don’t even know all of the bad I’ve done how can the all knowing love me? How can the creator of the universe love someone like me when I have failed at every single turn?

I will never be the man I should, it’s not for lack of trying it’s because I can’t be perfect. I will be the best version of me that I can be everyday. Some days that version will be worthy of your love, others he will be in need of your grace, and sometimes he will need your forgiveness. Just know that everyone of those days he will love you, appreciate you, and he will be trying.

When watching movies sometimes there’s a plot twist, something the actors, the audience, the crowd never sees coming. My life is no different, in my life the twist is, I Am Enough!

I love you from the bottom of my heart.

Why is wanting good for others so easy, but wanting the best for yourself so very hard? The sermon today got me diving deep into this question. I pray for others, want for others, wish for others, do for others and forget about me. Today I realize it’s probably because I am living in an “anybody, but me” mindset.

I have fallen into a hole, where I know me, I know my heart, and I don’t feel like I deserve my hearts desires. I don’t think I hate me, but I know that I am often hard to love. I fail everyday, I know the way, I can see the path, and I seem to wonder off course. I wish I could say that I was doing it for a noble cause, all I can say for certain is that it happens and I seem to sink lower.

Today when the preacher touched on God’s grace and the abundance of it all, I immediately discounted my ability to be saved. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows the terrible things I’ve done, the horrible things I’ve thought, and the embarrassing moments that I dread ever having to relive. How could I be forgiven? Surely the abundant grace was for others and not me.

So I sit here outside of church, tears in my eyes, trying to convince myself that when the Bible says anyone I am included. I have done such a great job of setting myself apart, in all the wrong ways, that I truly do feel like I have been disqualified, defeated, and no worthy of grace.

Why would God save someone like me? He created me in his image gave me life to spread his love and grow his kingdom. He doesn’t need me, but I am important because he wants me. I am not an example of how a Christian should look, how he should act, or how a Christian should feel. I am a Christian none the less, a child of God, loved unconditionally beyond measure.

I will have to keep believing, keep striving, keep repeating this to myself until I know it to be true. If you’re in the same boat, if you’re in an anyone, but me mindset I’m here for you. We can talk through it, cry about it, and pray over it. We can help each other by knowing we are not alone.

I say it every time but I can not say it enough. I Love You. Even on the hard days, even when you feel unlovable. One of my favorite people always tells me this way, and I now see the significance, I love YOU!

ANYONE MEANS YOU TOO!!!

I will admit I tend to be busy. Way busier than I want to be most of the time. It’s because I have a hard time telling someone no.

I have been the guy most of my life that people could count on. If you needed something done call Brad. He will say yes, he’ll get it done, he won’t say no. It has been a blessing and a curse. I love being able to help but I get so easily overextended because there are things I need to do for me too.

As of late I have let some things slide, I have failed to take care of people that have been there for me. I haven’t been as good of a friend as I should. These are things I am in the process of rectifying, but as with true change it’s going to take some time.

While trying to decide what I was doing wrong I found myself replaying in my head day to day, minute to minute, and sometimes second by second of my life. Where had my time gone? What has this time produced? Was this time well spent? What comes next is hard for me to admit and will be a huge point I have to change moving forward.

I found that I have been making time for people that are always too busy for me. I have allowed people who are close to me to wait on me while I attempt to cater those who don’t reciprocate the energy. I have canceled plans and not made plans only to have been stood up repeatedly.

Everything I give someone, every single thing, I can get back except my time. Why am I out here handing out the most valuable commodity on the planet to people who don’t value me, who can’t see my worth, who don’t understand what making time is all about.

As I said before I am going to do better, I’m going to change, I’m going to add more value to my friendships and relationships by giving them more of my time.

If you’re in my life and you’re too busy, understand I love you and out of that respect I will stop trying to steal your time by giving you mine.

As always I truly do love you.

I’m honestly trying to write a little more. It’s not that I have any more to say than usual, I have just seen more that I feel like is worth sharing. I’m hoping that one of these posts will reach the person it’s supposed to help.

Scrolling Facebook tonight I saw a quote that said “sometimes you think you want to disappear, when really you just want to be found.” I wish that I had come up with something so simply eloquent to describe that feeling I have felt so frequently in my life.

If you’ve been with me for a while you understand that sense of self and my own identity is something I have struggled with. From listening to what others said about me, trying to change to suit those around me, all the way to the detrimental way that I have talked to myself it’s been contentious at best.

That quote made me think of all of the times that I have wanted to run away. My misery doesn’t love company, it honestly likes to be left alone. That fact leads me to withdraw since I can’t run from the problems. I internalize and deal with it alone. I don’t want to trouble anyone with my pain so I end up causing me trauma to save others a burden.

One thing I found a couple of years ago is internalizing all of these feelings had changed the person I was. I realized that all those years of repression had left me a man I didn’t know, one that I was very, very unhappy with. This man caused me great pain just being himself, which was who I had created him to be.

I have spent the last few years trying to tear down the walls I had created out of hurt. I have been tearing them down looking for the Brad I used to be, looking for the Brad I miss, the Brad I love. While this is still a work in progress, I am still a work in progress, I am making progress. I can see parts of the old me in my actions, hear it in my laugh, see it in my smile.

As you struggle with where you are, as you long for a change, make sure you’re doing it for the right reason. Don’t waste energy on trying to disappear when true peace comes from truly being found.

I love you.

I am a big guy, I say that honestly and uncomfortably. Funny story about it, I told my Dr I wanted to lose a hundred pounds because I was tired of being fat, to which she replied “if you lose a hundred pounds then you’ll just be fat.” Some people would’ve been offended and at one point I would’ve.

I am comfortable being a big guy, but I want to be healthier so I have decided I am going to make the necessary changes. I am going to change my lifestyle so this isn’t a constant up and down. I want to be able to be around to see my kids grow up all the way, to see them succeed.

In thinking about how much I need to lose and what I’m going to have to change I got to thinking bout the causes of my weight. What had happened to cause me to gain so much weight, why was it so hard for me to change, for me to turn around this ever climbing scale.

I have done a lot of searching and asking what happened. When I was 8 my mom took a second shift job, I felt like she took the job because she didn’t want to be around me. Now that I’m an adult I understand she done exactly what she felt like she needed to do to provide. I don’t blame her at all for any of that, what I learned to do then was eat my feelings and keep them all bottled up inside.

That is where I realized just how much feelings weigh. I gained so much weight eating my feelings. I would eat when I was depressed, nothing was better than a big burger to make me feel better. I would eat when I was bored, popcorn, chips, ice cream sitting in front of the TV as I tried to get lost in some other world.

The weight that I believe is going to be the hardest to lose and the hardest to quantify is the weight of other’s opinions. We don’t realize how much someone’s opinions weigh on you, how much them saying you can’t holds down what you can, and how heavy their words said out of anger, frustration, or just lack of concern can be.

Made me start to think about the way I have dealt with others. How much of my weight have I laid on others? How many pounds have I added to someone who was already struggling to carry it? How much of the weight I want to lose have I burdened others with?

As I change my diet, increase my exercise, and hopefully lose some weight. I will also lighten the words I use when dealing with others, I will help them carry the weight they struggle with, and I will give the love and encouragement I have longed for on my hard days.

Pray for me while I attempt to be better physically and mentally. Pray that I am able to lose this weight. Pray that I will be able to be a better person.

I love you.