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thewakingcloak · 6 years

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On Creative Burnout and How to Get Stuff Done Without It

Over the past week or two I’ve had a bunch of conversations with people who were burned out and having a hard time. And this is a bit lengthy, but it goes out to you guys.

I hit some pretty nasty burnout in early 2018. I couldn't create anything for months. Even just *thinking* about making something made me mentally cringe away. I'd not only used up all my fuel, but I was also up against some tough tasks that I didn't know how to tackle. AND I was stressed and frustrated because I didn't think anyone was noticing The Waking Cloak. I felt like I wouldn't be able to make it "good enough" even for what I wanted it to be. I felt guilty because I thought I was letting people down who were following along with the project... and I wasn't delivering.

Sound familiar? Let's talk.

I got past the burnout and am working in a much healthier way now, a year later. But this took a shift in how I thought about working on creative projects. I used to be constantly working on The Waking Cloak because I thought that’s what it was going to take to finish it. I couldn’t afford to stop, because what if I never picked it back up again? Now I see things differently.

Part of this came from the general internet, part of it came from years of experience writing and critiquing (and now, y’know, actually applying it to game development), and part of it came from learning project management at work.

0. Before we start...

You can do this.

You’re not alone.

If you’re burned out, it gets better.

I’m around to talk if you need it.

1. The Creative Cycle AKA PLEASE REST OR YOU'LL HAVE A BAD TIME

This is a principle I learned from @emcheeseman on Twitter with this diagram:

To quote her: “Creators feel pressure to spend every second creating, but CREATIVITY IS A CYCLE between active productivity and dormant recovery.”

So the two sides of creativity: Action and Recovery. Too much Action, you get burnout. Too much Recovery and... you’re not doing anything. These two absolutely have to be kept in balance. If you're burned out, you need to spend more time recovering. If you're procrastinating, you need to spend time building up the momentum and taking action.

(Note: it’s important also learn to recognize the difference between the two versions of procrastination: some can come from burnout, in which case you need to recover, not work more.)

This is a cycle that should take place every day. When you're in balance, you'll be working on something creatively every day, but you'll also be resting. If you neglect either, you'll be thrown off balance and have to take remedial action--especially in the case of burnout.

This is because the creative mind is like a muscle. Muscles gain strength essentially by being torn and reknit together stronger. If you continuously work out the same muscles without giving them a chance to knit back together, you won't get stronger. This is why strength workouts have alternating days between muscle groups.

You know all those articles and studies coming out about how crunch is bad? All those big name game studios that required crunch and burned out all their developers? Guess what, the same principle applies to your personal creative work too. Crunch is bad. Somewhat counter-intuitively, just doing "more work" will actually make you less productive, while taking time to recover every day makes you significantly more productive. So don’t make yourself crunch. Not even if you’re enjoying what you’re working on.

I'll talk about Action later, but how about Recovery? Well, congratulations, I have good news! Having fun is now part of your creative process. Do something passive you enjoy. Play video games. Read a book, watch a TV show or movie. Go outside for a walk. Take things in. Don't feel guilty: this is vital for your creativity. What if you always exhaled without inhaling? Would you feel guilty for breathing in oxygen?

If you are currently burned out, you need to spend a lot of extra time recovering. The more you’re burned out, the more time it’ll take. That’s the part that sucks, but trust me on this. It will get better. You'll be able to tell after time. This can be days or weeks or longer, but you need to take it until both of these conditions are satisfied:

You no longer feel yourself mentally cringing away from creating something.

The idea of not creating something is unbearable

2. Motivation: creating for yourself, not to satisfy others' expectations

It's super important to come at creative projects with the right motivation. Even if you have a pretty decent Action/Recovery balance, if you're trying to please others, if you're often jealous of others, if you're comparing your work often, you will still get burned out. Creating with these as your motivation is a bit like trying to drive on fumes. It’s not sustainable, and you will run out of gas.

This is incredibly important but difficult to put into practice. How do you shift your motivations?

Some principles:

Creating for its own sake is valuable.

Other people are not competition. They are friends.

Other creative projects are not competition either--similar projects can, and should, and do exist in harmony. You can learn from one another.

If you work primarily from a standpoint of pleasing others, you are going to be very easy to disappoint.

Make what you want to make, for yourself, for your tastes particularly if this is your hobby.

The “validation machine” is tricky. At first, you’d be over the moon to have a hundred followers and maybe ten likes. Then a thousand followers and fifty likes. And on and on, all the way up--your expectations of validation will scale up. Don’t expect to keep getting high off those likes and retweets/reblogs. Make an effort to value every one of the people who follows you, even if it’s only five people.

All games are held together by duct tape and prayers. You're not alone!

Some of these are easier said than done. Just keep an eye out for these thoughts/emotions in yourself. If you notice them, take a moment, take a few deep breaths, and remind yourself what it's all about. Do you feel yourself getting jealous? Don't take it out on yourself (or anyone else). Try encouraging that person you're jealous of instead. Tell them what they're doing well, and not in the mopey "I wish I could do this as well as you" way. Instead, the "This [specific thing] is so good! Keep it up!" way. It's hard for jealousy to exist in the same place as encouragement, even if it takes a little bit to ebb.

Another suggestion is to write down the things that excite you about creating, about the specific project you’re working on, etc. This can be broad (“I like bringing my ideas to life”) or specific (“I always love exploring caves in video games and seeing what secrets they hold”). Keep this around and remind yourself of it. For The Waking Cloak, I love working on exploration, lore, and maps!

3. How to actually work and get stuff done

This is going to be the biggest point, but it revolves around a few foundational principles:

Work INCLUDES rest. It's part of the deal. You're not allowed to skip it. (see #1)

Short term goals are more important than long term deadlines (aka Agile "sprints")

Task-tracking and manageable, bite-sized chunks

One Thing a Day/Momentum

Do it fast, THEN do it right

Most of this is stuff I learned from my day job when we got our new head-of-department and jumping onto what's broadly known as DevOps principles. DevOps involves a lot more than I'm going to talk about here, but I bring it up because these aren't things I'm just making up because they sound nice. They're tried and tested, and they work.

So first, let's talk about short term goals.

Years ago (and sadly still too often today), common practice in software development was to plan big projects spanning months at a time, build the entire thing, and then deliver it. Major problems occur with this: requirements change, the world changes, technology changes, the users wanted/needed something different and you didn't know until they got it in their hands, etc.

The core problem is that nobody knows what's going to happen in the future, not with absolute certainty. I'm not joking when I say this: it's best to focus on short term goals and skip out on long term deadlines altogether. This is commonly in the form of two-week "sprints" which are geared towards delivering some complete functionality, not the entire project/software/game/etc. Here's why these work:

You have something achievable now. Two weeks of work is so much nicer than... months? years?

You get quicker feedback and can quickly adapt to these in the next sprint

Sometimes project/features of higher priority get discovered that you couldn’t have planned for

You're consistently finishing some chunk of functionality every two week sprint or every milestone. Progress feels nice!

Two week sprints don't necessarily work for all game projects, but the principle is the same: plan short-term, time-based goals, NOT functionality-based goals. If you're getting close to the deadline, move that functionality to the next "sprint", don't crunch any more than a day.

If you don't have a long-term deadline for your game set by external factors (publisher, need food to eat, etc.), and especially if you're doing this as a hobby, my advice is to not set a final deadline until you're more or less done with the game. Know what your major functionality is and a general order that you’ll work on this functionality in, but long-term deadlines are almost always unsustainable. You don't know what's going to pop up, you don't know how long certain features will take, etc. You can't predict the future. But you can create milestones.

In normal game development, this generally includes pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and so on. But for our purposes, we’ll want to redefine this and break it down even further. An alpha could take many months. I’m more interested in defining sets of features that can conceivably take a few weeks to two months, closer to a sprint.

In The Waking Cloak, these milestones are the ProtoDungeons. Each has a set of functionality (I only know the broad strokes, not the specific functionality each will contain--that only gets planned at the beginning of the specific ProtoDungeon). There will be eight of these, one for each of the player’s items, and they will be a self-contained dungeon. This is to:

Get quick feedback on how the items feel

Get practice building dungeon maps

Build a lot of the “unknown pieces” that you don’t generally think about--doors, triggers, camera transitions, pits, z-coordinate levels, and so forth.

I’ve only completely planned out one ProtoDungeon. It included the item mechanic and all the functionality mentioned in the last bullet point, but it also included more, like enemies and a boss. But then I cut everything that's unnecessary for getting these into the hands of some testers--so that meant a lot of this extraneous stuff got bumped to ProtoDungeon 2. That way, the quicker I get this demo out, the quicker I can improve for the next ProtoDungeon. The result is that working on the game feels very light and extremely productive.

Now that we have milestones and short-term goals, that brings us to tracking tasks.

I don't really care how you do this so much as I care that you do it in the first place! Tracking tasks is extremely important. Without, it can be easy to get lost in where you’re at in development. You have to hold everything in your brain, which is extra wear and tear.

I use Trello, which is free! At work we use Microsoft's Azure DevOps/VSTS and Kanban boards. You can even just use a notepad if that's what you like (though I suggest something where it’s easier to move stuff around, even if that’s Notepad on your computer). Once you have a place to keep track of stuff, I recommend creating some sections (I use Trello columns):

Backlog - tasks you're doing this milestone

Bugs/issues - you'll find these all the time :)

Doing - this is the bug or task you're working on. Only work on 1-2 things at a time. If you're not working on it, it goes back in the backlog

Complete - just a pile of your accomplishments! :D

And then here’s how you create your tasks for your “milestone”:

List out your major functionality

Break those functionalities into chunks

Break them into smaller chunks

Smaller

Still smaller

Are they now tiny? Can you do these tasks in a day or two maximum? No? Still smaller!

Stop when you're basically at the "atomic level" of tasks. They need to be bite-sized (if they’re ridiculously small, you can include them as part of a checklist on a single task)

Take all these tasks and dump them into your backlog!

As I mentioned, plan for the current milestone only. You can have a bucket of general tasks for future milestones and even a general idea of the order you want to accomplish these tasks in, but you're only planning for the current milestone and a bit into the next one.

Prioritize your tasks. You can put a number next to each task (1 being highest, 4 being lowest is what we do at work). Or if you're using Trello like me, you can drag the highest priority tasks up to the tops of the columns to work on next. I occasionally switch these around depending on what I feel like working on next, so don't feel like you have to strictly adhere to a specific set of priorities.

If you're feeling really snazzy, "weigh" your tasks. How long is this going to take? You can do this by hours, days, a generic numbering system, etc. Enough to let you know what's going to fit into a milestone and what needs to be moved to the next one. I don't think this is strictly necessary for a hobbyist project, but it's pretty vital for our day-to-day at work.

Also, you will discover more tasks as you work. "Oops, to do this, I need to add that." That's fine. Add it as a task, prioritize/organize it, and keep going.

Like rest, planning all this stuff out is hugely important but often missed because it doesn't feel like you're getting stuff done. It's deceptive. Taking time to plan and maintain your tasks will actually make you more focused and productive.

If something isn’t necessary for the deliverable, move it to the next milestone and forget about it for now. This doesn’t mean you’re procrastinating or that you’ll never get to it. Your job is to keep things light and manageable for now.

Okay, so now you have a list of tiny, bite-sized tasks, and they're all organized. Time for the next principle: “One Thing a Day.”

I mean, with everything we’ve discussed, this is pretty easy now, right? You have a bunch of bite-sized tasks. Work on at least one thing a day! You don’t have to finish it, though the fact that you’ve got these small tasks means you’re more likely to get tasks done quickly.

Let's say you're me and you have a lunch break. Well, now I can try a task or two, or check off a few of my checkboxes on one of my tasks, or at the very least get started on something I know I can finish in a few days. Or we just got the baby down to nap and she'll be asleep for an hour and a half (probably)--I can pick up another task and work on it there.

By having small tasks, you have a constant sense of progression, which is important for your morale. And by doing at least one thing a day, you develop momentum, which is extremely pivotal in countering procrastination.

For a while I logged these on the devblog, largely for accountability, but over time I haven’t needed to do that as much.

Also, keeping the creative cycle in balance is still important. Some days I absolutely did not have time, or just felt like it would be “too much.” So I didn’t do one thing that day. Instead I’d take that time to recover.

Finally, the principle of "Do it, THEN do it right."

This has helped me on so many occasions. My procrastination often stems from a feeling of being overwhelmed. I sit there thinking about a task and how long it's going to take, and all the different things I have to make in order for it to work well.

Beat the system. Hack that sucker in there in the cheapest way you can. Hardcode values. Tack code on to an existing object instead of creating a new one. All you have to do is add notes. //TODO is helpful--it doesn’t do anything automatic in GameMaker, but you can still do a project search for it to come back to it later. Then see if it works. See how it feels to play. Only after you've got it working and feeling nice, come back and polish it up a bit. Make it less hard-coded. Put it in a script so it's easier to call from multiple places. Create those objects.

For example, I just added some "Game Over" functionality. First I just whipped up the screen (draw black rectangle, draw text) and then made it show up at the press of a button. Looking good? Nope, the text is off. Let's fix that. Okay, now let's take it off this key binding and add it to the transition manager to trigger when the player dies. Shortcut: add a key that kills the player. Still triggers? Good? Okay, now make it reset the game (well, in my case, reset the room), and test with that kill key. Does that work? Remove the kill key (that would be a nasty surprise for a player if they hit the wrong key), polish (I’m summarizing, there was a lot more of this), and voilà! The important part was taking those shortcuts to blaze the trail before I paved it over (I know that makes no sense, just go with it).

This is the same idea as the rough draft of a story. No (good) book was written the way you pull it off the shelf at your bookstore. It was much rougher when it started and only got good by drafting over and over again. The point is to get your raw materials out there, like a big ol' block of stone if you were building a statue, create the vague shape (chisel off big chunks), then work on finer and finer details.

You cannot judge your work by its first draft. You'll absolutely be disappointed. Instead, come into it with the INTENTION of doing it fast and sloppy so that you have those raw materials to work with as quickly as possible.

4. In summary

It’s going to be okay.

Burnout can be avoided by taking time to rest.

If you’re burned out, it gets better by taking time to rest.

Good motivation helps avoid burnout and procrastination.

Plan generic long-term, specific in short term chunks, and work in bite-sized tasks.

Working in bite-sized tasks helps keep up momentum and morale.

Keep action and recovery balanced every day.

It’s going to be okay. :)

#devlog #devblog #burnout #game development #planning #project management #i hope this helps

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ajax-b1ue · 6 years

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Suspension of Disbelief: Ch 4

2018 Big Bang Fic Challenge Submission Amazing Artist, Big Bang Partner, and Header Creator: @ahoardofsides TW: Villainous Deceit, angst, manipulation, gaslighting, self-deprecation, self-harm, anxiety attack, violence, blood, attempted murder Pairings: Platonic LAMP WC: 4452

( Master | AO3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | Chapter 4: A Midsummer Nightmare | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 )

When Roman awakened this time, there was no one knocking at his door.

He laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. In his head, he tried to muddle his way through his ongoing disagreement with the others, and why did he keep managing to mess things up every time it looked like they were getting better?

Roman eventually managed to rouse himself from his dejection enough to decide, he needed to make a better effort. Patton had certainly been trying to reach out to him this whole time. There was no reason he shouldn’t at least try.

And so, in what was becoming a familiar scene, Roman joined the others as they were finishing their breakfast. They all paused, watching him carefully.

Roman braced himself with a deep breath. “My friends, I… wanted to extend an invitation to all of you. Would you join me in my adventures in the imagination today?”

Patton was delighted, immediately accepting. “Oh, absolutely Roman! I’d love to!”

Logan and Virgil were clearly less certain, exchanging a look and neither saying anything at first.

Roman tried not to let that sting. “I know it’s… been a while, since we’ve done anything together,” he admitted. “I thought this might help us get back on the right foot.”

Logan put a hand to his chin. “Indulging in fantasy scenarios is not something I’m usually eager to partake in… But, I agree,” he offered, gesturing with the same hand. “It would be good to have some… ‘bonding time’.”

Patton clapped his hands and looked expectantly to Virgil, as did Logan and Roman.

“Well, Grand Marshal of the Black Parade,” Roman hazarded. “…What say you?”

Virgil pulled a face and made a prolonged noise of displeasure; Roman grit his teeth. Patton was unfazed, cheerfully pointing out, “I’m not hearing a no!”

“Fine,” Virgil finally relented, rolling his eyes.

And so, the sides journeyed into Roman’s fantasy together; at first, all seemed normal. Patton was having a grand time, Logan was at least making an effort to enjoy himself, and Virgil… Virgil was going along with it, if unenthusiastically.

The adventure played out simply enough, with the sides as heroes questing to save a village from a nearby band of ruffians. It was somewhat straightforward, but plot twists and dramatic tension weren’t nearly so important as rebuilding a sense of camaraderie.

Their current path led them through a forest that had certainly never existed any place in reality. It was too pristine, too beautiful, too easy to traverse and was entirely devoid of spiders and mosquitos. Still, Roman couldn’t help but be cautiously pleased, especially as Patton delightedly pointed out each and every animal that crossed their path, or when he marveled at how pretty the sunlight shining through the leaves was.

Logan wore an exasperated but amused expression, and was notably refraining from pointing out the lack of realism. Part of Roman wanted to say something, maybe even thank the logical side— at least to let Logan know that Roman did notice the effort he was making. He couldn’t quite figure out how to word that without embarrassing himself completely, though.

Virgil was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, thumbing at something on his phone, his other hand jammed in the pocket of his hoodie. Roman let out a breath and glanced away, trying not to be frustrated.

Virgil was at least there with them. That counted for something.

For his own part, Roman tried to be a little less boisterous than he might have normally been— no breaking into song, no rallying speeches about how they would best their foes. Just… having the company of his fellow sides, and letting them enjoy themselves on their own terms.

“Roman?”

The princely side started, then glanced at Logan; from the tone of his voice, it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to catch his attention. Roman offered a sheepish smile. “My apologies, I was lost in thought.”

“So long as we’re not lost in Thomas’s imagination.” Logan raised one eyebrow, but also wore the hint of a smile. “I presume you know where we’re going? You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet since we left the village.”

Roman gave a short chuckle and glanced away. “Ahh… Well, I just wanted to let everyone take it all in, I suppose.” When he looked back to Logan, Roman could see the other side wasn’t quite buying it, but he let it slide nonetheless.

Patton took that opportunity to pop up between them, putting an arm around either of their shoulders. “Well, I know I’m having a good time, Roman! In fact,” he went on, grinning, “I’d say this whole afternoon has been a real tree-t!”

Roman pressed a hand to his mouth, trying not to smile at the expression on Logan’s face.

“Yes. It’s been a pleasure,” Logan said, voice flat. “Thus far.”

“Sorry Logan. That was really a-corny pun, wasn’t it?”

This time, Roman had to stifle a snort, and he was pretty sure he heard Virgil chuckling behind them; Patton beamed at him. Logan pressed his lips into a thin line, clearly trying very hard to bite down on whatever it was he wanted to say. “Our destination?” he reminded Roman instead, speaking a little louder than was strictly necessary. “There are some criminals we’re supposed to apprehend, are there not?”

“A group of bandits,” Roman answered, deciding to take pity on Logan. “They make their lair in a cave in this forest. We’ll need to be careful, however, as the whole area surrounding it is littered with traps. Not to worry, though,” he added after a moment, with a little more of his usual bravado. “With the four of us, we shall conquer any obstacle in our path!”

“Right!” Patton agreed, dropping his arm to nudge Logan’s shoulder with his own. “So long as we stick together! I know we can get to the root of this problem, and achieve a vic-tree. Nothing’s going to stump us!”

Roman doubled over in a fit of very fake coughing, while Virgil quietly lost it; Logan stopped dead in the middle of the pathway, his whole body rigid, refusing to move any further.

Patton paused and turned around, barely containing his mischievous grin. “Uh oh… I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess, I might have pushed the puns to the ex-tree-m?”

“Easy there, Pat, his eye’s starting to twitch,” Virgil said, finally choosing to join the conversation. Patton turned and regarded Logan, who did indeed look like he was about to blow a gasket.

“…Wood you like me to stop?”

“I’m going on ahead,” Logan declared loudly, and stalked away from the other three.

“Don’t wander off!” Virgil called after him.

“Well, I guess he can’t cedar forest for the trees, huh?” Patton murmured, and Roman finally burst into guffaws, unable to contain himself any longer. Up ahead, Logan started walking faster.

Oh, it felt good, to laugh like that. To share jokes with the others. Roman hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed it; perhaps Patton had, though, judging by the warm look the moral side was giving him. Just as quickly, though, something else caught Patton’s attention off in the trees— “Ooh! Was that a robin?”— and he veered off in another direction.

Virgil threw his hands up in exasperation. “What did I just say?”

Roman’s laughter died down to a chuckle, and he shook his head. When he looked back up, though, he noticed that Logan was getting quite a ways ahead of them. While his good mood couldn’t be dampened by guilt, he still jogged to catch up. “Logan, wait!”

It took a few minutes of coaxing, but Roman soon managed to catch Logan’s interest again with discussion of some of the traps they might have to face. Patton continued to wander back and forth across the trail, searching for wildlife and wearing a wide smile; even Virgil seemed relaxed, enjoying the peace.

They continued on this way for at least another quarter of an hour, everyone’s spirits considerably lightened. In fact, engaged in a lively debate with Logan over the optimal construction of pitfalls, Roman could have completely forgotten that there had been any awkwardness or tension to begin with.

Right up until the moment when Virgil suddenly asked, voice full of alarm, “Where’s Patton?”

Logan and Roman both ground to a halt, spinning to see Virgil— and just Virgil. Roman’s heart started to pound faster.

“Now, there’s no call for panic,” Logan tempered. “The simplest explanation is that Patton most likely strayed from the path while looking for woodland creatures.” He gestured to the forest around them. “He probably hasn’t gone that far.”

“We should split up to look for him,” Roman immediately suggested.

Virgil gave him an incredulous look. “We’ve already lost one of us, and you want to split up?”

Roman turned towards Virgil, trying not to let frustration take hold again. “We need to find him, and it’s the fastest way.”

Logan interceded before it could devolve into bickering. “Roman is right; speed is of the essence. So long as we stay within auditory range of one another, we should be able to keep track of each other’s positions.”

The dark expression on Virgil’s face made it clear what he thought of that idea, but he didn’t argue any further.

They wasted no more time in starting their search; the three of them started back the way they came, with Virgil sticking to the path and Roman and Logan going off to either side of it, calling out for their missing friend.

“Patton!”

Roman paused, listening for any response. All he could hear, however, was Virgil also yelling Patton’s name, and a little fainter, Logan doing the same.

He sighed and pressed on, leaves crunching under his boots. He wasn’t too anxious just yet; this sort of plot twist wasn’t uncommon in the imagination. Still, it was one thing when it happened to him— Roman ventured into the imagination all the time, he was familiar with its quirks. And, he was armed. Thomas’s imagination wasn’t a particularly dark place, but it could still be dangerous, and Patton was a little too trusting.

A hint of movement ahead made Roman freeze again, eyes straining to pick out whatever it was he had noticed. “…Patton?”

No voice called back, but Roman did hear a strange creaking noise that took a moment for him to place…

With a start, his eyes went wide— the creaking gave way to a whistling sound, and Roman flung himself to the forest floor. The crack of wood splintering sounded overhead, and pieces of bark showered down onto Roman.

He didn’t need to see the shattered shaft of the arrow to realize that one had just glanced off of the tree above him.

Leaves and twigs dug into Roman’s palms as he shoved himself back up, scrambling to get his feet under him. “Bandits!” Roman bellowed, trying to warn his fellow sides. “Virgil, Logan!”

He could hear more people in the forest around him now, chasing after him, and he raced to rejoin his companions. Then, Roman heard a shout that made his blood turn to ice: “We’ve got one here!”

Roman immediately turned that way, drawing his sword mid-stride. He burst back onto the path to find that two of the thugs had Virgil backed up against a tree trunk, his eyes wide with fear.

He gave them no time to react; Roman charged in, and even as the first bandit turned to look Roman smashed the hilt of his sword into their face.

The second one gave a startled cry, but quickly recovered and swung their sword at Roman. He met it with his own, then lashed out with one booted foot, catching the ruffian in the thigh and kicking them to the ground.

Then he latched onto one of Virgil’s sleeves— “Come on!”

Virgil got no chance to protest or even react before Roman started dragging him along— none too soon, as more of the bandits emerged from the trees where Roman had appeared.

Luckily, Virgil turned out to be as fast a runner as Roman was. Unfortunately, their pursuers weren’t that far behind; it would only take one slip to give them the chance to catch up.

This was still Roman’s forest, though— he knew it as well as any imaginary villain that inhabited it, and he had a clear destination in mind as he pulled Virgil after him. If they could just reach the spot in time…

Then, through the trees ahead of them, Roman could see it.

Apparently Virgil saw it too, because he dug his heels in, trying to stop. “Whoa— no!”

The ground in front of them dropped away in a steep embankment— but the shouts behind them were getting louder. Roman paused just long enough to sheath his sword, then grabbed Virgil’s shoulders with both hands. “Yes!”

Without waiting for a response, he drug Virgil over the lip. They both immediately lost their footing, sliding down the embankment, and tumbling into a heap at the bottom. Roman was the first to recover, scrambling to his feet and trying to pull Virgil to his.

There was just enough of an overhang, with thick vegetation in front of it, that it couldn’t be seen from above. Roman yanked Virgil down with him, just barely managing to hide before the sound of voices drifted down to them.

“Think they went down this way?”

Virgil sucked in a loud breath, and Roman instinctively clamped a hand over the anxious side’s mouth.

“I don’t see anything… look around!”

The seconds seemed to stretch for an eternity in which the two of them stayed frozen, neither daring to move.

Until, finally: “Ugh, can’t find nothin’… all right! Keep moving!”

Roman would have waited another few minutes, to be absolutely certain that the bandits had moved on. He wasn’t given the option, however; Virgil angrily shoved his hand away, elbowing him in the ribs and shooting the creative side a dirty look.

Roman grunted, flinching, and was ready to snap at Virgil. That was, until he saw the way Virgil sat stiffly with his shoulders hunched, pressing himself up against the dirt embankment— as far away from Roman as he could get in the small space.

Struck with a pang of guilt, Roman tried to apologize. “Virgil, I’m—”

“Whatever,” Virgil growled, pulling the hood of his jacket up around his neck like a ruff. He shoved his way past the other side, clambering to his feet. Roman let out a breath, then started to push himself up as well.

Standing again, Roman allowed himself a moment to take stock of where they were: the bottom of a streambed, with water trickling over mossy rocks at their feet. It was actually rather beautiful, and under any other circumstances, Roman would have liked to stop and take the time to admire his handiwork. As it was—

“So what now?”

Roman winced, but schooled his expression as he turned to Virgil, who wore a flat look and held both arms out to the side before letting them drop.

Roman took a moment to straighten his back and take a breath, trying to project his usual air of confidence. “First thing, we should get out of this gully. We don’t want to be trapped down here if they come back.”

Virgil gestured to the bank they had slid down, and Roman immediately took his point.

“I know, it’s too steep,” Roman acknowledged, grimacing. They couldn’t go back the way they came. “The other side is shallow enough, though; we can climb up and follow the stream until we find a spot where we can cross back over.”

“Then we can start looking for Patton, and Logan.” The stare Virgil gave Roman was neutral, but his tone was bitter.

Roman had no answer for that. He just moved to the opposite bank, trying to pick out the best path upwards.

“Great plan, by the way,” Virgil went on. “Splitting up? Wish I’d thought of how it could have gone wrong. Oh. Wait.”

Roman flinched, his hands clenching. “Virgil—” His breath caught in his throat, and Roman checked himself, ducking his head. “Let’s just… focus on finding Logan and Patton.”

He could feel Virgil’s stare boring into the back of his head.

“Sure,” was the clipped response.

With that, things were right back to how they had been the past few weeks— uncomfortable and tense. The two of them drug themselves up out of the gully, then proceeded to walk in uneasy silence; calling out for Logan and Patton was out of the question, not with the bandits already looking for them. The woods around them seemed to reflect Roman’s sinking mood, with the forest growing more dreary and lifeless with every step they took.

It was, surprisingly, Virgil who finally broke the silence. “So… this is your space, right? Can’t you just—” Virgil snapped his fingers— “and we’re all back together? Or,” he asked, eyes narrowing, “does that not fit with your ‘storyline’?”

Roman did his absolute best not to react to Virgil’s pointed jab. Instead, he tried to answer Virgil’s first question. “…Yes, I can shape the imagination,” he explained, still keeping his eyes forward. “But, for something like this, I also have to surrender some control. I can’t just always… force an idea, or a story. It needs to be able to flow naturally.”

“…So even in your own realm, you’re useless. Good to know.”

Roman froze. The forest around them was still and silent and gray.

Then, slowly, he turned to face Virgil. “What?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Did I stutter?”

Roman bristled, then snapped, “What the heck has gotten into you, Anxiety?”

He hadn’t meant to say it— in that moment of incredulous anger it slipped out. But before Roman even had the chance to regret his choice of words, Virgil’s lips curled, and his voice dripped with sarcasm. “Aww, look who’s busting out the old names— am I getting to you, Princey?”

“Well you’re certainly doing your best to act like a villain right now,” Roman shot back, guilt fading fast.

Virgil’s response took Roman entirely off guard. He just smirked, tapping the tip of his nose with one finger. “And he finally gets it.”

“Excuse you??” About a hundred questions immediately sprang to Roman’s mind, most of them some variation on, What the heck is that supposed to mean? It was at this point, however, that Roman realized the imagination was starting to warp around them; everywhere he looked, it grew darker, plants withered, the wind blew cold.

He understood with a start— it was responding to Virgil.

“What are you doing?” Roman wheeled back towards the other side. “Stop it!”

“Make me,” Virgil taunted. “Oh wait, you can’t, can you? You have to ‘surrender control’,” he said, making air quotes with his fingers.

At this point, Roman had had enough. Virgil had escalated from being rude to being outright confrontational, and if the other side wanted to play this game—

Roman caught himself again, and let out a short, hard exhalation.

…No.

If Virgil was trying to get a rise out of Roman, the creative side wasn’t going to give him any further satisfaction. He straightened his back, squared his shoulders, and turned pointedly away, intending to walk off and leave Virgil to his own devices.

Instead, Roman was forced to halt, almost tripping over his own feet to avoid walking straight into a wall of gnarled roots and vines full of thorns that erupted from the ground at his feet. He backpedaled, turning to search for another way around— only to find that he and Virgil were surrounded, hedged in on all sides, cutting the two of them off from everything else.

Roman recoiled, his head whipping back to Virgil, who just smiled. “What— how—” Roman realized then that the imagination wasn’t just responding to Virgil— the other side was actually manipulating it, in a way that no one except Roman should have been able to. “Virgil, what’s going on??”

“Virgil? I thought I was Anxiety.” Virgil tilted his head, expression filled with mock concern. “…Am I making you anxious, Roman?” Then Virgil’s eyes fell to where Roman’s hand had found its way to the hilt of the sword at his hip; his smirk twisted into a grin. “No… you’re scared.” The grin darkened, as did the air around them. “You should be.”

Roman felt like the world was spinning around him, and he couldn’t get his balance. “Are you… threatening me?” Once upon a time, Roman would have believed that in a heartbeat— but he would have been wrong, he told himself vehemently.

Wouldn’t he?

No, Virgil wasn’t like this. They got mad at each other, they fought sometimes, but Virgil wouldn’t go this far… But if he was still mad, why accept Roman’s invitation in the first place? Was it some kind of joke? Virgil’s way of getting back at him?

Roman clenched his eyes and shook his head. “Virgil, enough! I don’t understand how, or why you’re doing this, but we both know this isn’t you!”

Virgil snorted softly, still watching Roman with eyes full of dark amusement. “Funny. They both knew it wasn’t me, either.”

A chill ran up Roman’s spine. “…What?”

The smirk never left the other side’s face. “Out here, in the middle of the woods… it’s so easy to get turned around. Separated.” Virgil’s face scrunched up in fake concern. “I hate to think about what’d happen to Thomas if they got lost in here.”

Roman couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe what he was hearing—

“But, there’s nothing to worry about,” Virgil dismissed casually. “Not when you have friends you can trust…” He made direct eye contact with Roman, and smiled. “Right?”

Friend or no— that was the tipping point. With a flash of steel, Roman’s sword was free of its sheath. “What have you done to them?!” he demanded.

“Hm, I don’t know… what do you think?” Virgil gestured lazily, the dark aura around him growing, and suddenly Roman could hear yells of pain coming from beyond the thicket.

“Logan! Patton!”

Roman spun frantically— blast these damned thorns, he couldn’t get through to them!

Instead, he rounded again on the other side, desperate. “Virgil, stop! They’re your friends!” Virgil’s grin widened, and the sounds of pain turned to screams; Roman flinched, then advanced on Virgil, brandishing his blade. “Stop this, now!”

Virgil raised an arm surrounded by black energy, gesturing at Roman—

Roman reacted, swinging to intercept—

And for just a moment, Roman saw Virgil’s face twisted in fear, not a grin; the arm he had thrown up not crackling with dark magic, but protecting his face.

Roman’s sword sliced cleanly into Virgil’s left forearm.

The anxious side gasped for air. His face went white as a sheet. Then he crumpled, clutching at his arm— and the far-too-fast-growing bloodstain there.

And that was when the other sides found them. They ran to them, calling their names— Roman barely registered that there was no thicket separating them anymore, as Logan and Patton both drew up short, looking horrified; Patton immediately rushed to Virgil’s side.

Logan spun towards Roman. “What did you do?!”

Roman’s mouth hung open, eyes wide, unable to form words. Logan shoved past him, not waiting for an answer. The silence was filled by Virgil’s gasping breaths; he was starting to hyperventilate. Patton frantically tried to get Virgil to focus on him and slow his breathing.

Logan muttered, “He’s going into shock… We have to get him out of here so we can stitch that up.” He then rounded on Roman again, who recoiled at the fury on Logan’s face. “End this— take us back!”

Floundering for a moment, Roman tried to remember how to make his limbs work, how to make his mind work.

“Logan!” Patton’s desperate cry drew the attention of both the logical and creative sides.

Virgil’s breaths were getting choppier, and his head was starting to loll— and suddenly the world around them lurched and grew darker. They all came to the awful realization at the same time:

Thomas was having an anxiety attack.

Everything around them started to devolve into chaos— tremors shaking the earth, trees toppling and collapsing around them, lightning flashing as a building storm filled the sky.

“Take us back, now!” Logan yelled again. When Roman didn’t respond, he seized a fist full of his jacket and shouted, “Roman!” Roman flinched, but then made a curt gesture with his arm; the fantasy world dissolved around them, resolving into their own living room.

The sky outside was still dark except for flashes of lightning followed by rumbles of thunder that shook the house, while the wind howled and rattled the windows— not nearly as bad as the imagination, but Thomas’s mind was still in chaos.

Logan and Patton maneuvered Virgil onto the couch and stripped his hoodie off, totally occupied with trying to deal with his injury as quickly as they could, and hopefully stop Thomas’s panic attack.

Roman staggered back against the wall, trying to process. He attacked Virgil. He genuinely thought that Virgil had turned on them, that he was hurting the others… But the terror in Virgil’s face as Roman’s sword descended was burned into his memory— as was Logan’s look of cold fury.

Patton had one hand clamped over Virgil’s bare arm; he reached out to Logan with the other, taking the piece of gauze the logical side handed him. He placed it over the cut before quickly reapplying pressure— Roman could see, his hands were covered in blood.

In Virgil’s…

Roman sank out, retreating to his room. He barely managed to stumble to the door and lock himself in before he broke down crying, which turned to sobbing.

He sank to his knees. He buried his face in his arms, fingers pulling painfully at his hair, shuddering with each gasped breath.

He missed the footsteps crossing the marble floor until their owner was right in front of him.

“Oh, Roman… what did you do?”

Roman wasn’t quite able to look up, but Deceit’s voice was unmistakable. Roman still couldn’t bring himself to move as Deceit knelt next to him.

He slowly wrapped his arms around Roman’s shoulders. “Shhh,” Deceit soothed. “I’ve got you.” In his soft, flat tone, he insisted, “Don’t worry… it’ll all be okay.”

Hearing those words from Deceit, Roman began to tremble. His face screwed up— and then, he broke down completely. His body sagged, his strength leaving him, until he was held up only by Deceit’s iron grasp.

#suspension of disbelief #ts fanfiction #sanders sides #roman sanders #deceit sanders #angst #big bang

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04/01/2017 DAB Transcript

Deuteronomy 18:1-20:20 ~ Luke 9:28-50 ~ Psalm 73:1-28 ~ Proverbs 12:10

Today is April 1st. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you. Yeah, it's a shiny doorway to a brand new month, a month for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere where it starts to warm up, new life starts to spring forth, and I realize for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere it is a time where autumn begins to really show itself. I guess if you’re near the equator it's just another day like all the days, being pleasant and temperate. The beauty is it doesn’t matter because we’re all around the global campfire now, ready to take the next steps forward in the scriptures.

Today we’ll read from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 4, and we’re reading from the Cotton Patch Gospel today.

Then Jesus was taken by the Spirit into the country to be given a test by the Confuser and after a 40-day fast, he was plenty hungry. Well, the Confuser came around and said to him, “So, you're God's head man, huh? Then order these stones to become pones.” But Jesus told him, “Scripture says man shall not live on pone alone but on every word falling from the lips of God.”

Next, the Confuser takes him into Atlanta and stands him on the steeple of First Church and says to him, “Okay, let's suppose you're God's head man, now jump down from here, for the scripture says ‘he will make his angels responsible for you and they’ll carry you along on their hands to keep you from stumping your toe on a stone.’” Jesus replied, “Yes, but it is also written ‘you shall not try God's patience.’”

Again the Confuser gets him way up on a mountain and points at all the nations of the world and their splendor and says to Jesus, “Now, if you just let me be boss, I’ll turn all this over to you.” And Jesus tells him, “Scram Satan! The scripture says ‘you should let the Lord God be your boss and you shall give your loyalty to him alone.’” At that, the Confuser leaves him, and you know, the angels came and began waiting on him.

Happy April 1st! April Fool’s Day! We read from the Cotton Patch Gospel in honor of all of our Georgians out there. Our women's conference will be in Georgia in just a few days and, I promise, we won't be referencing the Cotton Patch Gospel at the More Gathering, but every April 1st I go in search of the most obscure, interesting paraphrase of the scriptures that I can find and this is what we found for this year.

Now, no, no, no, no nasty emails to me about how I don’t revere the word of the Lord. Before you press send on that, let's just think about this. I’ve been reading the word of the Lord out loud every day of my life for the last 12 years. I do revere the word of the Lord. We just have a little fun, a little fun on April 1st. You get to play tricks on your friends, as childish as it might be, and so do I. Happy April to you all!

So now we’re at the end of the week and all of this week, for real, we’ve been reading from the Common English Bible, which is what we’ll do today, Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 1 through 20, verse 20.

Commentary

Let's go into the gospel of Luke and look at what is going on in Jesus’ life. Obviously the things that he is saying are things that people haven’t heard in a way that they haven’t heard before and it is igniting their hearts. He's speaking with an authority that they just haven’t come into contact with before and everywhere he goes good happens, restoration happens, whether it be in mind, body or spirit. Everywhere he goes redemption follows.

So he's begun to attract attention, attention from religious leaders, attention from those nearby, word is spreading everywhere, people are flocking to him. And the disciples say to Jesus, “Master, we saw someone throwing demons out in your name and we tried to stop them because he isn’t in our group of followers.”

That is a fascinating thing to say. The disciples probably said it out of protection for Jesus. Like, Jesus is the real deal. He's got the real authority. He's doing the real work of God and we can’t just let a cottage industry sprout up around this of fake people who are just trying to be little Jesuses, but they’re not in our group.

Now, think about it for a second. That posture can be found in the world today. It can be found when we think that the church we attend is the only Bible teaching church that there really is in this town and we go here for the word and we’ve got the hotline, we’ve got the main connect here. Everybody else is just maybe, sort of, kind of, but we’ve got it right. Or the denomination of the faith that we affiliate ourselves with, we would only go to that kind of church because they’ve got it right. All of the nuances are worked out and they’ve got it right.

Or the many battles that get waged on the internet anonymously.

Or the people that get labeled who are doing work in the name of Jesus and there is fruit to follow it, but they get labeled, ostracized, sidelined or discredited.

This particular passage of scripture helps us look at that in a new way. We need to first acknowledge there is only one Jesus and when Jesus was walking the earth and ministering, there wasn’t anything called a denomination of the Christian faith. There wasn’t the right church because there wasn’t any church. But the disciples, they kind of had this instinct that we can see in the world today. Maybe we can see it in our own hearts today. And Jesus spoke into it revealing the posture that we are to take in these situations. Jesus said, “Don’t stop him because whoever isn’t against you is for you.”

A lot of fragmenting of the church throughout the world could be healed up with that one sentence from the lips of the source, from Jesus himself. A lot of the pride and arrogance that we get about thinking that we have the corner on the truth and we are right, thereby segregating ourselves from each other, could be healed up if we just listen to Jesus.

May we examine our hearts today and realize that God has permission as the Sovereign Lord of Heaven's Armies and the Creator of all things to do things and use people and operate in ways that we don’t understand or that we can’t wrap our minds around or that we can’t own. He can get his will done however he wants to in spite of us. We’re kind of wasting our time trying to be the doctrine police. I'm not saying doctrine isn’t important and I'm not saying theology isn’t important. They are. But when we get this attitude that we have it right, it's cemented in, we know all there is to know, then we have absolutely put a ceiling on our experience with God. God in the Bible and in our lives today has no problem disrupting that status quo. He has no problem smashing that cement because he isn’t interested in all of that. He's interested in a first person, loving, loyal, intimate fellowship, covenant relationship with us. If we’re ever going to get our doctrine and theology right, we should probably be in relationship with him and celebrate what he is doing in the world, however he is doing it in the world, wherever the fruit of the Spirit is, wherever hints and whispers and news of the kingdom is. We should spend our time in collaboration with God rather than falling for the distractions that divide us because it was Jesus who said a house divided against itself can’t stand. We can see this has been going on a long time, all the way back to the very disciples of Jesus and Jesus speaks into this at the very beginning. All we need to do is listen. All we need to do is listen to the one we say has rescued our souls for eternity. We should just listen. “Whoever isn’t against you is for you.” That's what Jesus said.

Prayer

Father, we invite you into this because we do get that posture often. Anytime something bristles us as the wrong thing, anytime it is not something we can control, this kind of begins to well up in us. It is challenging our own faith and that is why we react the way that we do because we can’t imagine you working in a way that we wouldn’t do or that we can’t understand. This is simply exposing our hearts, exposing our fear, exposing our doubt, exposing our pride, exposing our arrogance. So we invite you into that. Come Holy Spirit, we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask, amen.

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website. It's home base. It's where you find out what is going on around here.

I’ve got a big announcement. So many of you have been asking about this and now we’re ready. Basically, every year we go back to the land of the Bible and invite as many as can come to experience the crunch of the earth beneath our feet and the wind in our face and experience these places firsthand that we’ve spent so much time in, in the scriptures, and so many of the stories that unfold begin to unfold like right before your eyes. We’ve got that all set up.

The next time we’ll be going to the land of the Bible will be February 19th through March 4th, 2018. Because of the way that we do this, the amount of moving around and the amount of things that we’ll see, we have a capacity. You can go on these trips that are huge, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, but they kind of follow a certain loop, a certain highlight reel and we try to go a little bit below the surface and really experience from the furthest south to the furthest north, from the furthest west to the furthest east of the land and all in between, really chasing down the stories in the scriptures and trying to apply them to our lives in the moment as we experience what happened there. So yeah, there is a capacity and, well, they sell out. So now, right now you can register for our trip, our pilgrimage to the land of the Bible, to the promised land that will take place February 19th through the 4th of March (which happens to be my birthday) of 2018. Go to www.DailyAudioBible.com and look for Israel 2018 links. You can go to www.DailyAudioBibleIsrael.com which will get you there. I couldn’t be more excited that we get to experience this together again. We had a fantastic time. We always have a fantastic time. I have deeply fond memories of the time that we had just a couple months ago.

So it's available. You can register now. If it's kind of on your bucket list or something that you want to do, registering now will guarantee that you can go. So check it out and I look forward to seeing you in Tel Aviv.

The women’s conference, the More Gathering for Women is coming up in just a few days, begins on the 6th of this month, so just a few days, and we have an intercessory team that has been praying for months over everything from equipment to camp to safety to travel to every woman's heart that is in attendance, so I'm kind of calling out to the whole community now. Let's cover this in prayer. It's a very beautiful thing that happens and we want a canopy of prayer, a dome over everything about this. So thank you for your prayers for the More Gathering that is coming up in a few days.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com. There is a link. It is on the home page. Thank you for your partnership in keeping the community here every day. So the link is on the home page. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible App, you can press the More button in the lower right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. My name is Andra K. and I am calling from Balotra in the Bahamas. This is my first time calling. I’ve been listening now for going on three years and I can surely say that the Daily Audio Bible has transformed my life. I just wanted to (just finally get the courage to call in), but I'm asking you to pray for my country right now. We are getting ready for a general election and a whole lot of things are happening. So please keep us in your prayer. I am so thankful for Brian and Jill and the Daily Audio Bible family. You’ll be hearing more from me, but continue to pray for us. God bless you all. Have a blessed day.

Hi everyone. This is Karen in St. Louis. I would have called yesterday, but I was so broken I couldn’t. I just want to ask your prayers for all of us out there that are single and alone, who have no other soul in this world that they are humanly bonded to. I know that the Lord is with us and that he is for us, but boy, I know that it is not good for man to be alone and so I think this isn’t the first time I’ve come to this place. I think part of it is tripped off because I joined a high school reunion committee for a 40th high school reunion and I wanted it to be a community where I could let my light shine, but I don’t really feel like I fit in. I don’t really know these people. I was pretty much stoned all through high school and had very superficial relationships. I did meet one person who was my best and dearest friend and the Lord took her to be home with him eight years ago. I miss her so much. But in this timeframe I'm just being tormented with dreams about going to picnics or reunions or events and being alone and trying to talk to people and being brushed off. You know, this has actually happened in real life and so the pain is very deep, it's very real and the longing for a husband and a family has never realized, and so anyway, I just covet your prayers. I ask that you reach out to those who are single, and thank you so much.

Hi, this is Iris R. from Pitt Meadows, B.C. I'm just phoning because I want to encourage the women that are going to the More Conference. I went last year for my first time. I am a round peg in a square hole. I don’t feel like I fit in lots of times, but you know the Lord needs round pegs. I'm praying for you, that you go, that you have an open heart, that you step out, take that step and don’t worry about the obstacles that go on that seem to close a door to you going. That is Satan wanting you to stay. He wants you to be isolated. He doesn’t want you to see yourself as God sees you. No, God looks down from heaven and he sees you has white and pure and forgiven and because of an abusive past, I did not believe all those things about myself. I believed that I was damaged, that it worked for other people, it didn’t work for me. But that is not true. That is a lie. You know, Jesus died on the cross and he said it is enough. Anyway, go and you’ll meet wonderful ladies, be warmly received. God's word will just echo in your heart and your life. I used to wake up in the middle of the night with fear. I never knew what it was. It didn’t have to be anything, but the first night I was there, I woke up the next morning hearing ‘I'm not longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.’ Go and rejoice. Thank you. God bless you, Daily Audio Bible.

Hello Daily Audio Bible friends and family. This is Jamie from Phoenix. I’ve heard a lot of people use this one scripture when they’re talking about their kids not following Jesus anymore and I wanted to give you a different look on this scripture. It's Proverbs 22:6. Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it. Now, I’ve had a problem with this scripture and it gave me a lot of guilt for many years until a pastor had me read it again. And we got to the point where it says ‘and when he is old he will not depart from it.’ It does not say that he will never depart from it. It says when he is old he will remember it and not depart from it. So hopefully that is some encouragement for you because, yes, a lot of our children are not following God and we need to continue to pray for them, that God will touch their hearts again, but hold onto the faith and hold onto the scripture that says when they grow old they will not depart from it. Again, this is Jamie from Phoenix and I haven’t been using my name when I’ve sang a couple of songs online and that was Through Every Storm and God Will Take Care of You. I will talk to you guys later and I love you. Talk to you later. Bye.

Hi guys, this is Mark from New Hampshire. Hi DAB family. I'm sorry. It's been long overdue that I’ve given this testimonial. Should have done it earlier. I’ve been keeping Jill informed of all this and actually I saw Brian twice last year, in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and the one in New Hampshire I actually brought a van full of recovering addicts to watch Brian. They found him very inspiring, so thanks Brian. Back in 2009 my son had been homeless due to his drug addiction for two years, and after his third suicide attempt, countless detoxes and attempts at outpatient programs, I made a prayer request to the DAB community in hopes that God would reach into my son's heart and bring him back to our family. Soon after that he asked me from the bottom of his heart to help him. He told me he was tired of living this way and would I please get him the help that he needs. And of course, me and my wife said that's all you had to do, son, is ask. So this story goes on forever, but I’ve got to do this in two minutes. God brought this whole mess full circle and it was nothing short of a miracle. On a side note, I got sober 17 years ago. I became a drug and alcohol counselor and now my son, who has been sober for the last five years, has moved back home and is working with me. My son developed a spirituality which many would envy. Our family's faith in God could not grow any stronger. My son and I get up every morning. We ask God to guide us and help us to help the young men in the world that are suffering from drug addiction. Last year we actually opened Lake House Recovery in New Hampshire, a recovery home that teaches the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, brings young men back to their higher power, which of course most end up simply calling God. So last week we opened our second home. My son who was literally on death's door back in 2009 is completely healthy, articulate, and he actually proposed to his fiancée and they’re getting married in October. I can’t wait to fly out to that. The whole rest of the family is extremely healthy and happy too and I just wanted to call in quickly and thank all my DAB friends for praying for him and of course me and my wife are going to continue to pray for you all. So thank you so much. Take care guys. Bye.

Hi DAB family. This is Will from beautiful Bozeman, MT. Brian, I want to thank you for this ministry. Jill, thank you so much for what you do with this ministry and just praying for the upcoming conference with the women. And I'm calling in today because I need prayer, DAB family. I got up this morning to pray and just starting praying. The first thing I heard is ‘draw near.’ And the Lord was just speaking to me in that respect. Of course, I immediately thought about James chapter 4, and of course verse 8, draw near to God and he’ll draw near to you. Then the next thought in my mind was ‘forsake. Begin to forsake.’ For me I saw that drawing near to God means for me to begin to forsake things in my life. I need prayer. I want to honor God. I want to do his will and honor him in every way. Of course, my life is not in order. I'm chaplain for the bobcat football team of Montana State University. We are having a coaches’ Bible study and that is an incredible thing, but I know that there is more that God wants to do in me and my family, my marriage, with work. And all the stuff going on, I need to forsake those things that God is calling me to draw near to him for. So please, DAB family, pray with me. If you want to reach out to me, my email address is [email protected] if you want to reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you so much for your encouragement everyone.

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