SYSI (Joseph Puzzo)

SHVRE YOUR SHVRDS INITIATIVE: Joseph Puzzo

You’ve orchestrated the universe into a symphony of your glory that would shatter the stoutest heart and drown the driest eyes.

The flowers bloom in vain; the grass grows green with envy; for your attention goes not to them, but to me; to reconciling me to you.

May you alone be glorified with my life.

(Reverse chronological order)

Twenty-one – Lord, I have failed. My sexual sobriety I prided myself on is broken, along with another girl’s heart. How could I have been faithful to an imperfect human when I’m not faithful to a perfect God? The abused has indeed become the abuser. Show me where to find you.

Nineteen – Lord, you have changed me from Dillon to Joseph, yet in my selfishness I have lost my job, my home, and my fiancée. I’m alone in this darkness. Show me where to find you.

Eighteen – Lord, I’m moving from girl to girl, not realizing that they are your daughters Alcohol hasn’t helped, though through hungover eyes I see my mother at the foot of my bed, telling me my recently abusive ex-stepfather has attempted suicide. I wish he died. Show me where to find you.

Sixteen – Lord, you have brought me through the biggest heartbreak and betrayal of my life, from someone I feel entitled to trust. Pull up a chair because I’m going to unload on you, Abba. This is your fault. You owe me. Show me where to find you.

Fifteen – Lord, my sexuality has been answered. I’m on number two already. My spiral has started. I think drinking helps. I want to live for this world; you can wait. Still yet, show me where to find you.

Nine – Lord, where is the line of sin? Was it sexual abuse or was I wanting it? I feel dirty, though. If I do enough good, will you show me where to find you?

Six – Lord, Mom and Dad are gone. My grandparents are stable, right? What were those naked people doing in that video? I don’t know much, but does this stuff show me where to find you?

Four – Lord, where is Dad? Why is Mom crying? Why don’t birthday wishes work? Where am I? Will these strangers show me where I can find you?

Conception – Lord, my parents are dancing along with Heaven as you knit me together in Mom’s womb. I don’t know you yet, but I will need you to show me where to find you.

Crucifixion – Lord, your Son is dying for me, the sins I will do 2000 years from now are being blasted on this perfect man so that you can show me where to find you.

Before creation – Lord, you are in perfect harmony with yourself…and out of your abundance of Love you speak the Universe into existence and breathe us into life, in order that one day you may show me where to find you.

 

 

I was born in Alabama; my dad was in the military, training to be a helicopter pilot. We soon moved to California, as military life goes.

I was three when my parents got a divorce, I remember the fights in front of the Christmas tree. This is where my insecurities would start. My mom says that my dad was cheating on her and went on a Las Vegas gambling trip when I was deathly sick; my dad says my mom was a thief and stole me away to Missouri. Either way, the rest of my family was there, so I grew up in the south-central region, in a town called West Plains.

When I was five, I was at my grandmother’s house when she came home, in tears, telling me I had to go with her. She pulled into the Howell County Jailhouse and I walked inside to see my mother in orange and chains. I did not know much then, but I knew that people who were in jail were bad people, so I did not sit by her. I bounced around from my dad’s house to my grandparents’ houses, not having any real stability.

Stories from all sides of the family about my mother filled my ears and I did what it took to tune it all out and find a safe place. When you don’t know where you’ll be the next day, relying on child-appropriate methods of comfort was near impossible, especially when you are not given many concrete outlets. It was around this age, five, that I was exposed to pornography, compromising my innocence, eventually leading to an insatiable curiosity with sex, sexual abuse, and even sexuality confusion until the end of my 8th grade year.

When mom got out of jail the court saw it fit to keep me with her, which was an act of God, I know this for sure.

My dad soon was married and started his own perfect life with two new babies.

My mother soon caught up, getting a new husband and a year after my dad’s last kid, having her own.

I was but a reminder of a failed marriage and a flag that the other team (being my parents) fought for just to wave it in the other’s face, not to parent. Neglect was inevitable. Some days no one would talk to me; when Dad lived in Alaska my stepmom had two babies and wouldn’t let me talk to my family back home or do my laundry. I did everything I could to avoid being seen so as to not be yelled at.

In Missouri, I remember one night when I was around seven begging my mother for attention during her game of cards, but I was ignored and pushed to my room. It was here I sat in my rejection and anger. I was also baptized around then but it was only so that I could gain my grandparents’ acceptance and hopefully have something in my life that was solid. My other grandparents, the Puzzo’s, were the closest thing to stabile parents I had. My cousin would beat me up often until our grandfather, the one who smoked a tobacco pipe, died my 8th grade year and that united my cousin and I. We have two tattoos that are the same and are very close now.

By 5th grade I learned that I could fill (somewhat) that empty hole left by my parents with girls. I became great at wooing women, as Robin Williams would say.

Meanwhile, I noticed but ignored things of monetary value that would go missing in my room at my mother’s house.

I was exposed to pornography when I was around 5, soon after I was at a birthday party where I was sexually abused, this pattern took root with a neighbor as well. I did not know what was going on, I just knew that it was wrong and that I felt very dirty. I looked at porn as a middle schooler but by freshman year of high school I had found sex, which replaced porn, and had lost my virginity to an older girl. I was going to surprise her in a park one day but instead watched her kiss another guy when we were together.

After her it was a domino effect, I pursued girl after girl relentlessly, eventually sleeping with 10 girls by the time I graduated high school, and eventually 13.

During my sophomore year of high school, my stepmom was gone for a few weeks and during that time my dad called me a dumbass every day. This wounded me deeply and one day I severely messed up mowing the yard. After being the subject to his harsh words I broke down and called my youth minister. It was also around then that my dad would yell at me, box my ears, and eventually took me by the front of the neck into the wall. I soon left.

I had started going to church alone (my family did not go) with someone who would now be my best friend, Landon. We grew very close and his parents became like mine (a habit of taking parents as my own started when I was young because I deeply desired a family of my own, that stability was something I craved, I would go into family’s but they would eventually get tired of me and leave me, I think God used this to keep idols down). His father baptized me my sophomore year of high school. However, he was a state representative; this comes into effect in this story:

It was a Sunday, and as I have said, I had noticed things that started to go missing. For some reason I did not go to church that day and my dad called me. He had set up an account for me a few years earlier and wondered if I had taken $200 out of it. I said no, and he said, “well someone has, and you and I both know who it was. Hand the phone to your mother.” I did, she left for a few minutes, and came back in, handed me my phone and set my debit card on my desk. She said, “I’m so sorry.” And left. I refused dad’s proposal to call the police. The phone conversation ended. Now I had been in a lot of relationships up to this point, but this broke my heart like never before. And I remember…I remember FEELING God say, “You can either fight like you want to or FALL ON ME and let me take care of it.” So I did, I didn’t cuss my mother out, like I wanted to. I texted Landon, asking him to come get me, but since his dad was a representative he could not legally do it as my mother would not give consent.

I feel into deep, deep anger.

My alcoholic stepfather was verbally abusive, though he taught me things that my next-to-absent father did not. I watched my mother be subject to his cruelty for years, a feat that no first-born son can easily watch.

Senior year of high school he informed me that they were getting a divorce. One Saturday night he came home, drunk and belligerent and carrying around a gun. My mom was in tears and so was my little brother, I was numb. The police escorted him out. The next day, Sunday, my mom was crying in her room and said that she had prayed to God asking for a sign to move out. I said, “What are you waiting for? Next time it could be worse.” She said, “But we won’t have anything.” I said, “God will provide.” That was the boldest step of faith, maybe the only, I had taken up to that point and within two weeks we had a house and furniture (by that I mean beds and cooking utensils). Now, leading a family at age 17 is not healthy, but I had been forced to grow up quickly anyway.

The weekend after state cross-country, I was drinking with my cousin. I got home at 5 am on a Sunday, completely drunk. I woke up two hours later to my mom on my bed, crying, telling me that my ex-stepdad had shot himself in the chest and he was being flown to Springfield. I honestly wished he was dead, I’m saying that in confession.

I leaned heavily on God throughout that last year, I started to resolve things with my mother and eventually she started coming to church. She is now a new believer and loves Jesus a whole lot.

I still chased girls, by the end of my senior year of high school, no one would talk to me because I had cheated on two great women back to back. Landon was away in college, my grandma was a mess, and my mom was as well. I had no one but the Lord, but even then I did not know how to lean fully on Him.

I went on a mission trip to Albania and I decided that I did not want to be known as the man I was, as Dillon. I wanted to be known as a man for God, and it just so happened that I had a biblical middle name, Joseph. I was in Albania when I started going by Joseph and since then it has been something I had kept, sort of like Matthew, Peter, or Paul.

I had gotten some slack about my name during my college career (my first two years were where I had grown up and Jesus said that even a prophet isn’t taken seriously in his hometown). It was because of this that I started reading about Joseph, the one with the coat. He was sold into slavery in the valley of Dothan. I was born in Dothan, Alabama. This to me was God’s affirmation to go by Joseph.

My first year of college I was engaged to a girl, but neither of us were ready and she eventually left. I soon was kicked from my dorm and would be fired from my job. I found a family, the Wiehe’s, who took me in as one of their own, much to my unwillingness. The mom of the family has been blessed with an unreal spirit of motherhood and took me in as one of her own and mentoring me, which fit since I had big parent gaps in my life.

Unfortunately, and with great reluctance I write this, I fell in love with one of their daughters. The dad had to do necessary precautions to protect his family, which I understand but it was hard, nevertheless. I was held at an arm’s length for a while, but I could still communicate with the parents. Which was a blessing.

After reading the beginning of “Wild at Heart” I went on a solo camping trip, in which God showed me how selfish I was with my faith, I wanted Christianity and God to be about me. This is where I consider the real start of my faith. I contacted all of the girls I had slept with, asking for forgiveness because I had taken something that was not mine to take.

I soon left for China where I was really alone because I could not relate to anyone. I chased God like never before and consumed books and scripture like a wildfire. I learned that if I wasn’t sharing the Gospel, I wasn’t really following Christ (“Not a Fan” by Kyle Idleman showed this to me). I started a running club with another American intern there by God’s inspiration and eventually three people in that would come to Christ. God showed me that I can use ESL to travel the world and share the Gospel in places the Gospel is not welcome.

I came home and was very broke, but that summer I joined staff for YouthWorks, leaving a job with my friend behind, a trip to the X-Games with Landon, my discipler’s wedding and even my mother’s wedding. It was here that I worked with teenagers and fell in love with them, in a healthy way. I loved it! Talking about God everyday and just pouring out into kids was the hardest, best job I have ever done.

So now? I don’t know. The more I just live day-to-day, the more God surprises me. If I hold expectations up, I find myself disappointed more and more. If I don’t, God really blows my mind. My relationship with my dad is getting better and I hope to work things out with him soon, God broke my heart for him my freshman year of college in the same way He broke my heart for my mom a few years before she came to Christ, so I know that it is possible.

I have had a relapse recently; I fell into sexual sin and cheated on my girlfriend. I confessed these things to her and she soon left. But with Christ, I know that I will be able to be the man, husband, father, and soldier for Christ that I know God will mold me to be.

I feel led to travel abroad to teach English and share the Gospel, eventually coming back and hopefully talking to some group of people about Christ. If this were to be high schoolers, my heart would leap. God has also moved my heart towards working to liberate victims of human trafficking, an epidemic consuming the world – yes, even America. However, wherever God leads me is going to be where I will be able to advance His kingdom most successfully.

I appreciate being a part of a body of believers, it is a blessing I have never had and I love it. They are not perfect, but Jesus is.

My blog is http://travelmugofjoe.blogspot.com/

Share your shards, I want to hear you.

Joseph Puzzo

*MOSVIC MOVEMENT has no religious affiliation, we merely give people a platform in which to tell their stories. If you would like to be a part of the SHVRE YOUR SHVRDS Initiative, email us at mosvicmove@gmail.com or check out our website, mosvicmovement.com .