It seems that as we grow older we start to realize that everyone is trying to figure out who they are and how to be who they have the desire to be. We see those around us doing certain things and we can just as easily pick those things up as we learn from observing them. We learn how to play basketball and soon we pick it up. We learn to do certain things in relationships and next thing we know we are running our relationships that way. If we only observe how to do something one way and don't learn other ways of doing it then we'll never find out which way is the best way for us to do something. I have a feeling this is going to be a long entry so we may just split this up into two or maybe even three separate posts depending on how long this really gets.
I'm going to start next with telling you a little bit about where I come from, giving you some of my background so that you understand more of who I am. While you read this I encourage you to ponder on who you are or if you feel like you have even found yourself yet. If you come up with ten words to describe yourself great, but it doesn't take words alone to really know who you are. If you feel as if you know who you are and you're proud of that, again great. Everyone however has time to improve themselves. I also want you to think about what kind of person you want to become. While you read this try your best to think of ways to reach who you want to be and things to change in order to get there.
I grew up in the church and I never really got what the hype was about. Being little I understood as best as a three or four year old could. I was like every other little girl. I liked to play house, I liked to play with dolls, and I liked to even play with hot-wheels when my younger brother would join me. As I grew older things started to change. I began to feel emotion more in depth. What I mean is not like the anger you'd feel when your brother broke your favorite toy, but an anger within because I had to leave my friends that I had all through elementary to go to a new school. Anger turned to bitterness as more and more things happened that I never asked for. I didn't ask to be belittled. I didn't ask to be broken. I didn't ask to be judged. Not too long after these things happened did I start to view Christians as judgmental jerks who would jab me with their lofty glances like it was their job.
Unfortunately years later I realized that that logic was tainted. I couldn't group Christians into a single category when four or five of them wronged me out of however many there are. It's like saying because I was attacked by four or five dogs that it concludes that all dogs are mean. We know that to not be true. Sadly it took me years to get over the bitterness I felt inside when what I felt were tragedies at the time kept happening. I looked to everything I felt momentary happiness with, mostly people. Then because those people hurt me I began to look at other things that would take away the pain. I didn't care how long it would last: a minute, ten minutes, an hour? I just wanted the pain to subside even if it was just enough time to take a single breath. Well those things didn't end up taking my breath away. They took my spirit. It was a slow fade.
After I had gone back to God for a time I had another relapse of all that I had put behind me once something in my life happened that I had never expected to. Those who were supposed to be close to me had hurt me more than they ever had before. It seemed that once I had dealt with past circumstances regarding these things that they just reached back up out of the deep, dark pit that they were in grabbing my ankles and pulling me back to where I was just delivered from. I can't even describe the reality of the dark emotions I felt for months after. Feeling rejected when those people are meant to accept you feels like lack of love. After months and months of ignoring the matter as best as I could so the hurt wouldn't surface I continued in the ways that were familiar to me.
As time went on I went in and out of spiritual "moments" with God like we breathe in and out. I would be so close to Him one moment and before I knew it I felt so far from His the next. God had been using me through this time, yet they weren't all sunny days. I knew how to help others, but didn't know how to help myself. I began to numb the pain by pushing it deep down inside me. One day it snapped. It was like a vase that I kept filling with dirty water that represented the pain I was trying to endure: pain from family, pain from friends, pain from decisions I had made and then one day it overflowed. All cordiality I had went out the door and the one who had been closest to me at the time was drowned in it. That's when anxiety took over who I wanted to be. I couldn't rest my weary soul. The pace of my heartbeat only seemed to quicken even more and more as I thought about it. I was searching for God, but couldn't feel Him. I didn't think about how God still works when we don't feel Him. I just wanted peace for my anxious heart.
I got peace from another source. A source that wasn't helping my well being, but feeding my fear. I numbed myself to feeling all other activities I was pursuing so that other feelings wouldn't be an issue. After going through a terrible night of excess and a terrible day after I was relieved to be let go for a time, but it only lasted a week. A week of reading my Bible and being close to God once again. Then sin came crawling back and there I had gone with another relapse. It took me being "kicked to the curb" to bring me to where I was supposed to be. I had made some pretty filthy decisions, yet God still wanted me. I wouldn't say that I came back to God. I was literally dragged back to Him not by choice. In that time all I wanted to do is understand. I just wanted to know why this happened and I asked anyone except God, but once I turned back I have began to learn that with God you'll never understand it all. God showed me through my hurt that I am not my accusers. I am not my pain. I am not even my car. I am not my job. I am not the place I live, but I am God's and without Him I am nothing.
To be continued...
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