The Way Home

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again. This has been a particularly difficult year for me. There have been many unfortunate events, some of which will never get the resolution I would have originally wanted. But I've already come to terms with them, for the most part, and I recognize that even the issues that haven't been resolved are in God's hands. Doesn't mean I'm happy about it, doesn't mean I don't still hold out hope. But when I'm in my right state of mind, I can endure and live with it.

Something I just began to realize, though, is that the stresses of recent months are summed up by more than just the crap that's happened since my spiritual journey back to Christ. These other factors aren't events, so much as accumulations of behavior patterns that have been present for varying periods of time.

Let's start with the most recent: stagnation. I'm not talking about just my faith here, but my life in general. For about six years I bummed around, waiting. Waiting for what, I don't know. Waiting for something to happen. An opportunity, a relationship, a push in the right direction... whatever. Instead of using the God-given empowerment to affect my life, I sat on my hands and waited for something and/or nothing to happen. Nothing happened for most of that time. Then something did. Then a few more somethings, some happy, some sad. But the combination of these events was finally enough to kick my complacent life into motion.

Now we'll look at something a bit further back. Over half my life ago, I began a phase of rebellion. Against what? Again, who really knows? I was bitter about [something], because [reasons]. So I took it out on pretty much everything. My peers, my teachers, my parents, and most truly myself. I raged against the machine, a rebel without a cause and without a clue. Somehow this lifestyle appealed to me. As a result, my grades, study habits, and work ethic in general all suffered pretty heavily. They never really recovered, and that's ultimately how I ended up in the aforementioned stagnant phase.

Finally, let's talk about the deep-seated, child issues. This is harder to define. I've been a pretty subdued, depressive person for as long as I can remember. This proclivity stands in stark contrast with the way my entire immediate family is, and that I know of, it isn't caused by any particularly traumatizing events from my distant past. It just seems to be a natural condition for me, and one that I've never fully understood. Rest assured, I've spent countless hours dwelling on it throughout my life. It's only recently that I've decided to approach professional help with an open mind. Up until now, I've believed I could handle it all on my own, and I've done so with minimal success. But really, why do that when there's help available? How much my pride and pessimism have gotten in the way of healing for all these years. But all regrets aside, I can even look back and recognize this problem as a possible, at least partial cause for my rebellious streak.

So what's so difficult about these things now, all of a sudden? Because most certainly they're more than the sum of what they are.

I think that, because I've had wiser people speaking into my life, and my pride has broken for some key moments of their wisdom, I finally find myself in a position to start changing these behaviors. But that's just what it is: a start. We're looking at six years of complacency, fourteen years of rebellion, and twenty-six years of depression, all of which I'm trying to reverse now. God is and has been doing amazing things with my life, and the change in these behaviors is among them. But that doesn't mean it's easy at all. He is growing me and maturing me, and that's a drawn out and painful process. Failure and backsliding are to be expected along the way, and the hardest thing in the world for me is to show myself grace through all this.

I hope and pray that my recognition of the issues at hand will remind me not only of my need to be patient with myself, but also of the progress we have made, as encouragement to press on.