I've had a bit of an epiphany recently, if anyone's interested in reading about it. XD; (I hope it kinda makes sense... >_>;; )
For a long time now, my Christian growth hasn't been great. Way back, I was doing well and had a good daily routine going as far as Bible reading and prayer are concerned. But then I couldn't keep it up any longer and it kinda collapsed. I haven't been that regular since.
I also started getting depression, and every time I started to get my spiritual feet under me again, my depression would help me to fall back once more. I can't pray during a fit of depression. If I'm thinking I'm so lowly, chatting with the One Perfect Being will make it worse.
After staying away from God during depression, despite my reasons, I felt guilty. Everyone always says to turn to God during times or trial, when you're not doing well. But I didn't. I felt it was this thing you were supposed to do, and even though I had reasons, I'd failed.
Eventually I'd come back and pray, and things would be better for some length of time. But it never lasted. I never made any real headway, and once depression came back, I just repeated the whole cycle.
Which made me feel my efforts were pointless. Why bother trying if I was just going to mess it up again?
Also, even when I did pray, I never felt I was doing it 'right'. God is great, right? The greatest thing ever. How dare I try to pray, then space out, then ramble on and on about nothing really important? God's a big deal. He has better things to do than listen to me whine about how frustrated I am with myself or my parents' conflicting messages.
People would tell me God wants to hear whatever I have to say, "because he loves me".
But I couldn't rationalize that.
Believe me, I wanted to believe it but couldn't convince myself it was true. Why would God love me? I'm a sinner. (Naturally, I understood that He loves everyone around me, but I could not for the life of me understand why he'd love me.) I'm a terrible person. I'm lazy and cranky and impatient and don't act near as loving as I should.
This and the realization that I'd been going in circles for the last year or so, without making any lasting progress spiritually, brought things to a halt. If I started prayer again, depression would hit and I'd back off, then I'd stay away out of guilt until I eventually returned to my current state, and the cycle could do what cycles do best.
Scared to repeat myself, I decided to just stay away from God, period. Any attempt I made at growing spiritually would ultimately fail, and I didn't want to deal with that again. Unless I had some incredible breakthrough, or some miracle occurred, I wasn't budging. And I didn't expect to budge any time soon. It stayed like this for weeks if not months.
Then, earlier this week, I had a little breakthrough.
I'd finished reading a book, inside which a character says, "If there's no other reason for it, it's always love."
For various reasons (it was a good book), that bit of dialogue stayed in my head late that night as I tried to sleep. And then suddenly, I understood--and actually believed: Love isn't always logical. You can't explain it. And it makes you do things you wouldn't normally do. Love is a perfectly legitimate reason in and of itself.
Then my logical brain kicked in and went, "Now wait a second. Are you going to explain away everything you want to believe but can't otherwise justify with love?"
Then I remembered people I know.
My Dad works like a dog to make enough money to support the family and to make sure the house isn't falling apart.
My Mom is unbelievably patient with us kids including me, even when goodness knows I don't deserve it and in her place I'd bite someone's head off.
My friends are also kind and really patient with me, even when I'm being stubborn or just really stupid. They were praying for me past the point where I'd essentially given up.
I concluded that if humans can do that, God can--and infinitely so. So much that it can include even me.
So now I believe that God loves me, and I'm praying again. I've read more of the Bible in the last week than I have in months. I'm doing better overall now.
I realize this isn't the end of my problems, but it is a step in the right direction, and I am thankful for that.
So... praise God!
^^;
God's love is spectacular in such a way that it all can click together even when we feel like we're falling apart and away....He always snatches us back!
