What is Broken Can Be Reforged

I know my faith has faltered. As I look at what slips through my fingers; I begin to realize how much I had tried to keep tightly in my grasp.

As much as I hate to admit this, I do not trust God with my life. I haven’t for quite some time. I do not remember when I stopped thinking that He would provide. Sometime after I started working to help my sister through college, I suppose.

As much as I hate to admit this, I have tried to live my life as though Christ was not the most important thing to me. I haven’t for quite some time now. I suppose I stopped sharing when I stopped caring; but I do not know what happened to prompt this.

And as I sit here typing away at four in the morning, I realize that I have been blind and ignorant of these two things for a very long time. I convinced myself that what I was doing and the life I was living was the one God wanted me on; I lied to myself.

It only took a massive erasure of the things I took for granted before I realized how far I had fallen.

I am afraid of loss. I have nightmares about my family and everyone I love dying and leaving me alone to face the world. I am sure I am not a lone victim of these dark thoughts; but perhaps I am one of the few that refuse to admit the fears that I have.

I am afraid of weakness. I cannot be the perfect person I want to be. I can not pretend like I have no flaws and that my struggles are purely of a material existence. I have spent so much of my life holding my head high, squaring my shoulders, and suckingin my gut. Strong only in appearance. I remember a couple very good friends of mine came to my aid in a time of need some seasons ago; after relating the issues I was dealing with, the first reaction of my friends were akin to shock.

“I did not even know you were hurting. I mean, you always seemed to be the one who had it all together.” Not an exact quote. My friends made it clear that they always wanted to support me, and help me through those things that I struggled with. But I had hidden my weakness from them, and never let them see my wounds.

Perhaps these two fears and these two admissions are tied; I fear my loss therefore I do not trust my God. I fear my weakness so I do not let Christ be my life.

At this point, I am such a specter of a proud soul that I find myself hemorrhaging my life struggles and my fears to all the wrong people….to those that do need my strength….to those that cannot help my weakness.

I suppose the news is not all poor; along the way the Lord has shown me the lives that He wants to heal. He has broken my heart for those I once held in contempt; he has removed the bitterness that once lay dormant in my soul. I find my first reaction upon encountering adversity to be one of pity and disappointment, as opposed to the anger or frustration of my earlier days.

For what is a soul outside the arms of Christ? Merely a miserable child cutting himself to confirm his existence, to know that he can feel.

How can I feel anger against those who know not what it means to be?

The future I do not fear. As I finish out this minor looking glass into my life, the clock comes to the providential hour of the rising sun; or five in the morning, as it is more commonly known. I have come to the conclusion that despite being able to philosophically understand that no event in my life is completely under my control, I am only accepting this to be true in my heart as I type these words. Thus the future holds no fear for me. I was not in control before, and I will not be after. Instead, I look forward to losing the faith I put in myself and find my faith in Something else.