Death to Self & Living Again

I've been wanting to write something, somewhere for awhile. The problem is that I have so much to say that my head is bursting, yet my mouth is mute. A lot of it I can't say.

I died for a while. Like, years. I lost sight of who I was and what I was about. What was really important in life. God.

As I sit here and reflect on my life one year ago, I see an empty, trapped person. Someone who was completely aimless. I had lost my faith. I had forgotten how to feel anything other than numb. I was deeply sad, but had no idea where to even start fixing anything.

Somewhere around Christmas or after the New Year, I don't remember, I went to a Saturday night service at my sister's church. Standing there listening to passionate worship music--about a God and faith my skepticism had long frozen out--and hearing a message spoken by someone whom I felt could finally answer my Questions, a crack appeared in the ice around me. I started to feel a little bit alive. Alive in a way that I ached for, but also in a way that frightened me. I choked up so many times that night. It was embarrassing, trying to hold back the huge tide of emotions facing me while in a public place. I hoped my sister couldn't see the tears I kept swiping away.

I couldn't get enough of that place. I still can't. I can't get enough growth, enough meaningful conversations, enough epiphanies. I've been holding all that stuff down for so long it's like a volcano erupting, just cracks all over me with molten rock unable to stay inside. In the course of one year, my journey has led me to make such enormous changes in my life, I can't even imagine how I bore life before them. It's like I'm living for the first time since, oh, 2001 or so? I want to shout my joy from the rooftops. I want to call my confidants and tell them every revelation.

And, no, it's not perfect. There with the joy is also bitterness and shame. Oh, how ashamed I am at myself and my ego for so many years. Being so, so weak. Not appreciating any of the gifts God gave me--always wishing for more! I'm not at the point where I can look back on those years and say, "well, they brought me where I am today." I want the wisdom, but I wish it came without the shame.

So now it's: what's left? How do I live now? All I've learned for so long are bad habits. And so the journey is always showing me something new.

I'm sorry for being so vague about all this. Regardless, I'm here. I need to write again, I think. It occurred to me recently that I'm probably wearing everyone out with my constant deep pondering and thoughts. It's too much for them to bear.

More later.