But as time has gone by and life experience showed me that indeed good things can actually happen...I became more open minded to the possibility that life didn't have to be this DARK. GRIM daily punishment and atonement for my past deficiencies, mistakes and poor decisions. I realized that I did not have to forever remain a slave to my past, I could lead a life based on something much greater. And though that life didn't promise health, happiness or good times forever...there was a much, much higher purpose in serving God, that it had it's own rewards that I didn't necessarily understand but from experiencing them over time, I knew I hungered for them more and more.
Life has and always will have challenges. No where in the Bible or anywhere else that I have seen does anyone promise us that life will be easy. I do not expect it to be so...yet the difference in me today and my thinking is: I also realize that though it is quite challenging, life does not have to be a constant state of pain and punishment. That is a critical departure from my old way of thinking.
I can see daily now the positive forces at work in this world. It really is like I had self-imposed blinders on for many of those years that I struggled to survive, to get by, to beat the DEMONS of drink/drugs that pursued me like Robert Johnson's "Hell Hound On My Trail. I really felt that Evil was tracking me down, nipping at my heels...ultimately looking to devouring me...whole.
That was an incredibly frightening way to live...always afraid, always running...from what? I didn't know at the time...today I definately know that I was trying to run away from MYSELF and my selfish, self-oriented desires.It was my own selfishness that was eating me alive...
Yet today is different in so many ways. Sure...I can still be afraid, I still don't always know what's going on in my life and why but I have an inner peace, an inner calm today that assures me that I don't really always have to know WHY? I just need to FOLLOW God and the rest tends to take care of itself. Again that does not not mean that life is always good, happy or easy...NO, it can be incredibly sad, painful and even tragic at times just like it always was but today I can endure whatever comes my way because I live for a higher purpose, to serve and help others. Living to serve verses living for just ME changed everything in life for me and I see those changes manifest themselves daily as I go.
Certainly there will be more on this subject in later posts. But for now, it's morning and time to start living....HAPPY MONDAY!
