Can't Have What You Can't See...or Can You?

Mumbo-Jumbo....that's what all that spiritual crap was...a joke, a figment of someone's over active imagination. Wishful thinking for the weak and feeble minded who weren't smart or tough enough to handle life on it's own terms like I was...I didn't need some god-crutch to "wish" me through life's tough time's. No...I had my big freaking brain and my will...I could handle ANYTHING life threw my way. The only thing I needed to look out for was myself...screw anyone else...they could take care of themselves...it was every man for himself.


That my friends was my philosophy and outlook on life before I sobered up and discovered that I definitely could NOT handle what life had in store for me...that it was chewing me up and spitting me out. That living a life based entirely on self-gratification was leading me down a one-way path to a living HELL that finally convinced me that the only way out was to kill myself....which I desperately tried to do and failed in the attempt, thankfully.


But I was not thankful at the time...I was desperate and had wanted to die...failing to do so meant that I had to find a way to live and I simply didn't know what I was going to do. To this day I am not sure how all the pieces of the shattered glass that was once my life were eventually put back together into a functional, living, breathing, productive thing...but they were.


I was not one of those guys who had a sudden "Flash Of Light" conversion to a belief in God. I think I always believed in some God, some higher being but I wasn't really sure, I was confused, I was lost, completely and totally LOST...I just didn't think God would have anything to do with me. I hated the whole idea of him, really...especially for what had happened to me and for the loss of so many of my friends at such a young age.


But I was desperate, I had tried every trick I knew to make things right yet I kept failing...falling more and more into despair and hopelessness. So somehow...some way I just started to pray. I didn't know really who I was even praying to but I just prayed to a God I didn't know and wasn't even sure I really believed in, to help me find a way to live. And some how...some way...I did live, one day at a time I began to live a new kind of life.


I will admit, those first few years were awful. I had no money, I was terribly in debt...I had no real friends left to speak of and I had alienated my children to the point that they really didn't want to be around me any more either. Only my parents hung in there with me and thank God they did...but still...those first few years were an absolutely painful, lonely and difficult time. I wanted to throw in the towel many times but somehow I kept putting one foot in front of the other and kept going. And though I still have unresolved issues with some of the people I really care for...things are definitely better today then I ever thought they would be.


Today I have no doubt about where that strength to endure thepain and suffering came from. Where the energy to keep moving and keep pushing on came from...


I can't tell you how grateful I am that I lived to see what life could really be like. To discover and know God, one who loved and cared enough for me to let me fail myself....and then lead me to discover for myself the hard way the error of my ways and find out what a joy and privileged it is to live for HIM by helping others.   


Today...no tonight, at this very moment...I cannot picture my life any other way.  


(Picture by Kathy Tomson)