Sleep eludes me so...

you guys get more of my incredibly profound thoughts. You can laugh. I was kidding about the profound part.

For real though, I was thinking just now about the concept of "knowing who you are." It's sort of an anomaly I think. I mean, you go through your whole life being you, yet you aren't entirely sure who you is. How does that even happen and what can we do about it?

I know for me, growing up my family instilled a pretty high moral standard for me. There were just always certain things I knew I should or should not do. I feel like that was the beginning of who I am today. As I got older though and experienced life, I went through some stuff. My dad dying when I was only 14 was a severe blow. I mean, that's not merely a flesh wound like the guy in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I was cut deep. I didn't even begin to think about healing from that for years either. Instead, I hid. I ran away from life by becoming someone who possessed an impenetrable heart. No one could hurt me. Nothing mattered. I just needed to be perfect, and everything else was just dandy.

The thing about that is though...you need people to make it through life. As I was, I only pushed everyone away or kept them all at arm's length. That's just not an effective method for living. So...I decided to try to trust people...sort of. (By the way, I am guilty of a gross overuse of an ellipsis.) Anyway, I only half way trusted certain people. Then, I finally jumped off the ledge and went full force into trusting one person. It ended in a mess, and throughout my time trusting that person, I found myself falling into a deep, dark hole. I mean, I was seriously in the mire. Yet, there was God (he was there the whole time, I just didn't pay attention, which is very in character for me). At any rate, the Big Guy (can we call God the Big Lebowski or is that totally uncool?) pulled me up out of the pit, set my feet upon the rock, and made my footsteps firm. Yeah, just like Psalm 121 says he'll do. I'm glad he excels at follow through when it comes to promises because I do not.

Wow, that was all over the place. Welcome to my brain. Back to it though, now here I am. I am learning all over again about what it is to trust people. I have learned that I possess great value and worth for the kingdom of God, which is FAR more important than any worth man may put upon me. I understand now my purpose in life, which was for so long a complete and utter mystery to me. I feel like I get it now.

How did I arrive at this point? By making an awful lot of mistakes for one. Another thing too, I had to be broken. I really hit an all time low back at the beginning of the year. I thought the world was going to crash down around me. I don't know precisely what happened...I did put myself on restriction for about 10 different things which may have helped. Anyway, I don't know how it got turned around. Must have been quite simply the grace of God. I was in trouble before, and I couldn't find my footing. Nor did I have the courage to tell anyone as much. It's coming to me now though. I'm finding my way.