Lost

In church the last couple of weeks, I've been hearing a lot about how your emotional well-being affects your spiritual well being. Honestly, I didn't really believe this...until I experienced it.

It's amazing how when your torn up and broken inside that it's easy to let go of a lot of the things you know are true. Your broken heart tears a hole in your soul, and you begin throwing all the beliefs that you once held so dearly to into that hole. They disappear, and you begin losing sight of who you really are; you treat people differently; you stray from the right path that you know is right and begin putting a mask back on; you put up barriers to those you care about the most and give the impression that you don't care at all; you make people believe that you've given up hope, when really all you've given up is faith; you cause people to wonder what they did, when really it's not what they did but what they didn't do (which was cause the pain in the first place); you act like a typical person, when all your life you've been more than typical; you place a grudge on people that you don't even know, simply because you don't want to let them in; and finally, you end up pushing away the very sources of life that have been calling you to a life of freedom, passion, love, joy, and courage and begin to live a life of apathy, anger, shallowness, bitterness, and jealousy.

These patterns are DEADLY. They rip apart your soul little bit by little bit until one day, your left wondering "Who am I?", when all along, you knew who you were, you were just pretending to be someone else so no one could come in and help.

Why do we do this?

"Because we're human." But that isn't an excuse; it didn't "just happen" that way. We let our focus off of God and began relying on other things, such as people, rather than placing our burdens before Him.

Don't lose yourself just because life throws curveballs; stay to what is true, and believe that God will see you through to the end. If it feels like your world is crashing around you, just remember that when your at the bottom, all you can do is go up. Think of life as a valley between two mountains; when your on top of the mountain, you don't grow (is there any vegetation at the top of Mount Everest?) but when your in the valley, the depths of despair, there is abundant life and vegetation. All you can do is grow, and when you get to the top of the mountain, you don't stop growing, because there is always another valley on the other side.

Don't lose yourself; don't lose faith; don't lose hope. Lose the doubt that causes you to lose these things and BELIEVE.