Adaptation

I was having a conversation with my stepmom the other day, in which she made the statement "...you tend to take on the characteristics of the environment around you pretty well..." regarding staying true to my values and myself. It got me started thinking...

Over the years, I've had to learn how to adapt to an environment I've either been tossed into or have chosen to enter, and nine times out of ten, I adapt pretty well. Whether it was going to Arizona for a mission trip; or when I started at Golden West after first being homeschooled and then being at CVC; or when my mom died and I was thrown into a world of chaos beyond my control. I don't know when it was, but sometime in there, I learned how to adapt.

Some of these adaptations have been life altering and mind blowing, some have probably been for the worse, and some have just simply been necessary. But I have to ask myself, have I adapted so much that I don't know who I really am anymore? Have I allowed myself to take on the behaviors and values of those around me to the point that I'm not in there anymore? I ask myself this with full sincerity and hope to find not the answer that I'm looking for to appease me, but the answer that is the absolute truth.

I can't help but wonder about this. Especially in the past three years, I have changed so many political, religious and social views that I must step back and ask if this is really me talking. I believe it is. The political issues I'm willing to stand up for, the things I find necessary to defend my position on, I truly and fully believe they are what I believe and stand by. No one convinced me either one way or the other, and no one told me I was stupid for not believing them. As far as religion, these days, I really don't know what I believe. I stick to the core: what is sin is sin, Jesus died on the cross as a symbol of God's love for his people and resurrected three days later, God loves each and every one of us, and we are on this earth because he decided to bless us with life to give us a piece of what heaven can be like. But other than that? Why even wonder? If it's not going to make a difference in my life, I don't need to worry about it. And in my opinion, its all open to interpretation. Not the key points, but a lot of it.

I think that I've learned to adapt, but I've also learned how to find myself. If I hadn't been in some of the situations I've been in in my life, I definitely wouldn't be the person I am today. I think in learning to cope, survive and blend into my environments, I've been able to find the person who was waiting to come out and be me; I was able to pick the pieces apart and find who I really am, and for once, I can truly say I'm happy with who I am.

How can I keep believing?

For as long as I can remember, I've believed in God. I've believed that He has a plan for me, and that if I pray hard enough, go to church often enough, and obey Him enough that I'll find that path to divine happiness. Today, that has been tested and I just can't believe that anymore.

I still believe there is a God. I still believe I'm one of God's children. I still believe that Jesus was God's son, that He came and died on the cross to offer himself as a token of our salvation. I still believe that because I have believed this and still believe this, I have that salvation and will one day see God.

But I can't believe that there is a plan.

Once upon a time, I knew what my path was. I knew what God wanted me to do. I was counseled by other mature Christians who came to me and "blessed" what was happening, even before it was happening, and said they believed this was God's plan for me. However, that turned into tragedy, a tragedy that has haunted me for almost three years. One thing after another keeps surfacing and showing its ugly head in this situation....yet the only person affected by this has been, and keeps being, me. So much for a plan. If God had actually had a plan for me, why do I wake up every day wondering what the point is? Why do I walk around my day, not knowing what to do next, or how to keep on surviving? The last three years for me have been mere survival. I was up to my neck in debt, in sheer and utter self destruction mode, and on my last leg of survival. Where was that plan? There's no way all this is part of God's "plan." There's no way a God who claims to have plans for a prosperous future would make/allow me to deal with this each and every day. And that plan that seemed to be "blessed" and granted? I was lied to, manipulated, cheated on, chewed up and spit out by that "plan".

How can I ever believe that a "plan" exists for me and that I have a future?

I don't know how to keep believing anymore.