The Journey of Life

        Life is such an interesting journey. We’re born, we live, we love, we search, we find, we die. If we’re smart and normal we do a lot more than just these things. We’re born, the majority of us have somewhat normal childhoods, some of us are blessed with living where we can play in the woods or in a creek or a big backyard, others live in a fun neighborhood with lots of fun kids/friends. Others of us get to be best friends with our siblings, and others with our parents. Some of us are introverted and some of us extroverted and both of those kind of determine our whole lives. I am very much of an introvert and sometimes it is the bane of my existence, like when I meet new people who I really want to get to know. Some of us go through a lot of hardship in our lives, and some of us don’t have as hard of lives. Some of us lose almost everything we ever had, we lose all that we know and are moved out of our comfort zone and forced to try to find comfort somewhere else. When I left my old church I had to find a new normal. I was forced to leave the only church I ever remembered going to. I doubted God throughout the whole process, why would He take me out of my comfort zone? Why would He cause so much pain to one of His children? Looking back now, I realize that God actually blessed me, stretched me, and taught me so much through the process. I can now look back without the anger and the hatred. There is still pain, but forgiveness has helped with that a lot. Sometime in the last two years I heard a teaching about forgiveness and how important it is for us to forgive others. God spoke so deeply to me through that teaching. I wrote a formal letter to the church about my forgiving them, I have no idea how they felt about it, but it was something I needed to do for my spiritual health. I felt such a weight lifted off of my shoulders after sending it. The past two years have been very spiritually interesting for me. After 6 years of being away from that church I can finally say that I have peace in Christ again. I trust Him and His plan completely. I now go to a wonderful church that I absolutely love. A few weeks ago I went to Washington State with my boss and we visited with a friend of hers who lives there. We were talking about churches and church pain and finding a church. She pointed out that when we go through deserts in which we really search God and seek Him and ask questions and really get to know Him, it is much harder to connect to people in the church. When she said that, it made my church life make so much sense. One, I am an introvert so it is hard to connect to people in the first place, and two, I just really don’t feel like connecting to the people in my church, it’s not because I don’t like them, it’s just not what church is to me. I go to church now to learn, which is a huge step for me. Church used to be about the social life, but now it is about learning about God’s plan. I felt so bad that I had no interest in connecting to people, it made me want to switch churches so that I could meet more people my age. But it turns out, I don’t have to leave, I don’t want to leave because the teaching is just so good.  So when my boss’ friend said that, it made me feel so much better and it made my church life make sense. I have my friends and they’re the people I need in my life.

        So if you go through a desert and you have a hard time connecting in church afterwards, take heart. God has a perfect plan for you and you are never alone in your journey. So if you’re blessed enough to have a rough life, full of struggles and pain, you will come out stronger. The craziness of this journey called “life” makes us into the people we are, the Christians we are. We’re born, we live LIFE, we love and are loved, we learn and hopefully never stop learning, we search for the answers and we find those answers and hopefully in Christ. We die, but if we make the decision to trust in God, we never die. Life is a journey, my life journey has been kind of crazy and I’m only 23 years old, I can’t wait to see where it leads in the future.