The Quest For Perpetual Joy Continues.

“To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.” –Oscar Wilde


Whoever says that being a Christian washes all your problems away, and makes you feel instantly new, and happy and joyful is full of shit.
I once wrote this:
I try really hard. I try really hard to be happy, and to be ok with everything—with how things are and are going. I want to be. I really do. I have been succeeding more and more. I love my friends, and my life, and most things about it. But sometimes, something in me gives, and its like I cant handle any of it anymore. I break and I have to let off the happiness and no matter how good things are going…I fall to pieces. For a time I feel like I cant deal with doing anything anymore.

I still feel like that from time to time, I still feel lonely, and sad, and disconnected. Does this mean that I don’t love Jesus, or that God doesn’t care about me?

Far from.

I truly believe, as much as it sucks, that the greatest gains come from the worst times and the awful feelings in your life.

I have spent the past two years at a Bible College, and had it mean nothing to me while I was there. To me the worst most awful shameful embarrassing things I’ve done in my life, I did while at Bible College. I am not at all now who I was then, but I remember how it was. How it felt, and those feelings still come rushing back with intense force, vivid, and real. I’ve always had issues with just being happy. With just being ok being me. I’m working through them slowly.

I think God uses those things though, he uses the crap that’s in our lives—our shame, and doubts, and fears, and everything—to make us into better people, to turn us into something better in the end. I’m not proud of all the things Ive done, but I realize that they are important, they taught me something, they are a part of who I was, and who I will become.

Being a Christian isn’t an easy out for super hyper happy mega fun time. But there is hope. There is always hope, and that is the real point.