Someone Tell Me

Someone should tell me where an entire year has gone. 12 months ago today, I broke up with my boyfriend of 3 years and I'm not sure exactly how a whole year got away from me.

One minute, I knew who I was, and the next I'm here. I'm lost, confused, and worried I'll never find my way back.
"I don't even know myself at all..."

I've been doubting my salvation lately, wondering if the feelings I have experienced over the last 4 years have only been buoyed along by what's been going on around me. I've fallen so far off the path that I don't know anyone who has struggled for this long anymore.

It's just me. Out here alone on open water with no shore behind me and no foreseeable land ahead.
"Sometimes I feel just like a sailboat. Don't know where I'm headed..."

It's scary to think that 12 months, 365 days have passed me by. That each one was filled with activities and memories, up and downs. It's even scarier to think that at least 5 of those months have been spent in rebellion and under the cover of depression.

Talking with my counselor today was helpful I think. Each time I leave, it feels like I have a little less weight on my shoulders as I did when I walked in. We talked about the old home today and the flood. We talked about the idea that I want to go back to that time when I was at the house because I felt safe and protected there, and I want to feel that way again. We also tied in the idea that losing my faith has left a large hole in who I am and who I have identified with. I'm lost without it and I no longer feel protected and safe where I am. I feel open and exposed; as if I'll lose everything at any moment. With God, I knew that I was under His care. Now I don't know if I still do or if I'm on my own.

I want to believe that this is just one long rocky road. That at the end, I'll be able to look back and say "Yeah, that was crazy. It was hard and lonesome and scary. But I made it through and I'm better for it." I want to believe that God has known from the start that I would go through this and that He knows the beginning and the end of it. I want to go back to when I was content in the Lord.

But sitting here, I don't know if that was ever the Truth for me. Was I just parroting what I heard? If it was real for me, why was reading and praying consistently such a battle for four years? Wouldn't I learn to strive after God by that time? Why would I go through baptism or on those missions trips if I didn't really believe? And what about that certain feeling in my gut when I knew that I needed to end my 3 year relationship? Wasn't that God working in my heart?

Here's my conclusion, one that I'm sure I've said over and over in the past few months: I want to be free and joyful in God, but I don't know how anymore.

Another thing I learned about myself today is that I have achieved several self-fulfilling prophecies by the way that I act. Building on that, I'm wondering if my depressed behavior has become such a habit, that it would be as simple as acting in a different way. If I stop thinking that tomorrow will be just another difficult day, and instead I determine to set my mind to positive things and positive outcomes, perhaps I can see a positive change. It's hard for me to see if the depression is caused by the lack of my faith or vice-versa, but I have a feeling it's all connected, and to work on one aspect will make the other a little better as well.

So that's how I'm going through today, thinking about how I might change my actions to create different outcomes. How I might act differently so as to not make those negative self-fulfilling prophecies come true.