Retrospect

"You've got to look back to see where you've been to really realize where you're at."
-me

So began the old journal readings.

• "I don't really know what hope is, but it is something to cling to when everything else is falling apart." (April 17, 2006)
  
• "It is better to have love and to have lost than to never have loved at all. I THINK I agree?" (May 11, 2006)
  
• "You give and take away, you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, blessed by your name... I know God gave me Katharine, I know He took her away. I am blessed to have known and loved her. But I can't bless His name. I can't be pleased with Him right now." (May 20, 2006)
  
• "I believe in the sun when it's not shining, I believe in love, even when I feel it not, I believe in God, even when he is silent." (July 2, 2006)
  
• "When someone does something you DON'T LIKE, you tend to 'not really like them', even though you know they do other great things. I don't know how to break through this with God." (July 30, 2006)
  
• "I don't love God. I don't want to love God. But I want to want to love God." (August 28, 2006)
  
• "Why do I want to be less selfish? Maybe for selfish reasons. How do I change those reasons so that it's God who motivates change? The root of it all: The Cross. Maybe I have lost sight of what should be the centre. But everything loses its power once it's talked about for your whole life... and becomes regular. How do I make something regular become so powerful? Maybe it's because I can't even grasp the idea of someone dying for me, out of love, to spend eternity with him. WHY CAN'T I JUST UNDERSTAND IT!??" (Sept. 22, 2006)
  
• "WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?! I don't know what I'm doing in this life, just existing?"
  
• "Grace. It's a hard thing for me to understand. And accept." (September 3, 2006)
  
• "God, I am so egocentric. I need to get over myself in a BIG way. And I think only you can do that. I need to understand your greatness so I can do things for your glory, not mine." (October 6, 2006)

So lost.
So wandering.
So purpose-less.
So searching...
...often coming up empty.

But He is FAITHFUL.

"Oh no, you never let go, through the calm and through the storm, oh no you never let go, every high and every low, oh no you never let go, Lord you never let go of me."
-Leeland

You have to make it through something in order to gain retrospect.
I did...
...by grace.
GRACE!
Something I couldn't accept, I now cling to.

HOPE.
...which was mostly lost.
But faith the size of a mustard seed moved mountains.

LOVE.
...heals. Jesus is the doctor of the broken hearted, the hurting, the painful. It's his heart, his passion. This fact alone makes Him appealing.

HEALING.
...came with time. With openess. From hurt, from pain, from cynisism, from bitterness, from LIES, from my mind being in bondage.

I really can't think of any other way that this happened other than from God Almighty.
To Him be all Glory.

Thanks, Jesus.
Really, you saved my life.