A Breakthrough

I did the ugly cry at church today.  Sure I usually cry at least once during a service, but today I really outdid myself.  Today, I was too tired to hold back my tears and I let it go.  I suppose a part of me was relieved.  You have no idea how hard it is to fight your body week after week.  This week I let go.  This week was different.

I started this blog about a year and a half ago to document my spiritual journey and whatever life has thrown at me along the way.  This process has had ups and downs for sure, but up until the last few months my spiritual growth had not been where I thought it should be.  For the past few months, God has been leading me on a path closer to him.  Today there was a flash of the light bulb.

This year I decided I really wanted to commitment to growing closer to God.  It all began with deciding to become a partner (member) of the church that I had been going to for the past few years.  I believe that this decision became a catalyst forcing me to do a lot of self-reflecting and caused me become very introspective.

It has been HARD!  I think I actually wrote that in my last post.  Here I was walking around thinking that I was a good person, I followed the golden rule, and I always tried to do the right thing I thought surely God must think I am doing well.  But then when you really dig deep down inside, when you really start paying attention to his word, I realized that I have not even scratched the surface.  And that was probably the reason why I felt that my spiritual life was not growing.

Today, between the ugly cries and the back rubs from friends and the encouraging words from near strangers I realized that I am right where I need to be.  I am finally on the right track toward becoming more Christ-like and in turn becoming closer to God.

But I am frustrated.  To the outside world I look crazy.  Shoot, I even feel crazy.  My tears are neither happy nor sad, they are just there.  I feel a rumbling in my soul that I cannot explain.  I feel thoughts that are in the back of my mind and I am waiting for them to travel to the front.  I have ups and lows that I am not sure that anyone understands.  I feel like I am isolating myself from others and I can't explain why.  To them I think they either think I am in one of my moods again, or I am just a plain jerk.  But I do it because I need to process what is going on.  I need to be still to receive all these feelings that are flooding my heart.  I am changing, and it is hard, and I don't like it.  Well I don't like the frustration, but I do like the change.  But I reminded myself that this is what I asked for!  This is what I have been wanting all of these years.

Someone told me today that God is trying to purify me and refine my soul so I can be prepared to handle what battles I face ahead.  And it all kind of clicked.  I have to go through this to get to the other side.  And on the other side I am going to be better than I ever thought was possible.  But until then, I know there will be more tears.  I know there will be more feelings of discomfort.  I know there will be times when I can't begin to describe what I am feeling.  But it is ok because I know that I am getting closer to being who I want to be.