My Journey

I haven't talked/posted much about the spiritual retreat I went on a few weeks ago. I suppose it took a while to process it all and I have had other, more pressing issues at hand. But now that I'm outside of the experience there and am applying it to my real life, I can honestly say that it's changed my life as I see it.

Before this retreat, I struggled with this tiny voice on a running loop in the back of my head telling me that I was not good at anything, I was unlovable, I was a failure, I would never do anything significant, and that I would never really matter. I don't know where "The Voice" came from or when it started, but it went on and on all the time, until I believed it and had begun to really loathe myself. I also struggled with some serious doubts and questions in my faith. I felt like, even though I wanted to, I couldn't really believe in anything firmly because I had too many doubts and far too many questions. So I felt like a fake, going to church and talking to my kids about God. But I wanted to be there and I wanted to have what I perceive other people to have. And honestly, I thought that I thought that God loved me, but I discovered that I never really did know it deep down. I thought that my inability to become closer to God was because of my doubts. I thought that God didn't really want me to be close or that I didn't deserve to be close to him because I couldn't say that I believed everything that I was supposed to believe without a doubt.

But it turns out, that wasn't it at all. It turns out that I had convinced myself so deeply that I was not good enough (for no particular reason at all) that I didn't think it was possible for God to love me like I've heard people say that he loves his children. I thought that it applied to everyone else, but I just wasn't good enough. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried I was never able to accomplish the relationship with God that I wanted. I was just using my doubts as an excuse.

About a week after I returned from the retreat (and things started to settle down around here), I was laying in bed praying one night and I realized there was silence in my head. Silence. The Voice had been silenced. I finally accepted God's love for myself and The Voice had nothing else to say about me. Because I know God loves me, and even if I never accomplish a single thing in my life ever again, God loves me. And the questions I have? They're still there. I still wonder and doubt. But that's okay, because it doesn't matter anymore. I realized that I don't have to know for sure every thing I wanted to know. Because I know the one thing that many people never get a chance to realize in this life. God loves me exactly as I am. And nothing I do or say or is going to add to that or take away from it. It's just there. And life will be much easier if I accept it and embrace it. And I have. Finally.

I have to end with a quote from one of the kids' Veggie Tales books:

God loves you, too, and he wants you to know, he's right there beside you, where ever you go.