The Turning Point

Praise the Lord for he is good. These are words that I can truly say I have not said on my own accord, but tonight I break the silence.

Three months ago if you were to ask me how my life is going you would have received my typical answer. "It's pretty good" or "No complaints here." I would have believed myself at the time.

Fast forward a month later and my entire life is upside down. What happened? My girlfriend of almost three years was no longer my girlfriend. She had already moved on to someone else and I was left trying to figure out who I was. By no means was the blame to be put fully on her, we each had our difficulties. I don't know how many of you have been with someone for at least a couple of years, but you tend to mold them into part of your life and if you're not careful the relationship can become who you are.

This is exactly what happened to me, she had become my identity. It is only now that I notice that I had spent much of my time with other people relating conversations back to her instead of my own interests or history. I had changed much of who I was and what I liked in order to be with her. So imagine what happens when something or someone that important or connected in your life disappears. You are left face down on the floor trying to figure out what happened, and who you ought to be now.

I will be the first to admit, I was broken. I was depressed, I stopped eating, I stopped socializing, I quit doing almost all of my obligations, I skipped class, and I even gave up on God for a short time. I had become a Christian when I had met my girlfriend, so even my Christianity was connected to her. I was left asking myself the question of "Was it her 'religion' or mine?"

After a few days of struggling it hit me, since I had started to believe in Christ he had done so much for me. How could I possibly deny how blessed of a life I had been given? It was then that I decided that I was a Christian, own my own, without any other input. That was the easy part.

The next few weeks was filled with me pretending to be okay, reading my bible, doing my Christian duties. I even put on an outside mask, assuring everybody that I was doing better and that I was going to get through this. The words of a Mayday Parade song really spoke to me at that time. they said something along the lines of smiling on the outside and screaming on the inside. I tried so hard to re-establish my connection with God, I was forced to go through the motions as I led Monmouth Christian Fellowship, a group I had taken charge of over a year before.

I started comparing myself to how I use to feel, how I "use to be". I was seen as a leader on campus, whether it be in spiritual life, residence life, or my fraternity. I felt obligated to maintain that status, to keep up the look of being a leader who was essentially perfect or always happy and cheerful. I prayed to God every night to help me, to bring me out of the pain, to help me just move on and become closer to him. Everyone has heard the saying "be careful what you wish for", right?

That weekend I was going on a spiritual life retreat. The retreat's name was Encounter, this is based on the thought of leaving all that you're attached to (cell phones, computer, school) and truly trying to encounter God. I had been on one of these the previous semesters and felt quite moved by it. A few members from my group were coming along and we were to be sharing this retreat with members from Covenant Groups. I was immediately comfortable with these people, we connected very well and many of them didn't know me so it made for good pretending.

That night we went into worship after a message and for the first time in over a year, I truly reached out to God. I remember telling him how I didn't want to feel this way anymore, I wanted to feel the way I use to just after I became saved. I didn't hear a response, I didn't feel a thing, not an emotion, not a whisper of a thought into the mind of God.

After worship Jason Vana (the founder of Covenant Groups and the leader of the retreat) felt called to pray over us. The last time he had done this for me he had said that I was to do great things on this campus, that God would work through me, and that Monmouth College would be my training ground. I cringed at the thought of being told those things again, after all I was only pretending to be a leader, to be happy, to be a whole person.

I was one of the first people he decided to pray for. He stood me in the middle of these people that I knew as acquaintances, and began to pray over me. "You're not fooling anyone," he said "you're broken man, we can all see it. Stop trying to hide your feelings from us, we know that you're going through a hard time. What happened between you and Kathy was probably the hardest thing you've ever had to go through in your life. Sometimes God puts us in these places to bring us out into somewhere better. Stop, just stop it, you're not perfect, if you were you wouldn't need to be here right now."

I broke down at this, the overwhelming feelings hit me. I had lost everything I knew, the girl I was still in love with, my grades had taken a hit, my circle of friends had been destroyed since the breakup, I was losing my relationship with God, and most of all I had no one to relate to. No one I knew had gone through these things. I felt like my life was slipping through my hands, and after all the pretending, all the faking, it turns out people could see right through me. Even they could see that I was empty inside.

I don't think anyone in the circle that night saw my true breakdown. After I had been prayed for I went into the bathroom to "grab some tissues". I yelled, and cussed, and cursed God for putting me through this. It was the first time in my life that I had truly yelled at God for anything, that I had placed any kind of blame on him. It felt so good to not blame everything on myself, but then I realized, I wasn't feeling better because I was blaming God for everything, I felt better because I was actually talking to God. I had broken through some kind of barrier, something had clicked in my head, it all became very clear.

When things had been going badly between Kathy and I, I use to pray that God would change me for the good, whatever that change may be. That change was losing Kathy, there had been many things I changed in order to be with Kathy, and it eventually went to far. Yes, I was at fault in many aspects of mine and Kathy's relationship (if not most of the aspects). But the point was God had broken me down, he had taken away everything in life I had relied on in order for me to be able to finally rely on him and allow him to change me. Even though he knew it was going to cause me pain, he knew what I needed.

So what happened after that? I got up and joined the group to continue praying... no big actions...no life changing event....I had that realization and then went back to what I was doing. The difference? I was going to let people see my emotions, I was going to tell people what was going on in my life, the good and the bad. This is what God wanted me to do, share what he would eventually do in my life.

That is the reason for this blog, to share what goes on in my life, the good and bad. There is much more to catch up on in order to reach the present but this is where I will end this first part because this is the turning point in my life, this is where things began to change and that in itself is complete.