Ass Hole.

I've written something similar to this post before, which simply tells me that I have yet to arrive.

A while back I was going through some garbage in my life.  I, after however long, realized that I needed to change.  I didn't like the man I was becoming anymore and I desperately wanted to change who I was,  but I didn't  know how or where to start.
I wound up grabbing lunch with my parents pastor at the time and talking to him about what was happening and what I was going through.  After a year or so of meeting with him, and having him walk me through the process of becoming a better man, I finally felt like I was good.  I felt like I had changed.  And I had, but beyond that I felt like the issues from my past were dealt with once and for all.

Well, recently I've discovered that I haven't dealt with all of those issues from my past.  Maybe I've realized that they are never totally gone and rather you just have to control them.  I'm not sure exactly.

As most people can, I could sit here and list all the rough shit I've gone through in my life, and I would be accurate and justified in doing so.  I could talk about failed relationships, about friendships that sucked, about business partners that screwed me over, about people that hurt me with their actions or their words.  I could try to explain why I am the way I am.  And I'll do just that, but not to show you that I am right in how I act, feel, think, or speak.  No, I'll explain it to show how I've realized the need to change.

See, I've had my share of betrayals in life.  I've been cheated on in romantic relationships, I've had a business partner take the money out of the bank and leave me with the wreckage, I've had close friends turn and run, and worst of all I've been hurt before by something someone said or did in passing.
I've legitimately, or at least I think legitimately, forgiven those people that hurt me.  I've forgiven myself, or at least I think I have, for allowing myself to harbor that brokenness and resentment towards these specific people.  In my mind of reasoning, because I felt I'd forgiven them and moved on in life, I thought  everything was taken care of, that I wouldn't have to deal with the repercussions any longer, that I would no longer be bothered by the past.  I was wrong.

What's happened is that I've fallen back into my old ways of thinking in terms of hurt and pain.  I've begun to question just about everything in my life.  Where I live, where I worship, where I work, my relationships with friends and family.  I've begun over thinking, rethinking, and anxiously stressing out about every single sigh or misinterpreted glance of the eyes.  My thinking has been "well my past tells me that this person acted this way, so I should watch for those warning signs."  It's completely and totally a terrible way to live my life.  Why?  Because it keeps me in the valley of my brokenness and pain where everything stays the same. (that sort of rhymed in case you didn't notice.)

The other issue is, not only does that kind of thinking keep me living in my brokenness but it forces me to view and treat the people currently in my life like they're the ones that hurt me from my past.  Which means I'm not only hurting the people currently in my life but I'm also continuing to wound myself.  I'm not moving on, I'm not letting go of my past, I'm only extending the pain and making sure I'll have even more stories to tell of broken relationships.

From my experience, once you've been hurt by people in the past you do one of two things.  You either demand too much of the people in your life or you demand too little.
In my case I demand too much.  I expect the people currently in my life to know what wounds I carry around and work harder to make sure they don't do the same as the ones before them.  All that thinking does is guarantee failure, turmoil, and more pain and not only in my life but also in the lives of those I hurt now.

It's sad really.  Sad to think that I've been acting this way, over-thinking everything, allowing myself to become paranoid and anxious, allowing myself to jump ten steps ahead of things when I'm still working on step one.  It's an unfortunate way to live any kind of life.

From what I've seen, there aren't any bible passages that talk about this sort of stuff.
So, taking my friend Alan's advice and combining that with times of peace in my life, I'm going to simply and purely turn to Jesus.  Spend time with Him in prayer and study.  If there is one good thing I've learned in my 26 years on this earth it's that I am at my best when I am grounded with Him.  When I get away from spending time with Him is when the wounds, the fears, the brokenness, the past begins to creep up and steal my life away.  That's when I become and ass hole.  Honestly, that's something I haven't been doing over the last month or so, I haven't been spending time with Him and allowing Him to take away my pain.

So, this is an apology of sorts.  This is me saying I need to change, I need to refocus, I need to rededicate, I need to realign.  And Here's hoping that you won't be reading a similar post from me next year.

Cheers,

~ anthony.