Starting Point – Part I

For about 10 yrs., my life spiraled downhill fast.  I longed for something or someone to make me feel valued, loved, accepted.  But, as the song goes, “I was looking for love in all the wrong places.  Looking for love in too many faces.”  I was not living my Faith and, in many aspects, was living against my Faith.   I surrounded myself with people who could never fulfill me and who actually were doing me harm although I did not want to believe it.

I finally started realizing that the farther I moved away from practicing my Faith,  the more my life went out of control.    The harder I tried to and the more I changed to please people, the greater distance there was between the “me” that I was and the “me” that I wanted to be.   The funny thing is, I am really a very nice, passionate and compassionate person who honestly only wants the best for everyone, but due to the fact I was not being true to myself, I came across as anything except that person.

I knew I had to get back to the child that absolutely adored God and looked forward to going to Mass, talking to Him, and loving His Church, but how?   I kept hearing people around me say they were offering their struggles up or turning it over, but I never really understood what that meant or how to do it.  I prayed and I prayed and I prayed.

One day in the middle of the office, I lowered my head and silently cried – Lord, I do not know how to turn this over, how to surrender, how to change.  I am in despair and feel like I must have blasphemed the Holy Spirit because it seems as if You do not want me either.  I am trying to turn back to You, I am trying to follow Your way, I am trying to undo the harm that I have done, but I seem to get worse instead of better.  Please help me.  If you want me to change, You are going to have to change me because I cannot do it myself.

Prior to today, I had always said that the Holy Spirit leading me to Adoration was my starting point.  That is where I was going to go with this entry, but as I was typing it, I realized that the starting point was actually my total surrender and acknowledgement that I can do nothing without God and it is in His timing that all things will be made new.