Posted by Jestyr at 11:08 PM on January 5, 2009 in .
i'm in a rather reflective mood today, so this will be a somewhat long entry. if you have the patience to bear with me, please do. if you don't, well that's fine too.
this past year has been a mixture of good and bad.
the "good"s:
- Even though I constantly doubt and disbelieve, God always pulls through. I realized that my faith is lacking in so many areas and though I always push and try to pull away, somehow I'm always brought back. I liken it to deep sea fishing. You give a little line to the fish once in a while but in the end you always reel it in. For that, I'm grateful.
- Amazing family. They are the reason why I tangibly understand what it means to be always there.
- Friends, both past and present, that understand me. These people are so few and far between that when they do come along, it breaks my heart when our paths split.
- Graduation. I made it.
- Age. Though this is a weird one, I am actually very grateful that I'm getting older. Each year I see different things about me and it makes me realize more and more what a horrible and messed up person I am. I forsee the need for therapy, or much prayer, in the near future.
The "bad"s
- Its been a rollercoaster of emotions this year. Somehow this year has been worse than most. I'm not a very emotionally demonstrative person to begin with, so this past year has just been a emotion-brimming-to-the-surface year.
- I knew this past year would be a heart-breaking year. The combination of saying goodbye to good friends and making new acquaintances made 2008 a year of difficult situations.
- I didn't expect myself to miss home this much. I knew I would, but I didn't know that my homesickness this year would rival my freshman year. But somehow it has either matched or surpassed it.
I guess it's a good thing that the "good"s outweigh the "bad"s. Actually, it's a VERY good thing. I also realized a lot of things about myself:
- I actually hate the taste of coffee. After years of trying to convince myself that I enjoy that foul-tasting drink, I have come to accept that coffee, while the beverage of choice for millions of Starbucks connoisseurs, is not for me. I like my venti-soy-hot-chocolate-with-whip thank you very much.
- Whenever I see my friends' parents and know that my friends enjoy the luxury of knowing that they will spend eternity with their family, I sometimes get jealous. My own situation really saddens and frightens me. Everyday I'm dogged by the fear that they won't believe and in the end it'll be too late. I never talk about this because it is by far my biggest fear. I go to sleep thinking about it and wake up still lingering on the thought.
- I can't say goodbye without tearing up. I physically am unable to say a tear-free farewell.
- I am not a patient person. At all.
- I get the feeling that somewhere along the path to the me-now, I lost myself and what I stood for. Only now am I slowly beginning to rediscover the values I once held on so strongly to.
- God has really broken my will. From age 18 to age 23 not many things have gone the way that I want them to go and this has resulted in a broken and calloused heart. However it has also resulted in a sense of pseudo-surrender. I'm either too tired to fight or too broken to care. I have no idea which it is.
Earlier this year I wrote about the fact that I had [almost] given up on faith. Actually, that was probably as close to the brink of disbelief that I have come to in a long while. My jaded heart has not been so cynical in years. I remembered how carefree I was pre-Christ. I remembered that I was a more patient person, a person who held on to values and virtues that I no longer remember or care to demonstrate. I don't know if the me-now is a product of life's harshness or God's refining but I know that I need to get back to the person I was before and somehow meld it together with faith. Slowly now, I feel the crust chipping away but I also know that its so easy to have a hardened heart once more. I'm tired of the cookie-cutter faith. I want a faith that is mine, not someone else's plagiarized faith. I wish the word spoke to me. I wish I just "get it" instead of "doubt it". I wish that I knew what it is to burn for God. I wish God would save my loved ones.
I don't really have resolutions because I don't know what will come in 2009. I just hope that I'll be strong enough to see it through. Sorry for the rant, it's been a long day.