Because after a long struggle of trying to hold everything in, I've got a lot to speak out.
To put it simply, it feels as if though my life and my faith are crumbling. If you've been privy about me personally (and even if you're not, the personal info in the side bar is a dead giveaway anyway), you'd know how much I value my faith, and how inseparable it is from my life. It's what's keeping me sane and kicking; it's so intertwined with my life that I cannot fathom not living without it. But recent events have put my faith to the test, not my belief in a God, as I know there is one, but about whether or not He loves me.
I have no doubt that God is watching over my life, and God has always been looking out for me, at least until recently. I've been really really afraid actually; I know how undeserving I am of God's love, and so I find myself hiding my face from God. I'm a sinner, I admit. I procrastinate, wasting time where I shouldn't be wasting it, visiting pornography sites and performing other forms of distraction. I try to rationalize, saying that I can't help it. I guess it's akin to a smoker's desire to puff a cigarette; especially when you're under fire all the time, it's extremely difficult to fight distractions. I naturally want to be happy, but being trapped in an infinite cycle of stress and distress, it's hard to blame myself from finding easy way outs. But when I do, guilt sets in, which brings more stress, triggering the cycle all over again.
You see, it's quite obvious that I don't subscribe to hedonism. I believe we all have responsibilities, and that pleasure isn't always intrinsically good, especially if it violates those responsibilities. Pardon my bluntness, but I think hedonism is wildly irresponsible, because what might be pleasurable for you can be less so for others, and I will not live a kind of life where the self takes priority over everyone else. My faith had been my guiding light in this regard, teaching me what is right and what is wrong and giving me a real and doable path to happiness. Recently however, this path has become less and less doable, from my perspective.
Non-believers would think that Christians are like sheep who blindly follows a shepherd. Sometimes I just wished I'm like that, just a sheep following the shepherd that I trust. But the same God I follow, the same shepherd who tells me where to go, created me the way I am now. I'm sure He has a reason why He made me the way I am, giving me the ability to think critically and giving me a limited ability to fend for myself. It's just that, sometimes, this same gift has become a curse, as whenever I begin to use it, sometimes I arrive at conclusions that are... for the lack of better words, less indicative of my faith, to the point that sometimes my conclusions go against it. And this makes me very very afraid.
The hardest part of all this is I only feel this way when I'm stressed; other times I'm generally okay, or even more than okay. I can really feel God's presence in those times of peace. But in times like this, the only thing I can feel is darkness. It's getting harder and harder to feel God's presence in my life. I think that's simply what I'm getting at: it's getting harder and harder to detect whether God is truly there or not, granting me direction and purpose. And I don't know if I can survive this any longer. My physical and mental state is taking the damage. I cannot think straight; the things I loved to do before like writing and crafting, even playing games feel strained, uninspired and flat. I also feel ever more lethargic, craving sleep and dozing off way past the time I'm supposed to wake up.
It doesn't help that I need to finish my thesis soon. If things continue as they are, I don't know what might happen. I don't want to leave God's presence, but as more and more of my sinful nature takes over, the farther I walk away from my Father, and the more afraid I become of Him, weird as that might sound. I'm afraid because... I'm actually in part enjoying the distractions. It's pleasurable, pornography, playing cheap games, dozing off. All this are easy and fast and doesn't cost me extra effort. In effect, I'm becoming what a few paragraphs before I said I hated: hedonistic.
What scares me the most is, this might affect what I've been holding most dear in this world, my relationship with my best friend and girl friend. I'm afraid I might become someone she wouldn't like; a pitiful oaf with no ambition, one who lives by cheap thrills seeking the easy way out all the time. I'm afraid I might lose the only thing that's been supporting me, I'm afraid that I might screw up the only thing that's keeping me together. I'm afraid that I won't be able to take care of her; I'm afraid that I won't become a man she could love.
I'm writing this in case in the future, I dip into a low point again. If I rise up, if I remain down, I'm not gonna give up on my faith. I'm not one to give up so easily anyway. I'm at my lowest point, and as my favorite quote in the movie "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" says, "once you're down, the only way to go is up". If ever anyone reads this, please pray for me, pray that I might find God once again, that I might hold His hand so that He might pull me out of this slump and into the true happiness He had always given me in the past. Pray that I don't end up being afraid anymore, pray that I might find the way back to Him.
1 John 14:16 says that "perfect love drives away all fear". Pray that I might find His perfect love once again.
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