finally home

"I give You my heart
and all that is within.
I give You my dreams
for the promise of a new life."


It has been so long since I last went to church. And even longer since I went without having a panic attack beforehand. But after going home last weekend I realized the only thing I wanted to do this Sunday morning was to go to church. So Leigh and I woke up and went. I didn't panic, I wasn't awkward in meeting new people and the message was EXACTLY what I had needed to hear. It was a God thing.

Last weekend I felt I needed an escape from my life. Too much was going wrong and I wasn't quite sure how to handle it. My only option it seemed was to leave-- to run away to something, somewhere familiar. To people that I knew loved me.
What ended up happening was that I ran straight to God. Maybe some won't understand this. It does seem a little odd but when I am right with God I feel I am home.

We all have pasts that we struggle with, inner demons to overcome. In that respect I am just like everyone else in this world. But once I got involved with the church (not the place, but meaning with fellow Christians) my relationship with Christ grew. Soon, I had a strong relationship with my Savior and because of that I knew exactly who I was, what I wanted and where I wanted to go in life. But of course, then I moved to college and all that slowly slipped away. When my relationship with Christ faded, who I was began to fade as well. My self-esteem took a hit and I have tried in every other way to put it back again. I think it is finally now, after having run away to home I can clearly see how to fix it all. The answer is simple. It's God.

I didn't expect to run to Him. Granted, I never completely lost my relationship with Him, but I had agonized over getting involved with church again and a relationship with Him meant I had to go back. I love Jesus Christ and I believe Him to be my Savior, but like Gandhi it was the other Christians that kept me away.

I don't know why things changed this past week. Perhaps because my birthday is tomorrow and I realized I am growing up and need a change. Or maybe it is because I have been so miserable with life-- I have felt so alone and hurt by so many that I finally decided to work on the relationships that give back. God is one of those. No matter where I have been in life, He has always been right by my side, celebrating the wonderful moments like graduating high school or making the deans list, to crying with my during the sad moments, like my dad's death or the break ups with guys. He never said this life would be easy, He knew it wouldn't be, but what He did promise was that no matter what happened as long as we kept the faith and continued believing in Him that He would go through it with us.

The sermon today was about the church.
The pastor made a few really amazing points on it that I needed to hear as well.
He said that it is easy to walk away from an organization and even a pastor, but it is not easy to walk away from Jesus. I got this, I related to this. I couldn't and didn't want to walk away from Christ, but I wanted to walk away from the religion factor. The man made religion that gives rules and is full of hypocrites. But now, I want to be apart of it again. I want it to be different this time. I want to have a relationship with Christ and from that make relationships with other people. I don't want to live like a hypocrite (although I guess it is a given at times) but I do want to be a different kind of Christian. One who doesn't look down on others, but is more like Jesus was in seeing past people's flaws and mistakes and loving them for who they are. WHO they are not WHAT they are.
After all, like the pastor said, the church is not come and see its go and do. (Or at least this is how it should be).


"i am desperate for You
i am lost without You."