a personal insight…

we had lunch with an old friend today.  we had not sat and talked…really talked…since 1990.  in 1990, he was a just a kid.  he’s a man now.  older.  wiser.  deeper.  it was great to be around him.

as we talked, old wounds of mine were opened.  i thought about things that i had long since buried.  i remembered a lot of good stuff, but some of the pain was still there.  lurking.

but it’s in the past and i have moved on.  older. hopefully wiser and deeper, too.  we are all products of our past.  life events…both good and bad…are the things god uses to shape us and mold us and turn us into something for noble purposes.  or not.

i’m grateful for the pain and the struggle and the injustice and and difficulty and the mistakes and the growth curve that my life journey has produced.  i would not be who i am without it.

i am even more grateful that god never quit on me…even when i doubted…even when i wanted to give up…even when i called his existence and wisdom into question…even when theology and philosophy didn’t square up with what i heard others saying and doing.

i am grateful that faith and reason learned to coexist in my world.  i am grateful that i got to the point that i didn’t have to have answers for everything and that i became (by the grace of god) a pursuer of the “big picture”.

i am most grateful that i didn’t let people define god for me…or ruin faith for me…or box me into corners where there was no reasonable way out.  i am grateful that hurt or mean people did not suck me into bitterness…or lure me into apathy…or blindly call me to a life of judgmental self-centeredness (though i struggle with it everyday).

i will be eternally grateful for mercy, forgiveness (both for me and for those i interact with), for purpose, a higher calling than a mere existence centered on my own pursuit of happiness, and a the capacity to live life within the touch of people…in spite of the risk.

yeah, i’m a pretty happy guy tonight…and it has nothing to do with my location!

#faith #hurt #pain #purpose