I WAS CAUGHT IN A GANG FIGHT.

How's THAT for eye-grabbing? Yeahhh.

I'm stressed these days. Last night I had a complete emotional breakdown, complete with those asphyxiating kind of sobs.

I guess at some point, I need to turn to the Lord when I'm so blatantly faced with the terror of my own humanity. I'm really a terrible human being. I don't deserve anything nice, and yet I'm blessed with so much. Open doors into work that I sincerely love, a small amount of friends, all of whom mean so much to me, a car that manages to have a full tank at some point every week, parents that are sincerely there for me and support me, and tolerate with a genuine smile my ridiculous side. I've come to a place of loving myself, and being comfortable in my own skin. I have a church. I have a small group. I've been working out for free for over a year.

I'm exceedingly blessed and I deserve none of it. I'm horrible.

In my second year of Bible college, I did something that, to me, was just the peak of any bad that I could do. I disobeyed a big rule of the college, and in doing so went against my own personal standards, and in turn, caused pain for people that I loved the most (geez, could that part have been any more dramatic? It's true, though.)

I felt so terrible. I had lied to, and betrayed one of my girlfriends. It was the worst charade I've ever been a part of. It really was. I completely blame myself because in retrospect, I had been so manipulative of other people involved, and it was something that haunted me for about a year.

During that time of feeling like I was the worst person on earth, I realized that I didn't have a personal understanding of God's love for me. I knew it in my head, but I didn't know it in my heart. It's impossible to believe the promises of God with just our head. They have to be real inside our hearts, or else we will crumble.

I knew that Romans 8 was the "God's Love and Not Being Bound to Sin" chapter, so that's what I read to try and understand His love. I read it over, and over, and over again. Romans was so confusing to me. I didn't get it. I asked the Lord to make it real to me. I kept reading Romans 8 over and over again. And then suddenly, one day, it clicked into place. Like doing a puzzle and trying to find that one piece and you try to stick so many other pieces into the spot, and then suddenly...one fits. Perfectly. It makes the picture a little more clear.

I got it. I wrote a sermon for class on it. I believed it. I knew it was real, and I knew that it was true for me and everyone else around me. It revolutionized my relationship with God and how I saw Him. He wasn't sitting up in heaven glaring down at me for being selfish and disobedient. He was loving me, and being patient with me, and giving me another chance to repent and become more like Him, and to make things right.

Things did go right, eventually. It took a long time, but I'm still friends with the people involved.

And now, I'm faced with the Love of God again. I've changed a lot since my second year. Mostly for the better, but the past few months have been a season of personal rebellion, and though I've made it right with the Lord, and my heart is to honor Him, truly, I'm dealing with the consequences of rebellion. There's habits that I fell into that I need to get out of only with help from the Spirit. There's attitudes that I embraced that I really need to stop defaulting to because they're negative attitudes that no one wants to be around, and they benefit no one.

There are lessons to learn. Unfortunately, I tend to be someone who is willing to learn them the more difficult way. There are some that I'm not willing to learn the hard way, but man..I'm crazy. It's like I weigh my options of "badness" and go for it if it doesn't seem like it'll be too big of a deal. It's a terrible attitude to have. I need to mature. Spiritually, emotionally.

We all do, but dang, I am lacking.

In other news, Grandma is home..well, she's not inside yet, but the ambulance just got here. Cookie packing is tomorrow. Thankfully more people have committed to helping, which is great. I'm nervous about heading it alone, but it'll be okay. As long as cookies and candy get packed up, we'll be good.