When You Feel Like Quitting

Back in high school, I played on the basketball team…that is, until I quit!  It wasn’t an issue of lack of talent, because if I can boast for a second, I could play.  It was more an issue of as our coach began to make us do countless numbers of suicides and other crazy drills, I began to have to really, really WORK!  What had always been somewhat of a natural talent to me became overwhelming, and the game I loved to play really didn’t seem that appealing anymore, so I made up some lame excuse and I QUIT…Q-U-I-T, QUIT!!!  With a very stinky attitude and a very literal stink from all of the perspiring I had done running suicides, I informed my coach I was done.  That day marked a nasty pattern in my life of quitting when things got too tough.

Today I am sitting at home because I want to quit because it feels too tough.  I want to be done.  I want to jet off to Hawaii (which just so happens to be on The Today Show this morning, adding insult to injury).  It’s just been a very tough week, one that challenges me to the core because I want to live my life with excellence and last week sure didn’t measure up.  Ever have one of those weeks when you’re just on a high because things have gone so well, but not everyone or everything around you got the memo?  That’s been me lately.  I came home last Sunday, Mother’s Day, on a complete high over how God would allow me to stand before our people at LifeSong and be a messenger about how God had been speaking to me, and how I saw lives changed right before my eyes.  Waking up Monday morning, though, from the get-go things were different.  The activity in our home was rushed, schedules were topsy-turvy and there was just an overall degree of feeling “off” amongst the whole lot of us.  Throughout the day and the rest of that week I felt that Satan was doing the “nanny, nanny, boo, boo” face at me, mocking me, trying to take me down.  I began to wake up each day dreading stepping a foot out of bed, much less stepping a foot out of the door.  I had allowed my circumstances and perceptions of what was going on around me rule my mood, speak lies to my heart and I’ve slowly thrown my hands in the air with my “I surrender” flag in my hands.  Life just becomes too much to handle, and why did God ever allow me to stand up before a lot of people only to have Satan make a complete fool of me all week?

“Our attitude each day can cause us to say and do things that are irreversible.”

These are the words I heard my husband speak in his message yesterday at LifeSong.  Never was there a truer statement to sum up my week, and I might add that the same is true for what others say or do around us.  Our attitudes all the way around around affect! They affect our mood, our performance, our overall day, achieving our dreams, and on and on.  We lose chunks of life just by having bad attitudes.  We quit life when we have bad attitudes…when we wake up everyday and choose to live in the stench of a bad attitude, we QUIT!  How, then, do we live fully? 

Live everyday with JESUS

We try to live a “Sunday only with Jesus” life.  We wake up on Sunday morning excited to spend time with Him…in a building.  We anticipate meeting Him…in a building.  We don’t have to have it like that.  We get to wake up with Him EVERYDAY.  We get to CHOOSE Him every single day, but let me tell you, we’ve got to make up our minds to do it, to CHOOSE! Today, in the quiet places of my heart…in that place of wanting to give up, I’m trying to choose.  It’s hard, but life is waiting for me.  Today I’ll take time to work at it, to be still in it, and it’s OK.  Whatever it takes, no matter how hard a job I make it, I want to learn to choose Him in it all.

CHOOSING Jesus everyday empowers us to stop quitting…no more quitting people, quitting/hopping churches, quitting jobs, moving from spouse to spouse, living lifeless lives. Choose to live…choose Jesus everyday!

Choosing HIM everyday makes all of the difference in the world. When life isn’t what we hoped, when it requires a little more work to live out our calling, when we take days to be still and know Him, we must choose HIM over and over making our lives EVERYDAY JESUS. If you feel like quitting today, don’t.  Choose Him today. Choose to have an attitude that overcomes. Choose to live life with Him everyday and not just Sunday.

Inside Our Doors

Around our house, our girls do chores.  Even the word “chores” conjures up images of Little House on the Prairie episodes of Laura and Mary helping Ma with dinner, or Pa with the livestock.  The whole concept of making our children work is not a popular these days.  Rather, we have somewhat turned into that “hand your children everything on a silver platter” society. I’m constantly feeling like a failure in this area.  I grew up being taught how to do certain tasks…from washing dishes, to daily cleaning my room, to learning how to take care of basic household repairs, I had various people investing in my life to develop my work ethic.  My sisters and I always had responsibilities we were expected to complete, and if we didn’t we paid the consequences, or to put it plainly…we didn’t get paid an allowance.  Even in boarding school in Venezuela, I was doing my own laundry, required to maintain my chores my dorm parents issued and maintaining my studies at the age of 13.  I was often lazy, though, and spent many a day trying to play catch up with my work.  I complained, kicked my feet and rebelled against responsibility a lot, but in the end, someone – be it my parents, dorm parents or even I – made sure it got done.

In our home, our girls have daily job lists…things they must maintain everyday in order to receive an allowance at the end of the week.  Included in that are extra incentives to earn more at the end of the week.  I include things like, “do a load of laundry”, “help your sister with her work”, “speak kind words to each other (this is the one we most need work on in our home)”, and even a basic “look for opportunities to serve your family” options on the list of extra incentives.  This is one of several ways I have tried to develop a good work ethic in our girls.  I do it because, just like my Mama told me when she did the same thing, I love them!  This place in my heart of loving everyone from the center of who I am begins at home.  In that same light, it is also not easy.  I often want to give in to my kids’ complaints that they’ve had a long day and are too tired to complete their responsibilities.  I know how that feels, but better yet, I know how it feels to push through that and reach my goals at the end of the day.  That is the place I want to develop in them – the character of fortitude, of sticking with it until it gets done.  The love I have for them extends to enforcing discipline if they do not complete the task.  I do it because I want them to learn that if they drop the ball, the whole family pays for it because someone has to go behind them and complete the task they chose not to complete.  When everyone is functioning in their role, our home runs smoothly.  We have to start and stop ideas like these so often in our home until we find that sweet spot of what works.  We don’t give up because, quite frankly, I do not want my kids to be spoiled brats when they walk out the doors of this house.  I believe in them.  I believe that they can learn to be incredible human beings by accomplishing very simple tasks in our home.  We have chosen to teach our kids to work for the things they want.  We buy them what they need, but any wants they have, and yes, this does include their future cars, they will have to learn to save what they earn from hard work to help pay for them. Even now, our oldest girls are required to babysit one night a week for their younger sisters in order to pay for their cell phones. I want them to soar in every area of their lives, and developing the character of a good work ethic that ends in reward is worth the blood, sweat and tears it’s taking us to get there.  You think I’m joking…I’m not! It is blood, sweat and tears!!:) Everyday I must make up my mind to stick to it when it comes to parenting well.  Developing young women that will contribute to this world supercedes any desire I have to hold them close, to be lax in the rules I’ve set for them or to give them everything without making them work for it.  I don’t write this to boast, but to be real about our struggles with learning how to love our kids from the center of who we are even when it comes to responsibility and discipline.  What may work for us this week, may not even work for us next week, but we don’t give up…we can’t give up.  Today, how can you love your kids from the center of who you are, even if it means choosing what’s difficult?  What are some things you do in your own home that have worked for you in teaching your kids responsibility?

Who Are You

Several years ago, I was hanging out with some friends and one of them shared with me she wanted to confess something to me.  She stated that awhile back, she and others she was with, had allowed their conversation to turn to talking about me, along with some other staff wives, in a very negative, hurtful way.  She hesitated to tell me what had transpired, but her desire to ask for my forgiveness outweighed her discomfort.  I kept telling myself I should be angry, but I really just appreciated seeing Matthew 18, otherwise known as the forgiveness chapter, fleshed out. As I look back on it, it always sticks out to me as a time where you find yourself wondering if people are being the same to your face as they are when you are not around.  And, lest you “go there” in your thinking and finger-point, trust me…I’ve been the offender, too.  I do not think any of us can say that we’ve always been on the up and up in our speech.  Most often we manipulate our speech to put the good spin on things so that, God forbid, anyone ever think horribly of us.  I mean, come on, I like for people to like me, don’t you?  This moment defined for me, however, that the very part of me that I want to most be – just to be REAL – is most often the hidden part of everyone with whom we come in contact.  In my last post, even, this was the heartbeat – just loving people right, exactly where they are.  Being yourself, being real, being vulnerable and even being our most ugly selves are all a part of this.  The more we practice being who we really are, the more those around us are challenged to really, genuinely LOVE us right where we are.  It’s a win, win.

Just the other day, one of our partners came in the church as I was working.  I asked her the usual, “How are you,” and I waited, playing the game with myself I always play…that moment where I wonder, “Will she really tell me how she is”?  It was then that the rare thing happened.  She actually told me how she really was, and truth is, she was not doing well.  She was tired, had a lot on her mind and just completely at the end of her rope, but she didn’t hide it.  I told her how refreshing it was to actually have someone be honest enough to tell me how they are really doing…and, yet, so rare!  I don’t know about you, but I want to be a trailblazer.  I want to trail-blaze the way to break molds, crush stereotypes and just accept people for who they are, right where they are.  It’s honestly the singular, most difficult thing for me as a pastor’s wife.  I lived for so long hiding who I really am from others.  I was afraid to let anyone see me for me…the me that doesn’t always like being assumed I love my life, or being put down because I actually do love my life… and the result of that has left me exhausted, with “I’m a people pleaser” tattooed on my forehead.  As I began to embrace letting others see the real me, the result hasn’t always been what I’ve expected, but I’m no longer living in the shadows of people’s expectations of what they think I should be, but I’m living in the reality of who I am.  I’ll warn you, I sense people talk more about me now that I’m letting them see all sides of me than ever before, but the difference is, this time they mostly say it to my face.  I want no accolades in life, but only to be like the woman who came in my office this week – I want to just be who it is I am.  Sometimes I’m

Agitated

Compassionate

Apathetic

Tenderhearted

Say words that are kind

Say word that are bad

Don’t do what you want me to do just because you want me to do it

In the shadows holding the hand of the one no one else will touch

Undisciplined

Disciplined

Feel excluded

Exclude others

Passionate

Hard-hearted

Friendly

Annoyed

I really could fill the page with my polar opposite self descriptions.  I’m all over the place, but I live with an expectation that you will love me for who I am, because, despite your imperfections, I certainly love you – while you make it difficult for me to do so, I’m no different from you that way.  Loving is the center.  It’s the right place where life may look incredibly messy, but be incredibly right.  The journey to love deeply, and without discrimination is not easy, but worth the fight.  Times like being talked about, to coming into contact with someone who will be real with you will both shape you.  What’s your starting place?  Do you need to forgive yourself before you can be yourself?  Do you need to forgive someone else?  Take the bull by the horns and be who are were created to be.  Don’t have it all figured out. Don’t hide who you are to be what others expect.  Today, just start by being you.

Where’s The Love

I’ve not written on here in awhile.  It’s been intentional, for the most part.  I’ve needed to listen more than I’ve needed to talk or write.  I need time…time to figure myself out…time to live life…time to take it all in.  I work better like that.  Don’t push me.  I hit that wall, pretty frequently compared to most people I know, where I just need my space.  Sometimes space is a good thing – sometimes, not so much.  This time around, it’s been both good and bad.  I’ve been breathing it all in and instead of letting any of my thoughts or feelings come right back out, I’m allowing them to marinate inside and just…listen…just think.  And, really, I mostly wanted to just listen to God’s voice because the voice of others just gets me confused, annoys me, or made me feel like I had to think like they do…when, in reality, I don’t.  So, I tuned them out, stopped listening – that is, until recently.  Wherever I go, whatever I read pretty much leaves me thinking, “Wow, everyone has somethin’ to say!”  I guess where I get a little uncomfortable in my seat is when I feel like your journey to live outside the box and speak freely (and, you should speak freely) pushes me into a category, or in a box I don’t want to be pushed into.  So, where my heart stands is not on saying what you need to say, but rather in how you say it.  Coming from the place of the one digging deep to listen, I feel like I’m all I’m reading or hearing these days is an “I can say whatever the heck I wanna say however I wanna say it” and when you’re living in a world – well, my world – where you’re trying your best to detox from religion and pursue people, things and life with passionate love, I’m left wondering, “Hey, man…where’s the love?”  Even in our attempts to love “the very least of these” we may be forgetting who they are and just what it is they need is less criticism and heaps more grace.

I was recently volunteering in a Bible club my church hosts at our local elementary school and I watched as two girls in the age group where I worked laughed and pointed at another girl while she was literally “dancing like no one was watching”.  I admittedly got fired up because I went to that place of thinking, “Well, gosh, these girls go to church. They ought to know better.”  The minute I thought it, I could’ve hit myself because I don’t wanna go there at all.  I wanna go to the place of not wanting to hang these girls up by their toenails to the place of realizing just like they weren’t aware of what I knew about the girl they were making fun of, I don’t have a clue what’s going in their little lives either that’s making them, well…mean. See, I knew the girl dancing had every “right” to be moping.  She had just been freed from a life of verbal and physical abuse – a life where no one was telling her that they loved her, yet, she danced.  She danced to songs about Jesus because regardless of the ugly side of life, the ugly side of people, she never complicated it because grace is simple, and grace is deep…it covers the deepest hurt and gives us dancin’ feet.  It heals.  And, in that little girl’s not-a-care-in-the-world dance, I found the place to realize, “Everybody needs more of that, and a lot less condemnation,” so I refrained from hanging those mean girls up by their toenails and I spared them a look into my wrath and just gave them grace.  They didn’t leave club that day knowing I gave them grace because grace doesn’t always use words, but it turns itself into hope and believing in others.  I believe those girls won’t always be mean.  And, I believe that us big people with our opinions, and our staunch desires to just BE will realize that we can BE without condemning the lives of others.  It’s cliché to say that my journey is not your journey, but there’s still a lot of truth in that.  Yep, we get to say and act anyway we want, but at who’s expense?  If I have to tell you I’m a leader, I’m probably not.  If I have to tell you that I’m humble, I’m probably the opposite.  If we have to stamp our foot down so people will hear, then trust me…no one is listening to you.  Maybe I’m rambling, but there are little girls dancing around holding hurt inside, with mean girls making fun of others and in the end…both are trying to just be HEARD.  I love words.  I take a lot of wisdom from a lot of places, but the most recent words I read were from a book that I often think I have really, really read, only to discover I know NOTHING! In my Bible yesterday, these words jumped off the page at me…

     “If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care – then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.” Philippians 2:1-4

I read this and I’m like, “Yes, I want more of that!”  In my own journey to move from religion to living out the simple Gospel of loving like Jesus, these words hit me deep.  I see differently that annoying person that gets up under my skin.  That person that is attention-seeking and loud looks less like just a loud-mouth and more like someone who just wants to be accepted and loved like the rest of us.  The prisoner, the criminal, the drunk, the addict, they all have “Show me grace, love, hope tattooed on their forehead.  All of these have the same thing in common – their heart.  You see, they’ve got one, and for some it leads to the flourishing path, but for others it leads to death, to stupidity, to hurt.  Want I want to say is, let your love win them. Let your grace draw them in, and in our own individual quests to have a say, let our voices reflect nothing short of overwhelming love…because someone, somewhere is listening.

Just Sit Back And…

My husband often says, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.”  I’ve heard him say it so much that it’s probably been one of those things that has not truly translated into my heart as it should have.  Sometimes it takes a series of events, trials, too much time on my hands for a truth I’ve heard all of my life to really sink in.  This has been the case for me lately.  The thing is, the single most important thing for me in my life as a Christ-follower is to truly take on the person of Christ in every single thing I do.  I honestly don’t really know what that always looks like because I’m also detoxing from a lot of religion I’ve acquired along the way in my journey.  I muddle through most of my life, having a stellar moment of “Yeah, I got it” from time to time, but for the most part my life has been pretty characterized by making the learning process a whole lot harder than it has to be.

ONE WORD came into my life at a time where the reality had hit me that boy, did I have a ton of detoxing to do from religion. I longed for the simple. That reality was a sweet one because it was one of those “I know I’ve been looking for peace, but where is the peace to be found” moments.  The freedom I found in throwing off religion and learning to walk the Jesus Way, to be honest, was ten million times less rule-filled.  Finally, I could breathe…that is, until I decide to go off and complicate things again.  This time, though, I’ve learned that within the complicating of life, is also the beauty in it. You see, in that beauty is held the process of getting there.  I’m learning to embrace it.

I’m totally NOT a person to make resolutions.  The way I see it is you can either resolve to keep them and let’s be honest, we also resolve to break them.  I need something to rest on, park myself there and dig in.  For me, it’s always been the refreshment to my soul to just have this ONE WORD I’ve focused on all year.  This year, however, I found myself having clearly been given a word, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak it, much less write about it.  I only told my husband, and even then it was with guarded language that more or less said to him, “Don’t you dare hold me accountable to this.”  My life…our lives…have been a target ground for some fiery darts for about the last three to four months.  We lead a church, and we’ve spent most days ourselves under personal attack of the mind and heart, or we have watched those we deeply love battle the same.  It has sucked and it has sucked the life out of me.  I’ve had more days of throwing my hands in the air, waving my fist at the enemy, and even God, too,  just resolving to give up (see my hang up with resolutions).  I have basically been functioning under an “I’m done” mentality.  Don’t ask me to be there for you.  Don’t you dare expect me to have the right answer.  And please, oh, please, don’t be needy.  I have nothing to give.  I am empty.  Voicing my ONE WORD seemed too much for me because voicing it would mean I would have to actually work at it…focus on it.  So, in my complicating of it…again…came what always comes – peace.  See, my word is:

Listen

Don’t go thinking, “Wow, you picked an easy one”.  I did not.  Not for me.  I want to be doing something, digging into things.  Even in my complicating of life, digging in and working masked my denial that I’m not OK.  If I could focus on busying myself then I wouldn’t have to think about the things I have to work on.  This concept of listening is hard for me.  It strips me of living in my role of always being expected to have the right answer, to be a voice in others’ lives, to have to always have a word.  When I finally muddled through the process of getting it, therein lies the peace.  I finally got that within the listening came the doing (James 1:22).  All of this being put out with being there for others, having to hear them need me to say something to them resulted in me forgetting how to listen.  The obvious spiritual answer is I’d forgotten how to listen to God, and that’s true…I had.  I thought I was listening because, doggone, I was desperate for Him to speak to me in the midst of the attack I’ve been under.  I was trying to hear Him so hard that I wasn’t really hearing a thing.  Then, there were my kids.  I have four of them and they are all girls.  Girls like to talk.  I stopped listening.  Then, even before I grasped this ONE WORD for me for 2013, I started listening and I heard pleas for them to be heard – from me, from their friends.  One was lonely.  One was too busy and it was catching up with her.  One felt bullied at school.  One just needed her mommy to have a tea party with her and her mommy stopped listening.  I became desperate to listen to my girls…to really hear their hearts.

So, here I find myself, wanting to refuse to give my ONE WORD, yet unable to shut my mouth one more time before I settle into really listening this year.  This doesn’t mean I won’t be doing, but my heart is resting on listening, and allowing the doing – the what I’m really supposed to be doing….and not doing what others expect me to do or what I even put on myself to do. It’s doing something different in order to break the cycle of getting what I’ve always gotten. It’s peace for me.  Living the simple.  I’m giving myself permission to breathe…and I really, really like it.

Another Day to Say, “I Do”

Today at 2pm I will officially celebrate 18 years of marriage to the most compassionate, passionate, purpose-driven, Godly, kindest man I know…Jeffery Walton Hickman.  Not to sound cliche, but I honestly, at some point in my day, stop and think, “What did I do to deserve him?”  I mean, I can be pretty selfish and unloving, driven fully by my emotions, and God gave me a very logical, lives in the reality, husband that doesn’t generally let emotions rule him.  He grounds me, yet at the same time, has pushed me off the ground to soar.  He gives me more courage to face life head on than I could ever do on my own.

I’m in a time of my life that almost every week I hear of marriages around me crumbling and homes are becoming fractured.  It scares me sometimes.  I’ve been the one to say, “That wouldn’t be me,” but the reality is that it certainly could be me.  This is why a day like today is such a big deal to me, because in the busyness of life, the managing of schedules and the inevitable allowing of ourselves to be sucked into the humdrum routine of life, I have an anniversary – an opportunity for a new beginning; an opportunity to sit back and reflect.  In our marriage the one phrase I have heard my husband say thousands of times is that we must pray everyday for God to keep us “clean and close”.  Praying about it is only part of it, and applying it…LIVING it…is the other part!  I have had that moment of amazement that people say…you know, the “I made it to….” statement?  Well, I guess in those terms, we made it to 18, but I don’t see it that way.

I see each day as another day that I get to say, “I do”.

I don’t wake up everyday liking everything about my marriage.  I don’t honestly know anyone who does, but rather than camping out in the land of “I don’t like this or that” I want to live my days camping out in the “I’m choosing today to love you all over again…and again…and again.”  When I don’t always feel like I’m getting the quality time I crave, I still choose to love him in spite of that.  When he feels like I’m complaining too much and can’t take another second of it, he still chooses to love me in spite of my moodiness.  Getting up, choosing to love my husband like Jesus loves Him is the very best decision I can make everyday, and it’s the very reason why I feel like marrying him was like it was yesterday!  This man God has blessed me to love with my whole heart is WORTH IT!

I recently had a friend ask me to do something on a Thursday, and she immediately stopped and said, “No, not Thursday. That’s your date night.”  I loved knowing that that part of my life is known by my friends – that they know it’s a non-negotiable in our lives.  For me, I can hardly get through my day because I’m so excited about spending time with Jeff.  It’s another choice we’ve made to make our marriage the greatest priority in our lives.  It’s another piece of the puzzle of choosing to make things work.  I believe in marriage.  I abhor the fact that here on my 18th wedding anniversary what consumes my mind are the marriages that are dying, but what I refuse to ever utter is a death sentence over marriage in general, and I certainly will not utter a death sentence over mine.  I want to live today choosing Jeff again, and tomorrow, December 18th, I’m gonna choose him once again.  Is your life full of so many distractions and disappointments that choosing to love your husband or wife has taken a backseat, or even just become hopeless to you?  Don’t give up! Never, ever give up! Do whatever it takes to make your “I do” worth it…it IS worth it!

Jeffery Hickman, I love you with all of my heart.  If we were to go back in time at Charleston Southern University and I was faced with having to choose you all over again…I would in a millisecond! I believe in you and the man God has called you to be.  There will never, ever be another to compare.  I got the best of all the rest!   Happy Anniversary to the love of my life.

Gratitude Week: Day 4

Meet Anna.  Anna is also a partner at LifeSong.  One of the most kind-hearted women I know, Anna shows me such fortitude and determination to walk each day with Jesus to the very fullest.  You’ll always find Anna with a smile on her face and she always has her “yes” on the table to whatever God asks of her.  An amazing mom and friend, you’ll find yourself all the better for just spending a single moment in Anna’s presence.

I am so full of gratitude that it’s hard to put into words. I’m even thankful that I’m so thankful for everything! It makes life much easier if you can see the good in not so good situations. I am most thankful that I have a God who loves me, that I can trust to be in total control of my life. Romans 8:28 says, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. I can live with a peace that passes all understanding because I know that no matter what happens, good or bad, He knows the future and He knows what’s best for me. After all, He’s already written my story.

    After years of running from God and doing things my way, I started feeling like something was missing in my life. Everything in my life seemed like such a mess and I was trying to control it to be the way that I thought it should be. I finally turned to God and experienced a freedom that I had never felt before. I can’t say that it was easy to let go of that need to control everything, it was a very slow process and I still have to remind myself daily who is in control of my life.

    In April of this year, I was able to go to Haiti on a mission trip. It was a big part of making me aware of what really matters in life. I never expected the joy and happiness in the people who live there. By our standards, they have nothing, but truthfully, they have it all. I was blown away by the genuine love they have for God and others. It doesn’t matter what kind of clothes you wear or what kind of house you live in because most of them don’t even have, what we here in America, would call a house. I can’t say that it made me thankful for what I have, but that it made me ashamed that I have so much, and not enough love.

    I stay focused on gratitude by constantly thanking God for everything. I thank Him everyday for beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the changing of seasons and everything in between. I think God puts these things in our lives as reminders to be grateful. He has also given me my precious daughter, who can make me smile in the worst of times. His timing is perfect. He knows just what we need and when we need it, and for that I am also grateful.

My name is Anna Jennings I am a single mother to my daughter Brinlyn who is 4 years old and I work full time at CVS Pharmacy. I have been going to Lifesong Church for about 4 years, and I have loved every minute of it. I grew up in church, but until several years ago, I never lived my life the way that I should. When I look back now, I can see that Satan had blinders over my eyes for most of my life. I just didn’t get it. Finally, I was forced to turn to the only thing I had left to turn to, my God, who was still there waiting on me after all that time.