caution! about to get personal...

I'm having problems in just about every situation there is in my life. And being in another country just seems to magnify everything. Or maybe it just needed time to show up. About a year ago, I started questioning just about everything that I've ever known about God, being that I’m mainly from the charismatic background with knowledge of how the Church of Christ felt about things as well, but I thought they were crazy. I had this fear of not being in "God's will" as the charismatics stress in their religion. When it finally dawned on me that even after 24 years, I was still unable to decipher God's will for me; I decided that I had to question all the charismatic stuff. I've been 'stung' by church leaders (both CofC and charismatic), time after time, and we're talking serious stuff here (especially with the charismatic). So, I've officially stepped into a crisis of faith by way of beliefs.

I guess one way that Nate describes it is that some try to manipulate God to get what they want. That seems to define how I've always been. I've had more than that kind of a relationship with God, but that has been a part of it for so long. For instance, I really want to get married. And I wasn't even that much into dating, least of all marriage, more than the average female fantasy of having a home, until I started to seek the Lord on what kind of a wife and mother I should be. Well, I read many books for young singles. I've tried every method there is for making God realize that I'm ready to get married. I tried looking, tried not looking, tried patience, tried praying, and the list goes on. Apparently God can't be manipulated like that, 'cause I'm still single. I got mad because I felt it was God's fault that I wanted to be married, I felt like it had been a passion ignited by Him...but then He wasn't fulfilling that desire.

Well, a while back all hell broke loose in my life, and I started drowning. I finally came to the realization that I needed to take responsibility for my own life and to stop passing off everything to God to take care of. (This is how I ended up in Colombia...long story, but basically, yeah). It hit me that nothing was ever even attempted in my life until I took control. And now I'm starting to second guess all the decisions I've made since then because I still have a conscience, dang it! As you can tell just a bit from my blog that I'm not happy here, in fact, I'm quite miserable. There have been some good things that have come of my taking control of my life, but then some bad have happened, too. For instance, I came to Colombia to prove to myself and others that I could fulfill my "calling" when in fact, I no longer really want this calling. It's a bad thing that I'm now stuck here for the year, but a good thing that I discovered on my own that this is not what I want to do, as so many had "prophesized" I would for the rest of my life. That also solidifies the disbelief of the charismatic religion. Or maybe I’m just “running from God”.

Well, since I've had the rug yanked out from under me...I'm left kinda wishing I had taken the blue pill. I can only handle introspectiveness for so long, and then I get tired of it. So I'm gonna quit typing now.