Gratitude and Stronghold Cycles

In another journal, I wrote about Levels of Change (here) and Stronghold Cycles (here).

There is a lie that has been gnawing at me for a long time now...

• "I'd be happy if..." OR "I'd trust God if..."

The IF changes like a chameleon, but it's always IF.

IF:

• I lived somewhere else: X
• I didn't like here: X
• I worked: X
• I didn't work: X
• I was with X person/people
• I wasn't with X person/people
• I stopped doing X
• I started doing X
• I had X
• I didn't have X

Looking at the cycle... this isn't the lie, it's the "comfort". The lie is a level deeper. 

• Something is wrong with you
• Something is wrong with this situation
• Something is wrong and IF could make it better
• Something is wrong with God
• Something is wrong with them

I don't know when this really started. 

It may have started young.

I had the friendship of a young girl (my age) when we were both about five-six years old... that started something, seeded something. But the seed took root between 6-9 with another little girl-friend. When I left her to move away, I could feel something inside of me breaking. 

I can remember staring out the back window of a 1980's blue Buick station wagon as we left the panhandle of Texas to move back to California. I stared out that window the entire way... and I spent the rest of my life looking for that feeling I left behind. 

I never found it. No matter how many friends I made, activities I joined, girlfriends I dated, no matter how much I drank, smoked... No church group, no bible study, nothing ever filled that void that I left behind. 

Worship services (sometimes, rarely but sometimes) came close, or even eclipsed that void... but only as long as it lasted. I'm not out the back door of the service before it returns. 

I've been sober since Jan 2002, stopped smoking in August 2002... I miss both of those comforts everyday. I'm not even sure why I'm sober still... I mean what's the point of all this?

Work to barely get housing and food to get to work... on and on and on... 

Existence itself is the great existential threat. 

I'm stuck in a stronghold cycle... 

Something in life sucks (event), therefore, something is wrong with xxxx (lie), something else will make you feel better (comfort), either go to xxxx (reaction) or sit around wishing for xxxx (reaction)... Trigger another event. 

So.... God... Father dearest... What Truth am I supposed to be believing instead?

tbc...

darrell