Some words reflecting who I am....

In times of trial people tend to grow or fail depending on the person and their inner core strength coming from Faith, God, Values, Beliefs, and inner character.

As a species I notice we tend to try and consciously avoid challenges but subconsiously bring them on ourselves.

In the current state of our nation many look to place blame and look to outer situations to blame for our current situation. It's much easier to redirect our own inadequacies towards outside influences. While some if not all of it may and can be a factor the only thing we can control which does effect the outcome is our response we choose to give which in turn is dictated by our character.

When I fell away from god out of a subconscious feeling of hopelessness in a time of much tribulation in my life things only progressively got worse. I only projected negative energy therefore I only attracted negative situations. My brain was filtering out the good and only receiving the bad to reaffirm these false delusions.

As much as I had gone through in my life from the age of 10 to the present day and to have survived was only due to god and my belief in him. My brother an atheist who also went through part of my challenges and not even as many as I who always believed he could control all situations has been in prison now for almost 10 years. It's funny how little critical decisions can have such a dramatic effect on ones life.

There are many who would have you believe and even fight to justify their beliefs that it would have happened with or without faith but I know this not to be true.

I know and understand that each of us are a part of something so much larger that we are not capable of grasping or understanding it. While we have what we perceive as the power of choice in the end all of the choices along w/ our destiny have been laid out for each of us. We are all small pieces of a large mosaic here to serve a purpose and learn the lessons we were sent here for.

Once I surrendered after trying to control things for a few years on my own after loosing much in Chicago which included a now ex wife a high paying job downtown and all of my finances which would have left me homeless if not for the grace of god to have family in my life to help me I realized I knew nothing.

I had lived a life of instantanious gratification buying beyond my means and living simply for the moment only to loose sight of what was really important in my life I had paid the price by loosing my life.

Humility had slapped me in the face. In spite of the money I had attained which was my subconscious goal as I felt it would equal happiness to this point I got it only to still feel empty and loose everything. Many life their whole lives this way....many keep it and maintain it in spite. My path was not one of such which could be looked upon as a misfortune by most but I realize now it was perfect and just had things needed to happen to shape me to the point of who I am today typing this....

My current income with 1/3 the stress level I once had pretty much almost meets what I had previously thought to be a decent income at much higher stress levels. The lifestyle had degraded me causing me to only work and neglect that which was most important in my life.

The old saying "god only throws you what you can handle" and "lessons are repeated until learned" kept going through my head.

Life is an ongoing challenge which will never get easier until we accept this fact and learn what faith is. Humility and faith will bring you to the path intended for your destiny on this trip we are all sharing yet individually experiencing through what we call life. There are no accidents.

At 15 I overdosed on drugs and was clinically dead. Some may call it hallucinations but I have had hallucinations and what I experienced was no hallucination. All I know is there is more after we pass and we must all find the answer to the question of "who we are" which can only be learned through the challenges we go through.

Your decisions and your life won't change till you change.