You Can’t Always Go Home

I met up with and old friend recently.  We had taken some time apart from each other.  Originally our separation was due in part to an argument we had, but as time passed on, it was apparent that our lives were headed in different directions and we both needed some time apart from each other to do some maturing.  At the time of our separation, it seemed as if we were already worlds away from each other.  It appeared as if we wanted it that way; I know I personally couldn’t see where I stopped and she began in terms of our friendship.  We were no longer our own entities but rather we became that couple that we all know (and sometimes despise) who would not be seen without each other.  At the time of what seemed to be the end of our friendship we were like oil and water—both too stubborn to reconcile and too blinded by the glaring mistakes the other had made to see the error of our own ways. 

When the friendship came to an abrupt halt a couple of years ago it felt like the end of an era.  We had seen each other through some real life situations—the kind that mark you for life and develop your character into the person you eventually grow to be.  The things we knew about each other and had walked the other half of us through could have filled volumes.  The times we spent entertaining and listening to each other seemed as if they were memories of a lifetime not the mere years we had know each other.  The only person outside of my family to truly be able to say that she knew me completely would no longer be a part of my life.  The one person that I would call for just about every reason one would pick up a phone was no longer going to be that confidante for me.  Someone who had become so important to me and my life not being there in the same capacity (or in any capacity for that matter) seemed to deliver a deathblow to my life as I knew it.  My professional life, my personal life, my social life, my family life—she was there in each of them.  Extricating her from each portion of my life was like performing an emergency surgery with a butter knife—painful but necessary. 

Cutting ties with my best friend was a necessary part of my life.  It seems as if it is a dumb thing to say, since she was indeed my best friend.  She could not have been any closer to me if she had the same blood as I did flowing through her veins.  It was this time of being away from each other that I was able to see who I really was and what I was doing with my life.  Most profoundly I was able to see myself as other people were seeing me in all the situations that I had placed myself into on a daily basis.  It was shocking.  I considered myself to be the epitome of everything a person would want to be—strong, successful, and confident.  The image I had of myself and the image I thought others had of me weren’t congruent.  When I saw that man looking back at me in the mirror I didn’t recognize him and moreover I knew I didn’t like him.  He wasn’t the guy I would have chosen to emulate.  He didn’t look like the strong, successful and confident guy I felt like I was on the inside.  The most simple of explanations was flashing in front of me—the truth was I didn’t feel like that man because I was not that man.

The fact of the matter was that I had fooled myself to believing that I had it all together in every area of my life.  I had been called to the ministry at a very young age.  I was told where my niche in life would be and how I would be used to fulfill the calling that was on my life.  I listened to people tell me that all throughout my life while I was growing up.  By the time I was old enough to move out on my own I had decided that since I wasn’t moving in the gifts that I was told I had, that I didn’t need them and beyond that I didn’t want them.  I knew I could be successful on my own doing my own thing, what I knew was the best for my life.  From the time I was eighteen to the time I was twenty-six I did exactly that.  I wanted it bad enough and worked so hard to achieve the sense of success that I was looking for that I managed to fool myself into believing that I had actually achieved it.  For the most part I would say that I had fooled most of the people around me into believing it as well.

Around my twenty-sixth birthday my family and I faced a life altering situation.  It was during this period of time that I saw myself for the first time in a long time.  It was not a good feeling.  I was forced to see beyond what other people saw me as.  I was forced to see myself deeper than the way I had trained myself to see me.  I saw beyond the façade and into the depths of my character; into the unhappiness and discontent that I had worked so hard to suppress and hide from me and everyone else around me.  I may have looked successful and confident on the outward appearances, but deep down that was all a mask to hide the fact that spiritually I was a mess.  I had been trying to compensate for that fact by focusing on the other parts of my life.  The fact remains that if I had only focused on the spiritual part of my life first that all else that remained would fall into line.  For the next couple of years I would have to work harder to undo the mess I had created on the inside of me than when I was working to hide it.  Layer upon layer of deception and false compensation would have to be removed so I could build on a bare foundation again.

With the Grace of God that has been my course for the past four years.  I have sacrificed more than I thought was ever possible and more than I would have ever desired to.  Things that were most important to me (like my best friend) I never thought I could live without, but I have found that with each item or person that I had to lay at the cross, God has filled that void with something that He wanted for my life.  That has made all the difference in the walk that I am taking with Him now.  I thought I was good and grown spiritually; not even a comparison was possible between me and the man I was four years ago.  I had a lot to learn as recent events have come to show me.

When my friend and I reunited, we did so at one of our old hangouts.  It was ok though, we were both years older and more mature in every way—so I thought.  That first night went fine.  We had a good time catching up on our lives and everything that had happened over the course of two years.  At the end of a course of three weeks I can look back to see that from that first night I progressed from hanging out in places I once frequented to becoming a regular in my old lifestyle.  I was in a club walking up to a bar when I realized where I was and what I was doing.  I wasn’t just hanging out and having a good time visiting places I once knew, I was reacquainting myself with a lifestyle I had given up to follow Christ with all that I am.  It wasn’t that I was longing, wanting or desiring that lifestyle again, because that is the farthest from the truth.  In my heart I know that was never my friend’s intentions either, as she has sacrificed that same lifestyle in hopes of finding something more meaningful and Christ centered.  I really feel that it was simply the remnants of the people that we once were that we have sacrificed coming back to life in the environments that they once thrived in.

After spending some time in repentance and worship for God opening my eyes before I allowed myself to be pulled in any deeper than I was, I spent some time in meditation.  I was curious as to how I could be where I am in my life—so far beyond what I was—and could still be sucked into the past the way I was.  This really concerned me.  That’s when I heard the Spirit speak, “no matter the intentions of the heart, how pure the motives, once you have moved on, you can’t always go home.”