So, I was single for 39 years. I had learned to love my single life and to find things to do to fill my days. I had found my purpose and passion in counseling and working with people to assist them to find fulfillment in life. This long term season of singleness helped me to define myself and to reconcile the many conflicts I felt throughout my life.
I remember being 12 and feeling very disappointed with my home life. I hated what it was like. I wanted a different home, different parents, and different everything. I struggled with feelings of inadequacy and fear. I did not know who I was. It felt like I floated through life. I remember that I loved and feared God. I was a very introspective child. Seeing my parents struggle in their relationship, made me question a lot of things. Somehow, I believed that if you were right with God, you should have a very happy life. So, I would conclude that since my parents appeared to be so unhappy with themselves, then their marriage was not blessed and even that their kids were not blessed either.
This thought process really scared me and made me feel quite unsure of my place in God. Even with this kind of inner conflict, I loved God and wanted so much to please him. I went through high school with the same struggles most teenagers go through. I felt unacceptable and unattractive. I wanted to feel loved and I wanted to feel that I was special to someone. I struggled with same feelings of being misunderstood that other teenagers struggle with. I felt depressed and anxious with no one to talk to about my feelings.
When I got born again at age 13, I soon realized that it was not that easy to live out my Christian disciplines especially prayer and fasting. I struggled what seemed easy with others. I was a member of the Chritian Union and the practice was to wake up early in the morning and pray for an hour. The first time I did that, I slept through the prayers and was quite tired all day. So, the message that I internalized from that experience is that I am not made for that kind of spirituality. That I am not strong enough to be a successful Christian. That maybe I was not properly saved.
