Around 18 months or so ago I had my second Heart attack. After my treatment, I was offered the chance to see an occupational therapist as part of my Cardiac aftercare. Its main focus is how to cope with my condition, as my symptoms due to my spinal damage are hard to distinguish from Angina, It is To get me the help I need at Home and to learn to relax and reduce my stress levels.
For this last task, my therapist taught me mindfulness techniques. And while it was nice every week to sit down and meditate for half an hour, it took many weeks for what she was teaching me to make sense. But over time, I learned how to put my anxieties into perspective in the real world, and learned how to cope with many worries that arise from having a time bomb in your chest.
Something else happened too, however. I developed a hunger to understand more, to find myself spiritually, and internally too I felt some shifts. I became more emotionally sensitive. I began to develop compassion for other living beings. I began to develop empathy. This was overwhelming at times. I could not understand what was happening inside me. I knew it was not a breakdown, I had been through that before, and this was something different, and powerful.
I began to study; I read tons of papers on Psychology, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Philosophy. And over a year I had built up an image in my mind of what was going on within me, and how we all fit into this immense Universe. But something was still wrong. My depression grew very dark.
Every day I was hurting all those around me who loved me. I was still truly lost and very, very low, and I could still not see how I fit into the bigger picture. I noticed that things I had previously enjoyed in life, I no longer felt any interest in. Many of my hobbies and interests fell by the wayside, as I felt they were either a burden or things I should no longer be wasting time with. I turned away from mainstream media; I noticed more and more how things were being controlled in the world politically. It was almost as if someone or something else had come into me and was sorting out the messy garage that was on my mind, throwing out the old junk, cleaning the shelves, and making room for something much greater indeed.
The One thing I did not read however was the Bible. I had read some of it in my teens, in a small Christian group. We visited a different church every week, and being a strong-minded teen I had developed a very poor impression of the types of people that were Christian, and I wanted to live life and have fun. It was a short-lived experience really, and yet I had let those impressions of a few, dictate to me an idea that all Christianity was like that. Oh how wrong I was. My Wife went out and got me a second-hand copy of a Good News Bible.
Being made for Teens it would be as good as anywhere to start. I read the Gospel of John, and I was overwhelmed. In my mind, I realised that even if Jesus was just a Man and nothing more, what an amazing man he was. Could it be that I had been so wrong, for so long? I knew I needed to find out more. For the first time in a very long time, I prayed. I did not think I would get any answers, even if God was real, I did not think that He would be bothered with the likes of me, after In my past I had even denied his existence, and I had not been in any way a good boy in my life before this. “Ok, big Guy. If you are God. If this story is real. If this book is really your word, Please show me how it really is, please God, show me where I fit in.” After that prayer, something really began to happen.
As I read every day, devouring my way through the New Testament, I had more and more questions. “What is faith? How do I get faith when I do not know what it is? What about my doubts, how do I deal with them? The list went on. Before every reading I would pray to God to help me understand what I was reading. And almost every day over the next week or so, my understanding began to grow. I would get answers to my many questions not just from the Bible, but as I was struggling over the Faith Doubt issue, a TV show came on TBN called The Rebels Guide that dealt specifically with the issue. Coincidence? Perhaps… I needed to understand how to forgive others, as I felt that if I could not forgive those who wronged me in the past, how could God forgive me? The next day I saw a Reverend on the TV who talked about his new book that dealt with the issue. Being skint I had a look on the web about him.
An hour-long discussion with him was waiting on my “recommended for you list” on YouTube. This was getting to be like something off the “Twilight Zone”. I was being given the answers to all my questions. Finally, I realised, I needed to make a decision. One that would affect every cell of my being, and every thought I had ever had. I had to admit to myself the result of the overwhelming evidence that lay before me, the things that were happening to me almost daily, and the Word itself. God was real.
Furthermore, all those dark times I had been through, when I thought if God was real, then he had forsaken me, I had been wrong. He had stood right with me all the time, and yet I had chosen not to see him. I had turned my back to Him, my God. I burst into tears and prayed. I looked up the sinner’s prayer and begged for forgiveness.
Try God.
Also Read:
- Men in the Bible: A Man of Considerable Goodwill
- The Myth of Omnipresence (1): The 5 Places God Always Is
- Overwhelmed
- Great Truths Adults Learned
- I Passed a Professional Exam and Got a Job After 10 Years
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