So I kind of had this major thought...

i tried to type it to my friend in a facebook message, but it ended up just going all over the place, so let me just try to narrow it down here...

i am a Christian, a follower of Jesus. But these past few months, maybe even totaling up to a year, my relationship with God hasn't been that great. I felt kind of lost but couldn't really pinpoint where or when everything just kind of fell apart. And it wasn't like everything just broke down to pieces, it was just a gradual slipping away...I just sort of wandered here, and took a slight turn there.

oh, I just thought of a great kind of analogy.

When you are using a compass, if you are one degree off, you can end up in the completely wrong place, even the wrong country. So I was just a couple degrees off here and there, and suddenly I realize I'm in a lonely desert instead of a lush garden. And when I look back, I can't even pinpoint where it all went wrong- what the big mistake was- because there wasn't one big mistake, just a few wrong steps.

So that's where I was. And the same thoughts just went through my head for months: What did I do wrong? God is love, but I'm not feelin it, am I unlovable? Have I done something to make God turn on me? But my Father takes care of His lost children, right? Because He loves them, so why am I here? I was stuck in a rut, going round and round and I couldn't get out. I couldn't figure out what had happened. And I felt like since I didn't know what happened, I didn't know how to get back to where I was. I was hoping so badly that since I wandered away, I could wander back. But you can't do that. Not with important things. Important things need active decisions to make bad things better.

So I figured it by out a blog post I was reading. Just the title caught my attention: Not all who wander are lost. And in my head I thought I'm wandering, and VERY lost... And so then I decided to do what I do best. Research. Google. Biblegateway (which is amazing. if you don't know what it is, polish your research skills. you'll thank me later) I came across this article about being lost and how sometimes you can be too independent. How sometimes you can just wake up one morning completely lost and not how how you got there.

And I don't know, just the whole article, things just started to make sense. And not just the article, I actually cracked open my Bible a bit and did some research there too (amazing how intimidating that thing can be when you feel guilty about being the crappy half of the relationship).

Anyways, I realized that I just kind of wandered away. Here's how I put it in that message i was talking about:

i wandered away. i lost my focus, my destination became foggy, there was no ultimate goal. without a goal, the rules i live by were easily questioned, easily countered, easily dismissed. i wandered, and soon, i was lost. completely, hopelessly lost. and i didn't even know it.

It sounds so melodramatic now, but that's what happened.

And now that I know kind of what went down, I know how to fix it. And it has not been easy. Even just this past day...I still have far to go. But God is helping me, He is. With the little things that help me make those small decisions that lead to bigger consequences. He's there. Helping me and loving me.