I Am Broken

This is how I feel. I can't explain it, I just live it. I've felt this way for awhile. Sometimes I felt like I should try to change this or make it go away. Sometimes I would think that this defined me, that the feeling was me. I've walked for years, placing this feeling in a box, thinking I had "control" over it. I don't know exactly when I realized that I had been feeling this, but when I did, I shut it away. Shame. Shame can be very useful when you want to hide. I started to connect with people and when it started to surface... Fear of letting it show. It's kind of funny how this feeling can easily breed new feelings. As I realized more and more how this feeling was consuming me, I started the creation of a mask. A mask I was confident would cover this feeling for good, leaving me able to live a "normal" life. When I started wearing the mask, I found it very easy to be with people. People took to the mask, believing it was really me. I did this for a long time and got very good at it. You know, as I look back, I can see how many good people I hurt. I did not realize that when I chose to put on the mask, I gave myself freely to sin. As I continued to wear the mask, unknown to me, the feeling grew. Eventually, after several years, the mask ceased to cover the feeling. I didn't know God. More and more of the close friends I had made noticed. They didn't know the feeling, but they knew now that I had been wearing a mask all along and one of them let me know the mask wasn't really a mask, but a lie. I don't think I can place or describe how I felt when I was exposed. The life I had made while wearing the mask started to fall apart. In a desperate attempt to salvage some part of my life, I called out to God. I knew I wasn't really sincere when I accepted him, but the people around me seemed to buy it, so I formed a new mask. (Just as a side note, never play around with God!) That's exactly what I was doing. I walked through the next 6-8 months thinking I was good. Letting people think I had changed, that I was walking for and with God. The feeling like it always did, though, grew even more! Even the mask of "christian" could no longer hide it. This time, I gave up. I retreated and isolated. I learned how to cope, all the while allowing my heart to further erode. People gave up on me, but worse, I gave up on myself. I died. The feeling now live for me. Something I didn't know, though, is that when I accepted God, whether or not I was sincere, I had given him permission to take over a fix me.

I the dark, I sat... a gun to my head.

"I am here. I have come in answer to your many unsaid prayers." A strange voice, a strange life. He had finally come for me. I was finally at the right place for him to rescue me. "I am your father. Come to me." Over the next few months, I sat in terrible pain as God exposed all the crap in my heart and released me from it.

One day... Today... I know the feeling...

I am broken.