am I going back?

I don’t really understand what I’m feeling right now. I feel deserted. 

The moments that I hate the most occur when I’m left with nothing to do (that is when I choose to not do something really, even though I have tons of work to finish..hmpf.schoolwork). Well, during those times, my mind goes back to thinking about the past. I suddenly remember all those cheesy moments, like when I had awkward moments with someone I had a ‘crush on,’ who turned out to be the most annoying person ever, then finding at the end of the school year to be my far related cousin. Disappointing? However, that incident won’t even reach the level of those times  when I had been very disappointed with myself. I lied most of the times. I was trying to cover myself for insecurities I had. I pretended to feel comfortable with the ‘atmosphere’ of being with groups of people who were considered ‘in’ during those times. One little ‘white lie’ was covered by another one.. then with another.. until I have lost count and had not already known where it all started. Excuses were also piling up and it really feels like  I was trapped in a maze. I didn’t quite understand how I felt, as if I was cool with all those that were happening in my life. I grinned but that didn’t mean that I was okay. It’s what I was talking about in my past blog. It’s a masquerade. Everytime someone was trying to reach out, I would reject him or her. I didn’t want them to see me vulnerable, soft and weak. May be the reason why I had built that wall was that I was afraid they would really see the ‘me’ who was crying for help.

I denied weakness. I have once heard that those people who appear to be happy most of the time, are the saddest person really. One even said that he would prefer crying in the rain so that nobody would even notice. Hmmm. may be that was one of the ideas that came to my mind. During the feedbacks we had in commenting each other in one activity at school, most of my classmates wrote on my paper that they saw me as a jolly and happy person. Lies. 

Little by little, I seem to accept the darkness that was forming inside. I was turning into someone my friends, my parents and even my ownself couldn’t understand. I was acting rebellious, conceited, proud, sarcastic, name it. I was doing my best to hide the part of me who was trying to call for help.

Remembering these moments gives pain in my heart. I wish that that part of my past could be erased and forgotten. I never really want to go back and see who I was, and what I did.  

Now what had made me change? Jesus did. I once told my father that I was doing my best to change myself and he told me that I had it all wrong. He further stated that if I would do it on my own, then I wouldn’t succeed with transfoming to someone new. It is when I ask God to take control and change me, would I be changed completely. That was it. Simple yet I haven’t appreciated it’s meaning until he told me. Frankly, I had planned to change myself years before, but I kept on going back to who I was. I was returning to the ‘old me.’ I was actually scared of change. I was also ashamed of myself presenting it to God, thinking that I was impure and that I was not worthy of his help. I viewed myself as the lowest of all, even compared to the most notorious criminal this world had ever produced. But, that’s what the grace of God is all about. He came for me and you, those who are lost and those who are weary and heavy burdened.

Changing yourself is very hard, especially when most of your friends and relatives were already accustomed to your behaviour. Your family may be the first to even deny you have changed and claim that you were always the same. Those words have hurt me. Sometimes, even though I try so hard, they would state that I was always like that, “the same old person” who would commit those mistakes. It’s as if I was branded and would never make an improvement. I guess that is humanity, and maybe a lot of people would never understand that when Jesus works, everything is possible. He turns a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, he heals us, he transforms us, and we are new creations in His name. 

  Humanity may not understand that but I stay firm on what I believe. I’m not going back to who I was. Even though people would persist on seeing me as the ‘person before,’ I would say that they should look at the person at the present. I don’t like the saying ‘First impression lasts,’ because that fools us. For me, it should never last. If I would be convinced of that saying, it’s as if I’m saying that people don’t have hope for change, that we are limited to who we were and would always stay as that.  However, I believe in God and His ability to help us radically change our lives. Even though I may have moments when my mind would wander back to the past… Definitely, I’m not going back.

 A video by Brandon Heath- I’m not who I was… thanks for reading my blog