An Aside

I'm going to break the trend for a minute here, because something's been sitting on my heart for awhile, and writing about it will help.

Lately, I've come to realize that I am, truly, nothing without God. During the past few days or so, I have been living for myself and doing the things that I think will make me happy. These aren't drastic changes of living, but they are small decisions like sleeping in instead of going to morning prayer or playing WoW when I ought to be doing homework. At first, I have fun, but the initial "happiness buzz" wears off, and I end up feeling more empty than before. I try to stave that off with more sleep and video games and such, but the cycle just repeats itself. For those who have read "The Phantom Tollbooth" when they were younger, it reminds me of the subtraction stew that the protagonist comes across; the more of it you eat, the hungrier you become.

Not only that, but I've found that my entire attitude changes as well. Without God, I am a jerk. I'm self-centered, I put others down to feel better about myself, and I'm overly sarcastic. I apologize to those who have had to deal with me recently. I don't think that I have been really bad in this regard, but I haven't been the complete friend that God calls me to be.

God is the answer, plain and simple. It's so counterintuitive to give up your life to make it better, but it's true. Even as I write this, I already feel God's grace returning to me. Rest assured, there is still much, much work to be done in my life, but if I can just walk down the narrow path that the Lord has laid out, everything will be alright.

And now I'm off to take care of business. :-)