Thoughts You Have At the End of Every Year

There are two times during a year when I think more deeply about my history so far and my future to come.  One is my birthday, and the other... is the week before the new year.

I'll be frank.  My life has most definitely NOT gone according to plan.  If my life had gone according to plan, I would have been married years ago.  YEARS AGO.  I'd already have a kid or more.  I'd have had a successful career, and I'd either be on to my second career or still enjoying my first career.  Life could have been so much different.  It didn't go that way, so here I am.

I could not have asked for a much more difficult first forty years of my life.  My life so far has been nasty and brutal.  I'm not sure it pays to describe just how nasty my life has been- I'm not making this post to get you to feel sorry for me.  What I am saying though, is that something profound has happened to me because of all the sheer misery I've experienced.  I've become circumspect.  I understand just how bad things can get.  I get that I need to appreciate my life now, which is qualitatively a thousand times better than it's been so far.  I need to respect the fact that even though my life is far from what I had always hoped for myself, that it still could be much worse than it is right now.

I don't know what to say about my past.  God forbid that I ever have to go through anything anywhere near as brutal as what my life has brought so far.  What I can say is that I have hope.  Where that hope comes from... I believe it comes from my faith.  Anyhow, my hope is that things will get better.  I realize that scripturally, I should maintain the attitude that regardless of whether things get better or things get worse that I should continually praise God and continue to maintain a positive attitude.  I'm struggling with that.  If even just the status quo continues to be the status quo for the next five to ten years, I've already told God that I don't want to live anymore.  Things have to get better.  I never wished to be single all this time.  I don't even know what to say about that.  I know that contentment is something highly touted in scripture.  I think that's easier to say for people who do have a romantic relationship in their life that they are happy about.  Those of us who do not, or worse have a romantic relationship that they are profoundly sad about- we don't get that.  So I must remind myself that there are worse things than being single.  But that doesn't help me feel better.  I don't even know what to say about that.

I'm not sure how to talk about the future in hopeful terms.  I have talked about the future in hopeful terms and been disappointed.  I've hoped and hoped and hoped, and have never seen my hopes fulfilled.  I'm convinced things will continue to get better- or better said, I'm HALF convinced.  The other half is filled with dread that the status quo will continue indefinitely.  I can't say anything about that.  I had no idea going into first grade that the life that was going to ensue was going to be this way.  I had no idea my peers were going to be so mean and nasty to me.  I had no idea I was going to join a church that was cultlike and where I would be somewhat ostracized for not being like everyone else, and where the pastor was abusive.  I had no idea I was only in the beginnings of mental illness issues that would plague me for the foreseeable future.  I didn't know.  I could go on.  I just didn't know that my life was going to be this hard.  I'm just grateful that I now have a therapist that empathizes with me, something that was sadly lacking in my other therapists.  

I wish I knew exactly what to say about my past.  Forgive me for kind of breaking my promise not to write about how hard my life has been.  Trust me when I tell you that I left out A LOT of the more brutal aspects of my history.  I believe if I told my whole story here, you'd weep for me.  You'd weep that someone went through so much.  You'd wonder why God would allow so much hellishness to happen to a single person.  And you'd feel sorry for me, something I didn't want you to do.  I can say though... as bad as my history has been... I'm aware that I BELIEVE God has better things to come.  And I need to hang on to that thought, or I'll go mad (again).

Looking Back On A Year In Scripture

I realize some of this, if not all of this, is repetitive with the rest of my most recent entries, but I want to talk about it all the same.  I read the whole Bible this year- the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice, and Psalms and Proverbs more than twice.  This is what really struck me in it's reading.  Also, the teachings of Mike Winger impacted me as well, though I don't agree with him on everything.

First of all, God is a proponent of the death penalty against capital offenses (murder mainly, but perhaps other extremely egregious crimes).  My feelings on this were less clear before this year- I wasn't really sure how God felt about it.  Now I'm pretty confident, even with Jesus' teachings against "eye for an eye," that Jesus would be for the death penalty, at least in capital murder convictions.

Next, God's views on abortion are less than clear- at least based on scripture.  I know long-time readers of my blog will know I'm prochoice, but... what I DIDN'T necessarily know is that there's a passage in Exodus where God actually teaches if a guy strikes a woman in the middle of a fight and she prematurely goes into labor and the baby dies, the guy is NOT to be killed, but to pay a sum of money.  This is very telling- because any cursory reading of Leviticus will tell you that if God thought a fetus was a human being, it would be "life for life."  To me this makes scripture's views more clear on the matter.  Other than that passage, there's very little in scripture pertaining to abortion.

Exodus 21:22 NASB1995:

“If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide."

Another thing I've noticed- the gospels aren't so clear cut on salvation.  

The gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in general teach salvation as more of a process- particularly the synoptic gospels (Mathew, Mark, and Luke).  John is the only gospel that talks about being "born again," and while it seems all gospels do mention accepting Jesus as the messiah as being a condition on going to Heaven, it isn't unanimous.  One passage teaches we'll be judged by how we treat "the least of these," which is different than being judged either by believing Jesus is the messiah, believing Jesus has been resurrected from the dead, or being "born again."  Also, there are multiple passages where it seems the poor are given preferential treatment by God- in the above passage it doesn't say how "the least of these brothers of mine" will be treated, and in the parable of "Lazarus and the rich man," it says nothing of the virtues of Lazarus, only that his life sucked so he got to basically go to heaven, while the rich man received his blessings on earth and then suffered for all eternity.  To me, salvation is not a clear-cut subject- but plainly the rich will be judged differently than the poor.  That much is clear from the gospels.

I think... a few other things I've noticed about God- God is all in on genealogies.  Why that is I don't know.  Throughout the Old Testament, whenever someone is mentioned it's always "son of <name here>."  This tradition is sometimes continued in the New Testament, but is much more common in the Old.  Also, God is ALL IN on the details.  Seriously.  Numbers are EVERYWHERE in the Bible.  You can't swing a proverbial dead cat without hitting a number, particularly in the Old Testament.  And the temple?  God cared about every single freakin' detail about the temple.  You could almost say that God is OBSESSED with the details.  Don't think God doesn't care about the little things- any cursory reading of scripture will tell you that with so-called little things... to God there is no such thing.

God sees vengeance very differently than the original crime.  Some people who have sinned like to look down on those that struggle to forgive, because a plain reading of Jesus indicates that God takes unforgiveness seriously.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Not only did Jesus ALSO preach hard about making amends when you've wronged someone, I think it was somewhat taken for granted in Jesus' sermons in the gospels that the audience understood that it was MUCH WORSE to sin against someone, than it was to be bitter about the sin committed.  Do not think for a second that God will be more lenient to a sinner who refuses to make amends with the person sinned against than for the person who is bitter about being sinned against.  This is an inaccurate view of scripture.  In the OT, God even sanctioned people taking justice into their own hands- even accidental killings!- God hates evildoers that much.  Do not think, if you've sinned against someone and not gone and apologized that you'll get away with it.  YOU WILL NOT.

I think this is a good percentage of what I've learned.  I'm planning on continuing to read the Bible- this time hopefully in an English Standard Version, to gain an even deeper understanding.  Also I'm hoping to start studying the Bible- I could use to deepen my knowledge of scripture even further.  

Thanks for reading.