Light into darkness, understanding dawns.

written before my move back to the US

Sometimes bringing light into the dark.

     I have been praying for an answer to a question as my life gets ready to move into another phase of my development. I have been asking “of where can I be of most use?”

     As my life here in Germany ends, I am pretty much free to go and do whatever I choose to do. I will always be a father, and I look forward to the visiting and visits but the need for me to be here is slowly ending as my daughters grow.

      So, what do I do? I can pretty much live anywhere I want. While not financially rich or anything, I do not have to search for a way to make a living. So this is freedom? I needed some guidance as to “huh now what?

      The more I have prayed, the more and more this answer keeps coming up. Be of help. Be an example of my love and give a hand where needed. Not exactly clear cut instructions. Not go down a block and take a left. Leaves a lot to be inferred and up for interpretation.

     So I asked for guidance, and more guidance. When I was drinking I had some dark times. Not exactly my favorite thing to look back on. I barely lived through it the first time, why relive it looking for answers? I honestly keep coming up with God’s love.

     When I drank, I wanted, needed someone’s approval of me. I turned to looking for a sexual answer. I figured in my drunken state that if they, (whoever they happened to be) thought I was good enough then I must be okay. Drinking filled up 99 percent of the hole in me but the center was still crying alone. This desire and drive to be whole, this need for validation of who I was, led me to many, many stupid, self harming decisions.

     From A to Z if you can think it, I most likely did it, looking for something to fill the spot in my soul that screamed when I was alone. This was thankfully, before the internet, so I was limited to what was at hand with which to satisfy the urge to be filled. I am not going into specifics, but needless to say I did not find what I was looking for there anymore that I found in the bottle.

     Then came sobriety and that filled the hole in a good way. But as with life, it keeps going on and it was easy to lose sight of the past. The internet came in to its own, and I got married, and as it got bad in the marriage I started looking again. On the internet I found chat rooms. I started chatting with all sorts. Good, bad, young and old, they all seemed to be looking for something. Usually sex, and I thought, wondered, would that fill the hole in my soul?

     Now it’s only chatting right? I was only thinking about it and not taking any action on it. Just chatting, trying to get some relief from this self imposed loneliness. I have said many, many, times I could rationalize, justify anything into being right in my mind. But in my heart and soul I knew I was wrong.

     The more I looked, the more I was saddened. For the answer flared up in me bright and strong, that this was stupid, harmful and just not right. It was like being a broke child in a candy store. It served no purpose and was of no use and did not belong in my life.

     Now God’s love is a funny thing. Here I was condemning myself for being stupid, and he just whispered in my soul, that being human means learning from your mistakes and that his love for me was as strong as ever. Being a father I know that, I would do anything to keep my children from harm, but that some lessons in life one must live though in order to get perspective, grow, and learn from.

     I knew his love for me was still there from the way my life was. But in reflection, it added a thought to my thinking. How alone must those people on the net feel? What has shaped their lives this way? Why are so many looking for something when the answer lies within?

     I quit the chat rooms as my life got busier and busier. I was too busy being a father and working to play stupid games. My life had filled with the proper purpose and I was trying to live up to my end of the bargain. So that all kind of fell into the memory department as something for a later day.

     The thought came to me a couple months ago, that I should look once again into this. I was not looking to fill anything missing in my life this time. I was instead looking to see if my initial perceptions were right.  If the sadness and loneliness was as real as I remembered.  

     I looked and found that same thing. While some were just the normal chat type rooms, on cooking, or cars or sports. In every room there was a sexual component in it. Always someone trying to find someone to fill a need in them. In the adult chat rooms it was even worse. It seemed to be a matter of how strange can one be, how off the path must one get in order to get the attention they want. I sat back, thought, contemplated, prayed and rolled this over and over in my mind. Why? Why were people doing this? What where they looking for? What answers were they seeking? What was missing in their life that made them look so deep into the darkness?

     I have heard it said and read it, that in each of us is the fundamental belief in God. Though it may be covered up by experiences in life, ego, pride and disbelief, it is still there waiting patiently to be found. Once found, life truly begins. Once I found it, it created a hunger for me to learn more of this God of my understanding. But until it was found I had the sense of separation, that something was missing.

     I have that inside feeling, that gut feeling, that this is what those on the net who are searching are looking for. That they are looking outside themselves to fill a hole that can only be filled from within. How to get someone from point A to point B?

More to come...................