Run, Katie, Run!

This week was a crazy psycological rollercoaster of a spiritual journey.

It started out with desperate disillusionment. This happens occasionally when my pictures of the world are turned inside out by new information or insight. I won't share with you what started it, because none of you would understand. *curls up in her little emo corner*

In this vulnerable state I began to question my friendships. Who are those that I am really closest to? Am I making those relationships a priority? I've always believed that relationships are the most important building blocks of our lives. If those aren't worth anything, then what am I living for?

Then I began to ponder whether the things we leave behind are more important then the people we connect with. If it is indeed possible to really "connect" with anyone. *retreats again into the emo corner*

So I started analyzing the people around me. I didn't like what I saw. Nobody in this whole goshforsaken world seems to care about anyone but himself. All around me were lazy people, impatient people, stupid people, boring people, people who are too tall or too ugly or just generally hopeless.
This differs dramatically from my previous opinion that all people are good and have pure qualities that are revealed when one pays close and special attention. I also used to believe that everyone is equally physically beautiful. This week my mind was opened to the possibility that there are ugly, really ugly people out there.

So here are all these people with evil qualities and horrifying personality traits. Maybe they're not even trying! Does this make them...bad? Are there bad people in the world? What is a bad person, and how do they get to be that way? Were they just unfortunate in their childhood experiences? Or were they born that way? Is it a choice?

At least I'm not like that.

....am I?

.................what if I am?......

I need to fix it.

But the more I focused on trying to be a good person, the more frustrated I became.
And what about my "friends"? Are they good people? Are they hurting my goodness? Do they think I'm a good person? Do they love me? Who loves me??

It was as I lay trying to fall asleep after a long day of rehearsing at all-state music festival, in a hotel room with my very best friend on this earth that I remembered something that I learned a long time ago.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus"
-Romans 3:23-24

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"
-Romans 6:23

Wow. Why was I so worried by the thought that there might be bad people in this world? Open your eyes, Katie, We're ALL bad people. We screw up and we make stnanks and we're lazy and selfish and we can't save ourselves, because no matter how witty you are, there is nothing charming enough to make your life less pathetic.
Lucky that there IS someone that loves you, that cares about you enough to pay a ginormous price to make up for your stnanks, for your human sickness and wrongness, to give you hope so that your life doesn't have to be grounded in this fault of humanity.

"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
-Romans 6:8-12

What am I living for?

By the way:
"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful"
-Psalm 139:14

We really are beautiful, because He made us.

And that's how I thought about a lot of things this week and ended up coming back to the most simple beliefs of the religion I was born into. Funny how that works.

*peace*