How Completely Losing Myself Helped Me Find My Faith Again

It has been a year since one of the hardest and craziest eras of my life had started. As much as I tried to hide it from everyone and master the art of sham and hypocrisy, my mask might have slipped off a lot of times for some saw my true struggling self when I least expect it, or if I have to put it now,  when I most need it.

First, I was at low not because I was unheard or unappreciated but because I was. I know it’s hard to believe my reason at that point but you have to understand; Before I decided to let myself wander a bit off the known tracks of my life, I was always confounded and bombarded with what ifs and should haves and the exhausting thought that I was choosing the wrong path and missing a big chunk of my life. What made it worse is the thought that all this time, I was the one behind the wheel. I am the one behind the wheel. Yet, I am choosing not to do anything about it. I was constantly asking, “Where do I want to go? What do I want to do?” I feel lost – so lost that I have nothing to blame but myself. I was swallowed by doubt and self-pity. I lost my hope that I was just letting the fate run over my life. I might not know what to do but I’m sure it wasn’t the life I was living.

2015 had been my transition year from what it feels like a lot of things — from teenage life to adulthood, from being a regular student to a brief corporate gal, from the insisting demand to change my old self into a new one. My daily routine was like walking on that thin line between those worlds I am yet hesitant to choose from. I was so afraid that bad decision will lead to another or regret is just waiting on the other side of the door ready to greet me when I open it. There’s a lot on my mind notwithstanding all the other things that were happening around me – school, family, friends, all falling and working out in circles. I don’t know where to go or who to talk to. With fewer people on my roots to keep me steady, my faith was shaky, bruised, and battered. And that ride which I had been driving all along was crashing into a whole lot of mess even before I know it.  So I prayed. I prayed and I prayed to help me navigate the unknown path so I’ll know what I was missing.

To feed the odds, To kill my curiosity, To find courage, To rebuild myself, To witness beautiful things, To understand people, To discover my purpose –  all that I was so desperately hoping to find before.

My faith might have been shaky, bruised, and battered during that time, but it wasn’t broken.

Bruised but not broken because He heard me.

He gave me the map, showed me the way through his words and answered me when I was at low on my knees. And throughout the time I think I was all on my own, I stumbled on people who had been reaching out their hands to me all along while I was burying myself alive. From there, things got better and unfolded on its own. The rest, as what they would call it, makes up my year’s worth of history.

I am writing this now because I know, it’s all over. Like what I always say, I write to remember and I write to forget. Maybe that year was my crucifixion and all throughout the time I think I was lost, it’s only His way to give me my own version of Tabula Rasa – my chance to swipe my old slate clean so He can vanish my old self and live in me.

For that and for all other things, I will always be grateful.