forces at work

I had an epiphony tonight.

It's one I should have realized so SO long ago...one that I have felt the effects so clearly in my life... one to which I should have honestly paid so much more attention.

I was catching up with my good friend Nate. He was telling me about how many hardships he has been encountering since I last saw him. He said that all he's ever wanted was to be happy. Just to be happy. But he said to me there just keeps coming all these bumps in his road to happiness. He told me that every time he gets to some point of happiness that something always goes so wrong that everything he worked for falls apart. His conclusion was that God must hate him and does not want him to ever be happy.

This is when my epiphony hit.

"God does NOT hate you, Nate!" I said. "God wants for you to be SO happy. He loves you so much!" (while saying this I truely felt like I was speaking the truth to him) "There are just other forces at work that will always be fighting against your happiness. But the thing about being happy is that you have to work to get there, and you also have to work to stay there."

Happiness doesnt come to those who wait for it. They will be forever waiting for someone or something to come along to pull them up out of the holes of despair they've dug for themselves. So in the end, you either dig yourself into your own personal hell, trapped within your own mind and the life you've chosen to have, OR, you carve stairs and hand and footholds into the walls of your prison of dirt and despair and pull yourself out.

It's definitely not easy. I speak from experience. I failed myself at one point. Well, probably more than one point. I am --I don't want to say 'lucky', but I can't think of a good enough word to fit. Maybe blessed. Yeah I'll take that-- blessed to have had, well, I don't know exactly what... kick my butt into realizing that all I ever wanted to be was happy also. I was motivated into searching and creating my own happiness by having fallen as far as I had. I wanted to see the sun again; I wanted to feel loved. And to have come so far and look around at all I would have missed out on, I am incredibly thankful that I chose to stay around and enjoy what I have in this life.

It definitely has not been easy... Back to my epiphony-- there ARE forces at work around us. I have felt their immediate effects on my life at times, and it has taken till now for me to remember them. I have been surrounded by things that have leeched the happiness and the hope right out of me, till I forgot what it felt like to have joy in even the most simplest things. I got to the point where I could no longer distinguish their presence from my own choices and my own emotions.

But to now be free of them- to know that it is once again my choice to live and love how and when I will... I will never stop living to love. It is my duty but most importantly my joy in life to share this peace and happiness I have found, to once again feel something close to complete and sincerely content. These ugly presences have no place in anyone's lives. But they honestly and, unfortunately, powerfully affect everyone they find. This is why it is so hard to retain happiness in one's life. They don't and never will want you to be happy.

We must fight and decide to be happy. It will not be easy; life never is.
Just remember that it is YOUR choice to live how you will.
Live to be loved-- but also love freely and you shall truely live.

God loves you SO much.
He is rooting for YOU,
and He will ALWAYS be there for you
whenever you feel the darkness creeping in
He hears;
but more importantly,
He LISTENS.

You are not alone.
You never have been.
But MOST importantly,
You never will be.