Critical Thinking

I did a testimony before the FCC Youth Group and College Group Sunday night, and I’ve been picking it apart in my mind ever since. I guess it’s like everyone says–we’re our own worst critics.

What I’ve been thinking about is that I spent so much time focusing on my…brokenness and what I felt were the reasons for it that I didn’t spend enough time on what God had actually changed in my life. I focused on what at the time was hopelessness rather than hope.

I think that’s historically been my tendency. The interesting part is that as much stuff was messed up or tragic in my life, the blessings Jesus brought to my life once I let him were a hundredfold. More, even.

Yes, my parents died far too young and I grew up (mostly) without them. I still had my sisters, and they were and are incredible women who love me even when I’m a giant a-hole.

I experienced a lot of death in my life, but I experienced even more life. Before I had my own family, I got to watch my nieces and nephews grow up. And after I got together with my wife, I became part of her family as well. They accepted me immediately, as I was. And I got to watch my older son grow from just out of his toddler years to the strong and vibrant 8 year old he is this very day. Then I got to witness my younger boy literally enter the world. Amazing doesn’t cover it.

I spent many long years alone, and trying so many things to fill the voids in my heart and life. Those voids are filled (though my desire for God has only been stoked. It grows exponentially. The more I get, the more I want…). My wife is not just someone I sleep next to who shares my name. She’s my partner in all things. She’s with me literally in sickness and health, for better and worse. She’s seen me at my worst and at my best. She is extraordinary, and I love that even if the part of life we share here is brief, there is more.

There is more.

There is so much more.

I need to stop thinking so much about what made me the way I was, and focus on who made me the way I am. And I need to be ready to share that with people.