June 7, 2016:

I woke up this morning pretty depressed. I felt such a feeling of doom about my life, everything I have been through and everything that is culminating right now. I got pretty deep into these feelings. As time passed, I found myself brooding over what felt to me then like hopelessness. I questioned my worthiness of being saved. Then, I went to grab socks and underwear out of my closet. Doing this, I slipped and fell, my bicep being forced into the edge of a canvas. I got a bruise pretty bad. After this, I just held myself and nursed the very minor injury. It hurt then. What it did was remind me of my time that I spent in college. Smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, looking at porn all of the time, struggling sleeping. I couldn’t even walk because I was so busy hurting myself. And I reflected why I was doing that. I was doing that because I was internalizing all of the anger, shame, fear and other feelings and thoughts about what was being done to me, even at that point. I hated myself. Most certainly, I hated myself unjustly. I hated myself because it is the way I was treated. It was the way I was shown I was worth.. After this, I was thinking about the time I spent at the monastery in Georgia. The time when I was able to get a glimpse of just how much I was truly valued. Where I spent a week in the Word, in prayer, going to Mass and in silence. I have to continually remind myself as to why I quit smoking. That I deserve love and happiness. Most of all, that I deserve the love of God. I am trying to change my wording about things. I’m looking especially at dark times and times of trial as opportunities for growth and to shine a light that I know exists. I am trying to have compassion on myself, trying to be easy on myself. I am going to the gym today. I went yesterday as well. I want to go to Quebec with my church. There’s a pilgrimage that is going for a weekend in July. I have faith that things will end well. I know I am unworthy of many things from your world. I hope that you will be able to empathize with me at a point. I have faith that God will glorify me in accord with the truth. The biggest thing I am remembering today is that I am worthy. I am loved. And I am grateful. I have faith that the right thing will be done and that everything will end well. That there will be chance to rejoice. Please keep faith in God. And in His love for all of you. No matter how hard life gets, we can rely on the promises of God and the truth that He loves us. What we believe about ourselves will dictate how we act. We have to remember that we no longer have a reason to despair. We have so much reason to hope. When you realize you are a child of God, your actions will start to follow. The Spirit will help us to do great things, even miracles in this life. We have to learn to trust. God, if we allow ourselves to trust Him, can accomplish anything through us. “God loves us and wants so much for our love. Satan is the enemy. That one is the cause of all that is and has gone wrong in our world. A lot of us, myself included, spend our time and energy focussing on the negative things of this world that we sometimes forget why we embarked on this journey in the first place. I pray continually for our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted overseas. Of all faiths. We are brothers and sisters. We all share the uniting theme that we suffer. Remember Christ. What He did. Who He came for. And why He came. Don’t let your hearts harden. Was Christ condoning sexual immorality when protecting the woman caught in adultery? Or rather, did he choose to see a human being in need of help and of divine forgiveness? Love.” Went to the gym again today. I spent like fifteen minutes on the punching bag total. I am feeling very relieved. It reminded me of this post above. That when we bury our feelings, thoughts and emotions, they’ll continue to affect us in our daily lives. Anger is not a bad thing. It’s what we do with that anger that makes a difference. We need to learn to express repressed anger and other emotions in healthy ways. I want to remind myself that when I am having difficulty moving and struggle against something physically, I’m not being rude. That I have not lashed out for a long time now towards people who do not deserve this sort of treatment. I have to remember the great deal of hard work I put into changing that behavior. It was not only behavior. It was a symptom of complex post-traumatic stress disorder. I am trying to encourage when I say stuff. I am not trying to justify my own behavior. I am speaking the truth. I have to keep faith in myself. I have to stop looking to others to validate my worth. This is very much a coping mechanism. But, I need to remember the love of what has been done for us. I have to keep faith in the fact that I have changed. That I am completely different than I was even a month ago. I’m struggling so much physically right now. Because of stress. I hope that I was able to vent some of that on the bag today. Things may not make sense right now. You may not understand a lot of things now. You cannot take what I have done out of context from what was happening to me. I will keep encouraging. Keep faith. In God. And wait for truth. Truth will be revealed. There is a reason for all of this. Wait for truth…