Taking Back Nothing

I can't say that I am too new to the blogger scene as I have done this before, but I think that this blog will have a better feel that just blatant shock value like I did before.

So, I guess I should begin. My name is Christopher Anthony Gonzales, the child of Michael Anthony Gonzales and Sheri Lynn Ormond, but the son of Mark and Brandey Yancey. I am a college student at the University of Missouri, studying Philosophy and German (Ja, ich liebe Deutsch). I am 20 years old and an enlisted solider in the Army National Guard.

But enough about the small things.

It took me a while to decide a proper name for this blog, as I want to gear it more towards my walk through life, through college, through Basic Training, and (most importantly) with God. And with all of those things, I came to one small conclusion: I have so little control in all of those things.

See, a big problem of mine is that I struggle to let God have the reins and I want to control: I sometimes get this rash notion that I can do it better.

As of this blog post, I still haven't done it better.

So, I thought that since I have nothing to take (as this life was given to me through the redemption that came from His sacrifice), I have nothing to take back.

I plan to make it a ritualistic thing I do, posting and blogging to keep things up to date. I love doing things like this.

So, I guess I can start.

Have you ever had that feeling that things are not what they used to be? Like that things are colder or dimmer, like seeing life through a color filter, but instead of being one color that's predominate or faded, it takes all color with it.

Well, that's what I have been feeling lately.

And it's not in the normal "worries of the world" sort of way. I can deal with that. My dimness comes from my desire to return to that state I was at before I accepted Christ. And what is the strangest thing about that is that I was miserable. I was a loner who shut the world out to everyone but three people with whom I thought I could trust, but two of them proved me wrong. I was closed off, shut down, an automaton living in a world that was decaying before my gilded eyes. I was dead, living in a dying world. But then salvation came screaming out of left field and my eyes opened. I think I understand the phrase being "born again" because that is what it felt like: straight from the womb, where limbo is the defining qualia of life. Colors returned, life started to go up, I was happy, content, and (for the first time) alive. My dependences began to wither like the cursed Fig tree that was never to produce fruit again. My people with whom I put my life forfeited their position and for good reason: my life was no longer mine to claim and give. I returned it back to the one who paid for it.

But I began to slip and slide down a slick slope of falsehoods, making concessions where concessions shouldn't be made. I was taking my life back, which was not mine to have. And to be honest, without Christ's redemption, my life will mean nothing in eternity. All I am doing is taking back nothing. And, to be honest, I fell. Hard. Harder than expected and harder than I wanted. I had slipped into dumb mistakes that I thought were dead.

Once I realized that the scraps on my knees where from my own folly, I wanted to find some sort of way to climb back up to where Christ was. Unfortunately, I needed help doing that.

Now, as a side note, help is the hardest thing for me to accept. At any level. I would rather fail alone sometimes than succeed together. It is just who I am... or was. One of the two, depending on the day. So, knowing I needed help was hard to swallow.

I screwed up about 2 1/2 weeks ago and just finally told someone a day ago. And just finally had a deep conversation about it today.

So, at least I am back to scaling that mountain, but I have just one more problem. I need to accept that I have been forgiven.

It's hard for me to believe sometimes that Christ still loves me so deeply when I screw up as badly as I do sometimes. Knowingly, willingly, precisely. It's hard to accept that in my weakest moments, he isn't disgusted with me, wrought in sin, but sorrowful for me and pleading that I come home like the prodigal son. And when I come forward like the prodigal son, I need to get out of that moment before the Father's reaction.

Do you remember that feeling, just after you told your parents something and you waited for the explosion, the "I told you so!", or the sorrow you were waiting to feel. That is the moment I am trapped in, it seems. But I know what reaction IS going to come: a big hug and a smile, happy that I just came home. Not what brought me home, but being there, in that moment with the Father.

Kinda dumb to still fear the explosion when you know what's going to come, I guess.

Still, forgiveness has already been given; I know it has, but I think it comes back to one idea. I am expecting anger, but I will get none in return. In a sense, I am getting nothing. So, the question is: "Can I take back nothing for my sins... but love?"