"I remember standing in a cold dark jail cell shivering with a blanket wrapped around me. Sick and cold. When I first arrived someone came up to me and said "You remind me of Edward in Twilight, you're far too good looking to be here with us. Why aren't you modeling somewhere?" I still remember those words, not the kind of greeting you want to first hear from a guy you happen to be trapped with in a cell block. But upon further reflection, that hellhole it was exactly where I belong. And it felt like a portal to hell; in the tank every one was detoxing, puking, coughing..It was brutal. But you know it was good. Real good to go through that. I helped lead a bible study and was amazed at the amount of interest perked around our group as we went through a passage in Romans. The climate seemed to change and positive energy fluxed in. Everyone in the group was stirred in zeal within, feeling more hopefully about their case. It was during this moment I had an epiphany of sorts. Even the most hardened around seemed to relinqush their temperament.
I saw, in a sense; how life on this planet for Gods fragmented creation without a plea-bargain deal transpires. Guilty convicts, awaiting our final sentencing. We are all in the same situation, without Grace, trapped like prisoners in a cellblock hopeful for a lenient verdict. When all the allusionary veils of worldliness that enrapture our hearts and minds are peeled back. Utterly stripped away, we will see everything temporal we've chased was missing the eternal point. The essence of our predicament becomes more painfully clear and readily apparent. For me, allegorically, and personally, it was a microcosm of ‘us’, you and me. The eternal, yet fallen creatures present plight. Whither we are aware of this on an existential level or not, many I sadly confess are not.
Why is this though?
Feelings can quickly destroy our emotional health and spiritual balance. They can spiral us into either pride and self-absorbtion or nose-dive us into anxiety, depression and despair...
The worlds method for dealing with these "Pits of Gloom" these chemical and emotional imbalances to is to numb, mask and escape certain emotions; alcohol, drugs, social media, extreme sports, video-gaming, illicit sex...Not that many in themselves are bad, yet to some degree we all look for these cheap substitutes and it creates more of a roller-coaster ride of emotional highs and lows. We seem to be spending more time either, depressed, on an artificially induced high or oscillating up and down from one to the other. And for many people, myself included, it can happen many times throughout any given day.
I found through personal experience over half of the addicts I corresponded with were suffering from some variation of an opioid addiction..Pain-relieving prescriptions that lead to an all-consuming addiction. It leads me to think most unsuspecting patients become addicts not by choice but rather by circumstance. A correct understanding of how profit-driven large-scale coorporations exist and how they manipulate the masses to keep spending money should be employed. This is a stunning reality. Why is it that more and more people who are just attempting to receive minor relief from back pains, lives soon spiral off the deep end; end up in rehabs, lose their family and marriage..the list goes on..I've seen it first hand. I am not saying all medicating drugs are bad. I am not advocating for that. If you have a severe migraine or headache take some Advil, maybe more than one. If you have urinary pain go to a doctor or maybe stop sleeping with 5 girls a week or use protection? Behavioral modification can be a good thing.
However, a certain thought pattern develops, when we believe the relief from our problems to be rooted in emotional states of mind. States of mind, are fleeting and temperamental opposed to understanding some shame is normal, even emotional pain is normal, we can absorb, repress, forgive and grow but we cannot look for perfect relief from it. Otherwise it leads to a host of other parasitic chemical dependencies which can spiral to addiction which never promise what they promise; lasting relief but only short term profit driven promises which manifest themselves in our interpersonal lives..
The most miserable people in the world today are those who live their lives based on their emotions.
However that being said. I don't believe emotions are not bad or wrong. We don't "feel" the truth but we do feel our emotion. That is why we usually pay far more attention to what we "feel" than to what is true.
What affects the root affects the plant. And us humans are spiritual creatures, looking for physical solutions solutions to chronic spiritual issues seems to work for the short term but never really grasps hold of the "root" of the matter. we think 'mental health' is as deep as it gets, but it goes deeper than that. This is not a popular, mainstream medical solution givin' out in liberal fashion today. Mainly because doctors will want you to keep returning for visits, psychiatrists for evaluations....But, there is a secret, confidential, simple solution that beats the breaks off medical marijuana for anxiety, depression and stress of mind...shhh, wait for it...
Repentance, you guessed it! esp of habitual sins...Connection with our Father in Heaven, a loving realationship that stems from a consistent repair of a fractured relationship to our creator, you see sin fractures, like trust issues in a physical one, the same echoes with an eternal one, one we were designed for one that explains the very reason we were formed, created and placed on this earth..the most important one, that should be our true focal point :)
