Until it Didn’t

Until it Didn’t

Looking back on my life I see many of the things that helped me through different times of my life. Many of these things were good, many of them were blessings. Yet as I view them now, especially with many of them no longer being in my life, I can see them now for what they were.

Many things in our lives, perhaps all things, are just meant to direct us and lead us to Him. To the source. To the One who is our true fulfillment, and our healing. The Healer, God.

As a young child I had both of my parents in my life, and 8 siblings. I had love, protection, guidance and discipline. My siblings were my best friends. Many times they were my only friends. My family gave me comfort, a sense of safety. With them I had a sense of purpose, because at times they needed me.

Even as an adult, for a long time, most of them lived nearby. We saw each other often. We talked, told jokes and stories. Being with them, talking and catching up, it was all a comfort. It met a desire and a need that I had deep within.

Until, it didn’t. During a time span of a few short years many of them moved away. As we all began getting married and having children our visits and talks became less and less. My needs and my prior sources of comfort, safety, protection and purpose were gone.

Around this time I had married. I now had a spouse, and three years later I had a child. These things were a blessing. Not perfect, but a blessing. Again they met my inner desires and needs for purpose, for safety, for comfort. Having my wife and child made me feel loved, needed, and important. Until, slowly but surely, it didn’t.

My blame for this lack of having “my needs” met was on everything I had depended on. I blamed the blessings for not fulfilling me. Although that is never the intended purpose of a blessing, I ignorantly blamed what, or who, didn’t fulfill me for the cause of my emptiness and needs.

I heardened my heart toward these things, my siblings, my wife, and others, and I attempted to move on. I was moving on in my search to find who and what would meet my deeper needs.

I had grown up in church. Many times throughout my adulthood I would begin attending church again. In church you could connect with other people and couples. You could make friends, talk and encourage each other in making good life decisions.

This was all positive and it is meant to be helpful in life. It is a blessing. Going to church, having the people to connect with, it helped alleviate some of the emptiness I had inside. It met some of the needs and desires I had inside. Until it didn’t.

God can be found in going to church. But church is not God. Helping others, praying for them, playing my guitar, leading worship, it all helped me feel important. It helped me feel needed, safe, not alone. But it didn’t meet the core, deeper needs.

My career had been in law enforcement. I got to work as a patrol deputy on the streets in California. In this capacity I was able to help people and be there for people, in multiple ways. I had a good income and health insurance. I was able to buy a home, cars, and provide for my family.

In this career I was able to continually learn more, to grow and experience new things. I could better my skills and promote, I was entertained, excited, and seemingly fulfilled. I was blessed with the ability to be there for people. In moments of their life when they desperately needed someone who cared. In times and moments they would need help and kindness, more than they ever had in their lives.

This career met my needs. I felt important. I had people who worked closely beside me. People that I could trust and who trusted me. I was needed. I was needed, honored and admired by people, in moments when they needed someone the most.

The career, the people, and the income made me feel safe, protected, and needed. I had purpose, a gift and an ability to help others. It fulfilled me. Until it didn’t.

Friends were killed. My life was directly threatened and on the line multiple times. Many people began to despise me because I was a cop. The money and benefits didn’t matter anymore at this point. Another blessing was once again falling short of what I was looking for internally.

In my life I have also been involved in fitness and working out. I had been working out since I was in the 8th grade. This was a hobby that allowed me to get out much of my aggression through the years. It helped me cope with, and manage, stress in a healthy manner. This helped me in sports through high school, and also as a cop.

Working out for so long and so often had given me a decent looking physique. I realized, even through high school, that having a decent physique got you more attention. This part alone met a need. I stood out. I got compliments and “looks” from people. I was often asked questions about how to make physical achievements. This helped me feel important, special, and needed.

In my 30’s I began competing in bodybuilding. The looks, attention, compliments, and inquiries for me to help people, increased. Over a period of about 5 years I competed multiple times in this sport. I even won a couple shows.

I felt accomplished. I had so many more followers on social media than I would have ever expected. I was known by people and recognized in public often. Usually by people whom I had no idea who they were.

I helped many people accomplish healthy fitness goals. Even to the point of them crying tears of joy because they had overcome something that they never thought they would. Once again, I felt important, needed, accepted and it fulfilled me. Until it didn’t.

After the needs deep inside of me had become so great, unmet for so long, the needs were now starvations. If I were to view the needs as “wounds”, they were now infected.

The bodybuilding, fitness coaching, etc could no longer meet the needs inside. My career no longer met the needs inside of me. My marriage was gone, because I had searched for something else that would fulfill me. Something that would heal me. Yet nothing was working.

No other relationship, even multiple relationships, no matter how much sex, etc. I was unfulfilled. The deep needs and desires were unmet. Nothing could make me feel important enough. Special enough. Loved enough.

From winning bodybuilding championships, to getting “life saving awards” as a cop, nothing made me believe that I was enough. Nothing felt like enough. I kept searching for something, or someone, to one day make me feel this.

So many things and people had worked, for a time. Family, church, friends, people, a career, a hobby, so many things had helped me get through hard times. Many things were there for me. They had been part of my life. They were blessings. They had gotten me through difficult phases. But I always reached a certain point, a certain heartache or trial, where these things helped me, until they didn’t.

I reached a certain point where the pain, depression, the heartaches and losses had compiled to such a height and depth that I felt beyond hopeless. The anxiety and fears had developed into an extreme PTSD. After 11 years as a cop I was reevaluated, and I was forced to retire.

The depression was so bad that even when I would try to go to the gym, my old vice, I would fall asleep in my car in the gym parking lot. I would then awake with such a heavy depression that it felt like I was physically carrying an extra 200lbs.

I was losing everything. My marriage and my son were gone. My attempted relationships didn’t last. My career was gone. My hobby, my “healthy vice”, was stolen from me. I could go on. How I ended up on drugs. I was homeless. I attempted suicide two different times and held for multiple days at a behavioral center. I got into fights. I was arrested and put in jail.

I was searching frantically to find an answer. To find a fulfillment. Some things had worked, and had helped me, for years. Some things helped for a few minutes or hours. Until they didn’t.

I’m typing this now with a new perspective. I am still healing from all of these things. I’m still paying the consequences for many of these things, in many ways. But I’m finding my answers.

It sounds cliche’ as I think of typing it. It sounds like old, overly quoted sayings. But, the truth is the truth. And sometimes the truth isn’t understood until we hear it from a different place in life. What have I found? - “Jesus is the answer.”

God is all the things that I had once experienced, yet He is more. He is all the things I wanted and needed. He is the source of all the things that I searched for. The love I wanted, the acceptance, importance, significance, the protection, the safety, the friendship, the purpose… He is all of those things.

The experiences I have I had in my life, of getting some of my needs met and fulfilled from external sources, for a time, those were His blessings. But it was always supposed to lead me to him. Not searching further into those things.

The fulfillment I had gotten from my family was from Him. It was His blessing. But it was meant to lead me deeper into Him, as that temporary blessing faded.

This pattern should have continued. With each blessing, they helped me and even fulfilled me, for a time. But each blessing was meant to lead me to Him. Where the fulfillment does not fade. Where the source of Love, purpose, meaning, etcetera, they never fade or end.

Maybe you can look at some “things” in your life. Things that may seem similar to what I have mentioned. Perhaps people, your career, your children, a hobby, a habit, (good or bad), have fulfilled you, for a time. Maybe you can see that the fulfillment isn’t quite there anymore.

I would encourage you to self evaluate. More importantly, I would encourage you to speak to your Father in Heaven. Tell Him about the fulfillment you used to have. About the lack of fulfillment, and the needs, that you still have. Ask God to give you His wisdom in finding how He can fulfill you and meet your needs.

I can’t tell you how God does it, how He meets our needs, heals us, fulfills us, etc. But I can tell you that if you just ask Him, He will answer you. If you seek for the answers, He promises you’ll find them. I pray God gives you peace in your asking and faith in your searching. He is the Answer. He is your answer.