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| This page is a special one for Clay. Before I go into what the prayer is about, I first want to tell a bit about myself and how I feel God blessed me on my 39th birthday.
Up until March 26, 2004, my 39th birthday, I was carrying two ball and chains. One was my bitterness and the other was my sexual immmorality. I want to expound on the first one. I was angry at life, angry at my childhood and angry at God. It all started in 1988 when I started going to church consistently and going to bible study. Basically I was feeling that Heaven was too hard to get to and Hell was the all too easy to get to and unfair alternative. Over time I began to hate that I was born and would soon begin nit-picking life apart, finding everything bad about it and overshadow anything good. |
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| Justified anger at my dad's abusiveness as well as school difficulties and problems with teachers soon got into the mix and the blender was set on high. Soon I began to resent people having babies - no I was not wishing anything bad on those mothers-to-be - I would think "Why bring another soul into the world so they will end up in Hell when they die?"
My beliefs were nothing but "rules and regulations" Head knowledge was all I had. I did not want to have to choose between Heaven or Hell. I did not want either. I wanted out of this life I never asked for, but suicide was out of the question - oh thats sin! So, I hated Life and I found every reason to tear it aprat and build my case against it.....and, ultimately....God. I knew my anger and resentment were hurting me. They were my own prison...my ball and chain |
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| Shortly before the Britney Spears concert, I was at a church which I try to attend, but hardly do, and it was on this particular Sunday that I finally told a friend about everything I was feeling. It was here that I made my now Classic comment: "I like sushi and Britney Spears..." followed by "but quite frankly, I would rather have never been born" I lamented "Where is the fairness in being punished for not loving someone?" I saw that like me hurting someone for not wanting to love me back. Me and my friend talked for about and hour. One thing I can say about him was that I could be brutally honest and I even cussed a few times. I would be all "oops, sorry" and he would say it was ok. At one point I said something like "why do we have to go through all this sh-" this time catching myself and he was "you can say 'shit' if you need to" and he said the word himself...and we were in a church building! | ||
| We talked for about an hour before we concluded. He said a prayer for me before to wrap up.
Now, this is cute: We were in the Sanctuary, everybody had left and just before he put his guitar away he said "I got a song for you" and then he began to play something. It sounded like something I heard Travis do and I thought "No it can't be", and my friend began to sing "Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know, Something wasn't right oh baby baby, I shouldn't have let you go. And now you're out of sight, yeah Show me how you want it to be, Tell me baby cause I need to know now OH because...My lonliness is killing me And I, I must confess I still believe, still believe When I'm not with you I lose my mind, Give me a sign, Hit me baby one more time!!!!" The "sushi and Britney Spears" comment must have stuck with him. Right there in that empty church sanctuary we sang the Travis rendition of Britney's debut hit song. Now if that ain't someone showing me compassion and love, I don't know what is!!!!! He was not too religious to just spout off comments like "You need to repent" "You just have to trust God" or "Let go and let God" or any of those clich�s |
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| As for sexual immorality....lets just say that anyone was a target for sexual fantasizing! That did include....Clay Aiken. This was not a crush, this was just plain lustful thinking, he was nobody special at this time and got hit just the same. This is not the place for grim details so I will just leave it at that.
Well alright, enough of the darkness already here is the good news! While I did not notice anything on my birthday, I did notice a change in my thinking shortly thereafter. All I know was that I was still angry and resentful BEFORE my birthday. I noticed that I was not able to nit-pick at things like I used to, I was seemingly more accepting of the ills of my childhood, my dad's abusiveness and my contempt for High School. |
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| I remember having a discussion about the Columbine tragedy and I did not get sore and judgemental. My contempt for High School culture had me right on the borderline of saying somthing to the effect of "They had it coming!". From my new standpoint, I no longer thought like that. I was able to see that while High School's culture of judging, slander and defamation of people's character is UNACCEPTABLE, I am not so quick to think that they deserved the wrath of somebody to come and shoot up the place!!!! While I NEVER said that the two responsible for this were justified, I still felt some contempt toward Columbine because I was still angry about my own experiences at High Shool. I never thought that I wished I had done something like this in retrospect. I knew that if I could have gone back in time, I would have probally have dropped out and went to night school. Or simply have disappeared and maybe moved to Denver and took a job somewhere. | ||
| Anyway, basically, I had "forgotten" how to be hateful toward the things and people that offended me; my teachers, my dad, all the ill treatment in school etc...ALL GONE!!!!
Even my hatred toward a bad Starbucks manager and staff who treated me badly because I "was an intruder" in their little cliqu�. I had transfered to that store. My hatred and contempt for them.....GONE!!!! My angry thoughts would come but I could not connect with them, they are simply memories that parade by like passing traffic. I believe I had finally forgave the sinners in my life as God wanted since he wants to forgive me of all my sins and you know what? I AM SO LOVIN' IT!!!! |
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| Even my lusting was to a degree under control as I found it easier to not start thinking those thoughts whenever I saw someone who looked appealing. I felt a sense that I "more didn't want to think like that than I did". I believe that I was finally getting a handle on my lustful thinking, and you know what? IIIIII lllllooove it!! |
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