2 Years

So Tuesday was my 2 Year Spiritual Birthday. I know I blogged about this last week. I had planned on doing another day of but was feeling sick and light headed. And the inspiration for what to write didn't come till late in the evening while at Accelerate. Staying close to the cross. I don't think I had ever been able to figure out how to do that. Now I know. What a perfect gift to get on a my birthday. So I will share it with you.

Imagine where you would be if you never met Jesus. It's that simple and that complex at the same time. It took me seconds to come up with that picture after Pete asked that question. I would be one of 2 places, in a grave or in a gutter. I was well on my way to putting a bullet in my head or drinking myself to death.

While I looked the part of being pretty together and in control after my wife left, man I was not. I was way out in left field. I didn't yet have the nerve to take my own life, but man did I want to. And 2 years removed living in the same type of funk I was in, I can imagine that I would have built up the nerve. Or I would have just done the slow fade. I was always good at that. Just bottling myself up till I exploded. Except now I had a whiskey bottle to help contain it even more.

I spent most of my days drinking by myself. Even after Chris moved in. I don't think he even knows how much drinking I did alone. A bottle was never far away. Am I an alcoholic? No. Would I call myself one after that? No. I don't at all have a problem with drinking. It wasn't an addiction. It was a straight up choice for me. I was gonna drink till there was nothing left.

Would I be happy like I am now? No way. Would I have kept being a gentleman to women? Hell no. I was striving to be a dog in those days. Why should I care about their feelings and hearts when mine had been trampled on. And let's take this away from the hurt of being cheated on. There were way more factors than that. That was more like a nail in the coffin rather than the box itself. It was what easily could have been the final straw. My plan was to say screw it. You can take that as an innuendo if you would like. I planned on ditching every bit of chivalry in me and just treat girls like dirt and spend my time being like every guy you see on TV who is just trying to get laid. Why should I care? That one would have been a battle cause my chivalry runs deep, but I could have won that one and just turned into a complete dick who just did what he wanted to get what he wanted.

But for the blood of Christ, that could have been me or worse. Death would have been the easy way out. To live in that would have been the punishment and it probably would have just continued to get worse as the years went on. I get the joy of seeing the crossroads that the cross created for me. I got to choose to shift gears and turn a different way. Best decision I ever made. I can't believe the person I am becoming. The new choices I get to make. The life I get to live. It's not an easy one, but man I love it.

There is so much grace and love and peace available in the cross. If you are reading this and you don't get that, please don't write me off. It's real. He's real. I'm never letting go of it. Wherever that road leads me is the one I am gonna take. On the heals of Jesus as He leads the way. 2 years and counting. If this has happened in just 2 years, what does the next 40 or 50 have in store? Let's turn the page and find out, shall we?