Time to stop running

I recall sincerely praying to God, being filled with the Spirit, reading my Bible, praying every day, and going to church twice on a Sunday. And it was good. Everything was all fine, and everything was good. I graduated from university. My Christian girlfriend became my Christian fiancé, who became my Christian wife and, in less than two and a half years, a not so Christian divorce.

That experience left me very, very angry and very bitter, and so I decided a number of things. I decided that the Christian way of life wasn't gonna work for me. I also decided to take no responsibility for my lack of faith, take no responsibility for my failed marriage, and I decided to go the way of the world.

So I started on a new career and that was going well. I got remarried and started a family. But, in the end, when you're doing everything in your own strength, eventually things start to unfold. It was a little bit after ten years of married life and ten years of being a high school teacher, I could feel within myself that mentally and emotionally I was just getting weaker and weaker. One day, I just had a complete and total mental breakdown. After that, everything changed.

I realised that by doing everything in my own strength, just mentally broken, I found every single day I was feeling fragile. Early on in 2019, I found myself homeless, jobless, and with a broken marriage. I was in a bad place. I was just in so much mental anguish, so much emotional anguish all the time, but never reaching out, never talking to anyone.

At the same time, I always knew all I had to do was stop being so proud and stop being so stubborn and just return to God. At any stage I could have. I couldn't claim ignorance. I couldn't be like other testimonies whereby I say, "Well, I don't know if you're real, God. "I knew God was real, I knew Jesus was real, but no, I was not going to submit.

By the very start of 2021, I'd finally scored myself a full-time job up in Kaikoura, where I am now. And by that stage, I decided I'd had enough. This self-imposed separation from God, this self-imposed loneliness. I remember driving to move to Kaikoura, and I had the thought of the prodigal son. I decided at that point to stop running. It was time to read the Bible, time to pray, and so that's what I did. It wasn't a big tearful, emotional reunion with God at all. It was just me in my room reading the Bible, praying, and then just getting into the habit.

Finally, finally, I got to a place where I wasn't in constant mental anguish and I wasn't in constant pain. I didn't feel burdened. I know what it is like to effectively medicate yourself to feel numb just to get through another day of pain, so that's one option. Or you can return to God. Because when you think about it, there is no known cure for a broken heart. But for genuine healing, there's only one source. You turn from your wayward life and you choose to walk with God.