Ain't Nuthin' Prayer & Chocolate Can't Handle.

I'm pretty sure God invented chocolate simply for the sole purpose of it becoming the physical comfort that prayer provides for humans spiritually.
Unless, of course, you are allergic to chocolate.
And if you hate it then that's just plain wrong.

But back to the chocolate basics: Have you ever had one of those days where everything is piling on top of you, the weight of the world is heavier than ever before, and you just want to end it all? So what do you do? You go into the kitchen, fighting every step of the way knowing you don't want to do it, you shouldn't do it, you need to rebuke the thoughts, but eventually your flesh overpowers your mind and you give in...

You go straight for the double decker, triple fat, extra chocolatey, gooey, pint sized amazing Ben & Jerry's.

(By the way, I personally am a huge fan of "Half-Baked": Brownies, cookie dough, vanilla, chocolate and fudge awesomesauce-it doesn't get much better than that, unless they added coffee ice cream. Oh, my mouth is watering just thinking about it, but I didn't bike seven miles for nothing tonight!)

We do that a lot though, don't we? We indulge in comforts that really don't make us feel any better than before we engaged. Not only is my weight now way up, and the seven miles on the bike down the drain, but I feel worse because the ice cream did not meet my needs! Sure it tasted good and seemed sufficient as I enjoyed it, or rather inhaled it, for those few minutes, but now I feel sick (brownies alone will do that to me).  I will never feel my best unless I am willing to surrender it to God and pray for him to come help.

Here's my point amidst the tasty mumbo jumbo: Stop trying to figure out what direction your life is going and trust that God will get you where he wants you when he wants you to get there. Two years ago when I made the decision to move back home from Reno I had no stinking idea what I was supposed to do with my life, much less what life I had. I was very depressed, confused, angry, and all around a terrible mess. But God did not see my life as a "mess", he saw me as a fractal garden. A fractal garden make look like a throw-up of nature with a bunch of random plants that do not seem to fit together until you look at the big picture. If you were to look at the exact same plant-throw-up garden from bird's eye view it would be one of the prettiest things you've ever seen. Why? You see the BIG picture.

We may never see the big picture until weeks, years, months have passed regarding the struggles we are going through. But is it really that important for us to know? I mean, let's face it: If we did know, wouldn't we try to piece it together because, as humans, we want control? And if we cannot have it, we will fight God for it. And when we lose, we try to find other things, pleasures, appeasing desires that will take away the pain. But then what? We end up more hurt than when we started.

You're feeling ugly, worthless, so you try to find someone to love. You find someone, not the one God intended for you though, but you don't want to wait. You're sick of being the only single one, or just single in general. You give them everything, and once they've taken that piece of your heart (which you can NEVER get back) they dump you. You invest time and money in a business because you want more money to buy more stuff. Business goes bankrupt, you saw the signs that it might but you ignored it. Now you're broke and lost everything. You're sick of being the loner and you want friends. You find some who will do, and when you get close enough they offer you a joint, a beer, a puff. One time won't hurt, until it suddenly becomes a habit, then an addiction. Soon your life is meaningless, and your once dependency on God has become a dependency on a substance. You're sick and tired of seeing all the beautiful people in the magazines and you decide you will become one no matter the cost. Within months the cost is your life, and you're now fighting for it while hooked up to an IV in the ER after bulemia has taken its course.

What once seemed like a good idea has completely destroyed your life. Trust me, it's never worth it. I praise God I had a family who loved me enough they never left my side, they always stuck close, and even when I tried to take my own life away, they intervened. Granted I was livid, but I was also very, very broken. Eventually I got over myself, and saw that I was the problem, God was and always is the solution. Like many of you reading this, I have never felt so far away from God as I did those days. I felt like I was the west and he was the east, we would never meet. But one day I got the guts to pray again, to cry out like a little baby, like the child of God I was even though I was full of sin, and just pray... Guess what? He heard me, he still loved me, and he brought me full restoration and healing.

Almost three years later, I have been been completely delivered from my inner demons, strongholds, and every lie I ever believed about myself. It's been a long and hard three years, but I am so thankful that God was patient and that he never let me go. And he never will.

I want to encourage you, dear reader, wherever you are (physically & spiritually), whatever you're going through, nothing is too big for God. He created you for heaven's sake! That alone should tell you that he loves you more than you know and that he has a plan for your life. Why waste it? Why are you not living to the fullest potential in which God has designed for you and you alone? There are no two people on this earth with the exact same destiny, you are the only one who can fulfill the plans of the Lord for your life. THE ONLY ONE IN ALL OF HISTORY. You are special, you are loved, you are HIS. I don't care if you feel like you couldn't be further from God or if you never met him. He knows you better than anyone because he took the time to create you to be you-nique, and he loves you more than you will ever know.

God has given you so many second, third, fourth, fifth, ten billionth chances. Why not give Him just one?

You are loved,

Saint