I've never been good with structure, mostly because I get bored easily.

I'm almost obsessed with finishing some things, and others get abandoned along the way. Something I'm trying to rectify in my nature.

When they say it's never too late to start something new, that is true. But it's also much harder to alter your behavior after a lifetime of doing things a certain way or believing certain things.

I was 36 before it slowly dawned on me that the way I had grown up seeing God and faith was intrinsically flawed. It took another two years before I began to really understand how misshapen my faith had become.

Most of it came from old-fashioned church institutional views of the bible and God that unfortunately stunted and hampered my view of God as much as it helped.

It took me being willing to step outside what I had been taught to begin to find the truth. To begin to understand the entanglement created by the way God had been represented to me.

Somewhere along the line, the loving God had been transformed into a judgmental God that just waited for me to sin. And me, poor unfortunate sinner, had to better myself to be worthy of God's love, or I would end up in hell. It turned me into the greatest judge of myself and made me believe that I was so sinful that I was not worthy of love. That I was a lost cause.

As I grew older, the urge in me to be nearer to God grew, but the ingrained belief that I was too sinful for God to love had been introduced to that part of my brain that governed my subconscious. No matter what I did, I always fell short. I was not good or good enough. I was a failure.

Yet, I couldn't let go of the urge to be better and to serve my God as best I could despite my flaws and cracks. Over time, I began to hate myself for my faults and failures. I felt so useless and without purpose that living became agony. Even the smallest misstep felt like it was immediately followed by retribution and loss. And worst of all, I grew to believe I deserved it.

How different would it have been for me if I grew up knowing that God loved me. Full stop. No and, but, or maybe's about it.

How different would my life have been if I had not been subtly influenced to believe that I had to save myself first before I could give myself to God. That I had to be a clean offering before I could stand before Him.

How different would my life have been if I had understood that Christ paid the price for me because I could never be a clean offering before Him without the price of His blood.

I struggled and failed. The more I failed, the more I struggled. Tired to the bone, having lost all hope, the blows just seemed to keep on coming until I was destroyed. And in that moment of destruction, I felt the Holy Spirit rise in me. Although I didn't understand it at the time, I was reborn.

For years, I had been caught in cycles meant to bring me to the understanding that I stand within the Grace of God, that all I had to do was be still in His presence and bow my head. Instead, I fought with everything I had. Like someone fighting the water instead of just allowing themselves to float.

Like Abraham, I wrestled with God without realizing who I was wrestling. And like Abraham, I finally had to admit defeat. The fight still crippled me, but I didn't realize that in that moment of defeat, I had finally found victory.

I have to admit I'm glacially slow in working through emotional things. Sometimes, it takes years. It took me nearly ten years to even start working through the death of my mother and half that with my father. It was no different with rebirth, although it almost took a year for me to stop resisting what was happening to me and to find the quiet of just being.

God's infinite patience had to be tested with me wildly veering from one end to the other in my emotional and spiritual journey. Drawing near one day and running like a cat with my tail on fire the next. But He never gave up on me.

Like the patient fisherman He is, He reeled me in and lifted me out of the water when I had tired myself resisting the line.

Taming me must have been much like gentling a wild animal that had never seen humans. But, as time passed, I learned to trust. And not only to trust but how to trust. Because I wasn't the one making the rules, and my will wasn't God's will. And His will for me was for my good and His glory. Seeing that in the midst of the storm wasn't so easy. But, patiently, one moment at a time, God showed me to look beyond myself. (A feat that isn't easily accomplished and may remain a lifelong project.)

None of the things in my life at this moment came from me setting them in place. The plans I made in the past had worked for a while and failed spectacularly. Because they didn't account for God's will. I didn't ask what His will was. I just did whatever I thought was best. That is a battle I still fight. Bowing my will before God's plan for me. But there has been progress. And there will be progress.

The job I do. The place where I live. The people in my life. The things that I have. None of it came about because of anything I had planned or organized. Because for the first time in my life, I allowed God to take the wheel. To steer my life. And whenever I try to wrestle control from Him, I get a reminder that I'm not in control. God is. And when I let go of the wheel and do simply what is within my power, things happen for my benefit and for His glory.

When I took that first step, I had no idea what lay before me. I only knew that God would find a way. That there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And He made a way that day and every day since.

Yes, I'm still a work in progress. I stumble and fall. Willfully follow my own head. Do stupid things. But now I know that God loves me enough to see me. To know even my smallest and biggest needs and dreams. And I learned that because he loves me, I can love myself. That was almost as difficult a journey as trust.

He knew my sins before I was even born and still made me because He wanted me. Because he had a plan for my life. Because He is enough. And because He is enough and He lives in me, I am enough. Even when I fall short, He makes up the difference and helps me to my feet again.

In our weakness, He is our strength. We cannot stand on our own; we need Him. Our Father wants us to need Him. He wants us not to give up but to reach out to Him and find completion and perfection in Him.

No one can love us the way God loves us. No one can look after us the way our Father does. He saved us before we even knew we needed saving. He planted the seeds of our future in the past before we even knew where we would end up.

God is in control. And when we feel our lives are out of control, it's because we're trying to wrestle the wheel from His hands. And He is a gentleman, He will let us drive if we insist. The problem is that without His light to guide us, we are on a winding mountain pass in the dark with the snow and sleet coming down, one wrong move from oblivion. Then, we have the arrogance to ask why we are in the middle of that darkness which we have chosen ourselves.

Sometimes, we need to learn how frail we are and how fleeting life is. Sometimes we need to understand that our strength is not enough. That our knowledge is not enough. That without God, we are not enough. That the power over life and death is not in our hands. We need God. He does not need us. But He wants us, and if we bow our will before our King and submit, there will be light. Things will get better. When it is God's will, and the timing is right, He will make a way.

Jesus died so we can live. He rose from the dead so we can be all that we were created to be. He went to heaven to prepare our place in our Father's house. This world is just a journey, not a destination. As long as we wake up, God has a purpose for us on this earth, and even if you can't see it, He can.

To get back to where I started. I'm not good at sticking to things, but God always brings me back to Him. And of all the hobbies and all of the things I've done in my life, I always come back to writing. These letters are my way of keeping to the road God created for me and using this gift He has given to me to thank Him for being the light in my life, the love in my heart, my savior, and my protector. I have no idea where I would have ended up if God had not reached out and taken control of my life.

I'm grateful for every mercy, every moment of grace, and every miracle it took for me to be in a position to write this letter today.

Peace be with you, my brothers and sisters. May the light of God shine through our lives and touch others so that our purpose may be fulfilled. May the love of God fill your life to overflowing, for God is where our joy lies.