The Phenomenon Lying

Someone I'd wanted to consider as family has made the final push away. It hurts, because not only had I confronted him about his lying, but after admitting to his wrong and expressing that he will try to be honest in the future, he almost immediately dives headlong back into deceit. It seems that he absolutely hates me and anyone like me; for what reason? I will never know for sure, but I can venture to guess.

What he wants is so severely in conflict with what myself and my own seek to have. I won't claim to know what it is that he wants, but I'll say that, for me, I have always desired to daily experience the deepest, truest love and live in the light of the starkest truth. These I have found only in Jesus Christ. Were this guy looking for anything close to truth or beauty or goodness, I do not doubt that he should be a much different sort of person.

As it is, he is looking for none of the above. What can I do, but stare on at him? He is driving himself into misery with all these lies, and while I can't help but ache at heart for what kind of life he's headed towards I cannot lift a hand to help him. There is nothing I can defend him in, and it's with an almost certainty that I say he'd probably slap my hand away anyway. He is angry, vengeful even. A real, living gollum.

Being someone who's grown up in church all my life, I've never encountered a person like him. I've been annoyed, frustrated or spiteful of certain types of people, but in the end I have to concede that they have their good and admirable qualities and, in some cases, their genuine faith. I am so amazed by this one person's utter and total lack of regard for anything good that I'm driven beyond any sort of particular feeling or word. I've always believed in goodness, even when circumstances didn't allow for very much evidence of it (church splits, murder, broken families, drug abuse, physical abuse) and yet here is a person that is suspicious of the integrity of goodness.

I'm confused, light-headed. It's disheartening, and distressing because of the fact that I can do nothing to interfere or intercede. Here is a situation in which I can not step in and be right to do so. It is puzzling, but the right thing to do in this situation appears to be letting him suffer the consequences of his actions.

What can be done? Can such a hard heart be changed? Can a nation of such hard hearts be transformed?

Not by man's effort alone. Only as the Spirit allows.

Sometimes I feel like a kid. And not in the nice way.

More in the sense of not having the next few crucial years of my life figured out. I'm a senior in college now, and it feels like life is putting on an extra burst of speed these days. I realize that I'm not just trying to figure out what I'm going to do for my own benefit, but even for the benefit of the people in my life.

There are a lot of times where I realize that I'm being completely narcissistic. I pity myself because I think to myself, "The world has something against you. Why do people not want to have deep relationships with you? Why aren't teachers teaching things that are more relevant to you? If they did then you'd probably do a lot better. Why do your parents always misunderstand you? Why is it so hard for you to relate to other people sometimes?" Always, always, again and again I victimize myself. (I know these are really ugly thoughts, but I do have them. I'm sure we all do. I just admit to having them because I can't think of a very good reason not to.) But then, after the billionth or so time that I start to get sick of myself and my self-centered way of thinking, I'm finally out of strength and unable to try and justify my ways anymore. All I can do then is to confess that it was no one else's fault that I didn't pursue to deepen my friendships, or discipline myself to make the grades I wanted to, and it was certainly no other person's fault that I shut myself away and sought to spite the world by my deviance.
Up until this time, I've faced those pitiful, repulsive, disgustingly self-involved natures that I have within me, sighed a little and then tried to distance myself from those parts of me for as much and as long as possible. It doesn't work; or it does for a while, and then like a brand new rubber band, I snap back and start feeling sorry for myself again.

I want this way of thinking to stop, I want to kill it in a sense. I just want to move on. This childish side of me that fears facing up to responsibilities has been a part of me my whole life and I find that as each year passes, I have less and less room for it. I don't need to move it to the side or put it behind something, I need to throw it out like the trash I took out today. I've outgrown it; when I feel my childish side on the rise it almost feels like I'm trying to put on a shirt that I can't fit into anymore. It feels unnatural to have to depend on my parents the way that I do still. It feels strange to hear my friends talk about what they're going to do in a step-by-step process after they get out of college, and I shift uncomfortably because I haven't given it much thought.

It's time to grow up, and I want to. So much. But it's as out of reach and annoying as that one spot on your back that itches but you can't quite reach it, and always end up scratching around it. I'm not even sure I'm close!

I'm just frustrated right now. I want to work, but I'm worried. Can I do anything for myself?
Being taken care of for the rest of my life and being dependent on another person for my basic needs is actually something I fear. I do not want to live my life without having faced and conquered some hardships, to test the limits of my abilities. I absolutely cannot see myself lounging by a pool and having a pina colada brought to me by some manservant, I can't!
I need to know that I'm not a sponge existence. I need to live and learn.

I need to figure out my life!!