Hmm... a deep public post...
what has Josh come to these days? Junior Year... the Worst-Best year of my life (or the best-worst?) So, as many of you know, I've been struggling this entire junior year. It's been the roughest year of my entire life. Last summer, I was "waiting" for God to show me a "revelation" (wow that sounds really dumb...) to kind of "get me back on track with my life." Obviously, God doesn't do what we want all the time. So, that summer ended uneventfully, and I was still myself. Struggling with the same sins, dealing with the same issues, not feeling close to God, and stressing over the same stuff. There's a reason that junior year was not "fine and dandy." As more and more adversity piled up with the stress of junior year, I finally broke down. I couldn't take it anymore and considered giving up on life. I couldn't see the point of going to school, living in a deluded, dysfunctional society, doing well at every little thing, and being criticized for not conforming to society's rules. I had been rejecting God, relying on myself, and trying to plan everything so that it would turn out "perfectly" my way. Pleasing myself, and everybody and everything around me was the goal. All my time (had I any) was spent on achieving that goal. There were days where I tried to fit 30 hours of stuff into a 24 hour day- and I would be EXHAUSTED- nearly passing out during school and getting sick for a week at a time. When I finally broke down, I realized how much I really don't understand about how the world works and why God puts things in our lives that he does. There's a reason that we can't explain why we face adversity and how everything was created. It's so that we can trust God. The world requires that we strive for excellence and be "better than the rest." We will never achieve it. While my days will still seem impossibly tough, it's good to realize that there's a reason for everything and that there's more to life than living in a society that tells me I'm not good enough, or that I need to conform. I've matured a lot over junior year, both in thinking and also character. I think that I want to be baptized at the next baptism class (fall?). It's been a long, long, long year, but I'm glad that God made me go through with it. If I look back, I will see that I've picked up a lot of character, knowledge, philosophy, morals, time management, decision making skills, and getting my priorities straight. Many things you learn after you've experienced them. This year has definitely been filled with those. As college stresses and decisions come up, I hope that I will learn to trust God instead of trying to do everything on my own. I know that if I leave it to God, the rest of my life will be planned out, and that I won't have to worry about it anymore. | 
