Depraved and helpless

That’s what I am… depraved and helpless.

You may choose to argue it, but you won’t change my mind. Why? Because that’s what scripture tells me about myself. And the older I get, the more I believe it.

It’s a hard thing to accept about yourself. Of course we all want to think that we can change ourselves if given enough motivation, encouragement or self-help books. The truth is, we can’t. We’re helpless to change ourselves and we start out life totally depraved.

“But, you’re a good person” you may say. Umm… no, I’m not. If the voice in my head was on a loud-speaker, it wouldn’t be pretty. How about your ‘inner-voice’… has it said anything recently that made you even more glad no one can read your mind?

Typically when I leave an event, party or even just work I end up ‘rating’

Who I am Hates Who I’ve Been: Part 1

I tend to be reflective on my life and the lives of those around me. It’s one of the ways I learn. What to do, what not to do, what I should have done and what I’ll never be able to do.

I’ll never be able to go back and change the past, yet there are times when that is my fervent wish. In the movie “Back to the Future” (pts. 1, 2 or 3), we get to live the fantasy that we can ‘fix’ the bad things that happened in our past.

Watching Marty McFly try to repair the past without damaging the future is compelling because we want to do it ourselves. How many times have you heard someone say, “If I knew then what I know now… oh what I would have done differently!”? I certainly have said it! But the reality is we can’t.
Even if we long for it, pray for it and dream about it… the past can’t be wished away or erased. We can only learn from it.

But do we?

In 2006 I shared

Hope for the Soul Searching

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog which inspired me to dust off my keyboard and blog myself! Instead of rambling on her page, I thought I’d pull from her missive and write a bit myself. In essence, this is my response to her – but I think some of you will also have interesting things to share.

She wrote:
“I guess I’ve come into a time of almost forced spiritual growth. It hurts. I don’t like seeing myself as I truly am. Mainly because I’m worried about how others will react when they find out what I’m really like, what my true thoughts are that run through my head daily. If people knew, I don’t think I’d have a single friend on this Earth.”

Oh my friend, I can see myself in your writing. Aren’t you glad your internal monologue is mute to the outside world? It seems the words I let slip out are bad enough, but to realize the stuff I keep inside should be enough for me to never