Thin Skinned and Bleeding Inside 1

In my life I been made very aware of many things, about the world, about the people in it and about my place in it.

I know that I am not much.

I don't really excel in most of my endeavors, (or at anything really) and certainly the things I do best are not the sorts of things that will do much to increase my creature comforts or social standing.

I have learned to be ok with that, knowing that God has a plan for me. Some way, some how I will be used.

The reality is simply that I am one of billions, barely a factor at all yet I exist. On my best days I feel almost, but not quite, adequate and this should lend some insight to my bad days.

I was raised in an abusive home, and when my parents fought I was most often simply glad that this time it wasn't me getting the beating. I learned a relationship with music through it as I often turn up my head phones until it all passed.

I was also raised in a home that was without religion our religious influence, barring perhaps the practice of black arts by my mother.

My stepfather hated religion and made no bones about it. (Two divorces growing up, the second of which came as news on one fateful Christmas day.)

I was often told and shown my inadequacies, by my parents, peers and authority figures throughout my growing up years and even still today.

I'm certain that this was in large part due to my struggle with a condition of which very little was known at the time, ADHD. The "H" really standing more for a lack of impulse control more than anything else. This couldn't have made me an easy kid to raise, and I imagine it was the catalyst for many of my parents frustrations and abuses toward me.

It certainly didn't make things easy for me either.

I had very little filter between my inner dialogue and what came out of my mouth most of the time and so I was more (and probably inappropriately) honest than I think most people would have expected from a kid or knew how to handle.

I still struggle with these things but as I grow older God had shown my weaknesses to be his strengths.

The situation(s) during my growing up years was further compounded by living in the town of Mesa, AZ, a block from the Morman Temple. Mesa, if you don't know, is a town who's Morman population was only barely exceeded by that of the Catholic population. I was neither.

I should add also, for your understanding of who I am that we were...well let's just say I was referred to as the poorest kid in Mesa. No air conditioning, no heat, no car, no phone, no lots of things.Yet another factor in making me less than desirable to many.

I was a kid who never fit in... anywhere, try as I might.

I didn't care about sports or cars, I didn't care to rough house, I just wasn't like most boys my age, and finding friends was difficult. (still is)

As I was so misunderstood I was also then excluded from many "normal" things, by my peers. It was a huge struggle to find my place, and figure out just who I was because I was unlike most anyone I knew. As it was then so it is today and in many ways I am still that kid.

All of this to say, if I understand anything at all about grace, it is because I have experienced such a great lack of it at certain times, and a great amount of it at others.

The source of either has always been at the most unexpected times and from the most unlikely of people. So I do not discount the potential of anyone to display either at any given point. We all have good and bad days, some days grace comes with ease, some days it is a struggle, some days it does not exist within us at all to extend, and so it is with me. Forgive me if this is ever the case.

In looking back I see that grace in my life was extended more often than I may have realized at the time. Often the largest grace comes from those who give it secretly.

These, as with many of my experiences were difficult to comprehend at the time but I see now, that having gone through them, they make up in large part who I am today and are probably the reason why I am so sensitive to certain things and callused to others.

That I am alive today and only as messed up as I am is, again, by the grace of God and the faithfulness off his people.

We often only know and appreciate the great wealth we possess when we have known a great lack of it, physically and spiritually speaking.

However, the grace I received was not only from Christians. In fact most of the examples I have of the extreme lack of grace that I have known over my lifetime has in large part been from those professing faith in Jesus and concern for his cause as their motive. Maybe I just remember those experiences more because that is where I thought I should probably have received grace most, so making all the more impact on me when contrary was the case.

I extend the benefit of the doubt when I say that although perhaps well intentioned, the actions of many Christians are very misdirected, and often serve more destructive rather than constructive ends. It does not serve their witness well.

From wherever it was received though, it was a blessing from God. Blessing that are, I believe, the only reason I an as well off as I am today.

I will end here, and continue later.
Think about it.
I'll be back.

d(-_-)b