The men of Linkin Park are geniuses, and may or may not have had an amazing grasp on the basis of the Atonement. Maybe I'm the only one that likes to analyze popular music for hidden (probably unintentional) Gospel overtones, but seriously, bear with me as I explain the last half of the chorus of the hit song "In the End". Pure gold.
"I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter"
Okay, here goes;
"I had to fall"
I made some poor choices in the past year (and a lot of good ones), but because of that I kinda lost it all. Your confidence takes quite the beating when you realize that you've crippled yourself when it comes to your spiritual life and eternal progression. In the wake of the burning shame for the stupidity I'd engaged in, I decided the best course of action was to double dip and try to one-up the first bad choice I made. Let me tell you now, that is never ever the right choice. No matter how horrible you feel for the way you've behaved, throwing the last vestiges of your caution to the wind is not the best option. And, as a consequence of going all but entirely off the reservation, I spiraled into the deepest depression of my life; worse than when my father died, worse than when I left everything I'd ever known after I was beginning to heal from his passing, even worse than when I came how from my Mission to realize that I had to deal with the real world again.
It truly sucked. In the depths of that depression I had more than a few moments when living was too hard. I was done, forget you all, I'm going to find a way to end it. Now, I'm not the dramatic kind; I was planning to walk into traffic on a major road, a little mess to clean up, but an instantaneous end to all the pain. I was thinking pretty darn selfishly, and I'm ashamed of how I treated those who should have been some of the most important people in my world. Which is where the next line came in.
"To lose it all..."
In going down in my blaze of shame, I created fatal amounts of strain with a lot of the people I loved. The only real friends I had at that point were those from high school, and I alienated the ones at the center of the circle, which created ripples that interfered with (almost) all of the rest of them. Like I said, it truly sucked. But, in one of the brief up-ticks in my blinding, paralyzing depression, I saw enough light to stumble my way into a counselor's office. RJ was truly a blessing from God, and I thank God on a regular basis that RJ was the therapist that I was able to meet. He helped me see just how much crud, crap, and corrosion I had accumulated on my spirit and psyche.
He helped me see that I had to lose it all.
We began the slow and arduous process of descaling, and it took some serious tools to accomplish the initial debridement. Luckily, I gave RJ carte blanche to push me, and I took everything he threw at me and ran with it. Slowly, but surely, I began to see a person I didn't want to end. The person underneath the thick coat of rubbish that I'd assembled wasn't actually a bad guy; he just had some bad habits that needed some serious working on.
I'm still in the process of losing it all; my major landmark is getting nearer, and, now that I can look back from the better side of the halfway point, I've realized that I did some amazingly idiotic things and sinned against an incredible amount of light.
"But in the end it doesn't even matter"
I'm still proving myself. I'm not at the end yet, but from my vantage point I can see a lot of really exciting things. I'm only halfway up the mountain, but looking at the the smog of the place I was and the increased clarity of the place I'm heading, I am filled with an incredible amount of hope. There is a heart-breaking amount of garbage behind me on the path. It's enough to nearly reduce me to a sobbing, surrendered heap sometimes, and added to the stress of classes, it probably would if I didn't have Dr B and Dr B working together to keep me safe and sane. It's incredible, the enormity of my mistakes.
"But in the end it doesn't even matter"
Why not?
Because of Him. Christ is here to comfort me, and in the few precious quiet moments I can find, I feel the arms of my Saviour encircle me.
