You know,

One of the reasons that I wonder why some people have a hard time getting to know me is because I'm still getting to know myself. A little history...

I've only been saved for 5 years. I didn't know Christ at all growing up, in spite of the fact that I grew up a Pastors Kid. I hated most of my childhood life, because I hated myself. No one seemed then to actually like me at all. Not my own brothers, my parents, my teachers, really no one at all. I had no one to talk to but myself, the ugly reality that was my life growing up a lonely child that from time to time grew up to be a lonely adult, still hating life. I had nothing going my way back then. I wanted my own life, a genuinely different road to take for myself. The best I could do was to emulate every popular person around me, feeling as if whatever they did, I could copy that since it worked for them, at least it seemed to. I've only been saved for 5 years.

Growing up in church has many downs, especially because if your parents don't realize that you need your own encounter with God, it will only delay that opportunity like it did for me. I'm not blaming anyone, just saying that forcing a 4 year old to say a prayer isn't going to make a hill of beans worth of difference down the road, but spending time not only as their parent, but as a role model and friend will. I had to go back and forgive my parents, especially my dad, for hurting me by taking my ability to trust others around me when I was still a young man. I only feared my dad, never felt safe around him. He always abused my trust and it always caused me to pull away, further and further instead of wanting to grow a relationship with him. It was the same way his dad treated him, and so on. Part of the reason why I want to be a dad one day is to break that cycle of bad parenting, which is also why I've read so many books on marriage, parenting, love and relationships, because it's the one main subject that many in my family have lost touch with and is lacking so deeply throughout. I don't want to pass on the regret and lost time forward to my kids, i want them to have a dad that does trust them, but also causes them to feel safe always to admitting when something is wrong, or when they make a mistake. To this day, it's impossible to admit I made a mistake, covering it up seven different ways because I am afraid of an angry response. I've associated the reaction my dad always gave to ALL my relationships, friends, girlfriends, guys, best friends, everyone.

I think the biggest reason why I didn't get to have a relationship with my dad was because he was always out with other priorites, i.e. the church he was senior pastor to at that time. All he had time for was yelling and sometime cursing me out, because I simply had no one to walk me through life and teach me what I really needed to know to succeed, cause my dad was too busy. Why do I hope to get married one day? Because part of me wants to experience a home that I never had. A home that is peaceful, a wife that is fully invested in her kids in unison with her husband. A chance for me to finally spend all this free time I have right now with my children that don't yet exist and to see before my eyes the difference that establishing a safe healthy place for my kids to find me emotionally will make in raising kids that one day will take that influence and start a new trend.

I'm still learning who I am, because before Christ came into my life, I didn't have a life in the first place.

JJ

Man, getting shafted hurts. I was set to move in, and the crooked seller decided last minute to sell it to a higher buyer and look for a way to shaft me. That doesn't mean it's over for me for buying a house, but oh well, something better is soon around the corner.