Knowing Where We Come From

"Conversion means starting with who we are, not who we wish we were. It means knowing where we come from." -I think this is Kathleen Norris in Dakota, but I'm not sure.

Last year was a significant year in my life. It probably wouldn't look like it on the surface, in fact I agonized over talking about it at parties, but internally a lot of work was done. Looking back, I would say that I began to thaw my emotions. So it was interesting to find this journal entry written during my first year of college:

September 1995:
Lord, I’ve made it through a month of classes. I survived. I wasn’t sure I’d make it there for a while, but I did. Father, whenever I look back, I can see your hand upon my life, but right now, I don’t feel your presence at all. A million things seem to scream for my attention.
I’m sitting here quietly by the stream at Forest Home. We’ve sung praises tons and tons and the focus is on you Lord, or that’s the goal. But I don’t know how Lord, to focus on you and hear your voice. I've become numb. I often feel numb. I fail to express or even to have deep emotions. I can’t or don’t know how to express emotions and I can’t release them within me. When did I turn them off? Is it just the way you made me, Lord?

and this one from a couple weeks later:

September 24, 1995
My weekend at “home” is almost over. I wish I had a home. I wish there was some place I could go kick off my shoes, be myself and feel at home. When I’m at school I’m on guard, watching, learning, imitating. When I’m here (Anaheim), I have my family—-who are stressed out--and my house, which is still foreign. But I don’t know my way around town. I don’t know how to drive. I don’t really like church. I’m still having to always reach out. I’m still learning and watching.

I'm beginning to reflect on that first year back in the States. (I returned to California, to the home of my childhood in July 1995 and started college a month later.) I think I went into a state of shock, where I eventually learned how to imitate behavior that would make me seem like I belonged, but on some level, I never did. I developed really good coping mechanisms for surviving in new environments. But I lost track of who I was or where I came from.