Breaking Normal

Ever wake up one day and wonder how you got to where you are? Most people have, I mean all true adults at least. Don't worry I'm not going to tell you how you got there or how to get back to where you want! I don't know how to do that and quite frankly, I don't think I would want to even if I could. But I digress... Lately I have been wondering a lot about how I got to where I am in life. Not in an existential crisis kind of way, more a marveling about the wildness and hilarity of life. I should probably explain a little more in depth.
Four months ago, in July 2018, I was fine. I had a good job, albeit a slightly depressing one at times, working as a juvenile detention officer in Phoenix, Arizona. Work was steady, I was pretty knowledgeable in my career, I even trained the new hires. I had a great group of friends (and still do, just to be clear!), we had all worked together for years and seen each other through some really difficult times.  I lived with my girlfriend, our four cats and one dog. We were a great match for each other, both prior Air Force, both had some mental health issues, but we dealt with them together. We were good for each, cared for each other (and to a point we still do). Of course, life wasn't perfect but whose is? It was good though, nice and on a steady track.
Then I went to visit my family in Kansas City. I thought my parents and brothers were pretty cool even though they were too religious for my taste. If God or church was what helped them deal with life, that was fine by me just don't try to paint me with that same brush. Nope, God and I had a one way only communication generally in the form of terrified prayers whenever really bad stuff was happening. But bad hadn't been happening lately so I had no need for God. The standing deal whenever I was at my parents house on church days was that they would go and I would stay home or one of them might stay with me. It was a nice truce since we had a few difficult years after I came out. Well for some particular reason my parents both had to go to a particular service on Friday night. I had no plans so I thought, "Ehh, maybe I'll go to their church, it'll just prove to them and me that church is just a bunch of people repeating some phrases over and over until they get all worked up. They won't fool me, I'm not a weak minded or weak willed person."
The minute I walked into that church just into the lobby, I knew I had to get out of there! The people were friendly but not in the slightly buggy-eyed church crazed way. And an uncomfortable feeling just kept washing over me, like there was a Power much bigger and more worthy than the tiny minimal respect I had given God. I made it safely through the Friday night service but not unscathed. My brain was now thinking about God in ways I never thought I would ever do again. Ways I swore I would never do again. I gave Him up at the age of 17, willingly and freely, and therefore I figured He wouldn't be bothering me ever again. And yet, after just that one service I was suddenly intrigued because this God seemed much more real than the one I thought I knew so many years ago. So I decided that I would go again on Sunday, just to prove to myself that I was fine and didn't need God.
Sunday was even worse! Now a portion of the pastor's sermon was stuck in my head and I had a yearning to stay and keep coming to church. An itch had begun in my core being and I had no way to scratch it, I didn't even know how to.
I left that Monday to go back to Phoenix and I was miserable! Once I got home, I had the brutal realization that it wasn't home anymore and that I had started down a road that I needed to see to the end. I slowly came to a point that if God was as real as He had felt in that church then I needed to see if He would even accept me. I was pretty sure He wouldn't, since I had really gone out of my way to not follow most of His rules, but I needed to find out. I also realized that if God wasn't as real as He had felt or if I couldn't be accepted then my life had become hopeless and it wasn't worth living. I had somehow been completely broken down mentally in less than a week while living a perfectly fine, nothing going wrong life!
That was July; as of October 1st I have left everything and everyone in Phoenix and now live in Kansas City. I came back briefly in the end of August and I found that not only was God truly real and powerful but that for some wild reason He accepted me and hasn't considered me a lost cause! In less than four months I have gone from a perfectly fine, socially normal life to breaking down and finally allowing the Master Builder to design and create what He wants. So for now I am simply, Heather: Under Construction.