pain

Why is it that we often have to go through a very painful time in order to learn the things that we need to learn?
Kind of a stupid question I guess. It's because we don't listen when things are going well. I think God has been trying to tell me a lot of these things for a long time, I just haven't been listening, so he had to punch me in the face and let me do something really stupid and painful to get my attention.
Hopefully this will teach me to learn better in the future. One thing is for sure, I'm a lot closer to God now than I have been in a long time, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a very painful time....my heart hurts so much.

God's teaching me a lot about not living for myself, because I've been doing that for a long time. He hasn't been first on the list for quite a while. I'm learning to live for him, and then for others, and not to think about myself so much.

I'm also making changes in certain things that I do to ensure that I stay away from the things that have caused me trouble in the past...wish I would have done this a long time ago.