Ever gotten a new memory foam mattress? I didn’t realize with the first one we ever bought, that they shipped them in a vacuum sealed bag. I took my 96 Dodge 3500 dually to pick it up, fully expecting to have a king sized mattress strapped to the flatbed for the drive home. Instead, I drove home with a box I could have stuffed in the back seat of a small car. We got it home, into the room, and cut the bag, allowing the mattress access to air. Within an hour, it was a king sized mattress and would never fit back in the vacuum seal bag.

Sometimes I wonder if I could get it back into the original bag.  Then I stop and think about that.  That’s not going to happen.  Even if I hadn’t thrown that bag out almost a decade ago.  Can you imagine, trying to stuff a king sized mattress into a tiny little bag, no bigger than 3 feet long, 12 inches wide by 12 inches tall?  Funny story.  It’s kind of like stuffing your PTSD down deep inside and ignoring it.  You can’t.  There’s not enough room to stuff it where it won’t come out and effect anything else.  You can turn out the lights, but in the end, the elephant in the room is going to come out and cause destruction and damage. 

This led to another ongoing problem I struggled with for several years on my own.  An acquaintance of mine phrased it for me when we were talking about it.  He called it his geometry problem.  I’ve always sucked at math.  Geometry was a subject I took in high school because I flunked algebra 2 in the first two weeks of school.  All I remember of geometry is that you can find angles of lines and shapes somehow.  I guess that’s why I struggled with my own version of the geometry problem. 

The problem I had was this: what angle does the barrel of a Glock 19 need to be to optimally blow my brains out when I squeeze the trigger. 

Yep.  That was at least a weekly math problem I struggled with for about 4 years.  Some times it was daily.  But it was my problem, no one else’s.  I wasn’t going to ask for help.  I needed to figure this out on my own. 

An astute reader may have noticed that I’m currently 6 posts into my series, and I have yet to mention God, or His plan for me.  That is intentional.  Why?  Because up until now, God was also something I was stuffing deep into the old vacuum sealed bag, and ignoring.  Or at least, trying to stuff and ignore.  Funny thing about that though.  God refuses to be ignored when He doesn’t want to be.  He might wait for you to reach out to Him, but He’s always ready, and waiting for you. 

In a perfect world, I would be finishing up my tale here, saying I reached out to God, and all my problems are now solved.  In truth, that’s not how this is playing out.  He’s still here, and He’s working with me, but I still have a responsibility to own and work on my part. 

This one’s a bit shorter than the rest.  In truth though, this is almost where the story now begins.  Because you see, this is a different type of story.  A story of hope, redemption, and a return to faith.  A story that will show how God has been working in my life this whole time, up to now, for reasons still yet unknown. 

Hopper’s Journey: Part 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 NEXT> Part 7

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