Changes

Changes

 Not everyone is ready for changes. Not everyone really wants them or even needs them. How do we cope with them? What do we do when we face them head on? These are some of the questions that for a long time rung in my mind. I was really scared of changes at some point in my life, and truly, I was not eager to accept them. In fact, I concluded sometime in my teenage years to hate them. I hated changes. With passion! I did not want to lose what I had, nor did I want to explore the possibilities of new things. I wanted life to be immovable. I wanted life to cycle no more. At the end of the day, changes sometimes make you lose things you like, places you have loved, and even people you have adored in life. Changes in some instances were never welcomed in my life. I despised them. Until I grew up.

I found myself lonelier and secluded the older I got. I wanted the company of no one, and past failures made me feel unfit, unwanted, irrelevant, and even not needed. I can’t blame it all on mental health. I was a very active and healthy young man growing up. I had no reasons as a young man to become the person I had turned out to be. But a lot of people hurt me along the way. A lot of circumstances made me feel useless and even emotionally dead. I was feeling sad all the time. I was in a very dark and distant place. Even to my close ones.

It took me some time inside a dark closet fighting with God. These were constant battles where I took the time to remind Him of his promises. I took the time to cry and to scream at Him back-and-forth for everything that was happening to me, and how I felt His slow response to my calling. I argued and spoke to Him all night. Sometimes, the sun came out during my complaints. I desperately needed what I had hated all my life, changes.

But the mysterious and glorious fact that we sometimes forget, is that God’s timing is perfect! Even when it does not sync with ours. Just because He remains quiet and operating slow, it does not mean that He is not working for you. His patience does not imply inactivity. Contrary to those beliefs, His slow response could be happening because of cosmic angel battles in heaven as the result of our cries. It happened to the prophet Daniel, and I now believed that it happened to me too. As the result of this feud with my Creator, many things did change in my life. And although some of them were hurtful and hard to accept, I now understand that they were all happening as the preface to wonderful things being prepared for me in the future. I want to share my favorite three with you all in this episode. 

It has been a couple of years since my last episode was published. That break that I took in between stories was due because of my first change for good. The first great change in my life is that I finished my degree in Science in Business Management at the University of Phoenix. Finally! I was the only one in the family without one. I had left it half-way done in the 90s, in part because of my responsibilities in the US Army, and in part because I truly lost the motivation to go back to school. In the time the last episode of Thoughtful in The Dark aired, I have earned two separate degrees! One in Theology studies from the International Theology University of Miami where I graduated from the Chaplain Ministry program, and another one with the University of Phoenix that I mentioned earlier. It feels good to have those credentials and titles. They will help me outline the rest of my career with more ease.

The second change that came to my life, and that now I know was drafted by God himself, was my move to the state of Arizona. I would have never thought that I would live here! I had no intentions or motivation to even visit the state until all my resume job-hunting responses came almost only from this state. It was as if it was meant to be! I can’t explain exactly how it all turned out, but all I can say is that I get it now. I have a beautiful apartment with the office space that I have always dreamt of. I have neon lights, collectibles, I have a wonderful space to pray, work, and even hit my favorite video games occasionally. I live in a wonderful and quiet community. I am embraced by the warm sunny welcome every morning, and the sound of distant coyotes reminding me that I need to get some rest. It is amazing! I thank God daily for this.

The third change that I would like to share with you all is that I am no longer lonely. Thoughtful in The Dark has been the way I have expressed my sadness and frustration throughout the years as it related to my loneliness and the fact that I have been unlucky in love. This podcast has served as an instrument, a therapy even, of all the bad things that I have gone through and how I have reacted to them all. All these dark places and instances that you may all be aware of have now been toppled by answered prayers and a lot of tears shedding. In the 12th day of February 2024, I became a married man. God led me to find the angel he had sent to earth for me. I spoke about her in the episode Te Encontraré. I have referred to her in imaginary fashion in a few episodes. Not anymore. I found her! Her voice, her body, her spirit, her fear of God is everything I had asked for. She is the ultimate response to hard-fought prayers. And now, I get to hug her every night, looking at the clouds, thanking the Almighty for such provision. He has blessed me in more ways than one! We have plans…so many of them! And by the grace of God, hers are exactly like mines. I can’t wait to see her smile every morning. I can’t resist the way she cares for my health and wellbeing. She is an earthly angel that makes me happy and that reminds me of how great God can be when we allow his time to operate with ours. Even when we get desperate. Three, I have shared only three of so many changes that I have gone through since the last episode, but I wanted you all to know where I am right now: spiritually, mentally, and even physically moving forward. I plan to share at least one episode weekly or biweekly like I used to do, but you will notice that they will be slightly different to what you were used to hearing. This time, I am in a different place. I am where I wanted to be. I am where I prayed God to put me into. In a place where I exist but also live. In a place where the warmth of the sunny day reminds of the love of God and how He can change the things that you sometimes hate the most. Even when those things are the very same, I used to hate…changes!

R. Cortes / 2024