"How long, how long / woman will you weep..."

For someone who pursues the life of chaos as I do, I don't handle unplanned disruptions so well. I've blogged before about being something of a control-freak and power-tripper, but the last couple of weeks have been a steady stream of painful life lessons.

I've come through a lot at this point in my life, and much of my current positive outlook is because I see myself as something a wandering hero. I admit that a lot of that is because I indulge in heroic fantasy far more than is healthy, but much of my attitude is backed up by actual fact.
I try to be an upright, honest and honorable man. My failures have been many, and each has taught me something important about myself and life. Each time I've fallen, I've gotten back up with a new view of the world around me.
I haven't blogged in so long - I haven't had consistent internet access in quite some time - there are huge gaps in online record of what's been going on in my life; which has been quite a lot.

I suppose a short version of the last two-ish months could be summed up as follows:
* Went to Chicago to get my stuff; what was to have been a three-day trip turned into a 24-hour nightmare where I was stopped and searched twice by piggish cops and I had to cancel several visits with friends.
* Two days later (still in recovery, since the trip had made me sick), I get hired for a job based in Kansas, and by the middle of the next week (I was home for about 4 days) I was moved and working hard.
* Several weeks later we take a break and go to Chicago for some pro-bono work for the Institute and a wedding. The stay was just over a week, during which I had my beloved external hard-drive, MX Revolution mouse and the new (for me) T42 laptop I'd just spent my last $500 on stolen... And from here on things get interesting because when I got home (back to KS):
* I get fired. And evicted - So it's back to Texas. And I'm broke again. I am staying in a 27' travel trailer that I'm (somehow) going to buy from my parents, and have no job and little enough chance of finding one. *sigh*

To make things more interesting, my sister has decided that I and my family hate her and is moving out. My attempt at talking to her only showed me how angry she is at me (for what she refuses to say), and ended with - believe it or not - her curled up on the futon, hands on her ears and me in tears (yep). I don't really respond well when someone I love pushes me aside.
This is doubly interesting because my life strangely mirrors what's going on in Naruto Shippuuden right now - and it's a well-known fact that when you start drawing connections between anime/manga and real life you have serious issues.
But the point here is that I've had some major hammerblows to my character. I've seen myself as ungrateful, self-centered and astonishingly worried about my destiny. I've suddenly realised I've got a list longer than my arm of friends who've needed help that I failed to provide, in spite of years of training and preparation. When push came to shove, I had to step aside because I couldn't hack it.

But... I also know that my life isn't about my strengths, but my weaknesses. I am only great and powerful when I am useless to anyone. I've been praying recently that God would revitalise my life... And I'd forgotten what following God really meant.
At this point I know that I'm here, now, because I need a good lesson in humility. But in all honesty, this is a really rough path I follow. It's at times like this that even I have trouble remembering to look to the future and trust in God, in spite of all I've been through it turns out I'm human, after all.

*sigh* It's both discouraging and uplifting to realise that. But at least I know my conscience still works.