Every Easter our church puts on a production called The Power Of Love, which tells the tale of the life of Jesus, his death, and of course, his rise from the dead.

Every year, they also incorporate a portion at the end that deals with present day, real life situations. Examining the things that we become caught up in. This year, they threw in something a little different. One of the guys stood up on stage, what exactly he was doing, I'm not sure. Selling drugs maybe. Then, the strobe lights began to flash as a horde of demons rushed forward, and snapped chains on his wrists before he could realize what was happening. He fought and fought and tried to run away, and they yanked him back, causing him to crash helplessly onto the ground. As he continued to fight, a door opened, and Jesus entered the sanctuary, moving forward with a team of angels. He called out to the man, who saw him, and at first confused, continued to simply fight against the demons. As Jesus got closer to him, he began to realize, and fought to move towards Christ. The demons retreated back a bit, but did not release their grip. They fought and fought. Jesus stopped when he was standing a few feet from the man, and urged him to reach out and take his hand. The man tried, but the demons were too strong. The demons nearest to Christ dropped the chains on that arm, and ran to help the ones on the far side, and the angels picked up the free chain. A struggle began between the angels and the demons for the young man. Jesus continued to speak to him, urging him to fight and touch His hand. The fight went on for two to three minutes -- every time the young man got closer to defeating the demons, they yanked him back again. And then, he cried out, Jesus spoke, the lights flashed and the demons let go of the chains and fled.

As I watched, I realized, this young man is me. Only. I haven't successfully defeated the 'demons' yet. I'm still stuck in that battle with the angels pulling one way, and the demons pulling the other. I keep reaching out for Jesus, but the demons yank me back the second I touch Him. I know where I need to be, I know where I keep going, but I can't seem to beat the things that keep dragging me down. It's easy enough to decide I don't want to do something anymore, and to work towards stopping it, but there's still plenty of times where I get caught back up in doing those things before it really dawns on me what I'm doing.

What I have to really figure out is what is it that is preventing me from breaking those chains? The desire to do so is certainly there, the belief, and faith, and passion is there, but yet I can't seem to make it past a certain point. Is it because I lack the influence of other Christians who are not only at my level, but who think, feel, and understand the same way I do? I'm sure a lot of it has to do with personal things I need to overcome.

Confidence is one of them. I'm working on that. I think in the last few months, I've come a long way. I'm not so pleased with my looks, or my weight, but I'm learning to be able to appreciate it sometimes. Rather than waking up every morning, seeing how I look and thinking 'I don't measure up to any of the girls in my class', I can at least see myself and think 'I look alright today.' There are definitely still moments where knowing that I am the least good-looking girl in my year really gets to me. It's not that I'm horrible looking, which is something I need to remind myself, I just happened to end up in a year where all the girls are drop-dead gorgeous. They got the luck of the draw in the gene pool, but I have to really learn to realize that not everyone gets that. And you can still be good looking without it.

I complain about a lack of friends a lot. But it's not really a lack of friends. I have an abundance of friends and acquaintances, but they're not the type of people I can call up just to chat. What I'm lacking is close friends. Even 'A' close friend. When Carrie and Sheena turned on me, I lost the two people I was close with. Carrie had been my best friend since the tenth grade. To go that many years having someone super-close, to having no-one, it's hard to adjust to. But, I think I'm starting to adjust. It still hurts. I still get depressed and lonely. But I'm getting used to it.

Relationships and guys it seems are a never-ending problem. I was speaking with Marisa about this not too long ago. For some reason, I feel my worth is determined by whether or not someone is with me. And it doesn't make sense, because I know that's not true, I just can't seem to FEEL the fallacy in it. It's difficult to integrate back into my church as well because other than a couple of us, everyone is in serious relationships, engaged, or married. We've grown up together, and now, it almost makes me feel as if something must be wrong if they're all taking this next step in life, and I can't even seem to get a date, let alone a steady boyfriend.

Maybe these three things are the reasons I can't break the chains. Maybe I need to overcome those to take the next step. They're the only constant I can see in how I've been that could be preventing the forward motion.

Whatever it is. I need to find out. And I need to find out soon.