The Emotional Growth Journey Back.

Published by Corey Diggins on September 20, 2025 September 22, 2025

An Identity:

In 2021 I had a stroke and brain surgery that changed my life. I thought I had a Christlike identity but quickly saw that my identity was wrapped up in worldly achievements, possessions and opinions. I’ve been working hard to find my identity in Christ and I don’t just mean saying it because that was the easy part. What I mean is living and recognizing that my true and lasting identity is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. It involves understanding that God, through Christ, has given me a renewed identity, one that is defined by love, forgiveness, and purpose. 

The Bible describes me as known, chosen and loved by God among many other things. Therefore, my job is to love, obey and praise him. Christ lives within me therefore I can live by faith so the world can’t tell me how to live, only Christ holds the throne over my life. He’s forgiven me of my earthly sins and accepted me into his spiritual family. Everyday remembering this identity helps carry me through the day with renewed strength. We are much stronger than we think.

The emotional state you are living in in the “now,” is what you will come back to after a recollection of a past moment. As we recollect a past happy moment to re-live and re-experience emotions and sensations associated with that moment, we’ll come back to the present we were just experiencing before the recollection. If you’re unhappy, the past happy moment cannot change the present but only for a moment than one will return to being unhappy. For one cannot be happy until he lives with nature in the present, above time. Nature makes no reference to former states or better situations, they are as they are, they exist with God–Now.

In Brennan Manning’s, Ruthless Trust he says, “Truth to tell, there is only now.” Reading that line really stuck with me recognizing the value of the present. I remember reading from an old Celtic book “the future is happing over and over again, right now” but really our mind should be of the thought, we’re losing the present to the past over and over again, right now! Our present time is so valuable. Seize the moment today, look at the sky, the landscape around you, watch natures animation of those little critters marching around – And smile, this moment is uniquely yours. 

Lately it’s become apparent that I’ve created an inferiority complex stemming from the trauma that’s developed from my stroke and surgery. I was faced with the greatest challenge of my life up to this point and unless you have gone through a similar experience yourself, you cannot possibly know how I felt. To fully understand these experiences, they simply cannot be described, they must be felt. Consciously and subconsciously inundated with thoughts and emotions of inadequacy and incapability my self-esteem took a beating leading to social withdrawal and loss of confidence in myself. I knew that most all limitations which we impose is from our own minds. However, knowing this still took time to correctly put into practice. 

Additionally, I know we’re very much sociable beings, and one can presume the worst punishment is to be excluded from society, which I was self-inflicting. I can acknowledge solitude as a prescription to a busy mind; but to mostly be alone, I am strongly convinced prolongs our healing.

My faith has commanded me to get my mind entirely off of all thoughts of limitation, and focus on achieving healthy desires. In Napoleon Hill’s book Outwitting the Devil he describes the two entities in our body, “You are entitled to know that two entities occupy your body, as in fact two similar entities occupy the body of each living person on earth. “One of these entities is motivated by and responds to the impulse of fear. The other is motivated by and responds to the impulse of faith.” I’ve choosen the path of faith but I was and am certainly not immune to fear. As I added constant faith thoughts in my mind I’ve diluted the fear. 

I’ve always had the determination to grow out of this funk and it has been no easy journey doing it. I’m constantly reminding myself from William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus,” 

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

It is of most importance I say that “Faith” will not do the work for you. It is an amazing intelligent guide to assist you on your journey, but It’s your efforts toward a desire that brings forth a plan that will get aided. As King Solomon stated in Proverbs 16:9 (NIV) “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Let this remind us that while we make our own plans, God ultimately directs our path and guides our way.

As Henri Nouwen tells us, “One of the most arduous spiritual tasks is that of giving up control and allowing the Spirit of God to lead our lives.” It starts off as our plan but we are best allowing God to guide us with his will. As I have learned to see the sheer love all around me in both good times and in bad, this has allowed me to experience an equanimous spirit. I have by no means arrived anywhere but am coming out of the forest. 

Keep the faith,