You Get Used to It

I'll probably get judged harshly by some about the beginning of this, but please read on and you'll get my point. One day I was talking with someone who had multiple piercings. By multiple, I'm talking dozens. She had both ears filled with them, her eyebrows, nose, lips, and tongue and she told me she had many more which were not visible. I'm really not ripping on her, or anyone else who has piercings; I just don't get it. I asked her about them how she got started and how she got to where she is now. She explained about getting her first one and was telling me about how it became "addicting" to her. I asked her about the pain and she claimed that it does hurt, but you get used to it. She told me that she is kind of addicted to the pain as well. I asked her how much it had cost her for the piercings, tattoos, and jewelry and she said she had several thousand dollars "invested" in the tats, piercings, and jewelry. I thought that an odd word and asked her what kind of dividends her investment paid off. She said that to her it was an investment because she enjoyed it. I commented that if I invested something, I expected a return that was worthwhile. So I asked her how much time it took to clean and replace the jewelry every day and she told me that she did not do it every day because it would take too much time. I did not ask her, but I was thinking to myself how if my "investment" was too time-consuming to take care of then I was on the losing end.

Now, all this got my mind racing after I left her and I got to thinking about how people welcome painful things into their lives and get used to the pain to get to where they like it. No, I'm not talking about the piercings or tats anymore. I'm talking about drug use, alcohol abuse, illicit sex, and on and on we could go. I got to thinking about when I was just a kid sneaking my first drink of beer and how I hated that taste, but people told me that I'd get used to it. I did. Same with drugs. The first time I shot up heroin I puked all over the place. But that did not stop me from doing it again. I ruined relationships. Lost jobs. It hurt people I loved. Wrecked cars and went through a lot more money than I care to admit that I squandered. I changed who I was, changed who I ran with, and lost the trust of most everyone around me. But I got used to it. In fact, I laughed it all off. It cost me three years of my life in prison... but I got used to that as well. My point in all this is to ask, "Why do we want to get used to things and situations that are a living Hell?" Why would anyone in their right mind risk so much, not only in this life but eternity, for things that if we would get totally honest about, we did not really want in our lives, at least not in the beginning... until we "got used to them." All I can say is the devil is a master and the deception game and he actually convinces us that we are having the time of our lives... while we are actually miserable and dying for something better.

I've been clean from drugs and alcohol now and serving Jesus Christ for more than 42 years, and to be totally honest... I really cannot remember what it was like to be caught in that trap. I have to really think about it to remember what it was like at all. That's a wonderful thing, to know that I've been completely set free. But it at times causes me to also forget just how deceived I was and therefore, how deceived people around me are. I look at them and ask, "WHY?" The answer is, "Because they are used to it."