Grace is Real!

Being home seems to put me in a trance. I feel like I lose my sense of self. I feel like I lose myself in the obligations I'm expected to keep. To survive peacefully here I feel like I have to sacrifice my identity.

The worst part about it is that it happens so naturally. Without fail being home has let me to binge on distractions, chiefly food and pornography. I compulsively maintain a level of detachment deeper than usual. Something here drives me to escape myself.

But this time...no. I pretty well covered my resolve to get real, here and every where. The results are in. They hate it. I've been forthcoming about the desires of my heart. I stopped trying to be what I thought they wanted. I just said what I wanted. I said what I believe, without apologizing, without letting their opinions rule me.

I ranted and raved and let it loose. It started by my brother telling my dad how upset his emotional absence made him. Then I joined in and start ripping into him. But then it changed. I realized that picking my dad apart would only leave me empty, with no one to be but "not him". My parents always said that no one loved me more than they did, but they never said God loved me most. So I believed them, for awhile. Then I realized that they could not fulfill my needs. And I was pissed. I set out to expose them as a fraud. I have, for so long been obsessed with revenge, with making them pay for the lie. Tonight I let them off the hook. I stopped worshipping them. I won't have to compromise my needs and peace. I won't have to pretend that I'm desireless to God. He won't be disgusted or enraged by the mess of me. I told them that God's promise means everything. I told them that I would no longer quell my desires because God created me with them. I also said that they told me lies about what I could ask of God. That was a real popular comment. I drove it home by saying I'm sick of being controlled by all the expectations imposed by this family and I am absolutely through being control by shame. About that point my mom interjected with some pretty intense judgements.

I'm selfish, I talk incessantly and only think of myself. I control every conversation, and I am a huge hypocrite, preaching theology and not living any of it. These are true things, and my mother kindly pointed them out. I responded by saying that it was true, but I wouldn't be dragged back into the pit. That just made her more angry. My heart starting beating pretty fast. I was tempted to engage.

But I didn't.

I made the break. I maintained my solidarity and peace even though what she was saying was true. For maybe the first time, I faced the harshest judgement from the person who probably has the greatest ability to hurt me, and I endured it. Grace prevailed!

I went out for a drive.

While I was driving I try to make sense of it all, but I ended up just asking God if he still loved me. That was all I needed. It's still enough.

I came home and told my dad sorry for condemning him, and told my mom that she was right about me.

Another new day with the God of the Universe. I wonder what is next.

:)

Home

Here I am. I guess I'm not going to finish the story about eating the mushrooms. The only important thing is that Jesus was there, and is still here. He never gave up on me, and I was amazed and fell in love with a savior.

I am home. I use the word loosely. I'm at this place where my biological family gathers every Christmas, staring at the Christmas tree decorated as it has been for as long as I can remember. Something stagnant about this place. Perhaps it's me.

I feel very stifled. I'm a sinner, a redeemed creation with a demand to express myself as sure as my very existence. I will express myself. The variable factor is how I will choose to do so. I want to love these people that look so much like me. I really do.

...but, it is hard.

My scars come from this place, and these faces. Not all of them, but the worst ones.

The memories haunt me. Like ghost among the living they remind me of the consequences of being cursed. I remember how the wounds reopened time and time again when I refused to swallow my impulses to be heard. I simply could not fit into the mold. I struggle very hard to believe I had much choice in who I was as a child in this house. All the turmoil and vicious wars of words. To think that I chose to suffer so bitterly. The only way I can stomach the memories is to think that I must have been compelled to be who I was by virtue of those around me. Why else would I be so monstrous? I had to be. I must have had a good reason. The worst of it was and still is the responsibility.

Being here with them all now restores the pangs of guilty responsibility. I feel the weight of expectation and condemnation. There is no way for me to be here and be me without arousing tempers. To be free and express myself in an authentic way will cost me. It will cost me the illusion of safety this family projects.

If I just am who I am here without engaging in the sick carousel of enmeshment that this family is, I commit treason. As my mom used to put it, "You're bombing your own harbors". People feel left out, I'm selfish and basically a big jerk. The other option is to engage and that inevitably ends in conflict or desolate "peace".

So what am I going to do?

Treason of course.

I am God's child. That is my primary role and responsibility. If, in being that, I get to enjoy my family, great! But, if my commitment to be true to myself and Him is something that they do not like, or percieve as a threat, well too bad. Nobody is telling them they can't be their own person. If I engaged them in the roles of our past, the sickly codependency, then I would only be reinforcing their own denial of life.

I will not be controlled by guilt. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, and I will not be compelled by it any longer. I choose to be moved by the love of God that has been planted in me.

Phew. I feel good.

Lost...

Time for me to purge again.

Blech.

I feel so mellow today. As a writer I fear that calm is the death of passion. What have I got to say if I'm not thrashing around like a caged animal? Maybe I'm just medicated. No, well...yes. I am medicated. But I also have Jesus. I know that he's there, striving for me, reaching to me regardless of my resistance. Knowing that changes everything in me.

So much has happened to me in the last week that feel urgently relevant to my trajectory toward God. I hesitate to make an attempt at capturing it all. I would hate to cheapen the things my savior has shown me in trying to bottle it in a blog entry. I will try anyway because in the broad view God has shown that he will not be cheapened, cannot be cheapened.

I ate some mushrooms about a week ago. I had hoped that I would achieve some renewed sense of God. I wanted to feel like I had a handle on the events that were shaping my existence. My grandma dying and and my hatred for my father may have been catalyst. Also feeling like a demon in disguise. So I ate the drugs, plunging into the depths of whatever was there.

It started out really nice. I felt emotionally lucid, like I could express love or hatred to anyone without flinching. I felt like the weight of my soul was finally connected to my consciousness. The words that came out of my mouth dripped with meaning and sincerity. But then came the reckoning that I would soon sober up. Morning was only eight hours away. I had grabbed for a something that would not last. This wasn't right. I started to feel sick. I went in the bathroom and tried to make myself vomit the drugs. They wouldn't come, so I curled on the floor and hollered at my friend in the living room that I was scared.

Some time later I emerged from the bathroom and decided bed was the best place for me, as if I could sleep. The next thing I remember was screaming and trying to claw my way under my bed. My friend (who will remain unnamed for his privacy) tried to pull me out, then I bolted for the kitchen. What happened in my mind was a determination to execute the urge in my soul: surrender to destruction. I felt as though my body and soul were crinkling into a twisted pile of metal. What happened from my friend's perspective was that I dove for the wall above my stove scattering the tea boxes and spices to the floor. I claimed that I was "coming through the wall" and in my mind I felt as though I had to. He pulled me down and tried to restrain me, and I slithered out of his arms to the ground. Then in intervals I wailed out a primal scream. I felt inside I was being challenged to expression. I engaged the call. Then I was spent and returned to my bed.

As I laid there things started to loop. I pulled my face under my covers, rubbed my nose, looked over at a book called "Loving God", then at the guitar cable hanging off my amplifier, then I sat up and spoke to my friend. Then the loop would begin again. Each time, though it was infinitely different than the last and terribly fascinating. In my mind names and faces flew through and I spoke them at random. At this point I lost touch with reality severely.

Names and images from my past, intermingled with images from a book called "Clan of the Cave Bear" all congealed into a panorama of bliss. I heard music and created it as I wanted, feeling as though it was an extension of my soul. Then things got weird. I started blurting out everything I could imagine, uninhibited, surrendering to the perversion that gripped me. All I can remember is that it had to do with penises and vaginas, and it made me feel so incredibly daring at the moment and later overwhelmingly soiled and guilty. In the bliss of the moment I was somehow lead to believe that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived and the way I felt was the culmination of my long-suffering faith. I thought, I have waited so long and this is so unexpected, of course it is real. At long last Jesus has returned and I am never going to suffer again.

I laid there believing that the Kingdom of God was really upon me, within me. I felt as though I was at last made one with God. I felt music flow through me and I was creating the beauty I had sold myself to. I let go entirely. I remember at some point my friend standing over me, speaking. I must have tried to explain to him that God had established his dominion and our faith was finally vindicated. Then I felt a warm wetness between my legs and the pleasure of release. I had peed.

I believed that nothing could invade the peace and joy that was mine. I really committed to the thought that there would be no more tears, no more pain. This is the only way I can gesture toward the emptiness the surfaced when the piss in my bed started getting cold. I got up and wandered to the bathroom, stripped and sat down in my bathtub. The water was too hot, then too cold and the light too bright, but the dark too empty. There was no comfort and the illusion shattered. I started crying.

I gave up on the shower and tried to sleep on the floor, avoiding the mess in my bed, but then returned to my filth. I laid again in my bed hoping to warm the urine soaked mattress to fall asleep.

Sleep would not come. Crying quietly for my fear and shame, trying not to wake my friend, I stared at the dark wall. I rose, dressed myself and told my friend I had to leave. Wrapped in a blanket, I set off in to freezing night, tears streaming steadily, blurring my vision as I stumbled along.

To be continued....

Guilt

I wish I could take a sponge and soak up my thoughts and squeeze them all out on to the page.

I think it's probably futility to try to really express myself in words, perhaps any medium. Vulnerability and honesty are enough, I suppose. Enough that you might be able to translate some of these pictures into a relatable story.

I don't why I'm about to say what I am, maybe I need to feel in control, maybe I just want you to get me. Either way, what I want to say to you is this: please let go and flow with my words. Don't try to understand them, just let them evoke whatever image comes to you from the arrangement of common words I've made. Okay?

The thing I feel now is guilt. There is a line in "The United States of Leland" when a girl tells Leland that she doesn't want to hurt him and he replies, "Then don't." I waver between thinking that I am some sort of anomaly of humankind and thinking that what exist in me must somehow exist in everyone in some way or another.

I hurt people. I do it because it feels good an safe. It makes me feel alive somehow, yet it also pushes the horizons of my guilt further. I want to be close to people. I think I do anyway, but when the prospect of getting close to them arises, nevermind.

FUCK.

There is just too much pain. The f-word doesn't have the edge that it used to. No, I can't seem to expel the rage and hatred in me with that societal weapon. Deeper more insidious forms of manipulation and emotional rape are my way. And here I stop and wonder: is it so insidious because I interpret them as such, or is it the truth? Ugh. What a drag of a thought. It's just begging the universe to paralyze you, like staring into the sun and then crying that you've been blinded.

My grandma is dying. She will probably die tonight. I wept over her two nights ago, screaming choking, losing myself in the grief. That's the beautiful thing about pain, you can forget who you are. You can forget everything and just be. It forces the 'now' on you, and I like it.

My dad is grieving too. I don't want to share with him what I know to be the same pain. I don't want to meet him on the human plane. The story of my life. I pine and pine for connection, and when real opportunity arises, the curtains pull back exposing the self-pity machine churning away, puking out the black smoke of my soul.

I told my mother about how I didn't want to see his face, considering the ineveitable encounter of the funeral. I want to be the star, I want my grief to be greatest. That's the truth. It's disgusting, I know. I would like to say that it's about my grandma and how much I love her. It's not. It's about me crying about how I never got what I really wanted from her. I never gave her access to me, never showed her how much longing I have. I never showed her my desperation. When I cried, I cried because she was leaving. I cried as if she was already gone. But she's not.

Evidently she is nearly comatose, drugged to oblivion and barely able to breath much less speak. To be honest I am slightly relieved, I've missed the boat. I will most likely never get to tell her what I feel. Sure, I've told her I loved her plenty of times, but I've never expressed it. Such a selfish thing, it seems, so greedy and destructive my love, or whatever it is that drives me. In any case, I could never have imposed that beast on my poor grandmother.

I did send her a letter telling more than I had ever shared with her, and she never responded. The day before I heard about her state I remembered the letter and hoped to find a reply in my mailbox. I will never get one.

A man named Dan once said that the African woman you see laying on a coffin sobbing has it right. She sobs because she is left behind. Grandma is going to heaven. Soon she dance and sing and do cartwheels with Jesus. Soon I will be laying in my bed alone in my apartment, wondering if I'm really crazy or if it's all an act.

I feel guilt. Grandma did so much for me. Was she really like me, dark and deceitful, secretly selfish? I don't know. I'll never know.

Mom said to me, "Your dad is in a lot of pain, more pain than you, so you need to be there for him."
I replied "Why should I? He wasn't there for me."
"If you can't deal with your dad maybe you shouldn't come home for Christmas."
"Fine." Click.

I feel guilt. How can I do the right thing? He disgusts me. He is me. I hate him, no matter how hard I try to accept him.

I fear I will never know what love is.

In the midst of this, I am a child of God, a new creation. Perfect, holy, acceptable, pleasing and loved by God.

Don't ask me how.

I feel crazy.

wreck

I want so badly to express myself right now, but I fear to be so downright negative.

I am wrought with guilt and despair.

I must be losing my mind. I wonder if this is what is to be damned. Taking stock of my life makes me think that I must have fallen from grace. I have only descended further and further. And if I haven't, if I'm only deluding myself to fuel self-pity, then I cannot seem to stop.

The truth seems unattainable. "Jesus forgives my sins". What does that mean to the guilt I feel? How do I believe? Is it as simple as saying that I believe?

The dictionary says: "to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so".

Have confidence in Jesus? I believe all my questions serve as a diversion to avoid action. Oh, fuck me. I'm so tired. What am I supposed to do?

God,
I'm so desperate. My mind and body have betrayed me. I feel I have no where to run. I can't seem to come to you, I can't stop sinning. I can't help falling deeper and deeper into the darkness. I'm compelled to sound competent when I know I'm not. I'm compelled to seems strong when it's obvious how weak I am. I snap like an crocodile when any sort of "love" gets near me. I can't stop pretending to be everything that I'm not. I can't break through to know you. I'm afraid that if I invite you in you will be offended by the teeth that sink into your hand, so I pretend that I don't really want to hurt you. What am I to do with myself? I'm killing myself. Everyday I'm wasting away.

Please turn this around. I can't do a thing.

Art/God/Passion

Embracing a "career path" in music might be the most elusive thing I have tried to do.

Reasons being:

1.) I haven't got the background. I taught myself most of what I know, and during the tutelage I have recieved I was off in La-la Land.

2.) I don't know what a "musician" does, other than play music. I know I've got that down, but shoot-dang...isn't there more to it?

3.) I haven't got the means for a proper education. I'm broke!

4.) I am about as anti-social as I've ever been. I'm pretty sure this is a networking kind of endeavor.

5.) I feel like a shut-in. Getting out of my apartment is hard enough. How am I gonna make a living publicly exhibiting myself as a piece of art?

Nevertheless, I trudge on. When I started this pursuing the vague idea of professional musicianship perhaps the biggest appeal was the tremendous hurdles that it entails. Maybe I'm addicted to the futility, maybe the challenge. Whatever it may be, I find myself interminably drawn to it.

The fullness of my commitment to music is stifled by one factor: rejection. What happens if I call myself a musician and someone laughs at what i do, or judges me insufficient. I'd be devestated. Much safer to toy with it from the outskirts, saying,"I play music." rather than "I'm a musician."

What is to be gained by claiming it as part of my identity? What is to be gained by putting my entire self into the pursuit? Worst case, I gain the knowledge of what I can really accomplish, for better or worse. If I hold back something I will always wonder if it was the missing piece, the one that would have got me to the goal.

Rewind a second here. There is a part of this whole treatise that has been unaddressed. Terms of success. What constitutes a win in the game of music? Popularity? Wealth? Respect of other musicians? I suppose that I can't answer that without bringing the question into context with Reality as a whole. Jesus, Love, and God's Plan.

What if I do win all those trappings? What is making it big if I lose my soul? The question must change now to,"How can I pursue music in a way that is submissive to God's will?" God is a creative being. Emulating him that way isn't evil, but to what end? Am I building an edifice to Him? How can I?

One thing is certain to me: using music a tool to do anything but glorify God inevitably takes the joy from it. Coming from the standpoint that life in all applications can be worshipful if the application issues from a Spirit-filled heart, I guess that I would need to offer my will up at all time to be traded the Will of God, the Holy Spirit.

For some reason that seems to simple to me. A nice, neat bow on top of this heart-crushing problem. I think this time I'll just take it. I'll just taste and see if the Lord is good.

Negative

Two is the number of people that have told me I'm the most negative person they know. I wish my first thought had been "you've had a weak sampling of humanity if I'm the worst you know." But instead I was just hurt beyond words. The two will go unnamed but I will say that they both hold places in my life that gave them leverage to really make it deadly to say what was said.

An painfully ironic parallel exist amongst these two. They are both women and they both people I set out to please without reservation. What can I say when my best efforts toward another human being are met with such disapproval. No wonder I've been so isolated the last few months.

In the past I would call this state "being broken" but I'm beginning to think that it is the truth about me and I am just coming to terms with it. I'm not being broken I am broken. I try so hard to live right and it all come crashing down. Something is MISSING!

Now. I've spent the last month under the deepest cloud of depression I have ever known. I'm floundering trying to make a living at something I don't know how to do. I have no friends and I do not exagerate. I have severed every tie in my heart for fear of the rejection-death I have known so well in this life. I can't take any more hurt and my heart is growing cold. I've finally conceded to taking medication, and yes, the symptoms go away if I am faithful to my new god, but the temporary nature of this reprieve tugs at the coattails of my mind.

When my mind is broken and my thoughts only as good as the context they are framed, I face the beast of dreadful nothingness, helpless as a orphan.

Wow, sorry that got dark fast. Anyway, negativity. I had a dream last night and in it I embraced my brokenness, and accepted the futility that I have inherited. I dreamt a moment of peace thereafter.

In simpler terms I think that I need to accept my identity as an addict. Yeah, I do. I have had enough experience to see that I am. Yeah, it's not getting any better. It is not going to go away. I'm tired of fighting it. The outcome really is in God's hands now. I finally am what I am.

Wow, just saying that, it makes the pain of those accusations go away. I am the most negative person. It's true! I am a sex addict, too! A pervert, liar, a greedy little gollum of a man: all me.

If all see what I truly am, the world would certainly turn away from me. A few people have gotten close, and they ran. I have tried to hide and polish up who I really am, my true heart for a long time. I've wanted to make the world think me a great man; I wanted to make them love me. I'm so tired of the charade, so tired of worshipping them. The jig is up. God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Luke 18:9-14

We are drifting away...

I fear to write anything because doubt plagues my every thought. Call it a perpetual existential crisis. Call it being addicted to futility of thought. Whatever the name for this state shall be, one thing is certain: reality is bigger than my mind and the relations between them oscillate from gentle love to vicious rape.

My battle in life seems to be contained in this so-called crisis. Struggling to land on the Rock, and find myself therein. The digging only stops when I choose the bedrock that Jesus is. The mystery doesn't cease but the threat of it does.

The "digging" usually centers around my motives; scrutinizing my true heart and grasping for the bottom of it. It usually proves to be a maze that grows in correlating spurts to my effort. The rest comes when I throw my hands up and scream for rescue.

The easiest thing in life is to be still. The only problem is that it is against our nature entirely. Ironic, how frantic effort leads to dysfuntion, stress, guilt and futility and faithful stillness leads to ease, peace, inspiration and accomplishment.

I think I may tattoo that to the back of my eyelids.

Did you forget to take your meds?

This question haunts me.

I remember the first time I heard it. Summer day at church after a service, people mulling around, my mother schmoozing, my brothers and I wrestling. I use the term wrestling lightly here to mean me wrangling and terrorizing them. My mom noticed what a ruckus we were causing and snapped into the dreaded you're-gonnna-get-it-later face. To the unexperienced this can be like jumping into a puddle and finding it far more shallow than you hoped, and jarring your knees and ankles as you impact with the solidity of concrete too soon. Her face was filled malice only her children could detect, but to the observing world she was only slightly amused and annoyed at our antics. The depth of her embarassment would only be known through our latent suffering at her whim. This time she though she grabbed me by the arm and whispered in my ear the curse/question: Did you forget to take your pill?

My stint off medication came to an end recently. I almost lasted a year, a real accomplishment, if you ask me. I've spent a pretty huge chunk of my life on medication so finding "freedom" was so heady. Unfortunately it all came crashing down when I was hospitalized for depression and diagnosed Bipolar II a couple weeks ago. This was coming, I'm afraid. A self-fulfilling prophecy that began it's lore with my first prescription at the ripe old age of 9. The sentence of inadequacy probably began much earlier. I fear that the dependency of drugs has been ingrained in me before I knew any better. Thus I will never know if the drugs work because I believe that I need them and that they will work, or because they actually do.

You may ask, as I have,"Why does it matter, if it works?" The answer is pride and authenticity. Pride because I don't want to need anything or anyone. I want to prove every single bastard that has said I should be on meds wrong. Everyone that has looked down on me, thought themselves better than me, and wrote me off, this is a hatred driven combat. Authenticity because I want to be real. I don't want to be the product of a drug. I don't want to know that a pill I take is the difference between being functional and invalid. The struggle in whole is very much like allowing Christ to be my savior on a daily basis. I have to admit that I am an invalid, that that is my identity; it is me. And to accept that help that medication offers me I have to come to peace with that fact. Same with Jesus: I have to admit that I am corrupt and invalid, that I need a savior before I can receive salvation. This parallel has been the grain of sand that tip the scale.

I still hate that I had to land my self in a psych ward to come to the place, but at long last I have been broken down to really accepting salvation however it comes. I'm beginning to think that real medication is the attitude, not the pill.

It's about time to get back on...

http://iguessimfloating.blogspot.com/

Neat.

Conflict of Interests

I'm alive and I am dead. I am black as night and white as snow.

Every time I've ever thought, "Wow. I was such a fool!" was preceded by a moment when I thought, "I'm a genius!" I've thought I figured life out so many times, thought I found the missing piece that would change everything. Maybe this is uneccesary reverse engineering, but I can't helped but feel duped everytime I reach a new level of "glory". Maybe someday I'll stop thinking, "Wow, this is so amazing, but what a sucker I was to think it was good before."

I suppose that I need to trust God a bit. Afterall, things have gotten consistently better. Even though the paranoia that pangs on my mind is strong, I think I'll be okay. So tempting, so seductive and convincing that voice that beckons me to consider my blindspots. It whispers,"You can never know what a fool you really are, just think of all the idiotic things you have done with great gusto. How do you know you're not just charging down another dead end?"
Jesus doesn't always seems to offer answers, but he does calm my nerves.

If only I would trust him.

And even the longing is a rebellion, crying out this futile plea whilst qualifying the kind of help I will really recieve. I need to be rooted and renewed, because my very cry of weakness are still littered with foulness. Throwing my hands up and letting go I find peace.

The choice so often seems to be this: Walk the path that I have known and worn into smoothness that leads to no where, or venture anew down the wild trail through woods uknown into indefinite risk and potential.

Oh Jesus, my love, how I long to stop hurting you, betraying you. I don't understand much. The thing that remains certain is this need in my heart, the neccesity to fill it and your ability to do so. I am ever-baffled by my unwillingness to stay with you. I don't know why I run away, and ignore you. I'm so easily fooled by the lies the float through the air like wisps of poison. My friend, my lover, I am such a wreck without you. Please come rescue me with your love. I want to be swept away by your deep waves of affection. I want to be awe by the wisdom you possess. I would lay at your feet and listen to you voice for ever. Speak to me my sweetest.

Listless

Blah.

The Sun

Hang it all! That blasted orb.

Say it. It is fun.

It comes out, revives me from the ranks of the living dead, then LEAVES. Oh, what I would (will) give for the day when there will be no more darkness. Heaven seemed like a such an exorbitant fantasy a week ago, but now I feel its pull, its weight. I discovered how much power light has. Funny, how I used to relish the gloom of Seattle, the sun burning my eyes. But this spring when I felt my heart lift and sing at the arrival of light, the hopelessness of dark was exposed in contrast. How I long for the warmth, the freedom, security of light. The physical characteristics of light are not a far distance from the power of God's love. This spring brought with it an understanding of Jesus being light. I somehow don't think that heaven , in this sense, will be metaphor.

Today I pined for my heavenly home, when I will no longer wonder how long the sun will shine before I'm plunged back into the dark. Not too long now, and I'll bask in his eternal light.

Implode

The self circles in on itself, spiraling tighter and tighter, collapsing into infinite futility. The self-imposed moral standards prevent any true accomplishment of love. The only result is self-hatred and thus death. I've been pioneering this darkness and I finally reach its ultimate culmination.

This is how it happened.

Hebrews 6:4-8
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

Hebrews 10:26-31
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." ³¹It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God

I read these verses, took a look at my life, and determined that I may be one who had "enlightened" and then fell away. I had sinned deliberately, sleeping with a girl and rejecting the truth of the cross to resist temptation. The state of my life was one where the fruit of the spirit were not clearly evident. Self-centeredness was the chief trait of my life and acknowledging my destitution of spirit brought out the self-pity.

With no certainty that I was or wasn't the person being described in these passages I fought to "believe". I struggled to claim Christ as my own, yet I constantly questioned myself, saying, "What if you're just lying to yourself so you don't have to face the truth of your fate? Face it: You're doomed. Screwed. You blew it." Thus I confirmed my own fears.

As this struggle continued gradually wearied of the strivings to believe in Jesus' work for me. One night after much agonizing I decided to sit in bathtub and pray. The just-bearable heat of the shower and the pitch black of the bathroom afforded me the perfect stage for what was about to happen.

I screamed to God,"Please help me believe!" I sat there. Only more stony-hearted futility. I felt the darkness encroaching all around. The night terrors that had visited me so many times before reeked of the same stench emmanating from this spiritual place. I contemplated the options as the walls of my reality steadily closed in on me. To continue trying to believe now seemed as preposterous and hopeless as giving in to the flesh that was champing at the bit, waiting to run amok. I then conceded to the ineveitable. I could not control my flesh any longer, I could not "believe" it into submission, and I was irreparably lost. God had left me.

In I went, to the deepest commitment to the flesh. I felt my heart collapse, knowing only terror and stark emptiness, stuck in an endless loop of futility. In the face of crushing loneliness I couldn't cry or even utter a sound. I only sat and stared in shock, knowing that life had left me.

But then, as if there had never been darkness, I knew that God was in control. Out of the impenetrable darkness shone a Light. I knew that He was there, and that because He was there He loved me. I was dead for but a moment, completely crushed by my own weight, then He breathed life into me. Creatio ex nihilo.

I got up out of the bathtub and dried off. The implications of this moment didn't occur for a few weeks. I have been shown exactly what my own abilities are good for. I really believe now at the most fundamental level that God must do everything. As much as I wanted to do what I ought to do, even at a mental level, I could not. My assurance is God's promise, nothing I can do can alter that because He is faithful. I didn't know what a weapon against the attacks of the Devil this harrowing moment in my bathtub would yield, and moreover, what a joy it is to know that I am chosen.

All power really is His. I am His because He plucked me from the pit and shown the faithfulness He promised me. I have been through the bottom and Love is deeper.

Leviathan

God,

Remember me. Please.

I thought having a contrite heart would be a walk in the park. Self-actualization this is utterly depressing. Needing you is desperate and hopeless save for the possibility that you will deliver me. Please. 

You know I cannot even believe that you would save me. I know that you can, but that you will, well, that's a bit more difficult. You took it away. Please give it back. It appears to me that I cannot receive anything that you don't give. I'm lost at sea, the sea of my sinful thought. Draw me to you. Rescue me from swells of doubt. 

You're my only hope.

Whateva

Whoops. Didn't proofread the last two posts. Neither am I going to.

Welcome to my new day.

The past is what it is. The future is secure. And the present, well, I'm working on the that.

What does the present become if you've read the last page of the story? How does knowing the end affect the "now"?

Let's say life is a book. (Haha.) I read the last page of the book, and find out that prince rescues the princess, the dragon gets slain and the kingdom abides in peace forever and ever. What does that foreknowledge do to the chapter I'm reading right now?

In God's logical, does that narrow the possible outcomes of any given situation? Would I be presumptuous to ascertain what is logical to hope for in this life based on the presumed outcome? Or does hope defy all standards of logic at it's human limitations?

What about Abraham? God tells him the end of the story, at least in his context, and then the circumstances get doubtful. He hangs on against all common sense. He obeys. If he hadn't been obedient would God have still fulfilled His promise to Abraham? Was his faith part of the promise?

I'm just going to stop right here, because this train of thought's last station is Futility. Phew, glad I got off before then. Finally, a little real common sense. I suppose this is a good spot to confess my utter dependence on God for the very spark the lights the fire of my thoughts. Yep. Understanding, I believe, is in the actualization of God's words. Did I choose to act and then recieve affirmation, or did I act because I was affirmed? Who knows? What I do know is that I have seen the God is good, and I will pray to continue pursuing his mystery in all aspects of my life.

Garbage

Last night I came home to the stench of toffee nut syrup. A garbage bag I intended to take out three days earlier had burst at the bottom leaking the entire contents of the syrup bottle across the kitchen floor. It had been a strange day of emotional whiplash thus far and I thought maybe taking care of the looming mess on my floor would be a good start on the mess in my head.

My friend Travis had just called and told me that he didn't feel like hanging out because he was "tired". I silently raged at him for bailing out, when secretly I didn't want to hang out either. I said, "Fine, whatever,"and hung up.

With new bag in hand, I stood there contemplating how to recapture the refuse. I started by lifting the bag from the top while simultaneously positioning the new bag underneath, all the while avoiding the puddle of sugar. The old bag ripped and splashed down in the syrup. I screamed,"God just fucking help me! Why are you letting this happen to me?" Infuriated at the mess that was threatening my sanctity, I had another go and surprisingly I managed the the pile into the new bag. Washing the syrups off my hands, I prayed aloud,"Help me, help me help me..." My phone rang. Travis.

"You can come over if you want," he said.
"I'll be there in twenty." Begrudgingly.

I carried the mess down to the dumpster, still fuming at my God's silence, and started down the alley toward Travis' apartment. Two blocks down I spotted a man in the shadows, and began to pray for protection. As I drew near, I saw what this guy was up to.

In one hand was a piece of cardboard cradling unidentifiable food stuff, and the other hand was was industriously digging for sustenance in the dumpster. When our eyes met we exchanged shame and hunger.

I walked past him and ducked into an entryway and cried.

Out of the Wreckage

I have felt for so long that I have hemmed myself into this isolation. The very loneliness that defines my inner soul is the thing that has kept me lonely. I fear I may put down my shield and sword in surrender and be cut down rather than receive mercy.

The answer I've been clinging to for the last six months is that I just need to trust in God for intimacy and protection. Then I won't be so scared, then I won't be so desperate. If only I could just trust in God.

I honestly don't know. Do I take off my armor and let the act of stripping be a proclamation of faith? Or do I wait for the confidence from divine affirmation to do so? The first option seemed impossible just weeks before, until I did a "fifth step".

A "fifth step" is what Sexaholics Anonymous calls the act of "admitting to God and to another person the exact nature of our wrongs" and I did it. I made the list ( a "fourth step") then I read all thirty five pages of it to my sponsor. It took five hours. After it was complete I was overcome by a wave of elation, then a melancholy of "what now?" The "what now" was answered when I realized what it meant that I could lay all of my rot on the table and feel free of it.

I still feel that some of the things I told my sponsor were not really "me". I was detached for much of the telling. It made a difference to have him read back to the paraphrased list of sin. Something about hearing another human being tell me what he saw in me when I confessed my sin made it inescapably my own. He sees the manipulative, perverted, greed driven traitor that I am. But also told me that I was forgiven, because God is greater than it all. (By the way, there was much more on his list than what I recounted.)

Repentance is what is taking place in my heart now. I've vacillated between joyous celebration of freedom and despair of the truth of my ongoing brokenness. I'm coming to the realization that my sin is really hurting me, and lamenting. In the last three days I have screamed curses at God and been moved to dancing by my love for Him. The curses contain my repentant desire to be free of my agonizing defects and the dances or for the promise of freedom that I have already tasted.

I hate being cookie cutter, but this is exactly what the SA book said would happen. Step Six is,"Become entirely ready to have God remove our defects of character" and Seven is "Humbly ask God to remove of defects and shortcomings". I confess some of my solicitations of God have been less than humble, but I get my point across.

The conclusion I've drawn from this turn of events in my life is that I can only find the freedom to live if I concede to a relentless stake in honesty. Shoot. I hate getting cornered like this, but I know it's for my own good. All my scapegoating and "clever" ploys to commit nowhere and avoid the truth of my brokenness have come to the light.

God, help me stay free in this honesty.

I'm starting to see that confession and repentance is not an isolated event. Here we go again.

:D

The eleven minute blog: here we go.

I am sick of being distant from God.

I am sick of not letting go.

I am sick of worshipping things about God and not Him.

I am sick of being negative.

I am sick of trying to be everything to everyone.

I am sick of "fake it till you make it".

I am sick of being let down.

I am sick.

God help me.

Run Through The Jungle

A man named Hans played me a song for a dollar and fifty seven cents. It had no name. Hans told me that he learned his style from Tupac Shakur. He also told me the song that he performed would not and could not be played ever again. It was a moment in his life relived in lucid reenactment, no doubt embellished to the extent of Hans' epic personality.

I had to stop him in the middle of the second movement of his impromtu rock opera to for my approaching bus. He extended his cracked knuckles for a pound and a "God Bless". The ugly expression of this broken man reeked of prideful pain and need. I ran across the street in a daze, nearly getting run over by the bus I was trying to catch.

So it goes with me.

I chase the prize of life with fluffed bravado, the truth is that is pursues me. It confidently stalks me without doubt, in fact. When I catch it's scent my weapons start to feel like the toys they are. When I feel the torrents of fury in its cry, my airs of courage drop and I cower. The quarry I claim to seek so ferventy is truly my greatest fear, and face to face with the power I fall to my knees and beg for mercy.