pause

This is not meant to be an indulgence in self-pity or bitterness, only honest questions and reflections that I'm likely to lose if they aren't written down.
At this moment (I will speak for no other) I am well. Hope is within reach, even close. It is certainly real. More to the point, it is mine. It was meant for me, and it was meant by Someone Who is as willing as He is able to give it to me.
I don't want to squander this, for I know that trials and attacks are ahead, and I do not trust myself to prevail against them. I will, however, trust God to walk me through them. I want to learn and imprint the truth that now seems every bit as huge and all-infusing as it truly is, but which I have all too often lost my grip on. I don't ever want it too seem like the mockery I have been guilty of reckoning it to be in my forays into death. I know He has forgiven and restored me, and will continue as often as needed to see me through to the end of the war. That does not diminish my yearning to stand fast and overcome so He won't have those things to forgive me of again.
I am grateful beyond words for the people He has brought me to. I had no idea this could be real, even less of an idea that it could include me. How did I ever make it this far without them or others like them? Why do they endure me like they do? The things I have invested in them seem so trivial and superfluous compared to what they have lavished on me, the places in their lives and hearts they have freely let me into, the seasons they have shared with me. They are beautiful, and I want that beauty to envelop and define me, to not merely tolerate my admiration from a distance but to invite me to become a part of them, and they a part of me. I want to live forever in the knowledge that they are the gloves on God's hands with which He touches me in this life.
I need them, and at this moment I can allow myself to know and accept that. How could I refuse such a staggering, ever-renewing gift?
I need them because I love them. I need them because they are where I want to be. I need them because I fear the pain that lies ahead. I don't know why; I should be used to it by now, and that's not a self-indulgent whine but puzzlement as to why I can still be so easily set back by adversity.
I don't want to be capable of losing the knowledge that I am just now daring to reach out and caress. I don't want it to be lost in the enemy's smoke-and-mirror show that God has never once failed to expose for the sham that it is.
I haven't been taken out yet. God has borne too monstrous a cost for my redemption to leave my fate in my own hands. I feel the fear, but I will not let it chase me away from Him or the future and hope He has for me.

days of awe

I don't like what the recent mess on the forum has revealed about me. More to the point, God doesn't like it.
I felt ignored and forgotten, and that I had lost what had once been considerable power to stop the kind of carnage that the forum now seems to typify. Many better people than I'll ever be made the points I yearned to make better than I ever could have, and were lacerated or swept aside. I watched my place among them evaporate, and somewhere along the way I stopped wanting it back.
I'm not sure if that's a sin, but the attitudes I've given place to are. I chose not to be a part of the solution, but rather to watch the problem morph and multiply with a shrug and a bitter smirk. I allowed myself to judge people without lifting a finger to help them. And I regret that deeply.
So God, please forgive me as I forgive these whether they need it or not. I don't wish them anything but Your best. Defeat and division to the enemy and not to them. To them be Your love and grace and mercy and peace, and to You be all worship and honour and glory forever.
I don't know what to do after this, but it doesn't matter. I look in on things and realise how little I know of what's right and wrong and what really matters. I still don't see a place for me there. I no longer feel indispensable, and the fact that I ever did feels slimy and shameful. There is nothing I can bring that can't be matched or bested by scores of others. I guess the only reason that I ever let myself feel vital there is that so many treated me as though I was. That was intoxicating, and when the high wore off, I crashed.
I'm really sorry. I love them, and I love You.

it's all right not to speak if you've got nothing worth hearing

this is unfortunate, but it has to come out somewhere.
the forum that I once knew as a haven and a refuge, where anyone was safe except those who were looking for others to use as spiritual scratching posts, is now a spiritual litterbox.
not that many, even most, of those who post there don't care, but a pathetic few who don't are ruining it for those who need it most.
if I still had a voice that meant a goddamn thing there I would tear these whores a new hole. how many others are going to give up and die because someone else has to swing the biggest dick in the theological locker room? I won't, I have real friends within minutes of my real-time address, but what about Moriah or all the others who got driven off?
stuff these slaves. to look at them you'd think Christianity was the most Darwinistic game in town. I hope every sodding one of them gets a chance to face the same tests they lambast others for failing.

moving on

I wish I knew how to make it stick. Or that I didn't care. Everything and everyone moves on. Or almost everyone.
None of this will matter. What matters is out of reach and needs nothing from me. If I get the joke, fine. If not, no loss. Move on. How do they do it? How was I doing it and why is it so easy to stop me?
What hurts the most is being mocked by the knowledge that even in those few sweet moments when I was doing it right, it wasn't that big a deal. The thing I lusted after without reservation, to be good and right and wise, that I was convinced that it couldn't be wrong to lust after, and it's no big deal when I get there. There's nothing better, plenty worse, and nothing is ever enough.
It is not okay to need people or desire anything at all. It is not okay. It leads nowhere. The joy only makes the pain more intolerable, and even writing that is terrifying because I still want the joy. I, I, I. What a whore.
I don't want to believe that I matter again unless it will last. I would kill not to ever care about mattering again.
I am and have been very bad. Please forgive me, but know that I cannot make myself better. No excuses.

life among wolves

the all-pervasive lie of the world casts gentleness as the worst kind of weakness - the kind that one who has it is stupid enough to let hang out in plain view.
I'm a fairly expert poser, but I know very well that the truth of oneself will always be revealed. I wish that caused me more joy than sorrow, but there it is. some are weaker than me, many stronger. whatever.
I can do damned little about that, but I can choose what I believe, even though I have been so hardwired to believe the lies that believing something else is the hardest work I have ever done.
the more I look back on some of the paths I yearned to follow for so much of my life, the less I believe I could have hacked it without being destroyed, or changed into a person that wasn't God's idea at all for me. that hurts like f*ck, but I have friends who have lived on those paths who believe in me more than I was ever able to. to feel like something that's indelibly tattooed on your soul is out of your reach because you're too gentle to embrace it feels like a slow death. there is nothing to do but trust One who knows better because He made me.
a large part of me still wants to be revealed as the embodiment of all the qualities I have lusted for and felt so incorrigibly bereft of, but if I make that my aim I will lose sight of what makes life worth living.
so I'm gentle, hesitant, quiet, apt to listen and watch before acting, quick to appreciate beauty, annoyingly open about the things that touch my heart, unfailingly surprised and dismayed every time life reminds me of a truth that should have long ago ceased to catch me off guard - that the world hates and fears that kind of person and is bent on destroying it, and no one is so divorced from the world that they are incapable of the same hate and fear - including me. but I get over it and start again, cuz I'm a hard f*ckin' target. and it's still a piss-poor idea to harm someone I love. to be gentle doesn't mean I'm incapable of brutality, only that I'm unwilling to be given over to or defined by it. those who are have lost the ability to see the end of the war or even hope for it. not going there.

catching up

Dear Aunt Esther,
I would certainly understand if you were a mite too distracted right now to pay much attention to this. You have a great deal of catching up to do, and I wouldn't begrudge you that for all the world.
You are catching up on life. That seems an odd thing to say at your funeral, but I know as solidly as I can claim to know anything that you are more alive now than I have ever been. Looking at what you have endured these last few years, that is a great comfort.
I am at a loss to even approach summing up what it meant to me to have you and Uncle Bill in my family. Your marriage brought two very different families together, and the very best attributes of both made your home the safe, welcoming place that it was. You always made us feel like you were as eager to see us every year as we were to be there. When you visited us up North, you brought the warmth and welcome of the South with you, and it always seemed to linger a bit after you'd left.
I remember coming down for Melissa's wedding less than two months after Uncle Bill died. I saw in you perhaps the most conflict I had ever seen on a human face - deep joy and deep grief fighting for first place. I remember feeling very sorry for you, but it wasn't until later that I saw how tremendously strong you had to have been to face that and prevail. You were hurting badly, but you still had much to give to all those present just by being there.
Your love and faith are a legacy that illness and loss and all manner of life's trials have only seasoned and strengthened, even as that same love and faith strengthen those who were blessed to call you friend or family. This world may take little notice of your accomplishments, but that means nothing to us. We know better.
I can't thank you enough for your love and example, nor can I thank God enough that you are now free of the sickness and sorrow that you knew all too well in this life. It hurts to see you go where we can't yet follow, but you now know better than any of us do that the reunion will be more than worth the hurt. As I said, you are catching up. With your God, your husband, with all you love and cherish. And you have eternity to do it. I don't know when I will join you, only that I will one day. Thanks be to God. I love you. And thanks to you and Uncle Bill for all the orange Push-Ups.

prayer

God have mercy on us.
I don't think I have the balls to face the prospect of seeing us through Your eyes.
You are love; are we so far gone that the only way to love us is to pull the plug?
We're pretty far gone; I know that much.
I'm not excited, I'm terrified.
I don't know what to do. Most of us aren't even looking to find out, and in that we are horribly wrong.
Nothing is too difficult for you, but some things may be too distasteful, and for that You cannot be blamed. I pray we aren't there yet.
You know what's best. That comforts and terrifies me. There's nothing here worth saving unless You say there is. I pray You can do so without denying Yourself.
In the name of Your Son Jesus Who spilled His blood to bring us to a much better place than the sewer we have made for ourselves, let it be according to Your will. Amen.