Tue, Feb 7th - 2:43AM

I am searching for words

I need to be bold, and the injury I suffer can be no worse than it is now, and yet still my strength flags and fails me when I need to speak.  I need to speak of who I am, and the journey I have gone through, and still endure today.  I do not fear judgement in the ultimate sense, but understand fully what the judgement of my fellow man can mean.  I have been in a place of suffering for a while.  I do not know where my breaking point is, and thought it should have been reached long ago.  So I have to pray strength for this bit of time.  Today, this hour, for the next five minutes.  It varies.  I hope that my suffering is for the Lord.  I hope that my suffering is because I struggle all the more to do what is right.  My righteousness is nothing, so I should consider it unworthy of gain.  It can buy me nothing.  Yet I must try to do what is right for it is what the Lord would ask of me.  I am fearful, and have to test my faith by pushing past the fear.  This is not an easy thing for me.  Understand that I am a man of the mind, and that makes following what sometimes seems against logic, and yet in line with paradoxical truth, a struggle of the most primal and basic sort.  I struggle at the very root and core of who I am, and victories are often hard for me to see in the midst of the ongoing battle.  My children as of yet, are unblemished by all of this.  For that alone, I am grateful.

Things are still grim, but I take it one moment at a time.  I will make it, but unsure of how.  As for lessons to learn, I am so deep in the heart of the darkness of despair at times it is truly hard to know what is the lesson?  So I suffer, since it is all I can do.  For the most part, it is something brought upon myself.  I may lose my home, but that is nothing.  I may lose my family, and that is everything.  Pray for grace so great that it is undeniably from God.  I have little faith that my prayer would be answered, for as I said, this is in part a consequence of the trips I have strayed off the path.  So in faith, I believe I may be getting justice when I would prefer mercy.  I cannot pray against that in good faith.  But I could pray this for someone else, so I ask you to pray this for me.

I have much more to share, and don't know where to begin.  I could just spit it out indiscriminately as it comes to me, but I am hard enough to follow as it is, so I will give it more thought.  A weak excuse to keep from doing what I know I need to do for about 2 weeks now.  Transparency.  A very frightening thing.  A very bold thing.  In the wisdom of this world, a very stupid thing.  I am convinced, however, that it is just what God desires from us.  Transparency to each other.  Transparency even to the world.  Let the light in, and let the light out.

In Christ,

Mel