Dear Diary: A Disagreement With Myself

 Hopelessness is a subtle drug; addictive and having the worst kind of side effects. In my seasons of addiction I couldn't tell you when my first dose was, I usually never realize I am taking it until it is taking over me. Thank God He has enough grace for me! Of all sinners I am the worst but He can handle it and that is the one cure to the addiction: believing, even only 1%, that Jesus can handle your sin and still looks at you with love. It is the one and only hope that never fails in a world of disappointed, misleading, failing hope.

In my almost 21 months of marriage I have learned many many things, but lately the only things that have stuck with me are all the cynical, bitter conclusions drawn mostly from miscommunication. I have learned men are natural deceivers and women are naturally deceived. Men believe women to have agendas because women are emotionally complex while women in their complexity lean on men who in their simplicity do not understand and in the end both sides hurt each other because they think the other is exactly like them, when they are opposites. Those two conclusions alone, though stemmed from truth and true circumstance, are depressing and hopeless yet when you add the anti-drug of hope and He shines His light on them you see a third truth which is the only one truly true: all have fallen short of the glory of God; we are all sinners and disappoint each other but He will never disappoint.

Still I am swimming in an ocean of regret and only 22 years of life; and 22 years the world would most likely be better off not having at that. How, having a renewed knowledge of truth and spurned on by being truly loved, am I to just pick up and keep going? I have lived the life of a hypocrite and though He sees me as clean, the world is not as forgiving and more over is jealous of what they don't understand and will deal with me spitefully. Though I know what is true, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me and do not lose heart for He has overcome the world, if I am honest I only truly believe that (in the core of my being and in my actions) about 1% of the time. I know what is truth and I grasp it but emotion takes over and there is no such thing as a plane of truth in emotion; it is exiting the tidy clean cut world of lines and boxes for a world of bubbles and color that blends together... how does one battle an enemy that is not there, but is consuming?

I have no answer but the only answer, Jesus. I don't know how to battle myself or stand up in a world that sees me as nothing and less than nothing, but I know He loves me and always will. I know His word is true and that, when I cannot understand how or why, I know that I know that I know it is truth and the only truth in this place of lies.

So with knees knocking together and trembling hands I get to my feet and stand, weak from the battle out of hopelessness but encouraged that 1% will be enough. Every time I fall, every time I am too embarrassed to show my face, when the drug of hopelessness that said it was truth starts to kill me, I just need one Name: Jesus. He will always pull me out of the pit, He will always hold my hand, He will always love me. Even when I am too discouraged to live for Him, when I am the hypocrite and rightly being persecuted, He will stand by me and will give me another chance as if He hasn't already given me 10,000 that I've failed at.

 

Today, weak as I am and struggling in my own powerlessness, not to mention the depravity of the world around me, I am strong because of 1%. Thats how amazing my God is.