as i was praying during the student mass yesterday (for some reason the chapel always makes me sentimental), there was a moment where two things were realized at once - one of hope and one of criticism.
first, that while i had feared that God was allowing me to become strong only to break me down again, i came to a thought that perhaps instead of the total annihilation i'd feared, it would be different this time around - not the total emptying of self, scraping the callous black carbon-coated bottom of despair - but a more real, living pain - becoming strong in order to more fully feel - Christ is the living sacrifice - those words resonate more profoundly with me now. in some ways more terrible, more consuming - more room for pain, but pain mixed with love - but in many ways a relief from the hollow inability to feel. and as of yet, i have not faced it - the groundwork of joy, the hint of the ultimate prize, has been swimming around in my Being, which is coming to love solitude, peace, and being myself without too much worry about the impression it will leave on people. the change to the next wave of suffering - i haven't lived long, but i've lived long enough to recognize the cycles of suffering and joy - i suspect will occur on a primarily internal level - the fullness of choice to open myself, a day that i feel rapidly approaching. i hope i will be strong enough not to fall into the craggy comfort of bitterness; when i am honest with myself i recognize that i have not passed this test in even the smallest aspects of my life - perhaps i should start there. sometimes i feel tired and old, even at 21, like a crabby old lady who feels she's been dealt more than her share of suffering, and a movement back to more consistent peace and joy that come with humility must precede suffering if i am to emerge stronger.
the second realization, less encouraging, was this (be prepared for some disturbing imagery, but it exists to convey a truth): a vision of myself, head back, with terrible spidery crags, like long jagged rocks, bursting out of my chest, dazzling like glitter but chintzy somehow against the reality of my own flesh, laying down roots inside of me and bursting out - my own pride. as soon as i realized its existence i became aware of how entangled i am in it - i immediately congratulated myself on my own supreme self-knowledge to be able to find such a flaw, and began outlining in my mind how to present it in an endearing and artistic light -yes, to you, reader - before coming to my senses, that even in the realization of the existence of pride, pride had found an opportunity to expand! and then, would you believe it, no more than twenty seconds after i'd realized my mistake, i had fallen back into my self-congratulation as though i'd never realized it in the first place - and thus, i am faced with the apparently difficult task of conveying to you my own fallacious nature without allowing myself to be proud about it, and most especially ensuring that you will not part from these words with a higher opinion of me. i shall do my best to present it tersely and in the brutality of honesty necessary to convey the reality of its existence. for every "aha!" you might allow to leap triumphantly in your mind, i hope to have beaten you to it and pointed the accusing finger at myself.
i want, most of all, for you to realize my own brokenness and Christ's supreme grace - that though i am writing these things, it is nothing more than the sum of a God-bestowed love of writing and communication, and a benevolent grace enabled by Christ to even be able to speak one word about Him. i am really nobody, made somebody by a forgiving God, but i don't want you to get any silly notions in your head that i am good or holy - Christ Himself said that only God is holy - and that i myself am perhaps worst of all because of my pride, and perhaps you are closer to salvation than i.
i ask again for your prayers; also, that you take whatever messages away from these reflections independent of the writer; there is nothing in me that allows these words to grow, but rather, anything good you find here is the product of God.
peace-
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