“pray for real on your knees…

“…until they blister.”
+ross k i n g

it’s a dire misunderstanding of what we think we are capable of. time and trial show that this is perhaps the most dangerous precipice we run up to in the course of our lives and the repercussions of what we do here will ripple through timespace in ways we fear to imagine, starting tidal waves where only a butterfly’s wings had fluttered.

it seemed so beautiful, then…

…or did it ever? did they ever TRULY escape the knot in their stomach that lasted for months and months and months because they knew it was wrong? did anyone ever stop to weigh the cost, the pounds of flesh it would take where only a few sparks through synapses could have averted the destruction…?

it becomes so selfish when you begin to think you are the only one you are affecting. that your decisions are your own. the problem here isn’t so much a surrender of personal responsiblity as it is a consuming narcissism. when you become so lost that you can’t even see the casualities around your feet. those rotting in the trail you left, trying to pick their seared skin off of the ground you burned them into.
so lost that you can’t hear the voices as they scream long into the night, howling like a wounded animal that longs desperately to turn off its own responsive mechanisms because it knows that it’s the shock of pain that will kill them long before the blood loss.
i am here to testify. in a plurality of ways, but i’m going to zero in on one specific scenario.

i suffered their consequences. i was the one stretched over the target and that had to collect myself from the opposing campsites. i ran through crossfire and i lay shaking in the dark as i hated whatever it was that made them like this.

we’ve done the best we could and the awful situation was lightened about as much as it possibly could have been, but we are broken. we are lost, and we are a haphazard example of a family, of the design that God had for such an institution. my half brother and i were accidents, albeit ones that God in his incredible grace has used toward some kind of good, but we came out of context and were incredible stressors in the beginning more than the blessings God has told us children are.

i am not God.
i am not the judge of people that follow this pattern.
but i am not happy. and my heart breaks every time.

because i still feel it for things that i did not do.

i will tell you point-blank that you are being infernally selfish, that what you are doing is wrong, that these actions and decisions are evil and you will will be taxed to your limits for your mistakes.
…and so will your children.
…and so will your children’s children.
to the third and fourth generations.

…but i. am. not. God.

and because i am not God, these difficulties are not with me. there are so many of you out there that may never read this, but i have been shattered and rebuilt around these things. i have fought and bled to figure out what it means to love and as i sat talking last night, i realized it was through so much of this that i learned.

it is about taking responsiblity for more than yourself. it is about opening yourself up regardless of the casuality you fear you will become.

…though the fear is horrifically real.

you fight against it. teeth bared, hair bristled, weapons in hand.

because fear is your enemy. perfect love drives out fear, and though perfection seems so far away from us, if you have the mind of Christ…YOU HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST. the very power of GOD in you do DO these impossible things…!
it is REAL. it is TRUTH. it is HARNESSABLE and i feel it in my own veins.
i still don’t know quite what to do… (i’m stuck on the “how”…) though most of you won’t ever read this…i think about you all the time and i love you. i pray that you will know that supernaturally. i will continue to work this out and i’m sorry i have had such a delay in expressing what i have so long professed to be.

we need you to fight it. please fight harder. you are not lost and God has not “given up” on you. please…we are still fighting the other side for you. don’t stop…