I went to Bible study and the leader read the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds to the day of the month. I've not been in the Word of God much. No--not at all. Sick, busy, out of practice... It's not that it's unimportant. It's that it's become foreign to me.

That pains me to say it. Pains me in my mind. My emotions feel rather numb about it actually--right where the devil wants me to be: indifferent to God's word.

Danger! Danger!

Indifference is a silent, deadly killer. An entire church is vomited out God's mouth because of it. I'm going to take my Bible study leader's example and start reading a Proverb a day. I don't want to be vomit.

I get so easily bored reading the same thing over and over, but perseverance in this is good. I need to develop it, especially if I want God to show me anything deeper of Himself than surface stuff. I already know a lot of surface stuff.

So that's my plan for tomorrow. I hope I do it. First thing first, though: get up in the morning with my alarm. That's a whole other tangled skein.

~ Guilty Christian

It is always difficult to write after not doing it for so long. I never know what to say because I've locked my emotions and pains well away, or just enough to function without feeling pain so acutely. Of course, I always feel it, but more as gnawing on my inner being that slowly grates more and more of me away.

I'm coming more out of my shell, slowly. Much of me remains hidden still, and may for a long time. God only knows. I know the picture of myself others see is vastly different than what I am. Maybe I look so far more grotesque to myself than to others because I see all my failures and unfulfilled intentions, and feel the pain of them, while others see what I do: somehow a lot of my actions come across as positive or like I'm made of some strong metal I am not. Maybe some of how I feel about myself is from striving for things outside my scope, to be someone I am not, to reach a fairytale ideal I think is real.

Either way, I shut myself up tight with many pains from the past three years, first from persecution against my family from my blog which only affirmed my husband's opposition of my blogging content, and then from my daughter's medical problems when the hospital reported me as a neglectful parent to the state, which was swiftly found groundless and ludicrous given mounds of evidence otherwise. But the two together put me under. I already struggled with feeling like a failure, unloved, unsupported, condemned, and never good enough.

When am I ever good enough? No matter what I do, I always seem to prove that I deserve judgment and condemnation. I must say this, though... of all those who can condem me, Jesus has right and grounds to condemn me most. And He hasn't. I forget that when so much judgment and accusations of failure swirl strong about me. The one, the only one, who has right to condemn me, refuses. Instead, to this day, He still opens His arms to me and says, "Come. I forgive you. Walk with me."

If I can just remember this... If I can just hold this up high like the serpent on a stick Moses lifted so all the Israelites who had been bitten by snakes would be healed and live... (Numbers 21:8-9).

Others have condemned me. Jesus won't.

Thank You, Jesus.

~ Guilty Christian