Despair

It is said to be the greatest of sins - perhaps I can understand why because I feel its temptation so strongly. There is no real reason, except perhaps conceit. The images from the Gulf Coast searing in my mind and the feeling of absolute powerlessness and the things I want most just not going quite right. Every breath is a prayer these days - for direction, for answers. I am scared to hope because I never know if what I am hoping for is the right thing - and trust does not come easily.

I think I have perhaps mistaken my own misplaced hope for some sort of epiphany and I'm not sure where to go from here. But, it should be trivial were it not so consuming because job is conflated to vocation to calling - and I'm just not where I want to be and it's sucking the life out of me.

The words of an old Michael W. Smith song keep coming back to me - I'm looking for a reason, roaming through the night to find my place in this world, my place in this world. There's not a lot to lean on and I need Your light to help me find my place in this world, my place in this world.

Refocus, refocus...outside...Lord, help me not seek so much to be understood as to understand; to be loved, as to love; to be consoled as to console.....if this could indeed be my consolation.

I need to be there - holding someone's hand, cooking someone's food, building someone's home, teaching someone's child - not here, behind the mountains of paperwork and words, words, words.

I AM TIRED OF WORDS. My life needs action, people - How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use.

I am impatient and longing for a Word of peace, of meaning, of hope.