Disclaimer: Honestly, *I* don't care if you read this. The Blog is and has ALWAYS been a risky operation for me because I do not, and will not filter it - at least inasmuch as the writing itself that I post up. Its almost like a dare to me that I bring the thoughts and memories to light not just for myself, but potentially others, for therapeutic reasons and obscure ones. But I write the disclaimers for the readers. This one in particular, as a few others, is especially personal and much like a diary entry, although it ends on a spiritual quandary which might be interesting to read. *I* don't care if its read, but not everyone is comfortable with such. Interestingly, I tend to write in a more eloquent matter when I recall these things upon waking, much as an English writer of old would do - the authors whose genius I so admire more than any other in the field.
Only one other time can I remember sharing with someone a dream that I only remembered in the first few minutes after waking... It was, perhaps, one of my most well-written pieces, and the reader stated it was their favorite... But they're gone now... and sometimes I wonder if they even remember the words of that written dream... If they did, it would be a link where perhaps no other link existed. But they cannot tell, nor can I, so again it might remain a mystery until our dying days. And really, in the end, does it matter to anything else except my own heart??
Anyway, maybe my ability to post it before thinking better of it is God's way of trying to help the shadows of pain flea from the darkest corners of my mind... Maybe He has some grand purpose for this suffering of soul. Afflictions tend to be his way of bringing to light His greatest gifts in us sometimes, not links in a chain to wear around our necks to keep us looking down.... perhaps this is one of those cases... But, alas, dear reader, if you do not wish to look upon such dismal shadows displayed, you have been warned....
I wake from a night of dreaming thinking of you. I guess it is always such, ever in my dreaming mind I look back on those things that I cannot gaze upon when awake. Perhaps that is why I have these periodic bouts of extreme dreaming followed by insomnia, not so much an affliction of the body, but of the mind. Not that I blame you, my dear. I could never do that. It is my own demons that taunt me, and not your dear ghost. Now I pray that my waking memory will not fail me before I get these words and remembrances out. I don't want them to linger for yet another night of unconscious warring and dreaming, half-remembering what was once forgotten, what the darkest shadows of my mind cannot bring to light. Even now... some ten years later...
What would your life be like now had you lived Gabe? Would your father and I have still split up? Probably, yes. Because your sister would still be in California parented by different parents. By all rights, you were our third child. Briton would be the oldest son at fourteen, then Clarisse now twelve, then you, about ten, though I honestly cannot remember your death-date, and of course, you never reached your birth-date... So, if you had then lived, it would perhaps have made your father and my break-up even more complicated, if that's possible... Briton would have been four, Clarisse two, and you an infant at that time... It hardly bears contemplation, things were ugly enough as it was.
After so long of steadfastly forgetting children past, at thirty-three I find myself wanting one more child... Your memory, and largely your sisters too have been shoved so far back in my recollection that they must have impacted the back of my soul in a most damaging way, squashed as forcefully as they are like dough pressed against the walls of a grinding stone that would rise if allowed. Yet here, ironically, is where I most think of you Gabe, when I would have another child. Instead of thinking of a new, entirely white and unprinted life (like a fresh new sheet of paper waiting for the artist's quill), I think of you whose life was barely a smear on parchment otherwise already dirtied and smudged. I wonder who YOU would have been if given the chance. What interests would you have, what dreams would you dream... would you fight with your older brother? :) How different would Briton be if he had a younger brother? Maybe he would teach you to play the drums. Maybe your passions would like in a place quite different... In some sense, maybe you would be the most afflicted of the children by the dramatic cries of the break-up as some small part of your infant brain was indelibly imprinted by that horror... Or then again, maybe you really would remember nothing at all of that time and thus remain, as you were before flying back to heaven - pure and untainted by the black tarred world into which you would have been birthed.
I have no chance right now of having another child anyway. My medical issues and financial status in life certainly would not warrant having a baby, and most importantly, I have no man to help create one. :) (Perhaps tellingly, when reading back this previous sentence, I had mis-typed and instead stated, 'I have no man to help create YOU'. interesting) More often than not, not having a man around seems rather like a good thing, something I do not miss. But other times... like when I think of you... it is different.
Lately, I have begun to explore and learn about grace. I myself commented last session on how grace is a part of God's nature that doesn't allow us to look at ourselves in comparison to what might have been, or by human standards and in relation to what the world might expect, what place we might be on our own journey. Well, that is something like what I said, though hugely altered. Someone at my table had commented that one of Satan's greatest methods of distracting Christians is to discourage them, to make them stop and look at where they are on their journey and sometimes look behind. Urg, that too is altered, and I like how she said it better, but that's the best I can do right now at this moment. Another way of putting it I suppose would be to say that "Only through God's grace can we forget what lies behind and see only the future." Certainly that would seem something I hope would one day apply to me... as things are now, I can't say that I have attained, or 'tuned into' that kind of grace. My past haunts me still...
And I think it is that - that ghostly juggle with the past - that leads me to read another book by the "grace" author, but on the subject of pain. I haven't even gotten into the meat of the book yet, but somehow I've found myself fascinated by the subject matter. He has begun by exploring physical pain and how the absence of it would be truly devastating to us as human beings. And also how, without pain, we would not know true ecstasy... I believe I know where he is heading as I myself have written on this subject before - many times in fact. My mind begins to whir with what this might mean...
So often I feel behind where life states I should be because I struggle so mightily with my past... My counselor tells me that this is not abnormal due to my painful history, and that I should not beat myself up over it, but yet I do. I feel that this is why I am so fascinated with the recounting of Jacob's wrestling match with the spirit of God. He fought, he demanded, he struggled so fiercely with God that his ferocity must have been frightening - I know it is to ME when I think of the passion it must have taken to 'out-wrestle God'. With Jacob, he fought for God's blessing... but what I read into the story is that he also fought for God's release. God's release from Jacob's earthly past and all that had made him a prisoner to it and affected the man he had become... Maybe that's NOT accurate at all and wasn't meant to be understood by the reader... But, I suppose, it is what *I* would struggle with God for if given the opportunity. It IS what I struggle with God for, though my struggle is obviously not so physical... Why can't my past just leave me alone?!
Perhaps it is again what I seek then. I DO seek the grace of God to banish the demons from my past away and to free me from their incessant chattering... I would not utter it aloud, but I believe that anyone spiritual who does NOT believe in the supernatural workings of both God AND Satan in this world we live in today is either utterly blind, or else unusually fortunate. They must know nothing of pain, or of shame... I don't even accept that supernatural occurrences happen today as a rare and miraculous event that can be pointed to and exalted over. Yes, happenings like that do occur. But I think the struggle, and the battles between the two forces happen DAILY and for ANYONE who has ever been a part of something for good or for ill, inside or outside the church.
And I think the church is woefully ignorant or irresponsible in not acknowledging and fortifying us against these ferocious daily spiritual attacks... Many do not mention such things for fear... fear will do NOTHING to soften the spears of the enemy or prevent the wounding. We can look past the army, but the battle will still rage...
I think - perhaps arrogantly without meaning to be so - that another of Satan's greatest victories amongst the ranks of the believer is his ability to distract. He distracts with SO many other things - good things sometimes - that he keeps our eyes focused on everything else but the immediate and ultimately vital world of spiritual warfare that constantly wages as we veer ever closer to this world's destruction and any last chances for those who remain lost... and even among our own ranks we fight, sometimes seemingly alone, in battles that are truly spiritual but with which we have had little training on how to defend.
A solemn, perhaps disturbing thought... but the more life I live, the more and more I believe it to be true. Even with the assurance of victory, please dear Lord help us not forget those who will fall in battle, or be lost forever to the darkness while our eyes are turned away... And let us not abandon our own through our ignorance of the invisible world whose emissaries walk about like roaring lions...
After so long of steadfastly forgetting children past, at thirty-three I find myself wanting one more child... Your memory, and largely your sisters too have been shoved so far back in my recollection that they must have impacted the back of my soul in a most damaging way, squashed as forcefully as they are like dough pressed against the walls of a grinding stone that would rise if allowed. Yet here, ironically, is where I most think of you Gabe, when I would have another child. Instead of thinking of a new, entirely white and unprinted life (like a fresh new sheet of paper waiting for the artist's quill), I think of you whose life was barely a smear on parchment otherwise already dirtied and smudged. I wonder who YOU would have been if given the chance. What interests would you have, what dreams would you dream... would you fight with your older brother? :) How different would Briton be if he had a younger brother? Maybe he would teach you to play the drums. Maybe your passions would like in a place quite different... In some sense, maybe you would be the most afflicted of the children by the dramatic cries of the break-up as some small part of your infant brain was indelibly imprinted by that horror... Or then again, maybe you really would remember nothing at all of that time and thus remain, as you were before flying back to heaven - pure and untainted by the black tarred world into which you would have been birthed.
I have no chance right now of having another child anyway. My medical issues and financial status in life certainly would not warrant having a baby, and most importantly, I have no man to help create one. :) (Perhaps tellingly, when reading back this previous sentence, I had mis-typed and instead stated, 'I have no man to help create YOU'. interesting) More often than not, not having a man around seems rather like a good thing, something I do not miss. But other times... like when I think of you... it is different.
Lately, I have begun to explore and learn about grace. I myself commented last session on how grace is a part of God's nature that doesn't allow us to look at ourselves in comparison to what might have been, or by human standards and in relation to what the world might expect, what place we might be on our own journey. Well, that is something like what I said, though hugely altered. Someone at my table had commented that one of Satan's greatest methods of distracting Christians is to discourage them, to make them stop and look at where they are on their journey and sometimes look behind. Urg, that too is altered, and I like how she said it better, but that's the best I can do right now at this moment. Another way of putting it I suppose would be to say that "Only through God's grace can we forget what lies behind and see only the future." Certainly that would seem something I hope would one day apply to me... as things are now, I can't say that I have attained, or 'tuned into' that kind of grace. My past haunts me still...
And I think it is that - that ghostly juggle with the past - that leads me to read another book by the "grace" author, but on the subject of pain. I haven't even gotten into the meat of the book yet, but somehow I've found myself fascinated by the subject matter. He has begun by exploring physical pain and how the absence of it would be truly devastating to us as human beings. And also how, without pain, we would not know true ecstasy... I believe I know where he is heading as I myself have written on this subject before - many times in fact. My mind begins to whir with what this might mean...
So often I feel behind where life states I should be because I struggle so mightily with my past... My counselor tells me that this is not abnormal due to my painful history, and that I should not beat myself up over it, but yet I do. I feel that this is why I am so fascinated with the recounting of Jacob's wrestling match with the spirit of God. He fought, he demanded, he struggled so fiercely with God that his ferocity must have been frightening - I know it is to ME when I think of the passion it must have taken to 'out-wrestle God'. With Jacob, he fought for God's blessing... but what I read into the story is that he also fought for God's release. God's release from Jacob's earthly past and all that had made him a prisoner to it and affected the man he had become... Maybe that's NOT accurate at all and wasn't meant to be understood by the reader... But, I suppose, it is what *I* would struggle with God for if given the opportunity. It IS what I struggle with God for, though my struggle is obviously not so physical... Why can't my past just leave me alone?!
Perhaps it is again what I seek then. I DO seek the grace of God to banish the demons from my past away and to free me from their incessant chattering... I would not utter it aloud, but I believe that anyone spiritual who does NOT believe in the supernatural workings of both God AND Satan in this world we live in today is either utterly blind, or else unusually fortunate. They must know nothing of pain, or of shame... I don't even accept that supernatural occurrences happen today as a rare and miraculous event that can be pointed to and exalted over. Yes, happenings like that do occur. But I think the struggle, and the battles between the two forces happen DAILY and for ANYONE who has ever been a part of something for good or for ill, inside or outside the church.
And I think the church is woefully ignorant or irresponsible in not acknowledging and fortifying us against these ferocious daily spiritual attacks... Many do not mention such things for fear... fear will do NOTHING to soften the spears of the enemy or prevent the wounding. We can look past the army, but the battle will still rage...
I think - perhaps arrogantly without meaning to be so - that another of Satan's greatest victories amongst the ranks of the believer is his ability to distract. He distracts with SO many other things - good things sometimes - that he keeps our eyes focused on everything else but the immediate and ultimately vital world of spiritual warfare that constantly wages as we veer ever closer to this world's destruction and any last chances for those who remain lost... and even among our own ranks we fight, sometimes seemingly alone, in battles that are truly spiritual but with which we have had little training on how to defend.
A solemn, perhaps disturbing thought... but the more life I live, the more and more I believe it to be true. Even with the assurance of victory, please dear Lord help us not forget those who will fall in battle, or be lost forever to the darkness while our eyes are turned away... And let us not abandon our own through our ignorance of the invisible world whose emissaries walk about like roaring lions...
Luther's Inkwell Painting (I think it makes the point rather well.)
I found this article online as I was looking for pictures. I don't know that I totally agree with this person's writings, but it does make you think.... http://hisgracemygrowth.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/the-scripture-the-spirit-and-waging-war/
