He was so cold

YOU MUST VIEW IT LARGE TO READ IT

 the moisture in an air-conditioned funeral home was condensing on his head. this was because he was not embalmed. My father's wife asked them to hold off on the cremation so that my sister could see him one last time.
A couple of years ago, a man co-ordinating a retreat asked me to teach on the study of scripture. He said the Holy Spirit directed his request. I was sick with anxiety. I had never before felt humbled and greatly honored simultaneously. While researching, I stumbled across another author quoting Philip Yancy's Disappointment With God:

• “Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love. In a concentration camp, the guards possess almost unlimited power. By applying force, they can make you renounce your God, curse your family, Work without pay, eat human excrement, kill and then bury your closest friend or even your own mother. All this is within their power. Only one thing is not: they cannot force you to love them. This fact may help explain why God sometimes seems shy to use his power. He created us to love him, but his most impressive displays of miracle—the kinds we may secretly long for—do nothing to foster that love.”

When It became clear that I was getting a divorce, I purchased the book and read it in it's entirety. In my emotionally raw state, Phillip's writing struck me powerfully. Possibly a week or ten days after I completed it, I found myself reeling from the death of my father. At this time it feels as though I read it years ago.The divorce papers sit in a kitchen cabinet in my new, beautiful, empty house, unsigned. My to do list has been put on hold, at least until tuesday. Since the tornadoes passed through the Macon state campus, I'm told that this semester will not begin on time. Last month, I could look back on the last six or seven years, and God's hand on my life seemed undeniable. My sight grows dim, My dreams are a joke, and I wonder if I deceived myself. I have journals going back to a time when I wrote prayers to a God whose name I did not know, I know If I could bring myself to read through them, I could trace my path as my Savior drew me to Him, and taught me his name. My faith is in shreds, I am suspicious even when comforted. Seven years Papa. 10 percent of my life. I have followed you, as best I could. My anger grows, I am surprised and fear you. I'm sorry. I have never been more aware of the gulf between souls. I know many suffer greater pain than this. I am so tired in the deepest part of me I yearn for rest. Reassure me of your love. Tell me again that this matters to you.

Denied Prayer

He died. It is likely that after 16 minutes of CPR he would have not been himself if he had recovered. It is hard to sort through my feelings. There is bitter disappointment, lonliness, an inarticulate longing for closeness and love. It is strange. I am loved much, and greatly, by many people, but my inner emptiness resounds within my soul...ebbs and flows, retreating when I feel like another moment would be my undoing. I find another hour has passed. I was a failure as a son and as a man for much of our relationship, but by God's Grace, a bridge had been rebuilt and my father knew many of my regrets, and freely forgave me.
I harbor no resentment at the Ancient Of Days, He administers the universe as he sees fit, and some time ago I surrendered, and said "let Him do to me as seems good to Him". I may complain, question, even wallow in childish petulance, but I know I have no where else to turn. When things were inconvenient, and difficult to understand Peter said "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life"

Lamentation and Petition

Frustration, and futility. The helpless sense that my world is unravelling. I was actually kind of surprised that there was WI-FI at the medical center of central Georgia...it seems strange to me. though Macon is a larger town than Warner Robins, I have always felt that Warner Robins was more up-to-date...go figure. I guess shit began hitting the fan about 10 days ago...My marriage fell apart, and in the whirlwind of drastically changing circumstances-living location, gathering the requisite paperwork to obtain a divorce, and the struggle to hold together a plan to continue my education, my Dad's health took a nosedive. I have much to be grateful for, God's Provision and his impeccable timing...These things are so momentous in this situation that the Lord's intrevention seems clear to me, and I cannot rail against injustice, and I walk through no material hardship that I did not bring upon my self. My Dad's heart cathertization went as wrong as it can go without actual death. as it was it was scheduled for lunchtime today and had to be moved up to this morning because his condition was so bad. He had a heart attack during the procedure, and had to be recescutated. Now he has been moved to a better equipped facility to continue the fight for life. As I blog from the waiting room, I think of prayer, it's paradoxical nature, and the unfathomable criteria by which God chooses to grant or deny petition. Scripture tells us that "the prayer of a righteous man availeth much", and I sit painfully aware that my righteousness, by the standards of the evangelical community, is flimsy and unimpressive. Even my Savior had prayers denied and these in his darkest, lonliest moments. Who Am I? Papa please. Don't take my Dad. I am so sorry, and my heart is already broken. Please. Mercy. Pity. Grace. Your servant requests your favor yet again.

Tired again!

Ahh, sweet exhaustion...
For the 2nd night in a row, I am up past midnight with an early morning planned. I miss my large( by my standards), empty house. I cannot seem to feel secure in the blessings My Father in Heaven showers on me, and my new house, which should have been impossible for me to obtain is something that I dream over helplessly, making impractical plans to furnish and landscape, as paranoid fear lurks in the background, whispering that there must be some mistake. I hunger for more of everything, an abundant life! Time to think, time to write, time to love and be loved, time to know and be known. I get the same twenty-four hours as every one else, yet I feel like most people have a better handle on life then I do. Hence the feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. My stepfather, Chuck, told me tonight that a foundational awareness of self keeps you from allowing others to project onto you. Presumably, this would apply to Satan, also. Lol. I also remember the Desidarada, warning "if you compare yourself to others, you will become vain and bitter, for always there will be people greater or lesser than yourself"

Tired

Larger

Haven’t posted in a while…I browse through some peoples blogs and the craftsmanship humbles me…some of these people are so prolific, they are obviously putting things into words at a much faster rate than I can under the best of circumstances. My incompetent keyboarding combines with a pathetic attention span, requiring too much time to articulate my thoughts with any regularity and still get my chores done. The inevitable storms of everyday life take their toll as well. Lately, my disintegrating marriage and the upcoming divorce, along with all it entails has occupied most of my attention.
I am forced to redefine my faith and reconcile the consequences of relational failure, with a loving God who nevertheless has standards of acceptable behavior. I begin to wonder at the propriety of some of the things I can see me posting in the future. This Blog is fairly anonymous, only one or two friends have ever intentionally browsed through it, but with a little deduction, it could probably be traced to my Public Identity.
The cathartic release I seek when I put pain of this magnitude into words, requires complete freedom, and the knowledge of who I am, however unlikely it is stumbled across, could compromise the privacy of people that I still care about. School begins the 28th of May, and the drastic change in lifestyle was something I reasonably expected to be quite challenging in it’s own right. The prospect of having to acquire a familiarity with a large amount of data spread across several disciplines while simultaneously working through the grief of shattered hopes to complete life with my first wife is paralyzing. I have heard many stories of God’s grace restoring impossible relationships, but realistically, it seems this involves two willing souls, and Divine Providence seldom overrides freewill, especially in the realm of personal relationship.