Today I   ...died.

So to speak.

I am in the worst place, I think I've ever been.

I realize (and am trying - with God's help - to fully accept) the reality that I have been living all of my life with a "victim mentality".

Someone told me that very thing about fifteen years ago.  I took it as an affront.  I was so offended.  I was so blind...

It took being pierced to the core of my being and being torn wide open to clearly see my sin, how I have been hurting others, and myself, not to mention my relationship with God.

I've always known somehow that there was a pit (even though I tried as hard as I possibly could to believe otherwise) but I've never been able to figure it out - it was like sensing it - seeing through a glass darkly -- never able to see it clearly before - and thereby never able to identify it.  I have been so blind.  (Probably choosing to be blind.)

I'm afraid now of bleeding to death before I can learn a new way to "be".  Of losing relationships because I opened my eyes too late.  That I'm too old to change sixty years of firmly entrenched pathways in my brain and in my heart.  Of drifting back into blindness because this is no small thing - this asking me to change sixty years of a way of "being" to something else.  How can I possibly do it?

But God...

I can't say there's even a glimmer of hope.  It's too miniscule to call it even that.  but there is the tiniest speck of a glow - not because of anything in me - but only because I know God is faithful.  I am trusting him to lead me out of this.  I have to.  What other choice do I have?  What other hope do I have?

And I'm thanking him that it's not too late.  If I had died last night I would have died never knowing...  at least not knowing before the great white throne of judgment...  If I die tonight, I at least will have died repentant.  For that I am grateful.

And grateful for the circumstances that brought me here to this place of being able to "see".  (I blame no one but myself.)

I'm afraid of what tomorrow may bring.  I don't think I can stand another painful shred of "truth". No, not even a shred.

But God...  I know.  But God...