Today

I’m never sure how to start entries like this one.
I’m not sure why I make them, either.
They’re mostly for me, I guess…

…To distract myself by making myself preoccupied with something else–the feeling of pressing the keys under my fingertips as I type, looking for the words that have the right texture to capture my frame of mind, taking jumbled and anxious thoughts and stringing them together in an orderly manner that gives the impression that my thoughts are organized, when my mind is anything but–anything other than this ever creeping feeling. This death which follows me like a lost animal.

At 33, I can say I’ve officially been ill for a longer period of my life than I was ever well.
I cling to days of feeling normal like a life-raft. I relish those moments and thank God for them. But, on average, they’ve been few and far between.

I make my best effort not to complain.
This is my cross to bare. I know that.
Frankly, I thought I’d mastered it quite well.
But I swear, it seems it’s gotten heavier.

Maybe I’m just exhausted. Or maybe I’m just not as spiritually steadfast as I ought to be.
Maybe the demons have increased in their zeal against me.
Maybe my health has gotten worse.

I’m boxed into a corner. Drowning, slowly, as a prisoner to my own body.
Isolated by an inner experience invisible to everyone else.
Nothing I’ve done has worked, unfortunately. 14 years of struggling to find answers has yielded no real solutions.

How desperately I wish this would be gone from me.

On the one hand, this affliction served a distinct role as a sort of catalyst in humbling me to the point that I eventually called out to God.
On the other hand, I am overwhelmed by this burden at times.

I did say to myself a few years ago, that if I ever were going to be healed of this malady, surely the powers of evil would attack me more ferociously than ever, just before I cross that finish line. I’ve suspected that the trial could become severe enough to convince me that I might actually die–or that perhaps it would be severe enough that I might actually come as close as one can to dying.

What makes Providence what it is is that the sequence of events leading up to a specific moment can’t be foreseen–all the dots are impossible to perceive, let alone connect. So, even if things seem on the verge of disaster, the Lord may rebuke the winds and calm the storm.

In principle, I have faith. I trust God wholeheartedly, despite that my heart feels weak.

In reality, I am unsure. I know that God’s wisdom and timing are beyond my comprehension, nor does He owe me a miracle.
Not everyone is healed.

And so, I’m afraid.

Perfect love casts out fear, yet it is because of the love I have for my family that I fear leaving them behind to fend for themselves in the world.

The idea of breaking their hearts by my absence is my greatest source of mental anguish; to imagine that my baby boy would be sad or crying because he doesn’t understand where his daddy is…

Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy!!!

I am the provider and protector which the Lord has appointed over them.
They are mine to cherish. They are mine to love.

My precious wife and child. The joy of my existence on this earth.
The reason to bitterly repent and become a better man. The reason to have courage and to refuse failure. The reason to maintain a life of prayer and to become a model of faith worthy of imitating, that I might help guide them in the Way towards Christ.

The Lord draws me onward towards salvation from before me, and they push me towards salvation from behind with the motivating force of love.

This one thing is the end in which I solemnly hope, apart from the redemption of my own soul: that I may persist long enough to see our little ones dedicating themselves to the narrow path, prepared to face the journey on their own (with God). That is the future I desire.

But what I have is today.

Today is all I’m able to live in.
Today is the day I must use to the fullest.
And today is what I’m grateful to have been given.
This is the day the Lord has made.

If you’re seeing this, please, pray for me.
Forgive my weakness.
I’m at war.