Frail Words

This is one of those nights where my thoughts are so disturbing even to myself that I erase the whole post and start completely again. And believe me, this almost was a very long, long, needlessly disturbing post.

I often find great comfort, as my faithful readers may have gathered, in staring the beast of human nature straight in the eye. Perhaps when you've locked horns with it, it's easier to catch the surprises it throws at you. Perhaps not, and I am in for a great thrashing at its hands someday.

But that is not what bothers me tonight. What does bother me tonight is that sometimes the things I see in it are so disturbing that trying to articulate them leaves me with a horribly dark and despairing post that runs the length of about five pages with no clear lesson or point or resolution in sight other than what I have already made very clear and have arrived at by countless other paths already - that people are monsters.

Sometimes I can see the faded image of God stamped on that monster, and for a moment the beast is beautiful in spite of itself. Other times, like tonight, I have a difficult time in seeing any value in mankind at all, and the eyes I stare at are crowded with gnashing teeth and bloodied hands.

I have seen a great deal of evil this week, in the actions of others and in my own heart, and I am troubled by it. Part of me keeps thinking that I should be above it, but I am not. Though I labor to be a salt and a light in this world, I clumsily spill the shaker and choke the flame at every turn, the hot wax burning my hands.

I am trying my hardest to get out of the way of the Gospel, but sometimes it is difficult, as I trip over my own feet in trying to move. All I desire is to give a glimpse of the Eternal "I AM" that inspires me to live, a taste of the All-Powerful Almighty who gives a boundless Life that death cannot even lay claim to, of the unfathomable Grace that calls the most depraved and despicable and despised in all the world its loved ones and servants and friends.

In staring into the eyes of the beast, I find myself staring into my own blackened heart, and all too often become entranced with fascination. I, the morbid narcissist that I am, allow my own faults and preoccupation with my own evil (and my wicked delight in it) to blind me and distract me from my own purpose sometimes, and to you, my reader, I apologize for that.

But what troubles me more are the times when I can pry my gaze away long enough to try and say what I want to, and find that I know not how to say it at all.

How on earth can a man precisely capture the depths of darkness in the human soul and clearly illustrate with these limited words that reflect even more limited perceptions the Unparalleled Glory of God's Love in Jesus Christ calling, catching, and cradling that black, damned soul, setting it aright, and breathing Life Anew upon it?

In frustration, my frail words collapse.

"LORD, I cannot. You must."