A Note:

But it’s not really a paradox. I believe in a God who is compassionate and loving. I believe in a God who saw in me not a hopeless case as my abusers did, as most people do, and said ‘this boy, who is having his soul and body so terribly extinguished deserves love’. The truth is that God has been with me throughout all of this trauma and pain. I know for a fact that I do not deserve in any way the Grace that He has so freely offered me. I know I do not deserve His forgiveness now. But I praise God for the FACT that this is His beautiful nature. He is a good, loving and forgiving Father. I will not let Him down. And the only way I can let Him down is to not overcome at death. Please remember I was not born this way. I’m being open. Please don’t judge me for my openness. I know I should not care that much but it’s difficult not to. I’ve just needed some time to think. Not about salvation. I know how clear it is that I do not want to lose my salvation. Not about anything in particular. I just need to think about what I am doing. This is because of what I have been through. Christ is sufficient to get me through. It would have been too painful and difficult for me to overcome my problems in life. This is why I was meant to overcome death in spirit after injury. About most things, I speak with an insight. Because of the trauma in my developmental phases, I am not always able to speak clearly what is on my mind. Why I write. This is a big part of my message. People perceived to be bad are not always acting out of malice. Do not judge merely by appearances. This may not make sense for a while. What you need to take from this is the fact that life affects people. I feel like this all of the time. But then, almost as quickly as that feeling comes upon me, it leaves just as quickly. It leaves the second I remember the Grace and forgiveness of the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. Sure, this is a testimony, journal. But the fact is that sometimes we have to get out our emotions and allow the Christ to heal the wounds. I praise God every second that I am alive and have the choice constantly to choose and confront thoughts and how I react to others. I know for a fact that I have failed. I certainly have failed. Many times, I have failed. But I am forgiven. And I am able to go on, to move forward in the truth that my past is just that, PAST. I can move forward because I know that God loves me at the core of my identity. This is not excuse to sin. This morning I felt such a profound peace. But then, as the day went on, accumulations of stuff I shouldn’t even have been thinking about and entertaining in my mind encouraged me to write what I just wrote at the beginning of this entry. It’s in getting the feelings out, it’s in getting the demons out and replacing these thoughts with the healing and saving grace of Christ Jesus that we’re able to move forward. With my past, accumulations simply keep coming and I get overwhelmed. But I will never give up. I will never lose hope. The fact is that it’s discouraging to be viewed poorly. But our identity comes not from what others think of us. I once lived with a non-competitive nature. I wouldn’t have wished harm upon anyone nor do I now. The times when I was defensive, I was being just that; defensive. I never saw the value of winning nor tried to win at games when I played. I viewed the evil one as a definite threat to my salvation. But I would not have wished harm even to that spirit. Because I didn’t want to hurt anybody or anything. Lately, in regaining my competitive side, I am beginning to see the evil one for the truth of that spirit’s nature. I’m starting to see it for what it is. This is a very real fight. And I, in my neurotic gentleness (lol) can truly say that I am righteously angry at that spirit. I’m angry at it because I see that all of the devastation and pain in my life came as a result of listening to it. I know I shouldn’t have. The darkness is easily embraced amidst suffering. In that sense, it is important to gather around those who suffer and to aid them in their recoveries. There are reasons for everything in our lives. We are not always what we do or say. The truth about the darkness is that it very much often resembles Truth. But it twists key parts of Truth until the end result is very different from the loving nature and intention of the Truth. For example: Did God really say, “Don’t murder?” This is especially true when God has made His intentions clear to a person. For an example from my own life: a couple of years ago, the Spirit encouraged me to abstain from sexual release for a couple of weeks. This was for my healing benefit and also so that He could do His work in me. A couple of days before the two week mark, I heard another voice that stated, “Is it really that bad if you were to release? After all, doesn’t God want you to be happy?” I recognize it now, but this was the voice of the darkness, tempting me away from a purpose God had set out before me in advance. I saw my friend Maria again today. This is the woman on welfare who I see every once in a while at church. I said I was going to come downtown today the last time I saw her. I gave her one hundred and forty dollars. This is the last time for a while I will give to her. She is always asking for more. I won’t give to her a while. Only because I can’t afford to support her as well as myself. But I will give to her again. After Mass today, I felt much peace. Much better than how I felt when I first started writing this entry. I gave a brother asking for money on the street in front of the church five dollars. He looked at me so warmly and wished for God’s blessing on me twice. It was a nice feeling. But it was not the reason I offer people like him charity. I offer charity because I have the greatest gift any human could have for the future. I give charity to people who need it to glorify God and praise Him. I have never experienced real, genuine, caring and reciprocal love. But I’d imagine the feeling from that is similar to the feeling I get when I am able and blessed enough to help another human being when they need it. Sometimes all it takes to escape despair and reliving pain from the past is to reassess who you are in God as opposed to who you are in yourself and in what you have done and accomplished. This life is not about you. It’s for you but it’s not you who has to try to defeat the bad stuff. This life can be so joyful, so beautiful and so awesome. If we are able and willing to allow it to be. Praise the Lord from whom living waters and streams of salvation pour from! Continuation: If this doesn’t make sense to you now, it will make sense soon. I’m just asking for you to have compassion. Above that, keep faith. But remember that life is a lot more fragile than we often give it credit as being. People are people. God sees this and because he knows why we sin, he forgives us. I’m sorry for a lot of crazy things I do. I learned a lot of these things and put on a lot of these masques to keep myself alive and sane in the midst of a lot of unfair treatment. We’re all in this life together. We’re all doing our best to survive. We are survivors. And God is healing me. I know that. I feel it. Many people I am close with sense the changes. I occasionally slip back into old ways and strategies I used to survive through a hell, but every time, I pick myself up and turn back. “Don’t give up before the miracle happens”. I thank God I’m in the middle of the battle and not at the end. We all have emotions. Use sound reasoning and sober judgement with these facts in mind.