Well....I gotta say, 2010 has sure been a test of faith for me already. I am having to lean wholly on God to keep myself from utterly collapsing.

The former content on this blog has been deleted for over 2 months now, but it is still coming back to haunt me stronger than ever. Forgiveness should be able to cover anything, but human forgiveness is a mere imitation of God's perfect forgiveness and does not always do so. Let me rephrase that: forgiveness does cover anything, but sometimes it is with a transparent sheeting. What I wrote on this blog has been permanently graven into some people's minds, never to be erased. It now defines me in their minds, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I can do to ever change that.

I will never live it down, it will always be there staring back at me with its ugly face, a reminder of my mistake and failure. It is like a starfish that only multiplies when you try to destroy it. I never knew at the time I was doing something so lethal...and now, I must live in the aftermath. God, forgive me...and help me to walk the bloody path of brokenness with unshaken faith.

What has been saddest to me has been the fact that some people have deserted me in my hour of distress. When things are good, you never know what's wrong or who your real friends are. Nearly anybody is willing to stick by you when things are okay. But when things get tough, sometimes it surprises you who turns a cold shoulder to you, even people you've known for years, more than half a decade. I have always said ignorance is not bliss and I'd rather have the truth as much as it hurts, but dang......this absolutely stings in the innermost chambers of my heart.

I never in my wildest dreams imagined that this verse would ever apply to me.

You have caused my companions to shun me;
You have made me a horror to them.
Psalm 88:8

And this well-known passage

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
2 Corinthians 12:7

I never imagined would apply to your friends deserting you. I always pictured illnesses, harassment and persecution by unbelievers, loss of family members, etc. when I read this passage. That's not all of it, this verse does indeed include your friends turning their backs on you and abandoning you. The thorn is not always something you can walk through next to your friends, sometimes the very thorn is your friends deserting you. Life is so hard sometimes...but it is only a vapor. I know that eternal joy awaits my fleeting breath.

Oh Lord, give me strength to keep running this race...help me persist to the end. The sorrow is great, but Your joy surpasses it and smothers it. May my tears be swallowed up in the goodness of Your love!!!!