By doing exactly what I should not be doing, the pain is more bearable now.  And the muscle or whatever is at least somewhat better.  I have been taking prescription strength ibuprofen round the clock—an utter no-no for someone on high dose Celebrex—and taking the maximum dose of acetaminophen mid-way between ibuprofen doses (a trick a nurse once taught me).  I also have been icing that part of my back with this re-freezable thing that gets very, very cold—I may be the first one ever to get frostbite in April in Virginia.  At least today I could bear to sit in a chair for work.  Although being there, with a smile pasted on my face, was almost as painful as my back.

Someone once told me that there was no way I was not having a good time, that I couldn't possibly be fooling him.  In that moment, I realized that I have become the consummate actress and my heart sunk in absolute despair.  I hate pretending.  For is not doing so really living a lie?

Of course, I also believe that if you look at me, really look at me, you will see the pain I bear, you will see the cognitive dysfunction I struggle to hide, you will see the battle.  The problem is no one ever looks.

My anger over that is something I confess to God daily, sometimes hourly.  "Oh, Myrtle, you look so well!"  I want to scream at such comments.  Can you not see that I am leaning on the copier just to remain upright?  Can you not see that I am the last to leave the conference room so that I can battle through the pain of stiffness from sitting through a meeting?  Can you not see my trembling hands?  Can you not see my confusion, my panic?

Want to know a secret?  The worse I feel, the more I dress up.  When you see me wearing my pearls, you know I am barely hanging on.  I am not sure why I do, but I do.  Today was a day for pearls, a flowing skirt that twirls when I spin, heels (something someone with MS has no business wearing), red lipstick, and my grandmother's antique earrings from Italy (the ultimate sign of my distress).

This woman at work asked me, out of the blue, if I was upset about something.  When I nodded almost imperceptibly, she assumed it was over my boss.  In part, that would be the truth.  What is happening sickens my co-worker.  But she knows there is no recourse other than to quit, which neither of us can really do.  Today, in a moment of macabre joy, we fired each other so we could at least get unemployment.

It is exhausting to be actively hated, to be judged an incompetent failure every single blooming day.  It is harder when you have to pretend you do not hear such things, you do not hear the threats against your job.  It is exhausting to turn the other cheek, to smile, to continue on graciously.  I stink at doing this.  And actively hate myself for such weakness.

I know God gave me this job.  And I am almost certain He did so that I could love her.  I find that to be most humorous—my loving her.  I don't know how.  I mean, I hide my hurt and anger and absolute disgust for her behavior.  I hide my disrespect and actively try to respect her authority.  I help her when she needs help.  I offer before she asks.  Some things I do is because I am in terror of losing my job and some things I do because she is a child of God, though she knows it not.

Still, I hate that my life, from the moment I walk in the door in the morning until the time I climb back into my car, is at least some part, if not all, a lie.  I cannot be weak.  I cannot be ill.  I cannot be confused.  I cannot make mistakes.  I cannot be anything less than positive.  I cannot be anything less than perfect.  Given that I am incapable of doing any of these for any substantial length of time, I spend my time trying to minimize the punishment for failing to do them all of them, one of them.  It is in doing this that I sicken myself.  My boss, at least, is not pretending.  I am.

I wonder sometimes just how much pretending other people do.  It would be helpful to know that I am not alone in this.  But I suspect that no one comes close to the pretending I do.

Funny, I work very, very hard to be truthful, to be honest.  In part, this is because of the lies I've had in my life.  In part, it is because of the blessed time I spent being a hospice volunteer, having the privilege of attending the dying and their families.  You never know what tomorrow will bring so you should not waste an opportunity to speak today.  But, really, that means nothing—my committement to honesty—given what I hide, eh?

I have been thinking a lot about this and about something that Pastor S said today that was very harsh, very hard, in as kind a way as possible to speak such words.  I am more thankful for his honesty than I can say.  He told me that something I was doing was making myself out to be God.  While I do not fully understand his comment, I understand more of why what I was doing was wrong.  It is a good thing to know your sin, even if you find yourself falling beneath its weight again.  Even then.

What is extraordinary, to me, then is that he said, knowing my depth of sin, knowing the sin I committed and even that I long to commit it again though the shame of it tears at me, "I forgive you. I forgive you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Selah.

It is no secret that I feel as if Walther's words were written down for me, words from well over a hundred years ago spoken to a group of young men preparing to enter into the ministry.  I was not there then. I am not that audience not.  But this is not like 2 Timothy, a letter not meant for me.  January 23, 1885 Walther spoke for me.  Strange, I know.  But is not God a God of Strangeness?  Are not His ways utterly different from our own?

The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel is a text I have lingered over.  Normally, this would have been scarfed down in mere days, not the months I've taken to make my way just past a third of the truth God gave through Walther's pen.  I believe it is a text taught in Lutheran seminaries, but I wish more pastors would take it up again, perhaps once a year, to remind themselves of the importance of properly dividing Law and Gospel, of giving Law and of giving Gospel.  Moreover, I wish they would take it up, translate papist with Protestant (applicable most of the time), and know the false teachings that permeate much of American Christianity.  For then they would know the grave state of those of us ex-Protestants who stumble to their doorsteps.

My Dear Friends; Beloved in the Lord: —

Even there I pause.  See the passion?  See the love?  I could be called Beloved in the Lord every hour, every day, for the rest of my life and never tire of hearing those words.

My Dear Friends; Beloved in the Lord: —

You know that the papists teach even godly persons do not enter heaven immediately after earth, but before being admitted to the vision of God must first pass through a so-called purgatory, where they are supposed to become purged by fire with horrible torments from sins for which they had not made full atonement.  Worse than this, the papists teach that no person, not even a sincere Christian, can be assured in the present life that he is in a state of grace with God, that he has received forgiveness of sins and will go to heaven. Only a few, they say are excepted from this rule, namely, the holy apostles and extraordinarily great saints, to whom God has given advance information by revealing to them in an extraordinary manner that they will reach the heavenly goal.

This is the doctrine of the Antichrist—absolutely without comfort.  You know that our Lutheran Church teaches the very opposite.  It is a pity that the great majority of nominal Lutherans, while cherishing a kind of human hope that they are accepted with God, that they have obtained forgiveness of sin, and will be saved, nevertheless have no assurance of these matters.  This sad phenomenon proves that such Lutheran, far from having received the Lutheran doctrine into their hearts, have no knowledge of it at all.

How could the Christian doctrine be called the evangel, that is glad tidings, if those who accept it much be in constant doubt whether their sins are covered, whether God looks upon them as righteous people, and whether they will go to heaven?  If even a Christian cannot know what his relation to God is and what his fate will be in eternity, whether damnation or salvation, what difference would there be between a Christian and heathen, the latter of whom lives without God and without hope in this world?

Does not part of this sound familiar at least?  The Calvinist teaching that we know we have faith by being faithful?

Does not Holy Scripture say: "Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"?  Heb. 11,1. (Luther translates:  "Faith is having a sure confidence regarding things hoped for and not doubting things unseen.")  Does not our blessed Lord Jesus Christ say:  "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"?  Matt. 11,28.  Does He not say:  "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst"?  John 4,14.  Does He not say:  "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand"?  John 10, 27,28.  If the aforementioned doctrine of doubt were true, would not all these sayings be empty delusions, yea—I shudder to say it!—lies and cheats?

Our dear Lord Jesus Christ requires of His followers that they wrestle with their own flesh and blood, the world, and the devil, and that they be faithful unto death.  He requires of them that they renounce all that they have, come to Him, take His cross upon them, deny themselves, and follow Him.  He tells them in advance that, if they side with Him, the world will hate them, revile them, and persecute them unto death.  If the aforementioned doctrine of doubt were right, who would desire to come to Christ, side with Him, and fight all the great and dreadful battles of this life, following His crimson banner?  Who could muster the strength to follow after holiness if he had to doubt whether he will ever reach the heavenly goal?  Indeed, any one who has received this doctrine of doubt into his heart is an unhappy man.  He remains forever a sorry slave of the Law; he is constantly told by his conscience:  "It is not well with you; who can tell what god's thoughts concerning you are, what punishment is awaiting you?"

Unquestionably, this doctrine of doubt is the most horrible error into which a Christian can fall.  For it puts Christ, His redemption, and the entire Gospel to shame.  It is therefore no jesting matter.

Where are we to look for the root of this error?  Nowhere else than in the co-mingling of Law and Gospel.  Let us learn, then, rightly to divide the Word of God, the Law and the Gospel, which the Apostle Paul requires of every servant of the Church of God.  (138-139)

SIGH.

I may be the worst excuse for a Christian, a Lutheran, walking the face of the planet, but I know my error lies in the co-mingling of Law and Gospel.  I know it.  And I know I need help with the untangling.  Yes, I need to plant myself in the pew most every chance I get so that I might be properly fed.  But more importantly I need those knots undone.  I need for Law to be no longer wrapped around Gospel, for Gospel to be no longer woven with threads of Law.

We also learned that it is a false method to prescribe to an alarmed sinner all manner of rules for his conduct, telling him what he has to do, how earnestly and how long he must pray, and wrestle, and struggle until he hears a mysterious voice whispering in his heart: "Your sins are forgiven; you are a child of God; you are converted," or until he feels that the grace of God has been poured out in his heart.  That is the method adopted for conversion by all the Reformed sects and their adherents. (140)

That is the method I was taught.  This is the method that has soaked so deeply within that I do not recognize what I am practicing...even as I read, savor, and delve into Lutheran doctrine.

It is therefore a pernicious delusion when people pray in such a way that they dare not wholeheartedly add "Yes" and conclude with certainty that God hears their prayer.  Instead, they remain in doubt, saying, "Why should I be so bold as to boast that God hears my prayer?"  "I am only a poor sinner," etc.  That means they are looking not at God's promise but at their own works and worthiness, and thereby they despise God and accuse him of lying.  Therefore they receive nothing, as St. James [1:6-7] says, "but ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter...must not expect to receive anything from the Lord."  Look! God has attached much importance to our being certain so that we do not pray in vain or despise our prayers in any way (Book of Concord, LC, Part III, 121-124, Kolb/Wengert).

While wailing again (I know, I am doing that a lot lately) to someone, I quoted this passage to him.  Flung it, actually at him, to prove my point.  He lobbed it right back at me, properly divided.  I wish I had taken notes.  Truly, all I can do is bungle my way through what I caught.

The ball I flung him was wrapped in Law. I doubt. I practically live at sea sometimes, so therefore I cannot expect to receive anything from God.

What he returned was that, yes, I sin in my failure to pray with true conviction, with pure faith, but that when I pray, God does not see my sin, my failure, but the purity of His Son.  He does not hear my words, but the words Christ has taken into Himself and passed on to the Father.  Surely the Father never stops hearing His Son.  And His Son never stops praying for me.  Even when I falter.  Even when I fail.

The Law is there to remind me to pray and teach me how to pray, but the Gospel is there to remind me that I pray through and with and under the cross.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!