Well, once again my words went awry.  If I did not also receive encouragement this day on the good which I do have to share, I swear I would put my pen down and shut my mouth forever, find that cave, and NEVER come out.  Why is it that I have become so harmful?

    Search me, O God, and know my heart;
         Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
    And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
         And lead me in the everlasting way.
                                            ~Psalm 139:23-24

Today has also be a huge dose of my own medicine.  For the past month, I have had mirrors held up to me that I find nothing short of crushing.  If they are truly mirrors, then I want to look upon them to learn what I need to learn, but I have also wondered how in the world I'm supposed to survive the process.  I think I am not always hearing what is actually being said, but I don't know how to clarify that when I cannot seem to talk about those things without making such a bloody mess that I should be taken out back behind the woodshed and shot.

Well, the mirror today is the harshest yet.  On one hand, I still have no judgment, for I believe strongly that grace and patience should be heaped upon the wounded person in such measure that there is no accounting, for I have experienced myself such a reckless outpouring of love and know the power of such mercy.  However, I am finding the burden before me quite staggering and it is a burden I have placed on others myself...not really understanding the magnitude of such until I stood as helpless and heart broken as those who bent beneath my burden. 

It is a very humbling thing to experience that moment when you realize no matter how much you long to help, to "do something" for another person, all you really can do is pour out the sweet, sweet Gospel and pray, because Christ is the only One who can "do" anything for the soul at that time.

Is there any way to know if a heart is hardened to sin verses broken by sin?  For there is hope in the latter, but only great fear in the former.

It has been a day of overwhelming sorrow watching another sheep suffer and absolute shock and horror that I, myself, caused the suffering of another yet again.  It has been a day of gentle rebuke and great encouragement from a stranger.  It has been a day of striving and a day of stillness.  It has been a day of forgiveness.  And it has been a day in which I have learned just how great is the heart of my Papa Dore, so much greater than even I had imagined.

While I long for Walther and Forde both, for an opportunity to forget my confusion and my bungling and throw myself into Lutheran doctrine, I am too exhausted to really study.  So, I opened the 101 Things Jesus has Done For You book and discovered the next one in the queue is exactly the lesson I needed this day....

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  John 14:27a

 15.  JESUS GIVES US THE GIFT OF PEACE.

While He was on earth, Jesus' hands  did many things.  They touched lepers and made them well.  They blessed bread and multiplied the loaves.  And they stretched over a stormy sea and quieted the waves.

Even now, Jesus' hands stretch over our lives, giving us His peace and stilling the storms of our hearts.  We experience His peace when we pray and when we read about Him, remembering His great power and His great love for us.  And sometimes we experience His peace in a way that transcends our understanding, in an unexplainable calm that wraps itself around us, a gift from our loving Savior.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!