A three-fold response...

I dragged myself, literally at points, to Divine Service tonight. It was a test of sorts, to see if I could endure the agony of a bent torso long enough drive there and still be able to concentrate on anything at all. I got there, but I confess that there was little I retained. At the moment, I am very much clinging to the promise that God's Word will not return void and am hoping the Holy Spiri
t will use what went into my ears even if I could not follow the Words because most of my faculties were focused on remaining in the pew until after the Lord's Supper. Just one bit of the sermon stood out: something about how Christmas is about our baptism, about Christ's birth *and* our new birth. Having never heard that Christmas is about our baptism, I am hoping that I can get a copy of his sermon.

Afterwards, I spoke with my pastor for a few minutes. When I finally got out what I wanted to say, what I have been trying to say for months, for longer really, he understood. I was crying because I have been in such innards misery since Friday and my resolve for facing such with any sort of grace or patience lessens with each passing day. All I want is to be free of this. I try so very hard to step outside of the moment and let it pass, as Inara advised on Firefly's "Heart of Gold" episode, because this truly is but a moment of time in whole of my life. Only, I am weak and I am very, very weary.

I was also weeping because there are things that I need to say, that need to be outside of my head and my heart and I do not always know where to speak them because it is not merely the speaking that is needful, but also the listening. In this case, I had been longing to say something that was worrying me, but was too afraid to speak. Fear is so binding.

And, in my case, fear is also crippling, physically crippling. I have had migraine after migraine after migraine for several weeks now because of the stress of the things in my mind, on my heart. The fears. The questions. The shame that remains still.

Some of the things that are burdening me I do not even know. I am trying to discover them, to understand. Some I do. I spoke of one tonight.

I spoke and my pastor's response was three-fold: 1) to tell me that he understood why I wanted to speak; 2) to speak the Word of Absolution to me; and 3) to pray for me.

While I still wish mightily to remove my entire mid-section and despair of facing even the next ten minutes of the nausea and pain and other innards misery, much less another long and miserable night, the pain in my head is lessened. The speaking and the listening helped me.

So, as I said, I am clinging to the promise of the efficacy and the Author of the working of the Word and to the healing and forgiveness I received both in the body and blood of Christ and in the unexpected, but deeply appreciated second Word of Absolution given to me.



Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!