questions swirling through my mind, instead of the infatuation that I first had for my savior. every breath underscored with purpose and life. everything is more gray. more prone to sin. without feeling explicitly fearful, I can sense that that there is an undercurrent of fear that lies under all I am these days of late. why else would I feel distant from my Lord? Why else would I feel fear? Everything feels maliciously instead of beautifully paradoxical. Every truth just out of my reach. Saran wrap back over my head again. Soul vulnerability as I crave the only love that ever filled me. The hand that roved over mine heart, feels abandoned, and every website i stumble into says to know instead of feel. But aren’t those things intimately intimately connected? How much should depression play a role in this? what am I missing? I am rebuked by Oswald Chambers, who warms against fetishizing the rare high feelings of faith. I wonder if I am truly redeemed. I wonder occasionally if demons are at play in my body. In one moment I entertain getting up and moving and pursuing life, I send encouraging texts, in another I entertain exorcism. Paul prays for the Ephesians to know the width, the height, the depth, of love, and I cry. Like looking at a past truth from present eyes. Looking at a present truth with blind eyes. If I copy scripture, speak affirmations over the uncomprehending spirit lies numb in me, will the seed I plant, the prayers and hours spent crying over the bible bear fruit. I have to trust or I will die. I am so weak. I cannot see my savior. It is a feeling like a loved one gone missing. All of the confusion, guilt, mental strain, and heartbreak. But is it an illusion? Is it like the heartbreak that ensues for patients who falsely think their spouse killed the real one. An amnesia that may be in my control or not, I don’t know, clouds over me. Am I in the hands of the enemy or am I not? I don’t even know if I love him, I don’t know what I know anymore. I am not a man, but a worm. I wonder if I am growing, if I am falling, if I am learning, if I am dying. If I am being damned. If I only had faith, I am sure, all would be well. God, show me what steps to take and I will jump headfirst into the river, from whatever height. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||