Some of This Won't Be Pretty

I have committed to honesty, openly. . .

Some of this won't be pretty. . .

I am a man. I am not always comfortable with my feelings. I am NOT ashamed of my DIScomfort with baring my soul. . .of taking off the fig leaves if you will. It is very uncomfortable.

The Fall caused me to "need" covering. My Jesus wants intimacy with me again. He desires His bride. Intimacy with Him is as manly as it gets!!

Here's a litte TMI, if you will. . .

Life lately has been, well, interesting. Honestly, pretty difficult.

I won't bore you with details. But,. . .

I was thinking about what it means to truly know something or someone.

For instance, I know my wife and woohoo! I "know" my wife! Can I get an whooaahh! for Godly wives!?!

I know my kiddos, my friends and my pets. Each of these knowings is different.

I know how to "grow good ole tomatoes, make homemade wine, skin a buck deer and run a trot- line, plow a field all day long and catch catfish from dusk till dawn." Please forgive. I digress. . .

I can scout, shoot and scavenge. I know every deer path and swamp trail from Yazoo to Natchez. Sorry, more Mississippized digression. . . I do like "The Patriot."

Point: We come to know things in lots of different ways.

This, though, is what the process of knowing Christ has felt like lately:

Still Standing

Here am I, staggering. . . battered and broken
Disoriented, not sure of who I am.
Listing to one side and then the other I am
Shattered in appearance, barely recognizable.

My soul, hammered. Bruising delivered by violence
Causes piercing pain in deep places I knew not.
Parts of me crushed that once were my strength.
Pieces of what once was, hanging by, raggedly.

Raw is my flesh and cloudy my mind like a
Fighter's perilously pummelled by a brutal foe.
Inside badly bruised my ribs, my kidneys
Outside, my face broken and bloody.

Wobbly and weak my legs barely hold me aright.
Exhausted, winded, each breath painfully purchased.
Arms too heavy to lift from fiercely fighting an unseen ememy my
Hands bruised, knuckles bulging and bloody. . .

Here am I, staggering. . . battered. . .

But, . . . I AM . . .still standing. . .



Thanks be to God!

Today I feel battered and broken. Hopefully, it is for my good and His Glory. I am encouraged by Phil 3:7-8 & 10-11:

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ...that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

In thinking about knowing Him--
--Am I mourning and moored in a past I can't change and that only God can redeem?
--Am I living in the difficult times of the past, shackled by the fear of future difficulty?

--Am I suffering the loss of all things rubbish, in order to gain Christ?
--Am I forgetting what lies behind and still reaching for what is ahead?

Am I cognizent of the fact that I am STILL STANDING?

My Christ says, "I AM!"