Another break.

Acknowledge Him in all my ways is evermore the primary objective. And I'm terrible at it, no joke. Writing may be one thing, where there's ability to review and revise. But, yeah. Terrible.

Many prayers, of it. Because I'm not even capable of submitting to His will without supernatural assistance. It's terrible. Absolutely terrible. He's sovereign of all. And I'm less than a mote, in the scheme of all...and for some reason can't comprehend how to submit.

That seems like it should be such a simple thing.

Yet it's the most difficult of all, somehow. Surrender. Complete surrender.

So, today's kind of an apology to Him. He knows.

Oh, the things today, though! Miracles. Absolute miracles within the past 24 hours.

I would like to be able to share the details of something which happened yesterday, but can't. Except to say it was miraculous--God moved in a way which was absolutely beautiful to behold. And He still is, because there's still a lot that's absolutely unraveled as interpreted by the naked eye. Faith knows otherwise, though.

Seeing it all come together, though. Being able to witness...? Seriously. Nothing is more of an unmerited privilege than to witness the Lord at work. Nothing, except maybe the inconceivable privilege of knowing Him. And being loved by Him.

Which...as to that...

...every time I say it, now, I think about the...stand-off, really...

experienced as a result of proclaiming myself committed wholeheartedly to the Lord, a month ago. Old family friend being visited. She and her son were there. Both like family.

He asked, as the two of them always do (the two of them and everyone else in existence, so it sometimes seems)..."So, when are you getting married?"

Trying to explain to someone that marriage is not a "thing" in my life really isn't possible within the momentary timeframe expected for a response to that particular question. By no means.
Yet, I'm always utterly shocked to be asked it. Seems surreal.

Makes me want to begin a philosophical soliloquy as, "...but what is marriage, truly?"

One hand upraised in question to the Almighty, as I step slowly but significantly forward, raising my eyes to the Heavens...

. Yeah .

That.

Is what marriage means to me. And I gave the stilted version of that response, really. Something to the effect of being "previously committed," while significantly gesturing to the heavens...or, maybe it was being "otherwise engaged," this time. It's never expected, as to what will be voiced under constraints of such pressure, so sometimes it's not precisely retained.

Either way, it was made clear, both vocally and through gesture. And then reinforced as a statement that my life is to be lived for the Lord, again--always unintentionally, yet somehow quite dramatically--gesturing and looking to the heavens.

He got mad. Seriously. Kind of stormed off.

I gaped in astonishment, while she shook her head and chuckled over his nonsensical behavior.

She and I then spoke of spiritual matters. Until he returned again, voicing a rather snide as so obviously mocking rhetorical question, "Isn't it incestuous to be married to your Father?"

...reflecting upon this, I must have ended the bit before he stormed off by saying something to the end of "effectively being married to the Lord, for all intents and purposes, as that sort of thing goes."

Which, yeah. He hadn't responded to the prior, increasingly direct response to the rather rude presumption that I'd ought be married, in that I'm dedicating my life to the Lord, and marriage isn't necessary for me. Which has taken a LONG, TORTUROUS, DIFFICULT time to accept.
Self-torture, mind you, as to so have come to idolize a concept.

As far as the completely errant bit he came back with, half an hour later...

...I told him it wasn't like that. And--I know without a doubt that the expression on my face was one of complete incredulity and disgust at such an idea, because that's still the lingering response. Utterly shocked and appalled by such an idea!

Some absolutely horrid bit of nonsense wandered across a week or so after that, a rather vociferous and violent attack on the Toronto Latter Rain movement, or whatever it was called... ...just utterly brought all that up again, and I've yet to be able to purge it from my mind, entirely.

The Lord can do that, though. He'll restore in me a clean heart and renew my mind against such blasphemous perversion.

Just--how does that happen? How do people get stuff like that into their heads?

When I still wouldn't budge an inch in backing down but yet further eradicated his argument, ultimately as he told me he would entirely destroy my argument in full, should I continue...by letting him know that it wasn't truly *me* he would be arguing with, nor -was- it me he was at that moment arguing with, and as such his claim was utterly invalid. Oh, the sheer hatred!

Dude friggin jabbed me with the whole...oh, I don't remember what they call that, where your fingers become a penetrating weapon, when you hold in such a way and focus and jab in such a way... ...straight in the kidney. My back was exposed, after all--I was seated, leaning over in such a way that I'd stopped looking at him, as he kept creeping nearer and nearer, till he was leaning against the chair I was seated upon, then leaning over me.

When I spoke the last bit, eye contact was made, unwavering, until he looked away. And then, I cowered, yet again. And he jabbed me in the kidney. Shielded by a hug.

Right in front of his mother. Who basically raised me, at least as much as my own mother.

I didn't even respond to it. Couldn't really. It grieved the Spirit more than anything, shocked me unto grief as well, and then just a briefly abiding, yet piercing, pain. Prayerfully abated.

Whether she truly realized what that latter bit of exchange was, I can't know at present. He then stormed out of the house and slammed the front door, after fiercely and quickly whispering a fairly well known foreign expression of greeting/departure (as is my present knowledge of the thing's nature, at least). She laughed again, shaking her head in...something akin to confusion, or lack of understanding. Sorrow.

We talked about the Word of God, then. Freely.
She asked me to visit again soon. That, anytime--I'm welcome. Even to stay over the night, just to come back.

*sigh*

So, when I say things are strange. I mean they are exceedingly strange.

There is a wholehearted comfort in abiding constantly in the Lord, though. To do otherwise is inconceivable, any longer. Whatever it takes, I will remain in Him, as He so resides in me.

The significance of certain specific of the aforementioned, unembellished account of a recent experience is not lost on me. Yet whom shall I fear?

This world IS the valley of the shadow of death. There is no periodic retreat either from or unto that such place. To walk in the physical is to walk in the valley of the shadow of death. Whose name I refuse to capitalize any longer.

My dear friends, please talk to Jesus. He's the only hope. He's the only hope there ever was, or ever will be. He is the only Way.

And, as He's told me so many times--He'll meet us wherever we are...it doesn't matter...not a bit. He will meet us there, if we cry out to Him. But He will not leave us there. Knowing Him requires the sacrifice as to be drawn out of the darkness, complete.

You can't walk in the darkness and the light. I tried. For YEARS.

Oh, some of the things I witnessed! Some of the things which folks consider nothing more than plotlines!

One which CAN be mentioned at this interval is a near-abduction. Attempted abduction.

Unto what end--really couldn't tell you. But it was set up.

Whether for me, specifically, or just for someone who was adequately resemblant to such a sort of description?...no idea. Doesn't matter. But it was only the grace of God, by word of knowledge, which saved me. By divine direction.

And that was even when I was still attempting to live in the darkness--still, He saved me!

The Feds moved in on the end of the French Quarter I was working, increasingly in the two months subsequent to that experience. Locked down the bar immediately next door to mine for--was it three?--hours one night. Arrested so many.

It was a comfort.

The fellow who then owned the bar I was working (as bartender/security/management)...sold the place, with all due haste. One of the friends I'd brought in to work with me there had wanted to co-purchase the place, with me--this, prior to the abduction attempt and the sell-out...
...we spent months researching business records, property records, municipal code, state law, business logistics...
...and found some really interesting stuff.

But it's neither here nor there, really. Only just to say that I know that God is sovereign and that He is faithful beyond measure and good beyond comprehension--for Him to have not only kept me safe even unto raising a standard within/through/about me when the enemy did again and again come in like a flood, during those straying years...not only did He keep me safe, though, but He surrounded me with people who knew love. People who knew hope. And people of morals.

In a place where, increasingly I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I was just to the matter that...mayhap there really were none, except those which just seemed evident to ME.
And to those very small few, core group of three besides myself, by whom I was alternately surrounded and carried through to safety (the latter being figurative speech, yeah).

But He did, though. I was actively looking for the darkest places. I actively found them and walked there. And He stayed the hand of death, SOOOOO many times.

So many times, there's no way to even be able to count them, just being able to recall those many, many times which I'm actually -aware- of.

He came to destroy, bind, and undo the works of the devil, though. And so He did, He has, He does, and He always will.

Once done, on that account, is forever.

Having personally experienced death so many times, though, there's a different regard for it, now. In context of having experienced so many times...that His Spirit does ALWAYS raise a standard. ...and, as it's put in the Amplified translation (which I chose for the sake of conserving time--it would take far too long to gain a sufficient grasp on Hebrew and Greek as to be able to deeply comprehend connotational meaning both inclusive of social context and historical, unto the sort of comprehensive meaning relayed to both direct word for word AND thought for thought translation within that work of translation...which the Holy Spirit did direct, if you'll look into how the translation came into being--three different parties, each with specific individual impulses to act, which ultimately coincided as to produce the work, without prior expectation or requirement)

the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him (the enemy) and put him to flight [for He will come like a rushing stream which the breath of the Lord drives].

He does. Every time.

Without fail.

And I don't take it for granted, by saying it that way. I am wholly humbled and in awe as unworthy, yet exceedingly grateful for such a merciful and wonderful and loving thing as to be so very shielded and completely carried through those times when my physical, mental, and spiritual ability wholly fails.

Like when the brakes went out on the truck, coming around a blind curve to find a car stopped in the middle of the road, oncoming traffic, and a ravine just off the right hand shoulder of the road...? I couldn't do anything. But my mom was riding shotgun, my little brother and one of his friends were in the backseat, and I couldn't conceive of them getting hurt.
Even thought there was nothing I could do.

He took over.

A total calm and immediate purpose took over and guided the truck just between the ravine and the stopped car. then to slow it down, along the gravel on the shoulder. no recollection of what worked to slow it so quickly.

That sort of thing has happened with such a regularity in life that I can neither deny His abiding and sovereign Presence, nor deny how merciful a thing it is that He is made strong in my weakness, nor can I question that He'll always do such a thing, merely for the sake of who He is, and loving.

As I love Him. Purely. Without motive, except to serve and praise. For He's just so worthy.

Today has been odd, though.

I need to look into the whole sackcloth and ashes thing, because...for some reason, it's been something that keeps catching my attention, as it always has. As "weeping and gnashing of teeth" once did, for a while, until I experienced being surrounded as such--DO NOT RECOMMEND. NOPE.

Jesus is just so awesome. Just talk to Him. Everybody.

Please.

Dude on tv today...Baptist pastor in Kentucky...did a whole bit explaining predestination in a way I'd never heard it before. He wasn't wrong, but there was something vacuous about the way He put it.

Of course, given the things experienced today--it may merely have been because the television was on, such an experience.

Back in a bit.

Much love and may the grace of God be with you, all.

Strange, when state legislators would become violent of what would otherwise be assumed to constitute mere semantics.