Abandoned Hope

I recall a traffic accident about to happen.  I remember it in particular detail since it was really a slow moving potential crash.  It would have just been a fender bender - but who wants to have to deal with that, right?

I was sitting in a parking lot and someone started to back up.  The first flash was "Oh, surely they will see me in just a few of milliseconds."  They kept coming now very close.  At that time it was:  "Great guns, I don't even have time to back-up.  I had better blow the horn, this is going to disturb the church service but no matter, it's got to happen."  So I blew the horn.  One long blast.  As it sounded I watched the rear bumper disappear from view, even though I was sitting in a van much farther forward than a standard car such that once you can't see the rear bumper, it is very close.

They kept coming backward at a steady pace.  The horn was sounding, there was no way I could get my vehicle in reverse fast enough, all I could do was wait and hope.  Then the hope was gone.  "It's going to happen" I thought.  While I can't claim miraculous intervention, but it seemed that way, because the driver stopped millimeters short.  The messy accident was averted.

I feel like that micro-moment captures my current feeling.  The point where I had been waiting and hoping and the transition from hope to sure failure.

I used to say all the time:  "God hates me,"  because I simply don't follow his commands and I do things that break his principles and laws.  But Armageddon hasn't come yet, so I am trying to stop saying that.  I don't think it is true anymore.  Now I say to myself:  "God loves me; but I hate God"

“No one can slave for two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other,+ or he will stick to the one and despise the other. You cannot slave for God and for Riches. Matthew 6:24 RNWT.

It sounds like such a strong statement, but there it is in the bible.  I despise God as, clearly something else (not necessarily riches, but something) is the master whom I worship.  Now, just how am I gonna fix this?

Study Meetings Prayer Service.  How I motivate myself to study?  Get to know God.  How do I get to know God?  Study.  How do I break out of this cycle?  Dear reader, I'll let you know if I ever do.

While I don't believe in a literal hell, I feel I am passing the pictured threshold. moving beyond the sign that reads:  "ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE"

Step One: Who Knows How Many Will Follow

So on the last post I decided that I need to do some things:

1. Read More
2. Pray More (as much as is necessary to stop feeling anxious.)
3. Look up what is already written about my problems and try to apply that,
4. Stop feeling sorry for myself, wash my face and
5. Help others

I had my first Family Worship night with my son.  It was good.  He was positive about it and it helped me to understand his reasoning on things.

I haven't put into practice these things.  I am praying more, for the next encounter with a "professional" woman be somehow cancelled.  This is the second time I set up a date with her so I am determined to keep it unless she cancels.  If I do end up going, I will try my best to enjoy the time together, however because of the nature of the encounter, there is very little chance of it leading to anything immoral.

I suppose I do spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself.  How stupid is that!

It still seems largely hopeless, but I don't feel quite as bad as I have before.   I think that the convention did raise my spirits a bit.  Of course, they beat me up pretty oggd

Continuing Breakage

What will I do to keep from breaking this next weekend as well.

1. A schedule of things to do and tasks to complete
2. A schedule that includes Prayer, Study and Helping others, and working out.
3. Start working out regularly before the weekend starts.

Somehow I have to stop the Nrop.  I can skip the speed dating. I know Kyra will be a bust.  I thought about spending the night in the area to minimize the disruption to the schedule, but that's just another 300 clams I don't want to have to spend.

This is all really bad.

In the end, it was still a broken weekend.

Convention Effect

I could just fall over and sleep for several hours.

The convention (as usual) gave me plenty of time to reflect on the way I have really made a mess of my life.  I am really so very sad now.  You can see the progress other people make that eclipse my very best efforts during those brief moments in my life when I managed to serve God more so than not.

I just wish I could hide my face from this world, curl up into a ball and die.  Unfortunately I have responsibilities and I know I cannot fulfill those responsibilities dead.  Also my life is not mine, but God's even though I haven't given him anything noteworthy in a very long time.

Convention's Aftermath

So I went to the International Convention this weekend.  And looked at nrop on Monday night.  What a stupid piece of refuse I am.  Soak in HS, then splash around in Satan's pig pen.  You're never going to come clean dude.  I can wash off and change clothes, but then the dirt just soaks my clothes from the inside out.

According to the convention I need to:

1. Read More
2. Pray More (as much as is necessary to stop feeling anxious.)
3. Look up what is already written about my problems and try to apply that,
4. Stop feeling sorry for myself, wash my face and help others

Then I have this date with Kyra.  I'm not as worried about that, These things never work out.  It was rare that it did the one time with.  It won't be long before I see that look that tells me she is feeling sorry for me to be followed soon by impatience as the second hand crawls around the dial in silence.

There is the Speed Dating thing this weekend, Actually, that's probably the real trap.  I'll stay away from that.  First smart move I've made since "coming back" from the Convention.  I figure that even if it doesn't go awful with Kyra, it won't go so well that I would be willing to plunk down another grand to see her again for another 2 hour dinner date.  (not including dinner, drinks, gift plus tip.)

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I can't seem to get out of it.  I clearly need a generous application of number 1.  I am trapped so tightly I just can't move one way or the other.  This trap I am in is so diabolical that there must have been an intelligent but  Machiavellian entity that devised it.  I need God's help but I won't ask for it.  My prayers are not being heard -- I believe.

Bad Weekends Running Together

So I busted the July 4 weekend.  How?  Well I broke my fast (I'm sort of OK about that) I ate too much on the first day I broke the fast, I ate too much on the second day, I watched too much TV (yes, I broke my rule against TV).   I did go to the meeting and I went out to dinner with the Ex.  (Calling her Ex now instead of bitch.)  That was ok but she preached to me the whole time.  Oh well.  That's who she is now.  All that having been said it is the only productive thing I did over the weekend, except I did go to the meeting.  I saw someone there who moved to another congregation.  It was a couple and I met the man outside and the woman was inside near the entrance.  She saw me and I went over to shake her hand and ended up giving her a hug.  Wild.  I never give anyone a hug unless they insist.  I surprised myself doing so.  I think she was shocked.  It may have been b/c she (and her husband) were only the third person to invite me over to their house in a serious way.  (That is they invited me directly, as I recall, without demanding that I join their Bible Study, and for a purely social visit.)  No one does that who is currently in my congregation anymore.

Not to me, that is. They of course get together among themselves it is just that I am not included.  I am quite certain that it is somehow my fault.  I think I might have made a kid feel bad at church yesterday.  there were 3 or four people greeting guests at the door.  He was one.  I had already shaken hands with one and knew I was going to shake hands with another, He was standing right there and I did the old look past you and pretend you aren't there.  People do that to me all the time.  I am trying not to care about it but I know it hurts on some level.  I will have to greet him specially in some way, maybe ask his name or something.  I should not have done what I did.

I went to a convention this weekend,  This one was really well done.  I can't explain just how, but it wasn't just more of the same, talk after talk about the bible.  There was something more compelling about it but I cannot say just what it is.  It has been a little while since I had been to a  convention entirely alone.  It was really OK though.  I wasn't feeling unduly oppressed or sorry for myself.  They distributed a video.  It shows a family in a moderate stage of spiritual melt-down.  It was not nearly as bad as what I was dealing with.  My family completely disintegrated.  The people are still there miraculously, but we are not a family anymore.  I am just glad that no one is df anymore.  (That's the miracle.)

I had a super unpleasant dream Saturday night.  Creatures like the ones on Cowboys and Aliens invaded.

Driving back from Raleigh, the convention tunes are reverberating in my head.  It is a good thing.  But I have also checked out Kyra's site.  A reminder that the demons in my mind are very much aware that I am trying to force them out.  They aren't ready to go anywhere.

Another SOC

My head is just swimming with thoughts.  I had a pleasant dream last night.  First I can remember in a very long time.  It was about meeting a woman that I was truly interested in and, equally important but exceedingly rare, she was interested in me.  She was rather young but very pretty.  She didn't seem to mind a casual touch and at some point in the dream she sat (cross-way) on my lap.  I can't exactly make out where we were, certainly not at home though.

Of course I don't put stock in dreams.  I think they are a reflection of what is going on in our subconscious mind.  I do not believe they are portents for the future.  But I think that in my heart that I believe I look better than I do.

I am still affected by a civil war battle scene I saw on TV.  It was grizzly, similar to how I imagine war would be.  The thing missing is that I was sitting in air conditioned comfort.  I wasn't being shot at, in hand to hand combat, or lying face down in a crater of a battlefield lined with bloody mud with close packed men fighting for their lives on top of me.  I honestly believe that one cannot experience war, without going to war.  I imagine that Armageddon will be similar.  Maybe this time I will be face down in bloody mud.  I am such a wretch.

Where to go from here.  I just can't seem to figure out what to do next.  How do I get up out of this mud?  I have to have God's help.  How am I going to get that if I won't pray, study, or go to meetings regularly.  I suppose the answer is, I won't.  So I am stuck in this blood soaked field, with men fighting for their lives on top of me, waiting for Armageddon to take my life away (if I don't do it first.)  I suppose my stream of consciousness (SOC) is getting worse.

Another Busted Weekend

It's Monday morning and IHMS as much as ever.  I had dreams that I remember this weekend.  They were bad.  In one I was back at college.  It was evening of 2 days before classes started and I hadn't begun to unpack my stuff.  I kept running but could never get to the front door of my dorm.

I'm totally ashamed of this weekend.  I ate too much.  Watched TV all day Saturday and Sunday.  This morning driving in I decided I am going to 1)Fast for a week.  2) Cut off TV cold turkey 3)Go to all the meetings, and 4) Start working out again.  I give myself a 5% chance of doing all 4 and a 20% chance of doing one of them.  Oh well, gotta have goals, right?

It's Thursday and I am still fasting.  Yea so far!  I did go to the meeting Tuesday. Yea so far!  I have not watched any TV. Yea so far!  I have NOT started working out again.  Crap!  Well, 3 out of 4 is better than 2 out of  3, and we all know that "ain't bad."  (Yes, of course:  ought to be a song . . . Meatloaf  . . .)  I did some reading on fasting and found that you can keep going until "true hunger" sets in.  They say you'll know it when it hits.  I don't think I am close to hitting it.  I just hope to make it for 7 days.

So there is this big International Convention coming up on August 1 - 3.  And dummy me, I just committed to being out of town from July 28 - July 31.  Getting back after 9:00 PM at Regan National.  How foolish am I?  Very.  I just can't believe I just did that.  And for someone who has only traveled 3 times in 5 years, it is just so very sad.  I started to say:  "I don't know why I bother."  However I do know,  these are all feeble attempts to SAVE MY BACON.  Armageddon is coming and, though I frequently contemplate suicide, I want to live.  The desire for suicide is a desire to escape the pain I am in.  God sees fit to let me undergo that pain.  But in actual fact I do want to live.  You wouldn't think so by my actions.