![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Prayer is hard for me because IT INVOLVES ME. I can easily browse pictures of Jesus for hours, or read Scripture, or LISTEN to the Divine Office, BUT the instant I have to PERSONALLY pray, either by thought or speech, the intense feelings of self-hatred and impatient rage bubble up like furious magma. It makes it VERY HARD to grow in my faith because "MY" feels damning.
So this is a big problem. As long as I carry this crushingly white-hot self-loathing, I CANNOT better myself as a Christian, because I cannot better imitate Christ if I want to annihilate the "I." That is the paradox of Christianity: our religion is a relationship, which requires a "ME" for Christ to love, and which can love Him in return!! Christianity is the ONLY way to BE an individual WITHOUT pride turning that individuality into self-worship.
I think the only way out of this remorse-fueled despair and bitterness is to remember that, through the Precious Blood of Christ, I am FREE from those horrid chains because JESUS PAID MY DEBT. And that realization breaks my heart because HE SUFFERED BECAUSE OF ME. But He only did so BECAUSE HE LOVES ME SO MUCH. That moves me to grateful, wretched weeping, and it fills me with a HORROR of sin, which puts my Savior through such pain even now, outside of linear time!! I NEVER want to fall into sin EVER AGAIN, knowing that every single wrong draws another drop of Blood from Jesus. It's unbearable. I can't handle it; I cannot ever hurt Him again, I refuse to, God help me I'm so weak I cannot keep that heartfelt vow without Your constant help!!! Please, fortify my poor tormented soul against the unending sneak attacks of the devil! I must fight this war until the gates of heaven are before me, and God must bring me there. Any weapons and armor and shelter and rations I have are from Him. I must rely on Him for everything, no exceptions. And I REJOICE in that, truly. Just, again, God give me the grace, because this world is indeed a warzone and the enemy has somehow set up camp within my own soul. Chase him out! Chase him out by your angels and by Our Lady's Grace, and protect me from all further assaults upon my heart and head, both of which I sincerely want to consecrate to You completely!
So why don't I? Why do I add the "want to," delaying that consecration? Because right now I'm sick. I'm sick in the head, sick in the heart, sick in the body. How can I consecrate such a filthy, broken, twisted, snarled and scarred thing? Am I understanding the process wrongly? Does the consecration MAKE something worthy, as truly NOTHING is worthy of God beforehand?
So this is a big problem. As long as I carry this crushingly white-hot self-loathing, I CANNOT better myself as a Christian, because I cannot better imitate Christ if I want to annihilate the "I." That is the paradox of Christianity: our religion is a relationship, which requires a "ME" for Christ to love, and which can love Him in return!! Christianity is the ONLY way to BE an individual WITHOUT pride turning that individuality into self-worship.
I think the only way out of this remorse-fueled despair and bitterness is to remember that, through the Precious Blood of Christ, I am FREE from those horrid chains because JESUS PAID MY DEBT. And that realization breaks my heart because HE SUFFERED BECAUSE OF ME. But He only did so BECAUSE HE LOVES ME SO MUCH. That moves me to grateful, wretched weeping, and it fills me with a HORROR of sin, which puts my Savior through such pain even now, outside of linear time!! I NEVER want to fall into sin EVER AGAIN, knowing that every single wrong draws another drop of Blood from Jesus. It's unbearable. I can't handle it; I cannot ever hurt Him again, I refuse to, God help me I'm so weak I cannot keep that heartfelt vow without Your constant help!!! Please, fortify my poor tormented soul against the unending sneak attacks of the devil! I must fight this war until the gates of heaven are before me, and God must bring me there. Any weapons and armor and shelter and rations I have are from Him. I must rely on Him for everything, no exceptions. And I REJOICE in that, truly. Just, again, God give me the grace, because this world is indeed a warzone and the enemy has somehow set up camp within my own soul. Chase him out! Chase him out by your angels and by Our Lady's Grace, and protect me from all further assaults upon my heart and head, both of which I sincerely want to consecrate to You completely!
So why don't I? Why do I add the "want to," delaying that consecration? Because right now I'm sick. I'm sick in the head, sick in the heart, sick in the body. How can I consecrate such a filthy, broken, twisted, snarled and scarred thing? Am I understanding the process wrongly? Does the consecration MAKE something worthy, as truly NOTHING is worthy of God beforehand?
