Infusion of Light Amid Darkness

Dear The One:

Isn’t it painful when pain is the most painful thing?

I’m usually good with words but this one has escaped me.

I thought that I was a really good guy. I thought that I was righteous and strong. I thought I had the propensity to believe in other people.

I thought wrong.

What I have are broken and sinful inward parts. What I have is a tendency to take credit for what the Lord has done in me. What I have is the soul of a rampant sinner that rages in and takes from me what I want with his tirelessness and endless debauchery of my attempts to be set aright.

He’s pretty determined.

It’s been a long, hard battle. Even so, I’m beginning to see that Jesus the Christ is getting a hold of me. He could do so much more, I’m sure if I could just let go and see more easily the things that He clearly sees in me. I took another turn with my pride reaching a climax, my own failures soundly hidden behind my supposed greatness.

It is so awe-inspiring to see how Jesus Christ can find ways to draw out the evil in me, to get me to finally see how I express it, to see how I’m destroying and desecrating, and even feeding the serpent within. It really sucks when it happens. It really hurts to be thrust into a knowledge of my own sinful nature.

Though this time I am grateful.

I’d been hiding from myself a flaw so fundamental and deep I could not have been happy without first being made to discover it. This one was so richly entwined in the deep places of me I would have never discovered it by myself.

This sin would have led me to failure and divorce and continual discord, endlessly engulfing my person and those who made the mistake of loving me. This sin is so vile, so fruitless, so evil and yet hidden so well that I thought myself righteous even as I presented the poisonous serpent to the queen.

Yet the mercy of God and the light of His Son found an opportunity to shine on it, to break open the festering wound even as I nurtured it. To torture me as they put instruments in to bother it, inflame it… or so it seemed until it came out clean.

I thought He intended to hurt me and her. Well. I guess that sometimes a wound can't be cleaned without pain. I fear though that it is too late to save much more than the sinner who needed the operation.

But I am grateful He decided to hurt two people to save me.

I’m not well yet. This sin will need some serious effort to root out completely.

It’s my own selfishness. The church sets standards, and by them, I am worthy of the blessings of His house. But I am not worthy yet to enter His kingdom while this sin stands.

How many more of them are there that I know not of? How long is this inventory of sins that go beyond the recommend questions that still need to be taken away?

It’s likely I’ve only begun.

Onward and Upward,

Aaron Pennam

P.S. I guess you could say that I've made having an eternal companion entirely about myself for all of my life. The whole perspective has to shift because--as I've learned--this only leads to fearfulness that being with a normal, flawed human being will not be as comfortable as I'd hoped. This is probably why it's so easy to love the Savior because I don't have to worry about Him being flawed in any way.