"I implore you to not give in to despair. It is dangerous temptation, because our Adversary has refined it to the point that it is quite subtle. Hopelessness constricts and withers the heart, rendering it unable to sense God's blessing and grace. It also causes you to exaggerate the adversities of life and makes your burdens seem too heavy to bare. Yet God's plans for, and His ways of bringing about His plans, are infinitely wise." -Madame Guyon

I know in my head that I am not the only one struggling and battling against hopelessness, but how isolated I feel by it. Faith and Wisdom are the friends I wish I hung out with more, but I tend to allow my insecurities to keep me from calling them. They seem so out of my league and to busy to deal with my weakness and hesitation. Now Jesus, He seems to be a little easier on my conscience, but I fight to believe that because otherwise I got nothing. What will He say about my anger and frustration? How can the potter ask the pot to be anything other than the pot He created it to be? Especially, after the pots been used, and cracked, and weathered by the many washings. I cannot reconcile in my mind the expectations that loom over me. I'm not offended that I have to be obedient, I'm frustrated that He won't cure me of my lust, selfishness, insecurities, and pride.  The God of the universe who created it in less than a week seems, in my tiny brain, to be a spectator to my sin. The natural progression, of course, is to assume one self a failure and therefore unlovable. The Adversary triumphs because I'm caught in a stalemate. Inevitably, He will rescue me for the billionth time from my weak mind and consume my heart. I'm waiting with the lump in my throat and the shame on my shoulders. My hopelessness takes seed, in this cycle, that I long to overcome and only have the memory to fuel my 'victorious living'. Oh Father, why do you tarry? What is Your brilliant mind trying to work in to my heart? Why am I so deaf and stubborn?

There is this one thing that has become 'the thing' that taints all other things. This thing, is the most effective of weapons against my heart in the enemy's hands. In the hands of my savior it's the thing that keeps me so closely dependent upon His grace and His mercy. This thing is the vain of my existence, the thing that paralyzes me to hope against the odds and to venture out in bravery. This thing, I hate, is the thing that I never asked for but am reminded of by one right after the other. Repetition is is the most successful of ideologies because it resembles a hammer that never tires until it's job is complete. It's the one thing that I cannot seem to shake or overcome. Lord, cure me, take me home, take away this one thing...take away my humanity. Take away my struggle against my flesh!