Before you read, please know this may be less of an encouragement and more of my heart and emotional state. I don't want to discourage you, and yet if I am not real who am I?

Overwhelmed.

I am sure there is not one of us who can not identify with feeling or being overwhelmed. A dear friend indicated to me something last night that I have tossed and turned with all night. I have cried out, pretty much all night, laying in bed, wanting, desiring, needing to hear from the Lord. I can not have peace until it is resolved with me. Even yesterday am, as I was rushing around, the Spirit of God whispered in my ear.

I began to think about the gifts of relationships and how we choose to not have them because its easier, or disdain them.

Something happened to me while I was on a 3 day "seek the Lord" mission. I realized the depth of my own sinfulness, the stain that remains because of my own sin. Anything that ever began to believe it was good in its ownself was crushed by this revelation. I began to question my call and the validity or worthiness of me to be in it. I began to struggle with the pain of others. I had started to hear the voices of the lost again. My dad's death and funeral certainly brought me to a new place of pain, and revelation. I was in church on Sunday and the pain of the Lord began to fill my soul and I couldn't convey it. I wanted to run out and be with God by myself. And my response was to try and grasp it and plumb the depths.

One of my greatest sins I held was the denial of the fact that I and people make mistakes. Anger began to well up in me as each "mistake" began to show its ugly head in my life. Discouragement flooded me with the fact that others could not see.

I sought holiness and recognized my wretched state. How did Jesus walk holy, sinless and endure the harshness of this world? I don't know, but it has to be my quest.

I want to say that anger is a part of grieving and yet it seems like a copout, an excuse for a Christian. So I won't make it. There is a fire that seems to have gone out. Is this how Moses felt when he had killed the Egyptian? Did I wrongly attempt God's work, when it could only be His? Or Peter removing the ear of a soldier. I don't feel angry, but what else could cause this mass of feelings? Until a year ago, my greatest boast was I don't cry. In church Sunday, I was flooded with raw emotions as I endured the pain. I felt like tears were raining from heaven and washing over me. I felt pain and anger and embarassment and jealousy rising up, striving to be released.

And it has put me in an awkward place. I sense Peter as he jumped in the water embarassed for his actions. A little sin is enough to carry us away from the Lord, to deny a person access to the throne. I am no better than the sinner.

The real Lee is not a pretty sight. Certainly Scripture validats that our own righteousness is as of filthy rags. I thank God for His grace and His mercy. I suspect this is not over. I am inundated with the responsibility of having to deal with the cheap sin(I realize sin is sin). Its not cheating on my taxes or being unfaithful. Its the "little" sins that crop up that cause me anguish. And having successfully walked people out of this place, I am concerned. Who can look at himself?

What does anyone do? Ask for prayer certainly. Repent where necessary. Wait. I would like to believe that God is not done with me. That would be encouraging! I hope He is not done with me and yet if He is, I am forced to accept that.

If this note hit chords with you, know that I am praying for you. If it didn't delete it. I don't know where God is taking me. I remember a time in my life where I had horribly backslid and wanted to get out and felt like I had lost the voice of God in my life. Even my repentance did not seem to remove the brass heavens that enveloped me. I am not in the same place, but I remember the fear that gripped my heart of a life without Jesus. I never want to be in that place again.