Life, Light, Vibrance, and Blindness.

I never fail to perpetually fail.

I once gained a good reputation, only to let that reputation become an identity.

The identity then became a character, and the character reminded me of someone I once knew, but I couldn't remember exactly whom.

So now who was I? 

The character had taken my reputation and run with it, and I no longer held an identity. 

I literally felt like a wandering mess of flesh, bone, and wasted pondering.

Where, where, was my mind?

And where was my heart?

The character may have tied them up and left them for dead, for all I knew.

What is one to do without a mind or a heart?

There are many who have them and are unaware of them, but that is another matter entirely.

I had once been very present in both mind and heart, but now they had fled.

It was like a world that was once fully dressed in color and light, had been stripped bare.
My mind used to dance! My heart would sing a melody every minute, only because it couldn't stand to keep such beauty from others.

The only thing that was dancing now was the troubling feeling that I may never catch a glimpse of anything other than gray, ever again.

Troubled, I decided to avoid approaching the subject of what may have led me to these bleak circumstances.

I decided it would be best if I just kept functioning. There was always the slim possibility that I would simply stumble upon some sense at some point.

So I kept breathing and breathing, for weeks and weeks.

Functioning as best one can, when one is missing multiple vital parts of their being.

One evening I found myself alone. Alone enough, anyway, for something that I'd been dreading, to pin me down.

It was cold, it was painful, and it was real.

It was truth.

It said to me; "listen to me! You vain, self-seeking child. Has your sight also fled from you so that you cannot see? Has your pride blinded you? Your pride, your pride! It has built itself into a tall, but feeble, tower. I am here to strike it down, so that you will see clearly what I will reveal to you."

Something inside of me crashed and burned.

But after the flames had died down and the smoke had cleared, I could see again! 

And what a wretched sight was I, myself. 

Self-seeking indeed. The character was me.

All this time! I was the very one robbing me of light and life and vibrance, all because of the pride-tower that I couldn't see past!

But how the truth has crushed the tower.

Light, life, vibrance! They still exist, and inside of me!

Who am I that I should be given such things? 

In truth, I am unworthy of all of these and everything else.

But there is One (and only One) who freely gives us everything we need.

And I am humbled to have received these.

My heart sings and my thoughts dance once more.

Not because I've invited them back into my life, but because while I was still rejecting them, truth came to me and took away my blindness.

I never fail to perpetually fail,

But grace always succeeds.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 

2 Peter 1:3

Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself 'who can bring me down to the ground?' 

Obadiah 1:3

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 

John 17:17

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26