A Nuclear Middle Finger

I currently have a Primary Objective in life: Get a job as an aircraft mechanic in Cascadia. Followed shortly by a house. My stated backup plan for the last four years has been, if missions didn't work out, to get a house and a dog and spend my weekends in the hills.

There are two Secondary Objectives, either of which may work out (but not both together). 1. Attempt to work with MAF again, because certain MAF staffers occasionally tell me to keep trying, as they want me working with them, regardless of HQ. 2, attempt to work with OCMC, although I wouldn't be fixing airplanes with them, as they don't have any. Both of those groups will want to see that I'm settled somewhere, regularly attending church, and have managed to be healthy. So both secondary objectives mesh well with the primary objective.

Another Primary Objective is to find a wife. Because I have no memory of a time where I haven't wanted to find a nice girl and start a family. I wanted that when I was 5, and I want that now that I'm 30. Of course, one does not simply walk into Mordor and pick up a girl to match that ring, so I've taken to slowly and carefully deliberating over each and every Christian girl I meet that I'm even remotely interested in. I won't even ask a girl out for coffee if I'm not 100% sure of what I'm doing, and more importantly, WHY. The most manipulate, petty, and critical women I've ever met have been Christians, so I'm very, very careful with who I get involved with.

Getting married might delay my 18-30 month timeframe for going back into missions work, and that's fine, but I will absolutely not put that goal in jeopardy for a woman. I know this because I can point to specific women that I haven't tried to get to know simply because they weren't interested in missions. I've had four girlfriends in 17 years, I'm not a man who takes the search for a wife to mean "I'll try any girl on for size, and whoever fits, fits." No, I'm looking for something fairly specific, and it has nothing to do with body type, hair color, or how pretty she is when she smiles.

ANYONE who's known me for a few years can tell you that no matter how depressed I got, I kept slogging towards my internship. While I was at MAF, I didn't take a single day off, no matter how depressed I was, during that entire debacle. And no matter how bad my day gets, and every day starts by waking up feeling lonely and wishing I had a family, I have NEVER gone out and tried to pick up a girl to drown my sorrows in. Nor have I ever had a single drop of alcohol, a single joint, or a single cigarette.

I have yet to back down from the challenges I've faced in my adult life. I've been unemployed for long periods of time. I've gotten sick multiple times and been unable to function. I've been homeless. I haven't won all of them, far from it, but every time I get knocked down, I get right back up. And I do it without drinking myself stupid, without the comfort of a wife or girlfriend, without being surrounded people who share my objectives, and without compromising those objectives.

This post is for all the people who tell someone how they should live before they ask how they're doing.

This is for the people who got married right out of college and had several kids, but are experts on being single, celibate, and 30.

This is for the people who drink, smoke, and fuck their pain away, but are experts on being a bipolar man living a Straight Edge lifestyle.

This is for the people who gave up on their dreams, but are experts on being absolutely uncompromising.

This is for the people who have never lived alone, but are experts on being a nomad who's lived in seven cities in four years.

This is for the people who have never spent three years training for something only to have it end in disaster, and then asked for another chance to do it again.

This is for the people who've never stared down the barrel of a gun and called the person holding it "Sir", but are experts on how to be polite in a tense situation.

This is for the people who've never sold their personal possessions to pay the bills while they're overseas doing missions work, but are experts on who and isn't qualified to serve at all.

This is for people who've never dropped everything and taken multiple days off work to help a friend out, but are experts on who is and isn't loving.

This is for people who've never sacrificed their entire way of life on the altar of Faith, and yet are experts on what Faith is.

This is for all the people who know us better than we know ourselves. The armchair generals of life, the people who are better than the rest of us, and are always willing to vomit out their opinion on us whenever we make the mistake of asking them for advice. 

Enjoy.

Only God Knows

"I'm depressed, man. Girl isn't even the slightest bit interested."

"That sucks, who's next?"
"I don't know, this girl seemed perfect."
"Or she could spend fifteen years sleeping around until one day she comes home drunk and stabs you to death. You have no way of knowing who she'd have turned out to be."
"God only knows, I guess."

"Is that really a guess?"
"No, I guess not."

The great arrogance of Humanity is that we think we have enough control over our lives that our plans should work. Life doesn't care about our plans, though, and so we get angry and depressed when life goes the way it will and pricks that arrogance. We apply for jobs we don't get, we ask women out on dates that don't care, we do thousands and thousands of things, all of which we expect to work, and few of which actually do. All our arrogance is revealed, daily, to be nothing more than just arrogance.

Most of us don't take that very well. Which, don't get me wrong, is a totally natural thing. 

It's not exactly unexpected for people to react negatively when things go sideways, and I wouldn't call it a problem if some guy cusses when he smashes his thumb with a hammer, or for some girl to shed a few tears if her boyfriend dumps her harshly. Humans are great at building up expectations, and frankly terrible at handling the inevitable letdowns.

For me, the problems don't arise when we get depressed or angry, because those are natural reactions. No, the actual problems show up when we let our anger or depression make the next decision for us, and we do stupid things as a result. Letting out a few choice profanities in our anger is one thing, and happens before we can think, but throwing the hammer across the shop and damaging other things in a tantrum is a problem.

It's not the natural reactions, but our refusal to get back on with life after our letdowns that drags us down.

Tantrums always seem to come down to one thing: We refuse to accept that we have a place in life that is somewhere other than at the top of the pyramid. Instead of realizing that we are not in control, we scream, cry, kick our heels, and break stuff because our arrogant pride has been wounded.

If, perhaps, we don't make quite the show of it we did when we were toddlers, it certainly still happens.

The reality is that we are simply not in control of our lives. Even if we were all intelligent, rational, and pure-hearted people, and we aren't, the world is simply too big and too complicated for it to submit to our wills. It's not going to happen, ever.

The reality is that God is in control of this world. So while it's perfectly normal to be disappointed, depressed, or angry that things don't go our way, we need to realize that everything that happens has been allowed to happen. While our natural reactions to things may not be explicitly sinful, rebellious tantrums is. So is dwelling and brooding on the past, believing that we didn't deserve this or that.

"Deserve" doesn't really have anything to do with it, when you think about it. The point is that our Father knows what's best for us, and when we arrogantly dwell on what we think should or should not have happened, what we're really saying is that we know better than God. If God had listened to us, He'd have gotten that job for you, and that girl would have liked me back, and that other driver wouldn't have smashed your car, etc, etc, etc.

But what we need to accept is that we don't know what would have happened if we'd gotten our way. That "dream" girl or guy could be the next Casey Anthony or Scott Peterson, that job we prayed and prayed and prayed for could have ended in disaster when the company goes under, or relocates. If I'm really honest about myself, maybe I'd have been a terrible boyfriend to that girl, or would have been bad for that company.

God only knows, and what we need to keep in mind is that He *does* know. Not only what's best for us, but what's best for the people around us, and people we'll never meet.

It's also worth pointing out that there's absolutely nothing wrong with going straight to God in our distress and saying "I don't know what's going on, but this sucks. I know you're in control, but I'm freaking out down here." If you don't believe me, read through the Book of Psalms. David spends most of the book crying out to God in his distress, but he always circles back to being humble before God.

Life is hard, I would never state otherwise, and it will, more often than not, take us off our feet. Things simply do not go our way most of the time. There's nothing we can do to stop that, but there are things we can do to deal with it. We can remember that the world doesn't circle around us, we can remember that God is in control, and we can remember that we can take our troubles to God before we allow ourselves to do something stupid.

Undo.

"Let me ask you a question: Before you left, several people told you that you weren't going to make it at That School. Do you think they were right?"

It's not a simple answer.

Those "several people" included members of my blood family, and my pastor. You know, the sort of people anyone would want to be supportive when making a major life change. Instead, I was told that I wouldn't be able to hack it academically, and/or would get thrown out of the school.

I don't think I can properly describe the impact that had on me. Instead of going off to college feeling like my family was behind me, like they believed in me, like they wanted me to succeed, I left for college a seething ball of rage. All the people that should have standing behind me had apparently abandoned me.

So when I got to that school, I got there with a massive chip on my shoulder. I was there because I believed God was leading me into mission aviation, and I still do, but I was full of rage, hurt, mistrust and insecurity, and everything and everyone that threatened that goal got hammered. Hard. I'm not known for subtlety or pulling punches, and I was at my worst there.

So back to that question, were they right?

Well, the term "Self-fulfilling prophecy" comes to mind. While I do believe that the people who said those things meant well, the effect was that their words caused so much damage in my life that there was no way I would have finished a degree there. I had reacted to the statements the only way I knew how, and being angrier and working harder only has two possible outcomes if things get pushed far enough.

And they got pushed far enough, believe me.

"I'm sorry" the person said. The person hadn't meant to cause harm, but had. Grievous. Worse than the person could have imagined. Trust was lost, friendship had been replaced by bitterness, family had disappeared under cynicism, and over three years later, some of the wounds are still raw.

"I'm sorry" does nothing. Their sorrow fixes nothing. There is no possible way for anyone to apologize for their comments enough to make up for what I went through, because the universe simply doesn't have an "undo" button. It doesn't matter how many times they apologize, there is no way that anyone can go back in time to unfuck things up.

They can't rewind the night I had to spend in a homeless shelter because I had no where to stay. They can't unspend the money I had to spend just to make sure I didn't leave the town with a legal record. They can't erase the time I spent in a psychiatric ward, or repair the destruction of multiple friendships. They can't undo the anger, they can't make me unfeel the pain.

"I'm sorry" is a worthless statement. It's pathetic. Someone's sorrow does absolutely nothing to fix the damage they've done. Time flows in ONE direction, and it doesn't change just because some pathetic human feels bad about something they did, even if they didn't mean to. It won't even change just because someone tries to "make it up" to the person they hurt.

I suppose I could end this post here. A cohesive point has been made, "I'm sorry fixes nothing, and nothing can undo the past."

But that's not where this post ends. That's just a cynical tumblr-tier rant about pain, frustration, and loss, it barely qualifies as philosophical. It certainly doesn't answer any questions, which to me defies the very purpose of writing.

The real answer to pain, the only way to actually fix anything is to forgive people. That's actually worth writing about.

The people who I *could* blame for what they said three years ago, if I wanted to, need to be forgiven. Not because they deserve it, they don't. Not because forgiveness will magically rewind time and allow everything to be OK like it could have been, it won't. Not because they've made it up to me, they haven't and can't.

No, I need to forgive them because forgiveness is the only thing that allows raw wounds to heal up. It's the only way for the pain to stop and for healing to start. Nothing will ever heal perfectly, and even old scars can be gouged open again, but without forgiveness, all we have is a world full of people full of open wounds. No healing, no fading scars that don't hurt anymore, just pain.

I don't know about you, but that's not an appealing thought. I'd rather move on as best I can than to remain stuck in the past, thoughts stuck on the same old wounds, the same old pains, the same old people. No, things will never be perfect, and the damage we do to each other's lives can never actually be made right.

So my advice is to not worry about who's sorry and who isn't. Don't wait for the other person to repent, and don't demand they do the impossible and make it up to you. Just forgive them, which is a process, not an event. Make peace, if possible restore the relationship, but above all, forgive them and move on.

Dissecting Depression

"How're you doing?" my boss asked.
"Surviving." I replied.
"Just surviving?"

"Surviving" means a lot to me. What I went through in Spokane nearly killed me. There, I was struggling with depression so dark and deep that I couldn't eat. Couldn't get off the couch. There, emotional pain translated to the physical world and took me off my feet. That wasn't "surviving", it was walking numbly through life as I shut down piece by piece in response to overwhelming misery. It was dying, another week or two and I might have eaten a bullet. It wasn't impossible, even though I hate the idea of suicide.

I'm struggling in my internship, to be sure. From what I had reasonable expectations of when I first walked through HQ's doors three months ago, everything got FUBAR'd. I had applied for, been interviewed for, been medically cleared for, raised funds for (3/4 of which came from me working two jobs), gotten a VISA for, and had plane tickets for a certain internship. And it was something that I was, that I am, very passionate about. 

Instead, everything went sideways. I'm on the wrong continent. I'm working on the wrong airplanes (Cessna 206s instead of King Airs and Quest Kodiaks). It took something of an argument with my supervisor to even be allowed to do as much as I am doing, since interns normally do a couple weeks of bitch work around the shop and then go home, they don't spend two months doing engine overhauls and airframe inspections. And even then, I'm not learning anything new, nor am I allowed to do as much as I have been trained on, since the Organization's regs are strict about mechanics who haven't gone through Standardization.

From the reasonable expectations I had (spend 3 months in a certain country, working on certain aircraft, etc.), absolutely nothing has come to be. That's disappointing, as one might expect. 

And the process of me getting here wasn't exactly pleasant, to say the least.

So even just the internship has been a struggle.

But it's stacked on top of being homesick for a home that doesn't exist. Odds are pretty high that I won't get a job in Nampa or Tulsa, the two towns that are the most like "home." I don't have a job to return to, so I will have to travel to wherever I can find work. Which I don't mind in and of itself, but when I'm struggling here, I wish I could look forward to returning home, not being at a pseudo-home for a few days then spending two days on the road.

And I'm broke, too. I'd saved up some money for the post-trip expenses, but then I had to buy health insurance, and then I got laid off from my primary job a week early, and then I had to buy a new fuel pump for my car. Came out to over a grand that I don't have now between the three. Life is what it is.

Those are situations. Bad situations can make anyone depressed, it's the nature of being human. People get bummed out when they lose their jobs, when the car breaks down, when things just don't go their way. It's part of human nature. 

I'm also manic-depressive, though, and so I'll be struggling when I'm making A's in school, my after-school job is going well, and I've got friends that love me and whom I can talk to when I'm down. It's part of who I am, that I deal with clinical depression for a good chunk of the year.

Then there's the existential questions. I've taken on faith, over my logical objections, that God is calling me into missions. I said three and half years ago that I'm not the guy for the job, and I still don't believe that I'm the guy, but I also believe God is calling, and God doesn't make mistakes.

But I could be wrong. It's happened before. So the fact that everything has gone sideways on this internship brings up very real doubts that I was ever right about being called into missions. Doubt is cancer, and it eats at my faith that this is where I should be, that this is what I should be doing with my life, that what I believe is real is real.

So as I'm struggling with everything that brought me to Maseru, as I'm struggling to keep moving forward, the real question becomes "Where does one stop, and the next one start?"

What is simply situational depression, that needs to be ignored and answered with Faith that God has a plan beyond this? What is clinical depression or mania, and needs to be addressed medically? What is the Abyss of existential despair, trying to swallow me whole?

Where does one stop and the next one start?

I'm surviving, and while that doesn't mean thriving, it also means that I'm not slowly shutting down, I'm not moodily lashing out at everyone, and I'm not emotionally numb and just waiting for the end of the trip. This sort of thing doesn't concern me for the short term, and I'm not entirely sure if it really concerns me for the long term.

This, by my standards of life as a manic-depressive person, does not qualify as unhealthy. I worry about mania when I can't sleep, can't sit still, and get frustrated with how laid-back everyone else is. I worry about depression when I can't get out of bed, when I can't keep moving through the day, and when I start shutting down.

This, what I'm dealing with now, isn't me being unhealthy. It's simply part of life as a manic-depressive.

However, if I want to make missions a long-term thing, and I *do*, then I need to find a better way of staying healthy. In Tulsa and Nampa, I lean pretty heavily on my friends when I'm down, and I'm very active when I'm up, those combined with proper meds help me stay functional.

Here in Maseru, I don't really have the support network I had back home. It takes months to develop that, I'm only here for sixty days total. That's hardly time to develop a support network out of a group of guys who are all married and all have kids. They don't have free time, which means there's not a lot of free time that I can borrow to just have men to talk to.

Also, I can't be nearly as active, because I'm in a foreign country, and there are rules in place here for security reasons. I can't hit the range on a Saturday, I had to leave my rifles in Idaho. I get a lot of exercise, but I have to be back by nightfall, so I can't go backpacking or go walking until I've talked with God about my day and am at peace with it. And with very limited internet, I can't really hide in music and talk with my friends online.

While I was in the ward in Spokane, they talked about having multiple layers of safety nets to avoid coming back to the ward. Take the meds AND develop a safety net of friends to talk with AND develop a comforting place to go for alone time, etc.

I don't have most of that here, and I *MUST* find a way to change that if I want to do this long-term. I need to get better at developing support networks. I need to find a way to have a comfort place (my bedroom normally works great, but this one has ants that seem to be immune to the local ant-killer spray) when the city itself is off-limits after 1845.

(I'd say I should find a wife, but that becomes a frustrating and depressing subject without any help from the rest of my struggles in life.)

I'm surviving here, and that says a lot, but I need to be able to thrive in adverse situations, not simply survive.

That said, I'm not losing the struggle, and that's important to keep in mind.

When In Doubt, Attack!

I've heard the phrase "When in doubt, attack" attributed to the US Army Special Forces as one of their SOPs. Apparently, they train themselves to default to attacking the enemy when they're unsure of what do to, because that way, there's never a doubt about what the other guys in the team are going to do, nor will they ever accidentally break at the first sign of the enemy.

I could be wrong, of course, about whether or not the Special Forces actually operate this way as I know very little about how they do anything. I'm not sure that it's a particularly good idea for a 8-man team to always attack, but perhaps with their level of training, they're able to win firefights that most soldiers would lose, and their team leaders would know when to break contact.

SF: Supremely cool, but not the focus of this article.

What is the focus of this post is the concept of defaulting to attacking when confused. It's about moving forward when the path is uncertain, about not retreating just because you have no idea what is going on.

A couple months ago, I went on a field trip to a Muslim cultural center (AKA a mosque that wants to get around city zoning ordnances) and a Hare Krishna shrine. I went because it was part of orientation with a missions organization, and it was meant to get us some cross-cultural exposure.

As it happened I got the worst case of the heebie-jeebies I've ever gotten in my entire life. I've been less creeped out by haunted houses and scary movies. I literally felt unclean, like I'd been covered in motor oil and needed a shower, only worse and in a sinister manner (I'm a mechanic, motor oil doesn't bother me much). So in each case, as soon as I got the chance to do so without being socially offensive, I walked outside and sat down across the street.

If one thinks rationally about it, to a Christian, a shrine to a different religion is in effect a shrine to false gods, and at best can be considered blasphemous to God, and at worst (also in reality) is a shrine to evil. It's not simply false, it's actively anti-God, anti-Christian. So I don't mind that I felt unclean, that being inside those shrines to evil made me want to get out, immediately.

The organization I'm with didn't take that as a good sign. For reasons I don't actually understand, I was told that they thought it was a bad thing that I got creeped out. I was asked, several times, if perhaps I should forgo my internship and not go into missions after all.

I can't think of one bad experience as a particularly good reason to not move forward, so even though I was in doubt, I moved forward with the internship. After all, when in doubt, attack. And while very little of my internship has worked as it should, and in fact has gone mostly wrong, I'm still moving forward as long as I'm unsure of what to do. I'd rather wait for a clear sign to break contact than to wait for a clear sign to move forward.

See, combat's a simple thing, really: If the enemy retreats every time he's not sure what to do, then all I have to do to win is to keep him off his footing. Defense becomes a simple matter, because the enemy will break and run at the first opportunity. I won't need to actually defeat or destroy the enemy, I just need to keep his head down and wait for him to break.

If, however, every time he gets shot at he charges, if every time he's confused he moves forward, if every time he's scared he tries to kill me, if every time he's struggling he gets more pissed off at me, then I have a very serious problem. I can't rely on scaring him off, I need to kill him, immediately, otherwise he is going to waste me in short order.

Time and again, the Christian life is described as spiritual warfare. We're supposed to bring light to darkness, to cast out demons, to heal the sick, and to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is describe quite literally as a war against Satan, and small wonder that the Prince of Darkness would be fighting back.

So why on Earth would I run at the first sign of trouble? or the tenth sign of trouble, for that matter? Why on Earth would I say "Man, I don't know what to do and this is really hard, so I think I'll go home and sit on my couch"???

To Hell with that notion, I'm not going to do any such thing: When in doubt, I ATTACK!

The Mad Genius of Soren

A while back, I read an article that contained a brilliant explanation of the old phrase "There's a fine line between genius and insanity". 

"When your brain works more efficiently than everyone else's, that means it performs most mental tasks more efficiently than other people, including go crazy. Worse, because a smart person's brain is so good at running through hypotheses and rejecting them, it tends to come up with insanity that's more resistant to basic therapy, because the rationalizations are built to withstand the assault of a genius level intellect. When people say genius and insanity are close cousins, this is what they're talking about."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/22/i-was-adam-lanza-part-2.html

And while I don't actually claim to be a genius, I am a highly intelligent person, or so I'm told by the people who tested me once. The problem with being smart, like the author of that article stated, is that when normal people rationalize something, it only takes someone equally smart to talk them back out of it. I'd add that things like tradition and social pressures also work more effectively to keep people of normal intelligence from going too crazy, because most folks don't really bother to question everything and aren't willing to buck society in order to go their own way.

I did, though. I've spent most of my life asking the "Why X?" question, and for all the good it has done me, it's done an equal amount of damage. See, the problem is that there are very few people who can rationally talk me out of anything, and even fewer who are willing to try. I win most of the debates I get into, regardless of whether or not they turn into arguments, simply because I can recall more facts, lay down a stronger philosophical foundation, and rip the other guy's argument apart faster.

The problem with methodically doing this for the last decade or so (I don't actually remember at what point in life philosophy became an obsession) is that there are very few areas of my life that haven't been examined rather ruthlessly to see if they're acceptable. Which in turn means that there are very few areas in my life that anyone can, no matter their motives, actually change my opinions in. Trust me, I generally know why I do what I do, and I've thought it through several times...

...But I need to make some changes in my life, because as it turns out, some of my opinions are wrong, and some of the ways I do things are causing more trouble than they prevent. Surprising, right?

See, the thing about having a strong intellect is that it's like an oak tree. It only gets stronger and stronger as time goes on, but if it doesn't grow up straight, like if someone ties ropes around it as a sapling so that it grows up bent, then that incredibly-strong tree can't easily be straightened out.

I'm bent. I understand how I got bent, of course, not that it particularly matters. I can point to incidents I've been through that have caused damage in my life. Not all of them are my fault, but some of them are, not that "fault" matters at this point, either.

I still need to get unbent. Which means that something stronger (or more accurately smarter) than me needs to make a point of unbending me. It's going to hurt, and all of my bent strength is going to resist. Which is actually as it should be, because it's important to resist forces that threaten to change me, at least until I'm convinced they're positive changes, and not negative ones.

But I still need to make some changes, and it's not going to be pleasant. Anyone familiar with the concept of blacksmithing and metallurgy can understand that the strongest steel is made in the hottest fires, and that an item smithed out of steel has been heated red-hot and hammered on many, many times.

To quote the late author Robert Jordan; "A sword may be grateful to the fires that forged it, but never fond of them."

I have spent a good portion of my life striving to be the strongest, toughest, smartest person I could be. I still think that's a good goal, but what I didn't do when I started was to ensure that the person I was making myself into was going to be made on a firm foundation, with straight lines and a level head. So I became very smart, very tough, and very strong, but I didn't make sure I wasn't bent.

Umm, whoops. My bad.

Now, I'm not writing this to say that I've suddenly figured out how to unbend myself, I haven't. The real problem with being bent is that no matter how strong, tough, and smart I am, I can't be stronger than myself. I will always equal I, so I will never be able to apply enough force to straighten myself back out.

No, unfortunately I need to fine something stronger than me to do the hard work. Looking to other people won't work, if they were smarter than me, I'd not have gotten bent in the first place.

Thankfully, God is most certainly stronger than me, and although He cannot be rushed to straighten me out on my schedule, He is definitely willing to do it.

My head hits the pillow, and I'm sobbing.

My head hits the pillow, and I'm sobbing.

I just want to go Home, Father. I just want to wake up and be Home. I don't even know where or what that is, but I want to be Home.

I'm 30 years old, and I'm crying myself to sleep in Maseru, Lesotho. (For the record, when I write, I write what I feel. What gets posted on this blog is a question of quality, not whether or not it makes me look any certain way.)

I don't have a friend on the entire fucking continent, Father. I haven't known anyone here for even two weeks, I have no one to talk to that has any background or context for anything I'd say, any reference I'd make, any idioms or mannerisms. There's no one here I can trust to see Me.

I'm a broken person. I don't really try to hide it, and I'm not good at acting anyways.

I want off this ride. I don't want to be a missionary, I want to be the guy with the wife, the kids, the dog, the warm bed in a cozy house, the front lawn I'll bitch about mowing. Send somebody else, I just don't want to do this anymore.

It wasn't my thought that came next, it was a line of Scripture. "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." I think it's from Matthew. One of the Gospels, memorization isn't my strong suit, never has been.

The book of Hebrews, says that Christ was tempted in every way that we are tempted. That was the next thing through my head.

Every. Way.

The Son of the Almighty God, tempted in Every. Way. I've ever been, and ever will be, tempted.

I can barely, barely comprehend it. The text is simple enough, of course, it's just that the reality...

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, The Word become Flesh...was at some point so down that he was tempted with suicide, like I was two years ago? (TWO YEARS AGO, NOT NOW, DO NOT CALL THE COPS ON ME (AGAIN))

Jesus at some point felt so alone, so broken, that He just wanted to set His cross down and be a normal person, forsaking whatever good He knew God would work out of His obedience?

Every way? Jesus was tempted to take over the family carpentry business, instead of being about His Father's work? He was tempted to settle down with a wife and kids, to live a calm, quiet life where He would be left alone, instead of preaching to thousands of people?

Every way? Does that really mean Jesus at times just wanted to sit down, get a loving hug from somebody that knew Him, and let the world handle its own problems? To quit and be a normal guy?

I mean yeah, there's that bit in the Garden, where He asked the Father to take the cup from him, but I mean that's always kinda brushed over. Jesus wasn't actually discouraged, He couldn't have been. He was perfect, we're broken, so He didn't get discouraged.

Because right now, I'm in Maseru. There are dried tears on my cheeks, and I just want to go home. I want to go home tomorrow, to find a nice girl, settle down and not leave town except for leisurely vacations. No more Calling into missions, no more food poisoning from third-world restaurants, no more being unable to sleep because hard beds aggravate my bad shoulder, no more being lonely and alone, no more looking ahead to being broke, homeless, and unemployed the day I get back.

It's tempting. The Bible says Christ was tempted in every way I am. So I'm not alone, and if I struggle with this, so did He.  Christ was where I am, calling out to the Father in tears, asking for another way. And when the Father said "No", Christ obeyed.

I'm not perfect, but I have been as obedient to the calling I've received as I could be. I'm in Maseru, where I was sent, I'm doing the job I was sent to do (well, the food poisoning bit notwithstanding), and I haven't let things like "I would rather not be doing this with my life" stop me.

Maybe I'm not as broken as I think I am. Maybe I'm just human, and struggling with temptation.

Maybe, just maybe, Christ struggled with the temptation to lose hope, to say "Even with God's help, I can't do this, I'm too pathetic, too weak, too alone, too broken."

It does say "every" in that verse.