Daily Archives: July 11, 2009

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There is a sort of emotional pain that is small and nagging - it's persistent and always there.  Like an achy joint.  It's annoying, but you can live with it and most of the time you don't even notice.

Then there is the emotional pain that is so overwhelming that it crushes the breath out of you.   You want to avoid it or make it stop, but the only way out is through.

You feel so pressed, so brittle - if somebody touches you, you'll shatter into a million tiny pieces.

I am familiar with this pain.

I need to understand that this is also the emotional pain that my dad is feeling right now.  His wife of 50 years has gone from being (in pain, but) relatively independent - to not being able to stand up or even use the toilet by herself.

How much will she recover?  Nobody knows.  We hope that she'll recover to the point that the doctor originally thought she would.  But it's going to be a very long time.

My dad is serverely diabetic, he has a cardiac history and he's 72 years old.  He's very afraid that he won't be able to take care of her the way that she is now and he's right.

The pain in that helplessness - knowing the one you love is hurting and not having the ability to fix the hurt...hurts.

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The audio book is on my iPod and I've been listening to it on my travels.   I know I have a paper copy somewhere, but I can't put my hands on it right now.

There was something that resonated with me.

Repentance is not "oops, sorry".  Lewis said something to the effect that repentance is a turning - an "unlearning" of the bad behavior that has been learned.

(there is a difference between "sin" and "sins" that I may get into later)

But in order to repent, you have to have a part of "good" inside you that wants to unlearn the behavior.  That part of you is already good - already turned.

Only a good man can repent.  Only a bad man needs to.

Only a perfect man can repent perfectly - and the perfect man doesn't need to.

The bad man must repent and cannot.

Lewis was not Reformed by any stretch of the imagination, but what I can apply here is "regeneration".  We are all affected by "total depravity" - every part of us is touched by Adam's sin.  We are sinners who sin and we all are in need of repentance.

Through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to repent, however imperfectly.  It is only through the act of the Holy Spirit who calls that we are able to turn to him.

Perfect repentance?  Only God is perfect and only Immanuel, God With Us, is our perfection.

I am a bad person.  There are things that I don't know how to repent of!  I can only trust Christ to cover that sin.,