offense

I think I encountered a new level of offence this afternoon. I shouldn't even put it in past tense, because honestly I think I'm experiencing it still. I still feel a little like my chest cavity collapsed and some fragment of bone has punctured some vital organ. It's making it hard to breathe.

These things are so hard, but I know a year from now it will seem like the smallest trial. Right now, though, I don't even want to talk about the specific thing that happened. Not to you, not to my parents, not to my husband, not to a total stranger. If you know me, you know I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, but this hurts me so much I just don't want to speak it.

I know that right now I should go pray, and then go enjoy a good midweek service, but I'm still trying to decide if I wouldn't rather just go home and be alone. Clean my apartment - which has been on my To Do list since the weekend, and now it's Wednesday already - and calm myself down. I know if I go, though, that I'll clean and I'll pray, but I probably won't really calm down.

I know I need to forgive, let the Lord be my judge, and not worry about what my accuser thinks of me ... but it really bugs me what he told me he thinks of me. I should stand before God, and God alone, but I'm grinding my teeth right now.

I know that Jesus was falsely accused and opened not His mouth, and that a servant is not above her Master ... but I have this righteous sense of what I percieve to be justice that really wants to write a strongly worded letter. And I know that my perception of justice is skewed, and that, being chief among sinners, justice is the last thing I should be asking for.

I know all these things. I know the condition of my heart right now is wrong. I know I need to close my eyes and take a deep breath and smile and lay aside vengence and go to the dumb party Sunday afternoon. I don't want to do any of those things, though.

So what is this? Good, because I realize the deception of my heart, or bad, because I won't immediately silence it?