With Fear and Trembling

It is said, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling". I come before you and openly admit that I am afraid.

I look to this upcoming year and realize that I can't do it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to go back to school. I don't want to face all of my responsibilities. I can't face my friends yet. I'm not ready for my studies. I don't have the strength, the energy, the faith, the money.

But of course I can't. I'm not supposed to. To think I've spent an entire year expounding on Missio Dei to once again forget that it is God's mission and not my own. I truly cannot make it through this year. Knowing that ahead of time may prove to be my one chance at survival. If I can do something on my own, thank-you God (but please don't interfere).

The stress is back; bringing with it the heartburn, the fatigue, the lack of sleep, the depression, the anxiety, the quiet desperation. Why? In place of Faith - doubt, for Hope - Despair, and Love - naught but a twisted depiction. Fortunately, paradoxically, these three remain, despite my ignorance.

And so I shoulder my cross, noting as I do that it seems not to weigh as much as I thought it would upon its appearance. (Matt. 11:30)