When does it come? When finally all your kids are doing okay, you have a home that's paid off, you have decent health insurance and a little money to do some things you waited all your life to do?

My life couldn't be more the extreme opposite, some my own doing, some not. And when does forgiveness include forgetting? Never I fear. There is no security outside of Christ for us, and that, perhaps, is why it is what it is. Most of us, even Christians, tend to lean wholly on the Lord only when things are not so perfect, the tougher the sitch, the harder the leaning. Which is of course, exactly what He wants all the time. But something in us eases up on the prayers when things improve. What is that?!

I resist the urge to launch into a discourse on how ungrateful we are and how we ought to be thankful. We know this, and there is no condemnation in Christ....and I have found none. Still, there is something to be said for an awareness of grace and mercy.

In my life, regardless of the cause, I have survived a heartbreak so all-encompassing that I feared I would not survive it, and indeed, part of me didn't. That idyllic, child-like trust is gone for good, never to return. I have found I can trust...but not like that, not again. Maybe that's good. Maybe that kind of naivetee is destructive. But I do know this, i'll never be one to destroy it in another, never. "Let your illusions last, until they shatter," Jackson Browne got it right.

I have never supported myself, probably never will. That is something that I am ashamed of, but looking back, i'd do it the same. No way after a child is molested do you even consider leaving them in anyone's care ever again. So you live on high-starch meals because they're cheap, make movie night as good as a theater...or close, buy items only on sale, and pray every night for things to get better somehow. You stand in line at Human Services, one face in a sea of faces, hoping, praying that all goes thru and you can get just a little help. I think it's amazing and right that people get help with their medical issues, and housing, my gosh you've got to live so you can try and better yourself. But the whole experience is de-humanizing and impersonal. To go from your very nice middle-class home, new cars, comprehensive medical and dental insurance, to a very small apartment with 2 kids, no insurance and no real way to pay the rent, leaves a scar I can tell you. We survived, and many times we shouldn't have...only God. But now, this much farther down the line and nothing's changed really.

I am grateful and thankful to have food, to have a roof over our heads, etc. But I miss some of the things I had years ago. And there's a thick, impenetrable scar on my heart, and when you hurt me, even a little, it says to me, oh yeah, dummy, you forgot, you can't trust anyone...ever...EVER. But I want to trust you, with all my heart. But survival is paramount, so only time will tell.

So, I see I have written something down here, good, finally. I will end and go back to wondering why.