Walking into the Door Jamb of Repentance

Meatfare is in three days which means Lent is only 10 days away.

And I am, as usual, so not ready.

I was thinking recently that I'm a mess. I do not even know how to repent even when my sin is right in front of me. I feel righteous even in the proclamation of my sin. Oh  Lord, how do I even begin to repent? I mean, it's ridiculous, why even try? I'm sitting here and the whole thing is a morass that I can't even begin to climb out of, let alone try to list and enumerate for a "good confession" (whatever that means).

And the more I set out to change and be better the worse it gets! Do not get me started on New Year's Resolutions. Those things have gone by the way side years ago. I mean why even bother when I know for a fact I am just going to say, "Screw it" and do whatever anyway. It's a bit discouraging to say the very least. And I am supposed to set an example for my son? God help him because my life as an object lesson definitely won't.

I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Because I need some serious rescuing.

Not so much when you come to think about it

I like to think of myself as a Self-Rescuing Princess. I've totally had figure out how to get myself out of some pretty deep doo-doo in the past few years while at the same time trying to maintain a good demeanor and reminding myself that not all friends are enemies in disguise but most actually do want
to help and holding on to bitterness and anger isn't the way forward. I know this. It has been proven to me over and over again that one rotten apple does not spoil the whole bunch...But I still have this thing in me that says, "I can do it myself" like some demented, over-grown, spoiled brat toddler insisting on picking out my own clothes five minutes before my parents need to leave the house.

But.., when push comes to shove...I didn't get me out of those holes. A way was made for me by Someone who heard the prayers of so many people for me. People here below and those members of the Great Cloud of Witnesses who have seen I need some serious help here below.

Now it is my turn to do the work God has set aside for me to do in order to that I work out my salvation. I do so with much fear and trembling (and hopefully less complaining than I have been doing.) But in this way I will hopefully prove my faith is alive and it will be counted to me as righteousness, not just because I believe but because I am willing to prove it but working it.

It's hard to do this, I'm lazy and I am not fond of leaving home once I am here. I admit it. I would much prefer to be at home on my sofa, reading or fiddle farting around on teh interwebz, and just generally being a lump of uselessness. As Dr Phil is fond of saying however, that is not working for me anymore. There is too much to be done to rest on my laurels There are too many people who invested in me for me to not get up off my rusty dusty and prove that I am the woman God called worthy and renamed so many years ago.

My rescuer is God. He comes to me from the hills, never sleeping and never slumbering but making me able to stand against so many things that have come against me over the years so that I stand vindicated before those who would come against me. But it is not through any doing of my own. St Elizabeth and St Joseph and my mom and grandmother and family, blood and chosen, here on earth have had my back for years. Archangel Gabriel and the Theotokos looked after my son so that the words meant for me about my son prospering would be so.

And God has proven again and again that my delight in Him and in His Word and in His Church will see me through because He has called me from desolation to vindication and it is only by His word and will that this is true. My repentance, if so small before Him, is nothing compared to all He has done, and yet that is all He asks of me. My repentance and my obedience born from my love for Him. How could I not?

Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!















Lord have mercy on me a sinner!

Relevant Reading
Romans 7:14-24
Romans 7:14-25
Ephesians 2:8-10
Philippians 2:12-15
James 2:14-26
Called Worthy by God
Ruth 3:11
To Whom it May Concern
Psalm 121
Isaiah 54
Isaiah 62