black.

Last week was a terrible week. I had a really good week followed by a really terrible week... and what was so terrible about it was that I simply gave up fighting. Tired. Weary. Sick of fighting, sick of feeling like I was always losing. Sick of the journey... sick of people hurting me and hating my capacity to desire to hurt others to make myself feel better.

And so, I gave up fighting. If you know any part of my story, you know this is really really really not a good thing. To not fight is to throw myself at the feet of the evil one and his demons and (if I'm being honest) sign a waver that says: "Take me, I want to die."

Not that I want to die. I, like many others, have struggled with thoughts of suicide at times in my life. These are dark times and I wouldn't wish them on anyone, but this was not one of those times. It was just me sick and tired of being sick and tired. So, for a week I bowed my knee and for a week became the walking dead. As days past I felt as if I were walking down a long tunnel... and as I walked down the tunnel it got smaller. And the smaller it got the darker it got. And the darker it got the more room I thought I had. And what's funny about this darkness was that it was darker than the color black.

Heaven must have a million colors. Think about the rainbow surrounding the throne that the Father (Abba) sits on. "And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne." (Rev. 4:3) That rainbow must be filled with a million colors we can't even imagine. And think about it... think about how the colors dance on a lake or on the ocean... water literally sparkles with light and color. Imagine in Heaven, when we are HOME, what the brilliant colors will look like. Gosh... dancing on the sea of glass! And the sparkling river... wow. Anyway, heaven must have a million colors.

So if red has a hundred shades, and blue has a hundred shades, and yellow has a hundred shades, does black have a hundred shades?

Is there darkness a that I have never known? Is the color of black during my darkest night someone else's dusty gray? How deep can black get? How low does the shaft of death plummet on this earth? I always thought I'd been through the black night, but last week as I sat in worship one night, God spoke very clearly:

"Do you need to go deeper into the dark before you look back to me?" I had a epiphany. There was something far worse. Far, far worse than I have even imagined. And God, because of His mercy, will let me (and you) go there, if it will bring us home to him.

In Romans I read that God finally gave them over to the lusts of their flesh... and I always used to wonder why in the world God did that. What a jerk. I decided that he finally gave up on them... they were hopeless. Just time to move on. But how wrong I was! The reason God gave them over... are you listening? You have to catch this. OK. The reason He gave them over to their sin ... gave them over to their complete and total debauchery and idolatry was so that:

They would come back to Him.

And He has done and will always do the same for me. If I am dead-set on my sin... that I know best and that His way just won't cut, he will, because of his MERCY, give me over. Yes, it's the hard way (for both of us) but if it's the way home, he will lead me through it. I've had two reactions toward him because of this: I have hated him, and I have loved him.

Today I Love Him. He is my Lover.