Tried to give you warning, but everyone ignores me
(told you everything loud and clear)
...but nobody's listening
Called to you so clearly, but you don't want to hear me
(told you everything loud and clear)
...but nobody's listening

I've got a heart full of pain, head full of stress
Hand full of anger held in my chest
Uphill struggle, blood, sweat, and tears
Nothing to gain, everything to fear

Linkin Park - Nobody's Listening (right click, 'save target as')

5:30 AM is the magic writing hour.

I hate waking up in the middle night with that dull pain deep in my stomach and in my chest. Sometimes, I get it just because I'm hungry, other times I get it when I'm sore from sort of physical exercise... but most of the time, it's because there's something bothering me, mulling around in my head, and burning its way down to my guts.

And I used to be such an easy-going person.

Too much time, alone with oneself and analyzing things... looking at scars, the pathways of pain in one's life. I trace my finger across these wounds I carry with me and I wonder if they'll ever heal. The constant looking backward, the wondering of if I should have gone left when I went right, and the waiting... bleh, the waiting.

I hate this spiritual suspension, this feeling I'm just waiting for the next disaster to strike, the next blow to my spirt. It's the wondering of how exactly close I am to the edge and if the next hit will push me off into the deep end.

Just what the world needs, another crazy Asian man.

Pain and disappointment are old friends. I wear them like a pair of shoes and they go where I go. But to put things in perspective. I've trying to be more mindful that most everybody in this world has their own special understanding of pain and disappointment - their own relationships with the dynamic duo that plagues this mortal life.

People like to classify pain in relative terms. So I'm sure someone would tell me:

Somewhere, in Africa, a kid is growing up orphaned, his parents stolen from him by the AIDS epidemic... starving, hungry, he picks up an AK-47 and becomes one of thousands of child soldiers that are in the world today. He fights and kills for a war he doesn't believe in or care about, because he knows his life already hangs upon a cut thread.

Elsewhere, in Thailand, a young prostitute is having her 3rd abortion. The baby is a "gift" from being raped by a traveling businessman, on vacation with his European associates to explore the "exotic Orient". The girl's body was sold into sexual slavery simply to make ends meet - by her own family.

Here in America, a young man is bounced from foster to foster home because he's been physically & mentally handicapped since birth from FAS. His mother a drunk and a ruled unfit by the state to raise children, his father is unknown and absent. To his foster family, he's just a cash cow, a meal ticket that gets them a few extra bills every month.

Fictitious, yet common stories. And if these individuals had the choice, they'd change places with me in a heartbeat. To them, things like growing up without a father or looking for a job probably seem trivial.

But pain isn't as easily relative as I or anyone else would like it to be.

Whether you lose a finger or you lose an arm, you're still going to bleed. When things hurt, they still hurt. How foolish we are to forget that there are other things that can be just as deadly as blades, disease, or bullets.

Loneliness. Grief. Bitterness. Boredom. Rage. Frustration. Addiction. Obsession. Misplaced trust. Failed romance. Unrealistic ambition. Family expectations. The desire for recognition. False hope.

These things all fly into our lives, like arrows loosed from divine or demonic hands. Some completely miss us, some glance off without a scratch. Some hit us, but we never really see the life-threatening shot until we've been knocked off our feet, laying on ground, and staring wide-eyed at the feathered shaft protruding from our chest.

Oh, I do my best to make plans. Everybody does. We go to college. Or we work. We meet somebody and plan on getting married. Or we buy cats. We buy a car and a house. Or we put the money away in stocks and bonds. We pursue what we love, but we can't make ends meet. Or we work a job we hate, just to get by.

Then the arrows come. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh... and everybody gets hit. No exceptions. Everyone has a combination of pain particular to their own life that nobody else can understand completely.

I think there's several sticking in my chest.

I want to believe God has purpose for all things. I know He has a purpose for all things... but some times I don't just want to know... I want to know. They say is faith is the shield against every arrow possible. But maybe the shield isn't worn on your arm.

No, perhaps the true shield of faith is a kevlar heart... an ironclad center... a bulletproof soul. The power to be struck with one arrow or a thousand, and not be worst from it. The God-given ability to not be immune to pain, but to embrace it and give it up to Christ - the original man of sorrows.

I could use a heart like that these days.

It takes too much work to ramble on like this.
posted by G at 6:12 AM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33