4-10-03

4:55

It�s too-early-in-the-morning-O�clock. That�s what those three numbers up there indicate. For those of you who usually get up at this time of the morning� Why?

I have an excuse� my back hurts and I can�t lay in bed any longer. I mean, heck, just sitting in the chair aches something fierce. *hunts around for the Naproxin*

Psalm 76

1 In Judah God is known; His name is great in Israel.
2 His tent is in Salem, His dwelling place in Zion.
3 There He broke the flashing arrows, the shields and the swords, the weapons of war. Selah

4 You are resplendent with light, more majestic than mountains rich with game.
5 Valiant men lie plundered, they sleep their last sleep; not one of the warriors can lift his hands
6 At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both horse and chariot lie still.
7 You alone are to be feared. Who can stand before you when you are angry?
8 From heaven you pronounced judgment, and the land feared and was quiet �
9 When you, O God, rose up to judge, to save all the afflicted of the land. Selah

10 Surely your wrath against men brings you praise, and the survivors of your wrath are restrained.*

11 Make vows to the Lord your God and fulfill them; let all the neighboring lands bring gifts to the One to be feared.
12 He breaks the spirit of rulers; He is feared by the kings of the earth.

*or Surely the wrath of men brings you praise, / and with the remainder of wrath you arm yourself

Lamentations 1*

1 How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.

2 Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

3 After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile. She dwells among the nations; she finds no resting place. All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

4 The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gateways are desolate, her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she is in bitter anguish.

5 Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The Lord has brought her grief because of her many sins. Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe.

6 All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; in weakness they have fled before the pursuer.

7 In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands, there was no one to help her. Her enemies looked at her and laughed at her destruction.

8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.

9 Her filthiness clung to her skirts; she did not consider her future. Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. �Look, Oh Lord, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed.�

10 The enemy laid hands on all her treasures; she saw pagan nations enter her sanctuary � those you had forbidden to enter your assembly.

11 All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. �Look, O Lord, and consider, for I am despised.�

12 �Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the day of His fierce anger?

13 �From on high He sent fire, sent it down into my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.

14 �My sins have been bound into a yoke**; by His hands they were woven together. They have come upon my neck and the Lord has sapped my strength. He has handed me over to those I cannot withstand.

15 �The Lord has rejected all the warriors in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to*** crush my young men. In His winepress the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

16 �This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.�

17 Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The Lord has decreed for Jacob that his neighbors become his foes; Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

18 �The Lord is righteous, yet I rebelled against His command. Listen, all you peoples; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into exile.

19 �I called to my allies but they betrayed me. My priests and my elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.

20 �See, O Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within and in my heart I am disturbed, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is only death.

21 �People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my distress; they rejoice at what you have done. May you bring the day you have announced so they may become like me.

22 �Let all their wickedness come before you; deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my sins. My groans are many and my heart is faint.�

*This chapter is an acrostic poem, the verses of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

**Most Hebrew manuscripts; Septuagint He kept watch over my sins

***or has set a time for me / when He will

*shakes her head* I have a really, really, really hard time with Lamentations. A really hard time. *shakes her head again*

It�s really difficult for me to read Lamentations because of two gut-level reactions. The first reaction is to shut down / turn off reception. The second reaction is to immediately say �Knock off this whining. Take responsibility for what you�ve done and move on� Effin get over it!� Neither of these reactions could necessarily be labeled better than the other.

It�s really hard for me to get instruction from Lamentations unless it�s to stop whining. However, in looking through my life over the past week and a half� I haven�t been whining. I haven�t been blaming bad things in my life on anyone or thing. And I haven�t been claiming that negative things in my life are a direct result of God being angry with me.

*shrugs* I love my sister. I think she�s a great, generous and loving woman. But I also think that she lives in an alternate universe. I�ve told her this in the past. I�m sure that I have offended her without intending to, but man� some of her ideas and thought patters are so completely foreign to me that it would be like my trying to dictate a diary entry to a Hump-back Whale. �Eeeeee� just doesn�t cut it.

When I read through this chapter of Lamentations, I want to cringe and slam the book shut. I instantly think of my sister and� to be honest, of my brother. *sighs*

Honey, my sister, if you�re reading this, you might want to stop now. The following may offend you more than you can handle right now.

*gives you a minute to figure out if you want to read on or not*

Okay� you�ve been warned.

My sister doesn�t want to admit it, but she and my brother are a whole lot alike. (to allay suspicion� my brother was adopted by the parental units before I was born. The sister to whom I refer as �my sister� is actually the ex-wife of my adopted brother. There is no blood relation between the sister, the brother and me. No blood in any degree (unless you count being thousands-of-years-removed descendants of Noah� but that doesn�t count in my book.). So there is no �hill-billy� thing going on here. There�s no instance of kissin-cousins or anything like that. The sister grew up in the same church as the brother and I did... anyway� back to the offensive tale)

So, Sister (for ease in typing) won�t admit it, least of all to herself, but she is a whole lot like her ex. Brother lives in such an alternate universe that I wouldn�t be at all surprised if he truly did see a purple sky. *shrugs* That�s his right. He can believe whatever he wants to.

Anyway, Sister also lives in an alternate universe. In Sister�s alternate universe, things happen to her (same as in Brothers, thus similarity). She doesn�t cause problems through specific choices she has made (same opinion as Brother) but difficulties and trials afflict her out of the blue (same opinion as Brother). In Sister�s world, she was just minding her own business when people started being mean to her and now people expect her to perform at a specific and unfair standard (same opinion as Brother) regardless as to the abuse which has been heaped upon her innocent self (same opinion as Brother).

Both Brother and Sister have a little bit of truth in their belief systems. Brother did endure abusive situations. He was beaten and he did get a raw deal. Similarly, Sister did have a mother who isn�t really connected to the real world. She did have a turbulent childhood and there are some very specific abandonment issues she must deal with.

However, Neither of these two people have been as abused as they think. Neither of these people have taken responsibility for what happened to them and moved forward. And, both of these people have chosen to consider themselves victims. This is what truly and completely torques me off.

When Brother complains about his lot in life� about how rotten his childhood was and such, I want to stare him down then start wailing on him asking him if he has any idea how selfish, stupid, juvenile and asinine his comments are. *chuckles* I don�t do this, of course, because that kind of violence simply has no place in my life.

*shakes her head* See? I read through Lamentations and I find it extremely difficult to concentrate on what is being said because the tone of voice is so victimized. The writer is whining and moaning and bitching about life and world situations and blaming God saying that God is punishing him. *shakes her head*

I get this instinctual urge to smack the writer upside the head and say, �You want to whine, huh? I�ll give you something to whine about.�

*laughs* Boy, if that doesn�t bring back memories. Me, being a little cry baby� being scared and confused and unsure of what was going on� Dad being short tempered and telling me, �you�d better shut off those crocodile tears or I�ll give you something to cry about.�

*laughs at herself*

Okay� so I should be a little more merciful. I shouldn�t be so judgmental when it comes to other people�s thresholds of pain. *sighs*

Just because I have a higher tolerance for a specific kind of pain (many people would call that �false bravado� or �acting like John Wayne� (or in my case, �Jane Wayne�)) does not mean that someone else�s pain doesn�t exist. Someone else�s tolerance might be lower� so be it.

Dunno, I was talking about this with Mom yesterday. She�s coming to some really important realizations in her life and I think it�s good.

*shakes her head*

Bottom line� I need to concentrate on what�s wrong with Jennifer and fix that. Whatever is going on in Sister, Brother or Mother�s worlds will be dealt with in their time. I can�t fix or change them and I shouldn�t really want to. (but I want to)

*smiles*

When I was in the pits of depression, absolutely devastating� I don�t remember whining about my position. I remember thinking I was in hell and then I remember thinking, immediately afterward, that it didn�t matter if I was in hell or not �cause I didn�t believe in hell. *rolls her eyes*

I know what it is to live in an alternate universe. I know how odd my universe was as compared to the average person�s universe. Hell, even now my chosen universe is much different than that of Joe America. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe that sex belongs in marriage only. I believe that God is supreme and Holy and that He is, without question, THE God. In my current universe of choice, all of these things are given.

I know that one person, at least, thinks there is no such thing as God and that for me to place faith in a figment of my imagination is the height of stupidity. *shrugs*

You have the right to believe the sky is purple if you want to. You have the right to believe that the weird and crazy dreams you�re having are actually communiqu�s from God. If that�s what gets you through� more power to ya.

Just don�t tell me that what I believe is wrong. You can express doubt. You can question me on why I believe what I do, but don�t tell me I�m wrong or I�ll go off on your ass about why you�re still whining about how you didn�t get laid at prom.

(final example pulled out of thin air. I don�t know anyone who is whining about not getting laid at prom (probably because anyone of my generation who is still concerned about prom has bigger problems))

*smiles sweetly*

I�m leaving now.