God's Mercy

Today I was driving to East Texas. As I started out, I was still feeling residual guilt for the horrible things I've said and felt recently, directed towards one whom I love. Saying it was residual is a little generous... full blown guilt is more like it. I've felt horrible ever since that episode, and I can only hope that I will receive her forgiveness. I'm not going to beg for it anymore though, I'll just let God handle it.

So, I'm driving along and breaking down into tears periodically, but at the same time I'm saying the Jesus Prayer. Over and over I say it, interspersed with other personal prayers of forgiveness, enlightenment, prayers of thanks, prayers to make me worthy of God's love. This went on for about an hour... crying, praying, feeling numb, crying, praying, until finally I let it all out in one manic weeping episode. Once that was done, a sense of calm fell upon me, and I continued with my prayers. I put an icon of the Theotokos that Nancy had given me on the dashboard and prayed for the Holy Mother of God to offer me comfort and to pray to her son Jesus Christ for me. I prayed to my saint, Saint Elias, whom I have finally decided upon, to pray to God on my behalf.

Slowly, I began to notice things around me. Trees, clouds, people in other cars, people in their yards playing, dogs, even dead animals on the road. They were all beautiful to me. I began to smile just a little... and I redoubled my prayer efforts. I began to feel joy. Happiness. I prayed more and more fervently, until I began to feel that beginning of a pain in my heart. It grew, faded, grew again, subsided into a dull ache, grew again... this went on for a while, as I wept tears of joy that God had seen fit to bestow me with mercy again.

This joy persisted for a short while, and I found myself sinking back into a state of calm lethargy... it wasn't despair or pain, but it wasn't joy anymore. I thought that I had achieved all I would achieve today through prayer, that God had a limit to His mercy, and I had reached it. I picked up a novel I'm reading, 'Moving Mars', and started to read it while I was driving... kind of giving up on prayer for the moment. As soon as I picked up that book and started reading, PAIN in my heart, sharp PAIN. Pain and joy again, doubled, tripled from before. I put that book back down. I prayed for God's forgiveness at giving up so soon. God had once again bestowed His mercy upon me, an unworthy sinner, when I was about to give up.

I continue to be amazed at the mercy I receive from God, so undeserving a sinner as I am.