A note to readers: This entry is not meant to offend or convert anyone. These are simply the words that spilled from my pen one night as I sat at my desk. I don't intend anything by them; they're purely an expression of myself, a tribute to God, and nothing more.

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August 23, 2005

10:17 p.m.

I’m so tired… I’m ready to drop. Do you think it could be called life’s pressure? They say it’s stress, but it’s really not. Stress is understandable. It’s an unrelenting pressure bearing down not just on your mind and shoulders but over every inch of your flesh, your being, wearing you thin until you break and tear, suffocating you to asphyxiation. Stress is an awful monster, but at least it’s a monster whose form, whose malevolence, I understand. This otherworldly ennui, on the other hand, is impossible for me to fathom. I feel drained, as if the last bits of my spirit have been stripped from me, the remnants of my soul snatched from me. I am so tired… I am empty and lifeless, with nothing left in me but this pervasive sense of weariness. I can no longer stand, I can no longer see, I can no longer focus. It’s as if I died. Perhaps this is how life feels after death, as a shell drifting between worlds with no thought or feeling whatsoever but for the emptiness.

It is life then… It is life that has brought me to this point. I have eked out all my soul and spirit, to the last lingering drop, to face life head-on, but my soul and spirit were absorbed and sucked away, leaving me bleeding on the battlegrounds. Has life finally defeated me then? Even if it’s just for this one day, has life overcome me today? Or am I more than soul and spirit? Do I have a hidden iota of mortal humanity that may be dredged up once more? …It’s a possibility…

But I am so weary of fighting. I yearn for rest, for sweet oblivion, for painless ignorance, a suspension in time and space. “Recovery time,” it’s sometimes called among the researchers. “Sleep,” it’s called in colloquial terms. I don’t have another name for it, I don’t know the name for it, and I really don’t want to know. I just want to be there and drift in nothingness for a while. The nothing in me would cease if it were immersed in outside nothingness. Just a break, a hiatus in all the fighting, a temporary caesura in life’s eternal song.

It’s not coming though. I’ve got to bear through these last few moments first, moments that seem to last eons.

But there is a hope…

…isn’t there?

Not from myself. The day has been too harsh on me and I’ve given up. But there’s One who never gives up, amidst even the worst of storms and raging battles. There is nothing that can drag Him down. The evergreen, the ever-new, the fountain of fresh, living water… Human life may be too much for me, mortal life burdensome and wearisome, but His life will most certainly not be. His water of life… I’ve tasted it before, and I’ve never tasted anything sweeter. Not all the ambrosia and nectar of the Greek gods could compare to His living water. It would enliven me, renew me, but not so that I may return to the fighting. No, it would change me, perfect me. It would start, continue, and finish a divine transformation, a never-ending transformation, that promises peace and joy and grace. Perhaps I should take it, this life of His. After all, it’s already being offered to me. I hardly need to think, to gather my nonexistent strength, to reach out… If I just accept it, it’s enough.

Well, whyever not? I am so tired there is no other option for me but to accept His life. It’s either that or drift into nothingness, and the latter choice does not seem so appealing anymore.

Oh Lord Jesus.

So much power in three simple words. Oh Lord Jesus. An outpouring of the sweetest water, an overflow of fresh energy. I can feel my eyes spark, my spirit kindle, my soul renew itself, but not with my own life… No, it is with His life that I have been regenerated. Oh Lord Jesus. I can hear the joyful singing, the peaceful humming, the graceful dancing of living water. I yearn to join it, to be a part of this endless music, this beautiful eternity removed from all time and space…

With my thoughts revolving around fantastical images and ideals that could only ever be realized in dreams, yet come to life in the utterance of a singular name, I slowly drift asleep.

Good night, Lord Jesus.

“For the lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and guide them to springs of waters of life; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 7:17

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-JAIA.