The kind of bitter pride that I lived with the last couple of years of my life before I got saved is strangulating, it chokes away any capacity to love anyone but the self. Not that there was anything lovely about me of which to speak. It eventually diminishes any reason to live, other than perhaps simply being afraid to die, as I rightly was. It poisons the soul so thoroughly that you can't ever think that anyone know or understands how you feel.
Pride can kill like a slow-acting toxin, and I nearly succumbed.
And yet, God was good to me in all that, though I was not yet at a place where I could see His goodness. He kept me from doing anymore more destructive to myself of others. He broke my hardened heart and broke it so completely that I had to cry out or die. I truly believe that if I hadn't been saved, I honestly don't think I'd be alive. But God intended for me to live, to live for His glory, to be one in whom He chose to be glorified by pouring out His grace. Isaiah 57:15 says, "For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holyplace, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart the contrite ones." And in struggling with this same old foolish pride, I can lose sight of that so easily. Yet God is always faithful to me, faithful to forgive me and to remind me of His goodness.
I don't know who will see this. I can't say that I got up this morning planning to write about these things. I'm still learning to share about myself, especially something so intensely personal, and at the time, so painful. But maybe, someone who's struggling will see this and realize that there are those who understand, those who have been where they are now, and will come to see what they need is The Lord and His gracious forgiveness.
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