Half-life

     Once again I am awake for over an hour on a Saturday morning somewhere between the hours of 2AM and 5AM.  

     I live a half-life.  By which I mean that a quarter of my life is wasted on pursuing fleeting and worthless things and another quarter is spent on thinking about pursuing fleeting and worthless things.  All thrown in with a bit of paralyzing despair, not a full blown depression mind you, but enough to realize that once you emerge from it, you’re a day/week older and no progress has been made.  

     I’m tired of living a half life.  I was meant to shine, not for my own glory, but for the glory of God and for the betterment of my fellow man.  And my light was not meant for my own self-promotion, but to serve those less fortunate than myself, to raise up those who have been rejected, those who are maimed and crippled, those who have been unable to lift themselves off the ground as a result of tragedy.       
     I know what I’m meant to do; I can see the results in my head.   I just don’t know how to do it.  How to get from here to there.  

     I have bitten my tongue so much over the last few years that it has become numb to the point that I don’t know when to release it or if the words that come out will be words of wisdom or of folly.  I want to lash out against the pompous, against the oppressors, but where my pride says “do it,” Humility says “no.”  

     Humility reads: “to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”  

     Perhaps it is because of impurity of the half-life that true wisdom is not obtained.  Gentleness, not bitter jealousy and selfishness, is what I crave.  And above all else, love.  Pure, undefiled, whole love.  

Author's note:  

As exhaustion begins to overtake me, I can feel a sense of hopelessness lifted off of me.  Thank you, God.  You’re already turned my day around.