time to add the most recent writing of mine

Dear God,

Sometime I am so frustrated with learning how you view us. Right now, my emotions are running crazy with a sense of disorganization. At times, I want to tell you that I think you just don’t get it—as if I am “wise” enough to scream out directions telling you what to do.

How is it that you can love a poor punk kid from the wrong side of the tracks? How is it you never tire of our antics and irregular attention we give you? How is it that at one moment, life can be perceived as so blessed, and the very next, our emotions hit rock bottom? How is it that when we sense we have been the biggest failure on the planet, you place your stamp of approval on our lives? And most incredibly, you love the person that I just called stupid and irresponsible as much as you love me? Maybe I am the one who doesn’t get it.

You made me with a love for a sense of control, a desire to guide and direct and some abilities to help others. Still, with all the jagged edges in my life, it seems that wherever I turn, the proverbial brick wall is all my eyes can see. You made this body with strength, and I have damaged it till it is weak. While trying with all my best intentions to balance life, all I see now are deficits in all the wrong places. Knowing all this, how is it you still pursue me with all the love you possess?

So this is my prayer. Help me to understand that any circumstance I find myself in, I am there because you have allowed it to happen. Help me to understand that all circumstances I am part of you use as part of your redemptive plan, not only for me, but for all involved. Help me to know that you want each situation to be used to refine my heart, my will, and my understanding of you to keep my focus where it needs to be. Help me to know that your goal is eternity, while so many times, my focus is on the immediate. Help me to understand that you look at each man’s heart, not each man’s actions as I see them. May I begin to understand that your love cost you far more than we can imagine, and this defines how you want me to treat others. Forgive me when I fall flat on my face so often. Help me to understand that you desire to be my teacher, my friend, my leader, my helper, my guide, my healer, my forgiver, my everything. Help me, most of all, to begin to understand how you view me and love me.

Finally, thank you for never stopping your love for me. Thank you for your patience with my helplessness and rebellious actions. You really are incredible.

Trying to love you,

Marlin Casey