"...no one came to our side to carry us away from danger..."

This past month or so (well less than a month, but it's more than a couple weeks... ok, let's just say 3 weeks), I've wrestled with some pretty weighty issues that I believe I never tried to understand or try to work out before. See, I'm pretty great at rationalizing my problems, and rationalizing my gut feelings into something completely at odds with what was probably there to begin with. And in doing this, it seems to lead me to places where I am not that convicted to do anything, because I don't actually believe what I talked myself into yet I am unmotivated to do what I know I should because I just spent so much time rationalizing why I shouldn't.

Is anyone confused yet? Probably. Let me simplify it.

I've usually been afraid to do what's right because I've always been afraid of what people will think of me. Ironic, since I have always cared so little about what I think of me. This has been evidenced in years of self-loathing, taking little to no care of myself and then blaming every factor under the sun except myself for my failings. It's a lovely part of me, you should ask me about it sometime.

Tongue-in-cheek aside, these past three weeks have raised great questions as to what my place in Christ's kingdom is. I haven't been looking for promises or for resolution, but even just a clue of what I have been put in this state to do. The choices I have made in the past month have taken me away from a wonderful girl, seemingly made most of my friends uncomfortable around me, and put me in a place that for the first time in my life, I have really desired to be surrounded by people... yet by God's will, that hasn't really happened yet. So when things like that happen, it's easy to do what has always come naturally to me, I want to rationalize my own feelings into something I can control, and ultimately... dismiss.

I can honestly say that I have never fought this much spiritual turmoil in my life. Truly, this is not hyperbole. I have been at war with myself, with Satan, even with Christ over my flesh desires against the desire to seek the heart of Jesus. And in that battle, I have died to talk to people, to release these words that I build up and just vent and hopefully get anything from others that can help me make sense of the battles waging inside of me. But like I said before, for some reason I've felt more alone than I've ever been since coming to Washington.

The cynic in me wants to put this on others, to say that this is what I get for wanting to have community when I've spent my whole life making community come to me. But that's part of my battle. I am aware and I am at war with my cynicism. I understand that it only leads me to solitude and a place where the only one I trust is me... the most dishonest of anyone I know. There is a side of me that wants to be known, that wants to tell my story, but I've been fighting this harsh war against an enemy that once again is trying to convince me that my story isn't worth being told... so I might as well not tell it anyway. It's scary, it's heartbreaking, and it makes no sense... to either you, or me. Trust me, I've been here the whole time and I don't even get it. A friend of mine last week stated that she wished I could put my "struggle" into a sentence so she could see where I was coming from. Amen, so do I.

I have a friend, who in the past few weeks, has completely shot down my ideas of what love really is. In this time, I've been amazed at her ability to give and give and give and give, and try so hard to not care about accepting little in return. In all of this, I've seen something tangible, my first answers on what love really is. I've thought so much about how it can even be possible, seeing that I've been for 26 years the creator and executive producer of "The Britton Dennis Show, starring Britton Dennis." To try to turn that production into a show starring all the people in my life, both known and unknown... it's a long stretch for me. I really don't know how to reach out, because I've done so much reaching in.

In that love I've discovered, I've seen that grace is so important. So important because grace opens eyes. Where anger and hurt blindly swing out at others, not caring who they hit, grace calmly sees the painting is much larger than what we can see on our part of the canvas. Grace takes a deep breath, and looks to understand how these things that cause us hurt might in fact be to the glory of God. I believe that grace gives the people around me the benefit of the doubt, and doesn't take any of my friendships that God has blessed me with for granted. Grace is realizing that this whole thing has been about giving my cares to Jesus and not to others in the first place. Grace comes when I take a deep breath, and realize... that God not only created me, but he created you. He created the girl who cries over you, over me... the man who can't understand me or you, but is still willing to hear us out. Grace is looking in a mirror and wanting to get to know the person behind the image a little better, instead of shunning it. Grace is realizing that compared to a gruesome death on a cross that didn't have to happen... my troubles are but dust in a vast sea of dirt.

This is all to say, to those around me who call me a friend and likewise I call friends... I am sorry. I have been very selfish these past few weeks. I have taken many of you for granted, I have believed with my flesh instead of with my faith, and it led me to a place where you couldn't reach me if you tried. Maybe you had no idea, and that's ok. This wasn't to make you think on that fact. But what I do want you to know, is that as my friend... I do love you very much, and I apologize that I haven't really shown you that very well. And in all of that, maybe that is what Jesus wanted me to see from the beginning.