Learning to Run

Written June 2018

I don’t dream well anymore. And that means I don’t sleep well either. I hate going to bed because sleep is impossible unless I am exhausted.

My dreams are horrific. Death and destruction dog me relentlessly, making a horror movie seem like kiddie fare.  Sometimes I am trying desperately to get away from wicked women and failing. I have woken drenched in sweat and my heart racing.

The pain of my dreams is only slightly less upon waking. The nightmares of the night fade into the waking horror of my life. Every morning I wake to the hope that it was all a bad dream. “Please let the past weeks be a fiction and let my life be good again.” But the past years have been the good fictional dream, and this is the reality. I’ve been afraid of this for almost 20 years, but it is only been delayed not avoided.

Life is horrible.  My chest physically hurts from the strain in my soul. My wife has forgiven me in theory, but every day she asks more questions that reveal the depth of my treachery and the continuing pain in her heart. There can be no real forgiveness here. A few friends from the past have dropped me notes – no one from the present has.  My Bible says I have been forgiven but I do not feel it – just a perpetual screaming in my soul.  The torment worsens as the emptiness of my life is revealed.

The bitter fruit has finally ripened and it tastes like death. I can’t explain how much I have dreaded this day, but there is no escape. I feel like I am scheduled for a double leg amputation and I’m strapped to the bed watching the knives fall – and wishing someone would close my eyes or give me pain relief.

But pain relief is not possible. I must watch the death of love in slow motion.  I need to feel every sinew separate under the consistent pressure of the Great Physician’s scalpel.  The Bible condemns me on every page, Nina hasn’t really smiled at me with love yet. My children’s eyes condemn me, my friends ignore me, my family has no hope for me – and a pastor I barely know is the one trying to keep me from pulling the trigger on my life. Did nobody take seriously the fact that I have struggled with suicide for most of my life? Or did they listen to that about as well as they listened to my messages?

Death is infinitely preferable to this pain and torment. It is not even a contest.

 

• UPDATE:  I am happy to report that many have prayed for me, and my dreams are becoming much better.  Sometimes they are happy, most times nonsense – and only once in a while a horror show.  Thank you!