Eureka!

I've found something! Okay, I stumbled across, okay, okay - I'll tell you the truth: It utterly stands in my way, and I can't get around it without your prayers and the saving help of my man Jesus. It is this: I have equated alleviation of suffering with intimacy with God, or in more detail, I knew that suffering would never end, but hoped that if I were to get close enough to God I would somehow not feel it or not care, or be somehow inpenetrable, bulletproof, and invisible to SUFFERING! Lies, Lies, ALL LIES. Here comes the praise. God is teaching me that intimacy with Him is

INTIMACY WITH HIM!

Pure and simple. And its the best thing there is. No seriously. Tonight Brighton screamed. Brighton has been screaming. He sounds like he is having his fingers broken one by one. So I walked through the dark hallway with him in tow, and shushed him and bounced him while I prayed. I prayed that God would alleviate Brighton's suffering and ours because he tells us to ask - the blind man would not have seen unless he had asked - and yet I saw in my heart a new thing, a new creation. I saw the hope that perhaps Jesus would be really close with me as I walked. Perhaps it is wrong or faithless, but I had no hope that Jesus was about to suddenly make Brighton a great sleeper and give Amy and I untold riches of rest. Instead I just wanted to be really close with God. So the good news is that Jesus is making a bride out of this SLUT of a man! Praise him. Merry Christmas all. Oh yeah, what's the picture all about? Well, I think I know now why Lions eat their young. :) Matthew