8/22
((from Natalie))

The path ahead, the direction we were pointed, was not where I should’ve been going. I knew that. The thud, thud, thud, of my sins was nagging in every heartbeat.  I was so far off track from where my conscience had previously told me I ought to go. I guess I had been off-track for awhile without noticing, but now I knew. I had no navigation system anymore. It was glaringly evident that I was lost, spinning, losing control.

“For I know my transgressions,

    and my sin is always before me.”

I begged for the car to be pulled over.  I wasn’t going to stay and continue with this path I had forged on my own terms. I wanted out; out from underneath the crushing weight of my own transgressions.  And it needed to happen now!  Before the consequences spiraled to become an ever-increasing avalanche (potent enough to destroy what lay ahead of me) I had to find something to make it stop.  And this, this direction surely wasn’t the right something.

We found an empty stretch of curb and before the car even shifted into ”park” I was out and running.  Still lost, but running.  Rushing away from me, in a directionless, sobbing sprint, I had no route left now but running towards Him.

Beneath a tree, I collapsed.  The surroundings turned to a heavy blur and on my knees our conversation first began.  I felt the crushing of my heart as I told him.  “I’m so sorry, God. I know this is…

“Against you, you only, have I sinned

    and done what is evil in your sight;”

I deserve nothing good. But I turn the broken me over to you. I’m messing up over and over. I’m no good at this on my own;

“so you are right in your verdict

  and justified when you judge.”

I’ll follow You now. I want Your righteousness before me so much more than all the mess I’ve made on my own .”

I can’t say that next I heard an audible voice respond. The Angel of the Lord didn’t appear before me.  A magnificent parting of the clouds did not occur. But a miracle surely happened there.  A drop of hope infused into my soul; enough to stand. Then another drop; hope enough to walk on. And more; hope for trusting in obedience.
Hope miraculous.
Hope for a sinner like me.

…

 “When the consciousness of guilt is made to come home to the soul, nothing will calm it down. Everything reminds the soul of it; and nothing will drive away its recollection. In such a state the sinner has no refuge – no hope of permanent peace – but in the mercy of God.”
-Albert Barnes