As I slip back to sleep...

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I remember someone who wondered about my guilt.  Questioned it.

Guilt?  Oh, yes.  They saw it as a weakness.  I see it as a gift.  Not the bearing of it, I hand it over as well and responsibly as possible.  But there is always... a bit of it around.  Confessing a sin, while that is good, there is often still a yearning for the sin confessed.  So, not always can the sin be fully surrendered.  Perhaps, over time.  With effort and will and work, it can eventually be rooted and burned entirely.  So, guilt will remain, to some degree.  For me, for now.

Aye, but that guilt is the blessing of the knowledge of salvation, the wanting of it, knowing what is wrong and rejecting it, if not quite fully yet, and more.  It is a mark that one is on the path.

Besides?  I could sense her guilt, and great shame.  She remembers things she has done to "prove" various things.  Things she didn't want to do.  Things she knew were wrong, on many levels.  Evil.  She knows it.  She could bury it from herself, but not from one such as me or that bit of her who knows God.  I even... saw some of her great guilts, even for just injuring herself... not just the injuries, but how they were done.  Though there were... others.  And, yes, she knows.  She just refuses to acknowledge what she knows.

Terrible things to see.  Be glad you can't see.  The most beautiful women can be the worst of monsters.  Know that.  I have seen it, plainly.  I'm not sure they have control anymore.  Some of them.  Though... this one... I did tell her there is a way back.  And, for her, there is.  If... she chose it.

So... guilt?  Well, it's as with slavery to God.  It is the least of the best, but on the way.  When I cannot do God's will, I attempt to be His slave.  When I cannot fully release the want of a sin performed, I can nurse guilt.  The lessor ways, the "easier" ways (so it seems, but truth is, letting go is far easier, when done rightly).  As with being a slave... better to become a servant, then even on to a child, than to remain a slave.  But that takes... training, learning, will, strengthened virtues... or surrendering to the darkness and going on to deaths of various sorts.

Such... thoughts.  It... must be Sunday?  Ha!  Who would have guessed.  Oh, and amen.