it's that time...

my thoughts about the past few days are negative. i am overwhelmed.

i'm taking a break from my quest to read every book in the world, so i can revisit some literature from my past.

i read the first few chapters of "don't waste your life" over thanksgiving break, and it gave me a small boost.

but today i decided i know what will do the trick. jim elliot. i sent an e-mail to someone, and on my yahoo account there's a quote from him as my "signature." i made that account back in the days when i liked signatures. now i kind of hate them. ANYWAY, it made me want to read some jim elliot.

he's a missionary that died.

i'm not inspired by his death.

i'm inspired by the way he lived. his attitude while being alive is the polar opposite of my attitude right now. i am struggling.

the thing about jim elliot that is so striking is that he wrote these journals for himself...he had no intention of other people reading them. his wife published them after he died. when people write books, they edit themselves. they say things with a certain goal or topic in mind. not jim elliot. he was just puking his thoughts into a journal...unedited. he didn't make them up to fit a topic of a book. this was how he really was.

if i had a journal, today's entry would be full of expletives. which is not quite the same as this:


"Father, let me be weak that I might loose my clutch on everything temporal. My life, my reputation, my possessions, Lord, let me loose the tension of the grasping hand. Even, Father, would I lose the love of fondling. How often I have released a grasp only to retain what I prized by 'harmless' longing, the fondling touch. Rather, open my hand to receive the nail of Calvary, as Christ's was opened - that I, releasing all, might be released, unleashed from all that binds me now. He thought Heaven, yea, equality with God, not a thing to be clutched at. So let me release my grasp." -Jim Elliot