Fear, abandonment, lies and an invitation

I really don't have time to be posting right now, and there is so much bubbling around in my skull I will probably revisit this post later, but I need to get some things out.

I think 3 of the enemy's most effective tools against us are fear, feeling abandoned, and lies. As you may have read in recent posts I am feeling alone these days. I just found out last night that one of our closest [proximity and relationship] friends has been dealing with some crippling psychological attacks lately -- related largely to fear. I can't go into great detail, but part of the need in their life is to be near friends.

I have not called to check in on this friend for a few weeks, just sort of assuming that life in general is OK. They haven't been at church and the last time I saw them they were hurrying out the doors of church and I couldn't talk to them.

They affirmed that they need people in their life, and here I am, feeling sorry for myself and how alone I am. I pretty much suck.

Then I have "reasons" that I shouldn't have called or whatever, one of which is the fact that this friend is a woman and I don't want to "appear" ________ [not sure what word would go in the blank]. While I firmly admit that I am a fallen person fully capable of sin, and think having a healthy awareness of that potential is wise, I was letting fear of appearances keep me from reaching out when I felt prompted to.

My sucking-ness aside, this was a pretty poignant illustration of me succumbing to the enemy's tactics and becoming crippled as a result. What's more, I've allowed a close friend to slip into a prison of sorts and haven't done a useful thing to help.

To quote an old, old spiritual song from Stryper: "To hell with the devil!" and more importantly, "To hell with my excuses and fear."

So that's the general crud I needed to get out. Here's something that is completely random and may be of no use to anyone. I use Gmail for some of my email communication. My primary email is john@daharsh.net, but a great free email service is Google's Gmail. It has more storage than most of the other services (although I'm hearing that Yahoo's redone mail service is awesome) -- and you can currently store 2.5 GB (yes Gigabytes) of mail and attachments for free. The way it works is pretty slick -- it tracks all your email conversations as actual conversations making it easy to carry on a -- well, conversation over email. It also searches your email really well (c'mon, it's Google for Pete's sake). If you want a Gmail account it's free but by invitation only. I have 98 invitations left. If you would like a Gmail invitation, let me know by emailing me at daharsh@gmail.com.

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