One Man's Thorn.

I was going to take a poetic style, try to wrap some alliteration and rhyme around the emotions of my soul but it didn't seem real. Poetic language shouldn't be something you plan, it should just happen. With that in mind, I get to the point.

I have this idea that my sin is a burden I carry alone. I have this image that every time I sin, every time I do something I know I'm not supposed to, every time I feel a guilty pang at my inability to walk a proper path there's this thorn digging itself deeper into my flesh. At times, I wish I had an actual thorn there painfully reminding me that I'm straying, an itch that pulls me not towards darkness, but rather to repentance. It seems sin is always something I'm lured into, and righteousness is something I must choose against this temptation. I wish it were easier, that I could remember easier to pay attention to this thorn. Unfortunately, pain is only an afterthought.

Anyways, the image I have is of this thorn as my burden is very true. Yet this thorn, or perhaps these thorns, that I plant do not hurt me. The pain, I know, is something I'm privileged enough to forego. Though I wish it on me, I wonder of the agony, feeling every thorn I am responsible for dig itself in. This is not a pain I am capable of comprehending. Each time I lie, each time I get angry, each time I lust, each time I disobey, follow selfish ambition, fail to show love, horde my wealth; each time I sin, to feel this sting is too much for me to handle.

Then this image within my head reminds me of a crown of thorns. It reminds me that somewhere on that crown, my thorn sits sharply prepared for innocent flesh. I feel no pain, I could not bear the pain of my own sins, and yet a man bore a multitude of thorns. When I feel a desire for that sting to remind me to repent, the sting pales in comparison to the image of the cross. It's not the sting that hurts, it's not the pain I'd feel that hurts, it's not about the way I'm physically feeling. To know I'm putting a thorn between myself and that man is pain. To turn my back on sacrifice is pain. To reject the gift of forgiveness in an effort to fix things myself, THAT is pain.