Sinner: Yes that's me and Oh how clear it is too

Can I say that I am a sinner, Yes I can and there is a deep piercing in my heart that makes this revelation so profound. Yes I've always known that I was a sinner, which is why I need Christ, yet there are times when the revelation of how horrible my sins are is made clear to me. The things that are truly in my heart. As Jesus says it is not what goes into the body that is unclean but what comes out. Through what we say, think, or do can we see the reality of our fallen nature. So there are two incidents in particular. The first was just my reaction to a situation, which was insensitive. For those of you who know me this might not seem out of the blue or shocking, but it was as though this time around I thought why am I like this, why do I react this way, why can't I be different, and truly I began to relate with the character Jo, in little women: I have no heart, or at least the heart I have God needs to soften even more. How horrible am I or as one of the old testament prophets said, WOE is me. WHY DEAR LORD DO YOU LOVE ME, FOR MY HEART IS AS BLACK AS THE NIGHT? To top that off I can't be as supportive to my friends as I soo desire to do so and do what I feel is my responsibility, if only things were different I guess is my only cry.

Well what really set this confession ablaze was a statement that I said tonight which disgusted me in so many ways. HOW COULD I SAY THAT, WHERE DID IT COME FROM, WHAT WAS I THINKING? I was drinking coffee and eating pastries with my friends here in Mexico and I was saying how I didn't understand something and as always one of them said to me but you are in Mexico not America. Usually I respond with a shrug and accept it but this time what slipt out of my mouth was, "But part of Mexico is America." HORRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. To some this may seem like nothing but we have to remember the setting here: I'm in Mexico with Mexicans, and the USA took a huge chunk of their land, how insensitive was that!!!! I don't even know why I said it or where it came from, I love Mexico truly and the people here have come to be like family to me honestly, but I felt like I return their love and kindness with a stab in the back. All I can say is my heart, oh my heart. Why that statement was their I don't know but it was and I wish I could change the past but I can't. For me it is just an eye opener to my sins, my inability to be like Christ, my lack of compassion, my lack of love, my lack of consideration of others. OH how I need his help because Lord I am fallen and broken. As Paul said, what I do not want to do I do and what I do want to do I do not. Woe is this brokenness within my heart, how I need you Lord. So I ask for forgiveness from all of my friends or family or anyone else who I may have wrong, please forgive me for my sins towards you. Please have compassion on me where I did not have on you, I repent and ask for your forgiveness. I have sinned against our heavenly Father and those I love. Help me Christ make me new I give everything to be more like you. Into the hands of the Lord my heart I give and may in return I receive beauty for these dark ashes.
~AMEN