John Cowart, Hemorrhoid Salesman

I spent yesterday reading and cleaning up cookout debris.

I didn’t feel like working on the fire history book.

Back on April 10^th I recorded how a bit of depression fell on me. Well, it’s still on me and I haven’t been good for much of anything recently.

You’d think that being a Christian and spreading the good word about the resurrection and the joy of Easter would temper the way I feel but I find that what I believe and what I feel are two very different things.

I believe that Christ died for the sins of the whole world.

I feel that all sin is forgivable —except mine.

I believe that God loves all the people He created.

I feel that He can barely tolerate me.

I believe that life has meaning and purpose.

I feel as though I’ve spent my own life just circling the drain.

I believe and write that there is hope for everyone in every situation.

I feel hopeless.

I believe that I have a message of hope, deliverance and joy to share with readers when I write.

I feel as though nothing I do or write makes any difference.

This dichotomy of belief and feeling is difficult to cope with. On one hand I want to be honest; on the other I don’t want to scare readers away from Christ by being my normal morbid self. The temptation is to fake it; but how can I win folks to Christ by being dishonest?

If I come across as happy, happy, happy all the time that’s false advertising at best.

If I write about my own depressed feelings all the time … well, that’s like trying to sell readers on the benefits of hemorrhoids.

It may be true, but who wants it.

So, my feelings condemn me.

Make me feel like a hypocrite.

What am I to do?

In his first letter the apostle John says, “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things”.

I can only conclude that while some Christians feel the joy of the Lord and skip from hilltop to hilltop like spring lambs, some of us trudge like dumb oxen in the dust. Yet I believe we (of both types) are headed toward the same eventual destination.

The lamb types think in terms of joyous reunion with the Shepherd; we ox types feel we’re headed to a slaughter house

I’m tempted to say, “Stupid lambs! The Shepherd’s gonna shear your dumb asses.”

But who am I to judge another’s servant.

Meanwhile, here’s another of my favorite cartoons:

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