I took communion last night.

For the second time in three months I took communion.

   Exactly what I did not want to happen, happened. As stood there, praising God, seeking him with my heart, the Holy spirit passed through the room. I could feel the presence of the Spirit come close to me. I could feel the terrible dread and fear as some far sense of Holiness, so foreign to me, passed near me. I was terrified. Like a wretched thing, my soul inside of me cringed and scrambled to make fast it's escape. My body visibly shook. I had cold chills and started to feel a little sick.

   I left the service with the dreadful sense of just how dreadful and rotten and just evil that I am. I slept with it. I awoke with it. Somewhere throughout the day, as I made busy, the sense of it faded somewhat.

   I have a tooth broken below my gums. This happened the year Esther was born; it predates her. So that makes it seven years ago. I had a horrible abcess. God it hurt SO bad. I didn't have the time or money to get it taken care of. I took boiling hot water and poured it on the tooth. Then I'd take ice cold water and pour it over the tooth. I did this over and over until the tooth shattered, the infection was drawn out, and the nerve died. It was the single most excruciating pain I have ever been in. But it worked, and that corruption was taken from me and I was healed-sort of. Like four towers of some forgotten ruin, the four corners of the shattered tooth protruded my gum. Like a setting with a missing gem. They stayed razor sharp and white, and in a weird way I liked them. I would always cut my tongue on them, and I liked the taste of the blood. And the tooth was like a trophy to my perserverance of pain. I assumed eventually those four little pinnacles would wear away, and the gum would heal over the entire thing.

   Just in the past couple of months, the whole thing, all four corners have turned black with corruption. Now it aches me, and I know it is a matter of time before I will have to go in for some tooth surgery. Even though I prevailed against the corruption at a terrible price, the root of it was still deep within me, no matter how small. That little bit of evil festered and spread until now, in a mouth of teeth, it gets my attention fully.

   My little bit of corruption. I liked to scrape myself on you. But in the end, you turned on me, and now you rule with your ruin.

   Thats a weird analogy. But the little corruptions that existed in me, my God did they fester and explode when Christina died. I have heard so many testimonies of people that stood solid in adverstiy with Jesus. I am not one of those. My little corruptions were my undoing.