#thorn in the flesh

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Paul's Thorn and God's Grace

7 Because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 8 Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. — 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 | New American Standard Bible (NASB) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Cross References: Numbers 33:55; Job 2:6; Ezekiel 28:24; Daniel 10:19; Hosea 2:6; Matthew 4:10; Matthew 26:44; Romans 8:26; 1 Corinthians 2:3; 1 Corinthians 2:5; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 2 Corinthians 10:10; 2 Corinthians 12:1; 2 Corinthians 12:5; Ephesians 3:16; Philippians 4:13

[momentsbeforemass]

How things ought to be

“Is it a sin to…?”

That’s how he started. That’s how he always starts. And he always asks about the same thing. Every time.

So, I pointed out the obvious, “You always ask about that.”

I could tell from his expression that what I said hit a lot harder than I meant for it to, “I know. Does that mean that I’m stuck? That it’s never going to get better?”

I answered, “No. It means that you’re down to the real problem. And it means that you're in good company.”

We talked about St. Paul, about his real problem. The one he tried to pray away. The one that wouldn’t go away. Paul called it his “thorn in the flesh.”

I told him that I’ve been wrestling with my real problem for years. That my confessor gets to hear the same **** thing from me. Every time.

When it doesn’t go away – and eventually, there will be something that doesn’t go away.

When it doesn’t go away – you and I have two choices.

We can let it consume us – either by letting it become our focus (or by ignoring it until it becomes to great to ignore) so that it can pull us away from God.

Or we can follow St. Paul’s example. Using the insight that God gave him into his (and our) human nature,

God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I will rather boast most gladly of my weakness, in order that the power of Christ may dwell in me. – 2 Corinthians 12:9).

That is, get over ourselves and our ideas about how things ought to be. So that we can use what would pull us away from God to call us back to God.

The thing to know is that getting to that place – where we can use what would pull us away from God to call us back to God – is a process.

One that cannot be done without God’s grace. One that’s often the work of years.

Which means there will be a lot of false starts – especially when we try to do it on our own (don’t ask me why I know this).

A lot of time where it feels like nothing is happening. And the need for a lot of do overs. Which can be frustrating if we’re not careful.

Which is why what St. Francis de Sales (today’s saint and someone who wrestled with his real problem for years) tells us about how to do it is absolutely critical,

“Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them—every day begin the task anew. Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.”

Today’s Readings

[rchetypal]

“The unconscious is always the fly in the ointment, the skeleton in the cupboard of perfection, the painful lie given to all idealistic pronouncements, the earthliness that clings to our human nature and sadly clouds the crystal clarity we long for. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the “thorn in the flesh” is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.”

— C. G., Hull, R. F.C., Adler, Gerhard

[gospelborn]

The Lord Looks on the Heart (1 Sam 16)

The following is an unedited sermon manuscript; for an explanation of my sermon manuscripts, click here. Imagine your life like a marathon (2 Tim 4:7). You know that what lies ahead of you will be difficult, but worth it, so you prepare. As a Christian, you could allegorize all sorts of images here. Perhaps proper breathing is your prayer life, and good running shoes are your feet shod with the…

[so-journeying]

The thorn in our flesh that must remain.

Source: clair-de-lunne | via tennessee-treasure

[billysigudla]

Why does God allow us to be afflicted with a thorn in the flesh? What purpose does it serve in our lives? Having a thorn that God doesn’t just miraculously remove keeps everything in perspective. It keeps me from exalting myself. It reminds me that I always have to trust in Him. The thorn is often allowed so that God can correct the sin in our lives. In the apostle’s case, as he tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, it was to deal with the pride in Paul’s heart. The nagging existence of the thorn was a reminder that he must rely on God. It didn’t matter how smart and capable he was, he needed to remember that he couldn’t make it without God’s help. The thorn was God’s needle to burst the bubble of pride. After pleading with God three times to remove the thorn, Paul tells us that he finally got the message: My grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9). So, when life seems just too difficult to bear and when you can’t seem to find the quick victory over sin that you seek, remember those words. His grace is sufficient. Those words can hold you steady when life seems off-balance. God will never be more real to you than when you have something in your life that you cannot fix. Never more real than when you feel weak, helpless and hopeless. In such times, His grace and His power are the only things that can pull you through.

[deweybertolini]

Let Us Remember Never to Forget

You know, truth be told, every PODCAST of each and every week is on some level autobiographical. Nothing comes out of a vacuum. Including this one. Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!! Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. God bless you richly as you listen.

[kdmiller55]

Where Was Paul When Job Needed Him?

16 “If you have understanding, hear this;     listen to what I say. 17 Shall one who hates justice govern?     Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty, 18 who says to a king, ‘Worthless one,’     and to nobles, ‘Wicked man,’ 19 who shows no partiality to princes,     nor regards the rich more than the poor,     for they are all the work of his hands? 20 In a moment they die;     at…

[andrewpcannon]

Daily Devotional: Exodus 6:14-30

Here, we read the genealogies of the Levites in the land of Egypt up to the sons of Aaron. The text repeats itself, the Moses and Aaron listed in the genealogy are the same Moses and Aaron who spoke to Pharaoh. They are meant to be emphasized as Levites as if it is important. When Jacob, Israel, issued blessings to his children (the twelve tribes), he said of Levi: Their swords are implements…

[wisedreamerreview]

Tell Them

He doesn’t know. Maybe he does know. Maybe at some point I told him, and he has either forgotten or chooses to let it go. Maybe, he didn’t hear me, or wasn’t ready to hear those words. Every morning when he leaves for work, I tell him. Every day, when he leaves to return to work from lunch, I tell him. Every time he heads out on an adventure, I tell him. I tell him “be safe, I love you.” He is a…

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Paul's Thorn and God's Grace

8 Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.

10 Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. — 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 | World English Bible (WEB) The World English Bible is in the public domain Cross References: Daniel 10:19; Matthew 26:44; Romans 5:3; Romans 8:26; Romans 8:35; 1 Corinthians 2:3; 1 Corinthians 2:5; 2 Corinthians 12:1; 2 Corinthians 5:15; 2 Corinthians 5:20; 2 Corinthians 12:5; 2 Corinthians 13:4

[needlemeister]

ms paint iterators

[1-800-crscnt]

overall, i hc the Commanders to be unhappy and guilty over Thire's promotion to Commander. more under cut because this got longer than expected.

Fox feels the guiltiest because he feels as though this is a death sentence he could have prevented if he protected Thire more, and because he already felt bad over Thire possibly becoming like him, and in turn tries to help him get demoted. He also ends up teaching Thire the exact things he hates himself for doing, but tries to keep him to investigative work with instead.

Stone feels guilty and scared for the same reasons, but also because he thinks it's directly his fault for even teaching Thire a lot of the stuff that everyone praised him for. He's set up several emotional barriers though and keeps using a few coping mechanisms to get through all that and help Thire with his new duties, but unfortunately this means their relationship is worsening from the admittedly healthy and great one they had in the beginning.

Thorn is angry with himself, Fox, Stone, and Thire because he sees this as their collective fault, and makes this known to them. He also sees this as a death sentence like Fox, but becomes very overprotective and borderline rude when it comes to Thire and takes over most of his training. Thire was already pretty wary of Thorn before, but this makes him resentful despite the gratitude he feels when he learns something useful. Thorn's mental state is a wreck and he secretly cries over the thought of Thire having to do the things he does.

i know this all sounds pretty negative, but most of these feelings are well-hidden and don't actually ruin their relationships entirely, just make them way more complicated as time goes on. they all still love each other (in varying amounts), get along, & work together perfectly. most of the time. weeeeeeellll...

[gaysindistress]

Heretics and Flesh Devotees

Based on the poem Anorexic by Eavan Boland

disclaimer: credits to original creator/poster of image/gif. found on google/pinterest and collaged on canva

pairings: azriel x fem!reader

Summary: Flesh is heretic. My body is a witch. I am burning it. And I am burning the man who condemned me to such a fate.

Warnings: mentions of abuse (not detailed), mentions of misogyny (not detailed)

Word count: 2.2k

Gaysindistress masterlist | azriel masterlist

My body has never been mine. It’s been owned, sold, bought, and branded by others time and time again. My body has never been mine to command and control as the authority in my life has. It’s disgusting to think that in the years since my birth, my body, my soul, and my will has been placed into the hands of others.

As a babe it was my parents although they did try to be gentle and kind. Their faults were found in the ones they left to care for me. The awful creatures hated me for a name I did not choose and wished their hearts’ cruelest desires onto me. As one would assume those desires became my reality as I grew older and started to fight back against them. Their words hurt but they bounced off where they once slashed. Their look stung where they once left burn gashes. Their foul intentions felt like flicks on my nose where they once felt like I’d been beaten to a pulp.

My body still wasn’t my own even though when I prayed for it to be returned to me. Boys who felt entitled to looks and touches tried to lay their claim to me. Men who felt like they deserved praise for caring for me tried to demand me in payment for their actions. Too jaded against it all, I turned to a creature that would prove to be far worse than any boy or man I could’ve been gifted to.

The creature I thought I would safety in begged for my eternal devotion and demanded that I give over whatever I could. He made me into a prisoner and my body into a witch that worshipped him.

Every molecule that made up my body, mind, and heart screamed when I began to fight against its urges. The enormity of my own craving made me sick when I wailed at the scorching of my secret ministrations.

At night, I poisoned my mind when it thought of him. I bruised my limbs when they carried me towards him. I broke what I had to when I tried to search for him. I destroyed myself over and over again until the thought of him made my stomach turn and my skin crawl.

The sick version of me tried to bend me and sent fever throughout me. In my delirium, her half truths felt like the sweetest angelic hymns. Whispering into my ear, she tried to coax me into slipping back into my old solutions.

I renounced her honeyed voice and vomited out her milky words. I renounced her hungered tongue and spat out her name along with his. I fused the flames that came when I thought of him with the spite I conjured and burned the bitch alive from the inside out.

Morphed into a starved and twisted soul, I laughed when he began to resent me. It took him months to realize that something had changed within me. I was no longer painted with soft edges and stunning features but carved into a curveless piece of skin and bone that mocked him. At dinners and events thrown in his favor, I sipped at my rotten wine while the women among me gossiped the state of my marriage. They did not utter a single word for how I seemed to be fairing but how the once holy union between him and I seemed to be slipping.

I sipped at the foul liquid until it stained my lips a violent shade of calculated vengeance. I pretended to swallow entire bottles and postured drunkenness so they would think I couldn’t hear the things they confessed to.

My husband’s heavy stare always found me as I slumped further and further into my chair, allowing him to believe that my pain to consumed me. The hungry leery he masked with an adoring gaze had faded into disappointment and disgust, so much so that eventually he stopped looking altogether. No longer did he pull me into his lap, his Herculean arms caging me in falsified comfort and demand to know what was bothering his beautiful wife.

Instead he found younger and more attractive women to watch and eventually fill his time with. Instead a young woman, borderline girl, with flowing locks of auburn hair and gentle curves became his new hobby.

Thin as a rib, my knife slept under my pillow. The feverish bitch within me cried and cried as she watched me plot his demise. It pained the other within me that withered and gasped for air to think I could even contemplate such a scenario.

Could I truly commit murder?

Could I truly force my husband to shuffle off this mortal coil?

The dueling fates were soon quilled when I turned in sleep to find claustrophobia looming over me. His warm body threatened to suffocate me while the haunting sound of his inner thoughts filled the breadth between us. Once I had been pulled into slumbers embrace by his heart beat’s gentle drum and quiet song of his breath but now it closed in on me and pressed.

I could not muster the strength to find my rib like knife nor move it from its hiding place. I promised myself only a few more days of this torture. Only a few more nights of slipping back into his bed before I set myself free.

I hadn’t intended on waiting for another few weeks but an uninvited guest coiled my plan into nothingness.

Azriel the Shadowsinger.

He arrived just as his name implied; as silently as the night and slithered his way in without resistance. He was a man born with charmed words that dripped from his silver tipped tongue and slid between pearly white teeth. A man known for his third eye, the Truth-Teller, that when he showed up on our doorstep, my husband begged him to stay for fear of his wrath. Like a shadow, he was present in every crevice of the house and was not seen. My husband’s ego got his way, tripping him up as he stumbled to accommodate Azriel, the embodiment of shadows with violent hazel eyes.

The woman my husband found to be my replacement took her role before I was revealed. Instead I was whisked away into a room hidden deep within the compound. She played the dutiful host and doted on her guests. She donned the gowns once crafted for me and wore the jewelry I previously did. She laughed at the jokes the men made and smiled sweetly at the husband she desired but would never love. She became the wife and I hated to see another take my place for I knew what awaited her.

I wanted to spare her. I tried to spare her but my efforts were in vain. She cried out when I told her to leave. She screamed when she saw my knife meant my husband. She fell into it when I tried to pull away from her ivory grasp.

As I said, I hadn’t intended on becoming into the personification of destruction but it was inevitable when I was given no other choice.

Blood drips from me and hits the floor beneath me with a deafening loudness as my husband stares at me.

A single question hangs in the air; “What have you done?”

“What have I done?” I calmly ask, arching a brow at the man who stands and dares to judge me. “The better question is what did you make me do.”

It’s a disgusting sight to behold; him pretending that I’m nothing more than a body of mangled bones and broken convictions molded by him. Dark as night and deafening as the ever present silence that fills when you’re dying, his gaze tries to weigh me down and fails.

Azriel smiles when he senses my anger and he becomes a conduit of my emotions as the twin sinister glint to mine flickers in his dark eyes. He reclines against the rotting wood walls like a feline would; regal and untouchable but lethal all the same.

My husband throws a glance to the blood that is pooling around me with disappointment before speaking, “Your actions are your own. Take responsibility for the carnage that you have created for once in your pathetic life. This is all your fault, y/n.”

My eyes narrow at his choice of words.

Take responsibility? My fault?

Fitting that he would choose to say that I need to take the blame for the actions I committed because of him. He had been the one to deem me an object to be bought and sold. He had been the one to make me in his image and create a wife he felt was worthy of him. He had been the one to turn my body into a heretic and I had no other choice but to burn her at the stake.

“Husband,” I start as I take a step forward while he takes one back, “What I have done is only because you forced my hand. Every drop of blood, scream ripped from raw throats, tears shed have been because of you.”

Azriel’s terrifying chuckle rings through the room, causing the remaining members of my husband’s house to drop their heads and hide their fear. The blood of their new lady of the house fills the room with a coppery stench and some have taken to covering their faces with their collars. As Azriel around the room, his chest swells with pride at the terror that he’s caused in them but it stills when he lands on me.

A creature who’s grown angular and unholy in the confines of her husband’s cage.

He smiles as he lets his dagger like eyes to slash across my frame.

“Enough of whatever petty martial bullshit this is about,” he dismisses with boredom thick in his voice. “You took something from me and I want it back.”

My husband attempts to fix the situation but the guest cuts him off.

“I said enough,” he seethes, gritting out the words between clenched teeth. The action tightens and sharpens his already pronounced jaw, giving him the appearance akin to a statue.

Within seconds my coward of a husband is lying on the ground, crying and begging for his lord as the Lord of Bloodshed, Cassian, stands over him with his siphons glow a brilliant red.

“Please I don’t have it. I swear I don’t have it!” he begs while the bigger man growls before landing a swift kick to his stomach. “Take whatever you want, please. Anything and it’s yours.”

Cassian looks to Azriel and awaits his judgment. Azriel has not looked away from me this entire night. He’s still locked in on me as he nods. Cassian bends down and grips my husband by the neck, hauling him up so high his feet dangle helplessly below him.

“That’s a dangerous deal you’ve just made.”

My husband begs and begs for his own life but not for mine or even the wife he replaced me with as she lays on the floor in a pool of blood.

“If only I believed you,” Azriel sighs, “but I don’t and I’m not in the mood to hear any more of your lies.”

“Y/n..” my husband turns his pleading to me but I interrupt him with a roar of anger.

“Enough,” I hiss at him, rage boiling in my veins, “You used and manipulated me for years. I was nothing but a toy to brought out when you grew bored. You’ve shoved me off to the side and pushed me to my breaking point but now that the consequences are coming for you, you turn to me and expect me to help.”

Azriel has taken to prowling towards me now that my calm facade has dropped. He stalks me like an apex predator would their prey.

“Did you hear that, princess?” He poses the question to me and only me. “He’s offering you up like a prized goat when he could just give me what he took. That’s not very nice now is it? Seems a bit selfish doesn’t it?”

I attempt to sneak a glance at my husband but he catches my chin in a tight grip, “Don’t look at them, look at me.”

And I do. I’m met with a torrid stare that calls to that divinely angular and starving creature within me.

“You can have her! Take her, please! Please just don’t kill me,” my husband cries out as if I’ll be his saving grace. The sounds are muffled as the utter chaos that lives within Azriel’s heart soothes me into the fall.

I fall into the forked tongued embrace of this devilish man.

I fall into the need of a python that wraps itself around us both.

I fall into the heaving breaths that lunge my chest up and down as I stare at his lips.

I fall into the visions of heat, sweat, gluttony, and lust that awaits us.

Azriel visibly cringes before me at my husband’s words but waits for me.

“Well princess?”

“I want my freedom,” I demand and he flashes me a disastrously beautiful smile.

“Of course,” he promises me. “Of course, princess.”

[chelsea-lat3ly]

[mt-jupiter]

thesan headcanons - personality

- i imagine thesan to be a very compassionate and patient individual - he's more of a soft spoken man, but he's far from a push over - he handles social settings with exceptional grace - to the other courts, he'd be known for his neutrality and reliability-- he doesn't put up a threatening front the way the other solar high lords do - to the members of his court, he's a warm and gracious man with a smile that radiates security - to his loved ones, he doesn't shy away from expressing his opinions, concerns, or affections - he's very good at communicating with and understanding others - however, he often finds himself wanting to escape - he can be a little bit of an idealist, and craves a quiet world - he can be easily overstimulated and grow irritated-- high lord meetings always give him a headache - his fury is usually marked by silence and an expression that bares his distain, but if anyone can draw a string of curses out of thesan its rhysand and helion