Feeling Despair

I was singing a camp song I knew from my youth this morning, while waiting for a security door to open in the detention center where I work. The line, "We will not despair!" hit me hard this morning. When I say morning, it was about 1:30 in the am. Well, the fact was, just at that moment, I was despairing pretty hard. I don't know how often I've despaired in my life but it's probably a fair few times. I've never thought about what I was doing or how to properly describe it. It's not the sort of thing you want to admit to yourself or those around you. If you told someone you were despairing, they might ask you what's wrong. Then you have the horrid task of attempting to describe your worries to them. It never quite works and at a certain point, the listening party gets tired of hearing it. When that happens, they will chime in with a bunch of advice that may have never worked for them in the first place and they don't know that you kind of like feeling despair because at least you're feeling something. It's not always like that. Sometimes they will say that they are there to help you and you become their project. You then have to entertain them because you don't want to point out to them that their company taxes you because it usually comes with a series of physical, mental, and spiritual exercises they suggest you perform which they may also join you for. I was heartsick tonight but I did not feel so ashamed about it. Well, I suppose I sort of did. I'm supposed to be a Truth warrior. I'm supposed to be someone who dares to do the right thing when others won't. The fact that I have not worked through and undone any of my addictions to a refreshing degree must be ignored when you are a Truth warrior. But my constant choice of self-pleasure over moral virtue was visited upon me tonight as a reminder and I felt very far from my dear Creator - that One that always tries to help me no matter how often I pray to be blotted out - that One that believes in me when I have nothing left to offer. I have betrayed Her over and over again and I sometimes marvel at the vigor with which I betray the many gifts I am given. But I do. So I sunk into my despair and I let it be what it was. I simply allowed it. I only had 2 minutes until I had to start counting inmates. Well, it was 2 minutes of something. I don't know what. I don't know that any history book will know of my quiet moments of despair or how softly the tears fell down my face. I am here again to live another day. The despair somehow has not engulfed me or snuffed out my life. God, I am told, is still there somewhere far beyond the clouds.