It's Okay to Cry Sometimes

i made a vow long ago never to cry in public, and i have yet to break it. i haven't cried in almost four years, but i guess i've started fresh. don't ask me why. i won't tell you. this one of the few things in my life that i'm not going to tell anyone if they ask me. the ones who know know, and that's it. i don't know why i'm even writing this journal. maybe it's because i think it will help in some stupid and secret way. who knows. it's going to be a short journal though. i'm too weak to type right now. i'm too weak to sleep. but the world does not stop in the face of tradgedy. we must perservere. there is no letting up. life is often times relentless and we must face it like everyone else. it would be foolish to think i were the only one to suffer. my suffering is nothing compaired to many. but to me it is real. whether one man is burned alive and another man shot, they both have this in common: both of them have never felt greater pain. certainly one hurts worse than the other, but who is to tell them that. the definition of pain comes through experience. you cannot know pain unless you experience it. you can guess at it when you see it in others. you can talk about it's meaning around a fire. but pain only becomes truly real to you when you experience it, and when you have felt your greatest pain, that is a new definition set aside from a cut finger or a scraped knee. those are merely discomforts now. pain has become something new to you. but let us press on. let us find a way to endure this world. we are pressed but not crushed, persecuted not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. this is our promise from God: He shall never forsake us. never before have i ment these words more than i do now... peace and love...