Contacting Craig

To contact Craig for speaking or interview opportunities, email at craigd2599@gmail.com
Visit his website (Big Fat Grace) at www.craigdaliessio.com


Thursday, September 4, 2014

Trying to hold the grains of sand... Coming to terms with loss



     Jesus told us that in the last days, men’s hearts would fail them because of fear. He told us the love of many would grow cold and we sure are seeing that. I grew up hearing “Last Days” sermons quite regularly, but I never thought I’d actually live to see them.  At least I hoped I wouldn’t.  But apparently I have lived long enough to witness the final death spiral of mankind.  I don’t know how much longer we have…maybe hundreds of years yet. But something is very different now.  I can feel my heart being troubled. Jesus told me not to let this happen, but I guess I’m failing Him on this. I am troubled.  This world is sad. I can’t take watching another beheading and feeling the pain and the rage boiling inside and then having my face slapped by my “president” when he does nothing, even admitting that he doesn’t really know what to do.  Everyone else knows what to do, Mr. President!  Everyone.  A ten year old could tell you what needs to be done.  When you feel the pain that something like this brings out, then you have to suppress it because the people in charge don’t react the way they should…you lose heart.  I’m weary from it.   This is how I feel today:

     I’m weary from watching the world getting more angry and more violent and more ugly and trying to raise a child in the middle of all that.  I’m weary from watching The Church grow more and more complacent  as she turns her affections from a dying world to her “own kind,” trading the urgency of the Gospel for the comfort of the fellowship of the beloved.  I’m tired of Death.
     Maybe this all comes too soon on the heels of the devastation that was the last six years of my life. Maybe after so many years of living as an animal, trying to merely survive and not vanish into thin air somehow, I have finally been able to let my guard down a bit. Perhaps in the dropping of my guard, I am suddenly awash in the emotion that I had to bury for those six years in the desert.  I grieve all I’ve lost. I hurt over the years I’ve lost with my daughter.   I miss my home, and my dogs and my career.  I used to be necessary.  I need to matter to someone. 
     Now I’m the new guy, in a new field, learning from the ground up and starting over.  I am so very thankful for the new chance, but I feel lost in the middle of it all. A man needs a purpose and sometimes I wonder what mine is, beyond being the best dad I can be for my daughter.  I feel alive when I write and writing is hard these days. I’m grinding away on a project for some friends and it is good but slow and it doesn’t feel inspired.  It’s a story about their love and support for their dying friend.  Maybe writing about death isn’t the best thing for me right now but I have an obligation to finish this thing.
     More than anything…I think I need to go away for a few days as soon as I can. There is 6 years’ worth of hurt bottled up and it’s begun escaping now that it’s safe for it to happen and I need to go somewhere and let it take place.
     I told a friend of mine yesterday, “You don’t have time to count the grains of sand as they slip through your fingers, you’re too busy trying to hold on to them. It’s later…when you turn around and see the size of the pile that you realize how much you’ve lost. How much time…how much life. How many moments"  That's what I'm doing these days...gripping sand and trying to pick up some of the pile.

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