A bittersweet memorial

I'm a little conflicted when it comes to holidays such as today. I really really really really really don't like war, and I'm incredibly frustrated at how much federal money goes to the military instead of to education or to hospitals or to creating jobs. But at the same time, I have no concept of the horrors that our soldiers face. The fact that thousands of young men and women risk their lives every day (whether it's really to defend our freedom or just because the big wigs told them to)
is astonishing to me, and I admire them greatly.
And I really really really wish we could solve the world's problems in a different way.


At any rate.

At church yesterday in Kalamazoo, we sang a song that said, 'Cry out to God with a voice of triumph.'
I realized then and there: triumph is so foreign to me. Not meaning that I never succeed at anything at all. It's that by nature, I'm a defeatist. When a challenge presents itself, I fold to it. There are things I know I need to do, but I don't feel ready to undertake them, thus forfeiting the triumph I might otherwise have.
I need need need need this pattern to be reversed. Christ died, and my defeat with Him. He came to life, and to life came also my triumph.
But I've tried to pull my defeat up from that tomb where Christ was buried and sits no more, setting it on my shoulder and listening to its paralyzing advice.

It's such a strange thing, completely changing attitude about everything. Periodically, I'll take ownership of my victory, and I become the man I always wanted to be--bold, courageous, confident...
Then discouragement comes in, slowly--almost undetectable--and bit by bit, my defeat creeps up on my and trades places with my victory, Indiana Jones style.

I know I need to do something about that...
But He needs to do it.

I think maybe He's just getting me to a point where He has to be my only hope, which is going to be a lot more painful if I don't let Him be that before He takes away everything else I try to hope in.