I don't think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil. ― Jordan B. Peterson

Origins

This is going to sound much more harsh than it should. That's unfortunately how text-only strips the context from things.

I think Rick Thomas will be a piece of the puzzle in helping you fix your worldview
I'm not sure how that's going to fit, but he has clarity in ways that I don't think I've seen before
Regrets I don't want: https://rickthomas.net/three-life-choices-you-dont-want-to-miss-before-you-die/

I couldn't see it before. All glory to God, now I can. Reading his articles and listening to his podcasts is like listening to a wholly new and completely different thing. It's actually amazing.

I really wish you would re-read that now.

Several years ago, I had an interesting interaction with you when you came to visit me at work. I know well the perception you maintain; it's been seared upon my memory just as many other interesting interactions have.

Do you know what it looked like from my perspective?

I'm sitting within six feet of another female. There's no one else in the open area - the unit secretary is off somewhere and everyone else is in patient rooms. I already have an unhealthy fear of you and your nearly pathological dominant personality. The first thing that jumps into my brain the moment I see you is just that - I am in a room, somewhat alone, near another female, in the dark since it's night shift and the lights have been turned down. My brain had an automatic, "oh shit, this looks bad" moment.

You remember what you did with that?

You went and found that nurse, found out where she lived, and looked up God knows what else about her. You practically stalked her. If this had been a single anomalous occurrence, it wouldn't really register. But you did the same to me. And who knows who else. Looking for trouble where no trouble existed. Please don't act like you weren't; it's unbecoming. Your worldview informed your actions.

We married damaged goods. The fall of Adam hurt our spouses. Poor decision-making and other people also damaged them. One of the most important calls of a spouse’s life is cooperating with the Lord in the ongoing restoration of the person they married.
Eternal Questions: How are you cooperating with the Lord in restoring your spouse and children?
-- lifeovercoffee

There's no pleasure in the collapse of a marriage that I made the same bow[sic] to maintain as you did.
There is no pleasure in starting over at age 37, especially with a young child.
And there's absolutely no pleasure and being right about all the wrong things.
--you

I really wish you would re-read that article. Your entire premise is, I think, built on a lie.

Truth in Love

You led me to believe you were pursuing your NP degree because you wanted to continue on the next step of your career. It wasn't until the mask fell off that you admitted that it was part of your exit strategy for a marriage you found too difficult to cope with and thus your familial demons took over, whispering proverbial murder in your ear.

Do you have any idea why God would impress upon me to warn you about your condition?

Perhaps it was because for the past 8 years your trajectory has been going the wrong way. Perhaps it was because you began citing secular sources above scriptural. Perhaps it's because you decided to ignore everything God says about things, thinking you were saving yourself. I don't know what it looks like from your perspective because you regularly deflected when the subject turned to you. Given God's restoration of my faculties, it's now fairly clear to me why. If you can't see it, and no one else has the cojones to confront you with it -- no wonder you refuse to speak to me.

There's no pleasure in me pointing this out to you.

There's no pleasure in rehashing things that obviously cause you great consternation.

There's no pleasure in being the one God sends to give a message.

Stop with that comparison to prophets nonsense. I am not any such thing. I am a wretch, that God dragged through rock bottom for two years, then lifted back out. What you didn't account for is that He'd raise up the very person you dumped on the curb like trash to warn you of your trajectory, so you feel comfortable in ignoring it and rejecting it. Whatever, not my problem.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to try.

Irony

I find it strangely fitting that you were going through a DNP program with a world-renowned professor on trauma and you did not seem to notice (or at least, you did nothing that showed evidence that you noticed) that the man God gave you was being beaten down by seeing COVID patients die daily in the ICU. Cracking ribs on code blue after code blue. Holding the hands of the dying as care was withdrawn, because patient family was stuck watching their loved ones' last breaths on a bloody Zoom call.

You think that would screw with a person a little bit, perhaps? You've seen enough in the ER to know the answer to that. Imagine people dying on you (at one point during the pandemic) on every shift. Every. Shift. And then, when the woman God gave you finally pulls the trigger, mercifully, God gives you a patient whose daughter is the same name and age as yours. No, I didn't confide any of this to you while we were together. By that time, the fear of you had completely overtaken.

I don't take pleasure in sounding harsh.

I don't take pleasure in having to say these things.

I don't take pleasure in being the scapegoat.

What I care about is our daughter's future, her soul, and yours too. Because like it or not, we're both bound inextricably through the daughter that we have to prepare for the future that she is going to have to live in. I wish we both hadn't been so retarded, then perhaps she could've had some brothers for protection too.

Se la vie.

These Psalms can be hard to reconcile. We always want peace, and want to think God is only a God of peace. But he's not either/or. He is both/and.

It's often those of us that have experienced the traumas of the world, and those that have suffered His painful corrections, that seem like we understand this to a fuller extent. It hasn't driven us to vengeance and hard-heartedness, by no means. Instead, almost paradoxically, it has driven us closer to Him, causing us to give up our vain pursuits for what is righteous. We seek that which is pleasing to the Lord, asking Him to drive further from us iniquity, even if that means the road ahead is difficult for us. We must decrease, and Christ must increase.

Imprecatory Psalms and prayers are indeed for the wickedness present in this world. But it is not for vengeance, for that is the Lord's. It's also a reminder, meant to drive us into the arms of our savior.

Someone else shared this with: "This is how I understand man’s autonomy/responsibility and God’s sovereignty. The Bible freely uses language that supports both views, which makes me think it’s a 'both and' kind of thing."

Perspective. Things look different from different viewpoints. Information decoded from one view often looks different when decoded from another. It's because we don't have the ability to see a thing completely all at once. It's not until we view it from multiple angles that we begin to get an accurate mental model. Understanding bias and accounting for it is an important concept in critical thinking. And in every professional, well, profession I've worked in - thinking critically and perceiving perspective have been incredibly important, both for people making retail purchases and for lives hanging in the balance.

It's rather amazing how God made man to work, and how much he can push through to do that work. If there is no accounting for other perspectives, that man will work to beyond the end of himself. And it's when you're finally out there, far beyond any safety nets - at that point, "that you're really in trouble", as Jordan Peterson says.

Because when all of your safety nets fall away, that water you can fall into is cold, dark, deep, and crushing. It is unforgiving and is loathe to give up what it has taken. Once you're out that far, the current only flows out, out toward the depths.

The irony in this, is that it could be - that the person you're standing next to is right there in that situation, and you'd never know.

Because of perspective.

Think deeply of your loved ones. Watch for the signs. Many, many people are in battles that even their closest family would miss, except for those with eyes to see. Encourage them, and give them strength. Share their burdens if you are able. Remind them that beyond this life, there is peace, and an eternal sunrise.

The weary wearing-down of this life can be rejuvenated at the Cross.