Verdict.

The jury has reached a peaceful, unanimous, simple verdict. The jury has fought, long, hard and with a great deal of hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing. Blood on the dance floor and the jurybox is a wrestling match gone wrong at midnight. The answer to the question is yes. The question? Quite obvious from previous introduction: Could you look me in the eye and tell me that you're happy now?

Yes. Yes yes yes. yesyesyes. I am completely satisfied, and with great fervor I admit that I would rather be relieved like this than hung and stung between two poles: the short end of the stick.

The aftermath is sweet, after all. They didn't tell me about this at 911. No one told me that life would sweeten itself, that I would sleep in pain, in sadness that wanted to overshadow me but was no match for the sweet love I've found in my savior, and in the beautiful persons he has brought around me. They didn't tell me that I would find the sweet joy of remembering how much my best friends mean to me. And certainly no one warned me of the sweet calm that comes with stability. The cool midnight wind that is dark rushes past me like a sweeping presence, and it pleases me to know He reaches out to me in His creation. I love the dimness of the light, the secure darkness that surrounds it. I revel in the dancing shadows, the flickering hopes and firelights that flit by, reminding me of Christmases past, where He has revealed much in His whisperings. But it is not these things that I notice that make life suddenly sweet. It is the fragrance of the broken alabaster jar. And that pint of pure nard. It is the brokeness that is so very sweet to me. I learnt this in my first year in Perth, and when the sweetness and aroma overpowered me, I realised that to be broken is a priveledge. A broken spirit He will not despise. What a strange joy it is, loving Him in my brokeness, and He loving me in His perfection and wholeness. To my Jesus be all glory.