In the wake of my first book, the inception of another served to show how quickly my heart could be swayed.  Whenever in youth my eye fixed on some angelic virgin fallen to earth and yet unadulterated, I clasped my hands tight over the subject each time in my vain effort to hide its light from the rest of the world and horde it for myself.  Such is the case in this only other journal completed before my eyes opened to my wife.

It was not a stable time.  The extreme and often forced highs crashed violently into supreme bouts of self-pity and rage.  I was erratic and reactionary, more so than I care to entirely confess.  The only recurring theme is the constant struggle between my flesh and spirit, as I was, equally led by each.  I believe you will find that the thread tying these entries together is that God was at work preparing my heart to fall in love with an altogether different sort of woman.

The facts are these.  I was young, I mistook for love what was idolatry, and only years later is it evident that no season closes without the promise of a far greater one to come.  Printing these pages, relinquishing ownership and turning them over to history, is the final breath of my catharsis.  I am henceforth purged, and on to more fulfilling things.  I may now focus on the continuation of life, with which I am supremely happy.

 

© 1997, 2001 by Ryan Christian Hedegard