An adopted rat who thought forgiveness real. Continued being who God made him, saddened by his once ratty ways but always the ugly rat who survived all events sharpened in his rattiness. Squirreled away in admiration the things and provision a rat must pack for continuance, absent any real forgiveness those who never saw the rat any other way but as scapegoat for the painful dilemma’s of this life. Along the way this rodent beloved the unfriended and did all a rat may do to welcome them to health. But being a rat he knew that eventually finding that safety in acceptance he would once again be discarded for the prettier pets of life’s finding. You see a rat for some reason doesn’t deserve the forgiveness offered others. Being unsocial in his undertakings or humble in his works he is never admired for the dedication and diligence it takes a rat to make it. He is perceived filthy by any measure and though he may have remanded himself to a higher calling will always be loathed as the rat of everyone’s understanding. You see they were never going to accept and forgive the rat for being a rat. Even if he wore another hat.

The myth my own. The friendship my carefully developed fable to tell myself in the moments when the loneliness and self loathing unbearable. The inability, unwillingness or total denial of the horrific things a man has done, haunting him are the stuff of dissolution of any healthy recovery must find termination even if given over to the imaginary. You see the Gospel is the only thing for which I shall never be ashamed. Its forgiveness real. Its healing achievable. Its ends certain and Divine. There is no shelter for the rat but with God. No adoration for his gifts or treasure of friendship, but the eventual exclusion from all that may be sought to compel a joint objective. The rat will never be anything other than he has always been to those who tolerate his existence. Only God Almighty may find him useful, adorable and worthy of allegiance, faith, hope and love. The rat no matter how many days attempting to make himself something other than he is will find that acceptance in kind. The myth dispelled, the rat settles into being a disgusting rodent, though his heart discontent in the lack of acceptance and the festering reality that his love for the beautiful and the horrid remains. For God having loved him as a rat demanded that he share that grace with all who continued in unforgiveness. The rat gave up being the hero of his own story. For all real glory is achieved in submitting before God.

Having ended the pursuit of forgiving himself something beyond his resolution. The rat did whatever he could, mostly in secret because none would believe goodness from a dirty rodent. He forgave, lived and long beyond the days of hope believed that some would eventually see, if not that they needed a rat, but that God too had made him for His good purposes. He knew the love of God and that would be his healing. No longer living self-created and perpetuated lies he began to see that all had a bit of rat within them. Most ashamed of what they’ve done associated their works with their identity and suffered the shame of imaginary coping. Many found the darkness and the secrecy befriend them. Practicing in the shade and shadow those things for which they too would be ostracized in rat-hood. Knighthood beyond him he resolved to be the best rat he could become through the guidance and power of God’s Spirit and initiative. For God showed him that there are no imperfect creations, only those meant for Divine effort and those for pursuit of hell and separation. Being a rat was never the problem. Being a filthy rat, though beyond our means and tenure was. In submitting himself to the Sovereign the rat had found forgiveness, a forgiveness and cleansing beyond the will and want of man. The rat found that even a rat can live in goodness, righteousness and faith. He would always have to scurry to avoid the loathing and lash of those who saw him ratty, but it mattered not the hearts of those who despised but the love he cherished for them.

For the rat forgave himself the greatest of God’s provision. He apologized for his ratty ways and hoped that all would find peace within their hearts in laying down the burden of unforgiveness. Most never would and found themselves justified in the fact they needn’t forgive a rat for any reason. He realized that the love unrequited was in truth a greatest sense of living outside his own intention. The relief from hopeless and wanton acceptance allowed him to see greater things than just self-actualization. He began to walk a path most never knew a rat could travel. Not enlightenment but service in discernment. Knowing that God connected all things even the snake and rodent. Not for their own chasing and disgusting yearning but to see in this life the things that lay beyond it. For all seek the eternal even the rodent of remembrance. For there is nothing achieved in unforgiveness. The burden, debt and trap of attempting to atone for past failure is a loop of perpetual enslavement. For those things of the past may never find reckoning in the present and will always be used as filthy veil to disguise the greatness and potential left within us. Although he wished otherwise the rat reconciled his failures and after all saw that well what he had done was what all rats do. But there is no need to wear the shawl of worldly condemnation. Regardless of how eyes saw him he would remain disassociated with identity of what he had done but aligned with what he was yet becoming. Those who cannot forgive a rat are shackled. Trapped by their own rules, perceptions and self service. But the rat understood that it takes each of us to have that awakening to see it. So he forgave and moved on to embracing, experiencing and seeking God’s good will in each offering, knowing that all the pain of being a rat and all that entails would be left behind in stardom.