Grantley Morris in one of his happier moods?

I feel that others see me as mildly repulsive physically and that usually the best way I could bless people is to not waste their time or turn their stomach by talking with them. My internet ministry has reinforced this feeling because strangers seem to respond to me far more positively by e-mail than those who have met me in person. After taking several weeks off my paid employment to concentrate on the internet, I reached the point where I could hardly bear the thought of anyone looking at me. Just as you would feel about the public seeing you naked, so I was beginning to feel about anyone seeing my face. Had I not been forced to return to work and thus show my face in public, it seems a full-blown phobia would have developed. My secular work saved me from that extreme, but I still teeter close to the edge.

It is no exaggeration to say that my only reason for living is to glorify the Lord Jesus. I say to my disgrace, however, that often I have little desire to live.

The more we can focus our attention upon the Lord, the more exciting life will become. I have proved this in my own life, but too often I have filled with depression because I don’t follow my own advice. What a superior life I would have if only I more consistently followed the revelations I share in my writings! Prayerfully, the gap will slowly close between what I have written and what I have built into my life.

Grantley Morris, superstar?

I have good reason to be ashamed of my prayer life and of my attempts (usually lack of an attempt) to verbally witness for Christ on a one-one-basis.

My strong tendencies toward being a ministry workaholic and perfectionist and a worrier, constantly threaten to push the Lord from center stage in my life. I frequently tell the Lord I want to give him my very best and receive from him his best. I constantly yearn for deeper intimacy with him than I currently enjoy. I feel frustrated and spiritually inadequate over the fact that I can barely discern his whispers to me.

I believe that in his grace the Lord sometimes disregards my limitations and speaks powerfully through my writings, but as explained in My Shame, there is sure to be much in what I write that tarnishes the Lord’s glory and will bring me shame when I see my Judge face to face.

My father died of a stroke at age 59, the same age that my maternal grandfather died of a heart attack. That’s both sides of my family. Not an encouraging indicator of my genetic potential to live long. Yes, I know, I should not give in to genetic probabilities, but when it comes to positive thinkers, I admire them from the sidelines.

Could this be Grantley Morris?

I can’t bear the thought of waste. I’m a hoarder and stingy, and I don’t like giving or receiving gifts, because usually the things given are non-essentials and therefore, in my view, a waste. Another potential area of waste is time. I am extremely intense. Have your heard of a Type A personality? I must be a Type AAA. I usually feel guilty if I don’t cram as much as I can into every second. I check my e-mail first thing in the morning and work on it until I have to run to the bus stop. While waiting there and traveling to work I scribble corrections to printouts of the latest webpage I’m working on or jot down notes for an e-mail. At every break at work I do the same thing. Unfortunately, these days my paid employment involves staring at a computer screen, which, given the nature of my ministry, is draining. I then rush off to the bus stop and work on my writings until I get home, where I immediately switch on my computer – which until recently replaced was seven years old and not top of the range when I bought it. I then check my e-mail and type up corrections and additions to my writings that I had scribbled during the day. I have my evening meal while watching the television news or current affairs, and then it’s back to the computer. During ‘vacations’ – breaks from paid employment – I usually become even more intense.

Especially during winter I seem to crave sunlight. It helps overcome my mysterious depression, but rarely can I pull myself away from my computer to spend a few minutes writing in the sun.

Grantley Morris showing off his muscles again?

I currently don’t accept donations because I can’t find time to work out the tax implications. I squirm at the thought of making money from my writings, so I support myself by working in a secular job that I find unfulfilling. Part of the reason for my job being low grade is to keep me as fresh as possible for ministry, but a large factor is simply that I lack confidence to get another job.

In most ministry-related areas I am a perfectionist, but to free up time for this I am the exact opposite in other areas of my life. For instance, I am atrociously untidy and if I try to tidy up I feel guilty about what to me seems to be squandering valuable ministry time.

Most long-term bachelors end up a little eccentric. One look at the way I dress confirms I’ve reached that milestone.

Even though I have always longed to be married, about the worst trauma I could imagine would be having to endure my own wedding ceremony. A honeymoon has been my greatest dream, but the formalities that precede it are my greatest nightmare. I’d rather a thousand trips to the dentist. Heights terrify me, but skydiving would be relaxing relative to the terror of my own wedding!

I could continue for hours, but this sampling should suffice to confirm that it is not without justification that I feel I am weird. If you think I have achieved anything worthwhile, imagine the potential of someone as normal as you!

Is this Grantley Morris?

Climax

I long to boast – of the greatness, beauty and perfection of the majestic Lord whose goodness, love and delights know no end. To know him is to love him. Would you have me drain my writings of excitement by focusing on myself instead of the Love of my life? Like a plant, I was created to thrive by looking up to the heavens for light. A plant turned in on itself is in a sorry state. This webpage has distressed me because I have felt forced to wrench your eyes and my eyes off the captivating splendor and wonders of the Lord to focus on me.

If I must boast about myself I will boast of my failings, limitations and quirks, because they keep me in loving dependence upon the most fascinating, inspiring and uplifting Person in the universe. When I draw upon my Lord, clinging to his power, perfection and purity, I have everything I need to excel in every task he has placed me on this planet to perform. It is only when I neglect the infinite Lord and look to myself that I become inadequate, depressed and deprived. He is my Strength, my Joy, my Love. Like a chicken without its head, so am I, without Christ. But never need I be without Christ. With him, I am complete. With him, I triumph. With him, I am a success. You would not believe how wise, holy and supernaturally powerful I am when perfectly united to Christ, my Head. You, too, can find in him wonders that will cause you to soar higher than you ever dreamed.

Update, Early 2007: For most of my life I have been so conscious of how deceptive and spiritually dangerous pride is that I have dreaded falling into that deadly trap. Although I recognized that it was not ideal, I imagined that letting myself be tormented by negative thoughts about myself would help protect me from that danger. In reality, I had completely misunderstood the nature of pride.

I realized that if ever we fall into the delusion that we could do anything of value without total dependence upon Christ, a lower opinion of ourselves is needed. From this obvious truth I drew the mistaken presumption that the essence of humility is thinking lowly of oneself.

I was wrong. The basic ingredient of godly humility is not thinking lowly of oneself but seeing things through God’s eyes.

Realizing this has negated neither the intensity of my trials, nor the benefits of those trials, but it gives me a new incentive to fight them.

On the ministry front, after feeling a freak and a failure for over twenty years, the Lord has graciously allowed me to feel vindicated and fulfilled. My emotional pain continues, but because I believe the end of that is approaching, I feel freer to mention it without it seeming too much like moaning.

I’ve seen several counselors over the years, wondering if they could pick up some cause of my inner pain that I might have overlooked. They were only able to add to my pain by nominating the one thing that screams at me day and night: I need marriage in order to feel remotely normal. And over all these years that’s the very thing I’ve felt challenged by God never to seek. This leaves me open to the accusation both from well-meaning people and from my own torment that despite my decades of pleading with God not to get this wrong, the Lord has somehow allowed me to mishear him on this most critical issue.

I’ve languished almost all my life aching for hugs. Deprivation in this area has greatly contributed to my feeling of emptiness and isolation. And my ability to look anyone in the eye without filling with shame has been inseparably bound with something that has almost always eluded me: feeling remotely capable of being loved by a woman.

People with Body Dysmorphic Disorder believe they look hideous. According to one study, the completed suicide rate in people with this condition is 45 times higher than in the general US population. This is more than double that of those with depression and three times as high as those with bipolar disorder. I don’t claim to be that extreme, but I’m somewhere between there and normal.

The good news is that for the last 12 months the Lord has sent into my life a woman I’ve never met in person who has been a powerful help in reducing my inner pain. Obviously, we have never hugged, but her sincere, if unproven, willingness to do so has had a surprisingly healing effect on me. Although she has only seen photos of me, she insists she finds me highly attractive physically. I see that as some sort of divine miracle in which God has caused her preferences to differ wildly from other people, so I still cringe at the thought of anyone else looking at me, but her view of me has nevertheless deeply touched me.

If this continues I might even end up almost normal by the time I die. Sounds rather boring, don’t you think?

Early 2010: The romance referred to above continued to blaze. In July, 2009, after being in daily phone contact for over three years (for hours at a time without missing a single day) I finally saw Vicki face to face for the first time. As planned, we immediately committed ourselves to lifelong marital union, knowing that after just two weeks we would be wrenched apart with Vicki having to return to the US. It was four torturously long months before we were able to live in the same country.

Of course, Vicki was God’s choice. The Lord even told her in her early teens that her married name would be Morris. And her love for the Lord thrills me. In addition to her wonderful spiritual qualities, however, the Lord did something amazingly special in giving her to me.

I am staggered by the extravagance of God’s kindness toward someone as unworthy as me and I long for you to be equally awestruck by the splendor of his grace. So I was crushed to tears when a friend indicated that I should water down what I am about to say, lest people misunderstand or even be offended. I ache to honor God by fully conveying what he has done but I can do this no more than I could reduce to words the breathtaking glory of a sunset. I find myself torn between the extremes of treating the extent of what God has done in giving me Vicki as too sacred to attempt description, or offending sensitive readers by blabbing too much detail out of fear of robbing my Lord of the glory he so richly deserves.

It is sure to displease some, but here’s my attempt at a compromise: I still cringe to see my face in a mirror and it still seems to me that most people see me that way, but no matter how strong these feelings are, I know Vicki so well that I am thoroughly convinced of her honest sincerity when she says she finds the body God has given me exceptionally desirable. In fact, before marrying, I had not thought it possible for any woman to be as attracted to any man’s body as powerfully and exclusively as Vicki is to me. It is not only everything about my looks that thrills her but even the taste of my skin and the smell of my body – even when I am way overdue for a shower. And her feeling this way is not just an occasional flash, but continual.

I am flabbergasted by the Lord’s graciousness in bringing this about, but I remain determined not to let married life turn me soft. For our marriage to be worthy of God, our union must empower us to achieve more for our Lord than remaining single would have achieved. As long as we live in a world writhing with people needing the comfort that only Jesus can bring, Vicki and I sacrifice our lives for the glorious privilege of allowing the God of all comfort to serve others through us.

2011: Marriage continues to be a never-ending honeymoon and, as mind-boggling as it seems to me, it gets even better. I never dared hope that anyone could have such a superb wife. I was sure that such a ridiculous fantasy would doom any man to deep disappointment. I am convinced that if anyone knew how much like a king Vicki treats me and how in love and powerfully attracted she is to everything about me, I would be the envy of almost every man, and most women would resent her for setting the bar far too high.

Perhaps one reason for Vicki’s intense physical attraction to me is that, starting from her mid-teens, God gave her several not merely symbolic but physically accurate visions of me.

I delight in Vicki for who she is; not for what she does for me. I keep pleading with her to ease up on waiting on me hand and foot and going way beyond fulfilling my every whim, asking nothing in return, but to my bewilderment she delights in daily lavishing me with extravagant acts of love. To her it is not servitude but rich fulfillment of longings she has cherished since youth.

If anyone is interested, I believe a significant factor in the astounding happiness of our marriage is that we take nothing about each other for granted. We are exceedingly grateful for everything our partner does and is; being acutely aware of how many people do not have such wonderful partners. Whereas we see pamper our partner as our duty, as well as our joy, we treasure anything our partner gives us as an undeserved privilege; not our marital right.

For decades I have strongly believed in concentrating exclusively of one’s marital obligations; never one’s supposed rights. And I refused to let myself fantasize about the perfect wife but focused instead on how to make the most of it should I end up with a far less desirable wife. Very many years ago, the Lord asked Vicki whether she would live for self or live for love. Likewise, I live to give, not to get. That’s just who I am. In fact, to have meeting one’s own desires as one’s focus is to shrivel up and die.

I had thought that all those agonizing decades of singleness were making me set in my ways and undermining any capacity I had to be a good husband but now it seems those painful years were actually equipping me to treasure and cherish Vicki. I had expected that if ever I were granted marital happiness it would be marred by the knowledge that I had missed out on it for most of my life. This is nothing like the case. Though I still remember the pain, I have not the merest tinge of regret.

So our marriage is bliss but earthly happiness is of little consequence. Actually, more often than not, happiness is a negative; lulling its victims into growing soft. It is in the tough times that we usually learn the most and develop spiritually. Not even eternal reward means much compared with honoring God. I would gladly trade all of heaven’s rewards if it would enable me to bring the slightest joy to the love of my life: the Lord Jesus.

I remind you that the rest of this site does not focus on me. If you are still curious about me, however, there is just one other page:

The Power of Doubting Yourself
The Difference Between Faith in God and Faith in Self

In Christ, Your Potential is Unlimited
To God, You are Special

Your Faith Will Soar When You Realize How Loved of God You Are
You are Loved

The Limits of my Spiritual Understanding
My Shame