Failing and falling, again and again

I am no longer "beginning" to believe that I am either the weakest Christian ever, or the most deluded man on the planet. I know that one or the other is true. I am terrified that it may be the latter.

For many years, all through my rejection of God and the Christian faith, I nevertheless maintained a fear of God. Wasn't sure, absolutely sure, that He was there, that He was real; but if He was, I was assured within my gut that He would send me to hell. Why not? I have known since I was a child that I belonged in hell, that I was filthy and worthless. I am a sinner, and because I am a sinner, I sin. Repeatedly. Even after that amazing transformation that occurred in April 2000, that moment when I felt the power and healing and mercy of God swarm my heart, was overwhelmed by a feeling of being loved in spite of what I knew myself to be ... I have nonetheless never doubted what I really am. I am filthy to my core. I am a slave to my baseness. As David wrote in Psalm 51, I was "brought forth in iniquity/and in sin did my mother conceive me." I was guilty and damned for all eternity the moment I was conceived, if not before. And I have only confirmed the justice of God's judgment with my thoughts, my words, my deeds.

Let me say this: I am guilty. I am heir to the sins of my white Southern American forefathers. I am the slavemaster; I am the oppressor. I am the racist; I am the hatemonger. I am evil. I am a devil. I deserve to die now, and because this is just and right, I long for God's judgment upon my sin-blackened flesh, upon my evil soul. I am less than nothing, worse than evil. I wish that I had never been born at all, that the darkness I have cast upon all that I have touched would never have affected a single soul. (This does not make up for the depth and breadth of my guilt, but let me offer in mitigation the fact that I have not reproduced, nor married, and do not plan on either, needless to say.)

Am I a Christian? I have believed, and do believe, that Christ died for the sins of the worst, for people like me. I believe that what He paid is sufficient even for the breadth and depth of my wickedness. At least ... I think so. I think that is what I read in passages like this:

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. (Ps. 51:14)

"For God so loved^AB)"> the world,^AC)"> that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For^AE)"> God did not send his Son into the world^AF)"> to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not^AH)"> believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:16-18)

And so on.

I regret my existence. I am sorry for all I have done to harm, for every sin, whether I remember it or not. I long for God's judgment and my soul's damnation, if that is what I face (and there is no reason to believe it is not).

I cannot feel God's grace and mercy, not now. I trust what I do not see, what I do not feel. I know what I am; I pray that what I have read and been told of Jesus Christ, that He is the Savior of all sinners who cry out to Him, I pray that He is indeed that Man of Sorrows.