Sometimes I feel so confused. I am submitting to Mac at a level I have never before gone to. I am soft and gentle and open to Him at all times. I am more in love with Him than I have ever been and that makes me more vulnerable than I have ever been too. I am finding that I am not able to face up to things without Him and I wonder how good for me that can be.

I have a ton of email that I just can't seem to bring myself to answer and I used to only be about a week behind. Now I am at least a month. I am having trouble answering even the most basic of them. I open them and try to articulate an answer but I have no clue how to say what I want to say so I shut down email and pretend that it isn't there at all. And it's not that I don't care or that I don't want to answer them, it's just that I seem to care too much right now. I am taking everything on board. I am shouldering all the problems that I read about, all the questions that people have, I feel like my heart is breaking for everyone. I don't know what to do other than say that I am sorry but I am unable to answer emails at this point. I hope that people understand.

We had an incident yesterday that has had a huge affect on me. My sister's husband was beaten by a man twice his size. My dad had taken a boat out to the lake through a channel and accidentally run over a fishing line that he did not see. Dad apologised but the man decided to take it further and confront my father when he came back to the dock. My father apologised again and pointed out that the man was fishing in a boat channel. The man's son just walked up to my brother-in-law and punched him in the face. He then grabbed my brother-in-laws balls and they both went down. We all tried to pull this guy off my brother-in-law, including the guy's father and mother, but we didn't have a hope in hell.

When he finally got off he had bitten my brother-in-law on the neck and face, shattered his teeth, broken his nose, and torn part of his scrotum away from his body. All five of my sister's children saw it happen and were screaming for their father. All over a bit of fishing line, a hook and a sinker. I have never seen such an act of cowardly violence, so stupid, so incomprehensible. The police were called and charges have been laid. But the man has disappeared and his parents say they don't know where he is.

Mac had left on an overnight trip and won't be back until later today. He was gone before it happened. I keep having periods where I get the shakes. I hardly slept. I can't seem to pull myself together. It was just such a random act of violence, so completely insane that I am having trouble coming to terms with it. My brother-in-law had not even been in the boat when Dad ran over the fishing line. He said nothing, did nothing and was just standing beside my Dad when they walked up. The guy just punched him because he was there. That's all. It was just so senseless.

And I am wondering if my inability to process it is because of my state of submission. I am wondering if I have left myself too open to this. Is it my fault that I am unable to cope on my own right at this moment? I need Mac. I need Him to hold me and to tell me its all right, that everything is going to be ok. I need His arms around me to give me the strength to work it through. Right now I am just hiding from the fear and disgust that I feel. I don't want to deal with it without Mac so I am pretending it is not there. Am I wrong to do this? Shouldn't I take care of me when He is not around? Can I take care of me and still submit to Him or does one preclude the other? I am a strong woman. I know that. I have dealt with worse than this without Him before. So why am I struggling this time? Why am I scared to try at all? Am I using my submission as permission not to have to cope? I am an adult, doesn't that mean I do have to deal with this? I cannot just hide behind my mother's skirt.

And did I really use to cope? I was depressed and slowly getting more and more flaky around the edges. I used to cut and bleed and think that I healed along with the sore. But did I really? Or was I just cutting the hurt into my skin and making it a permanent part of me? This way is better isn't it? Handing it off to someone else, someone who is willing to take it from me. But when He isn't here, what do I do? I just don't know. I am so confused.

I know that I am still suffering the after-effects of shock. It was horrific. I saw my brother-in-law lying beneath that man, eyes rolled back in his head, blood covering his whole face, saying 'he is going to kill me' and I honestly thought that he would. He would kill him right there in front of us all and I could see his pain and hear the children screaming and I couldn't stop it from happening. That is not supposed to happen to nice middle-class families in a nice middle-class neighbourhood. Those sorts of things only happen in drunken brawls at the pub not at a family barbeque. I keep wondering if the world has gone insane.

Maybe it is just my naivety and this sort of thing happens all the time. Is this sort of rage acceptable in our society now? Is it ok to punch without provocation and to grab hold of another man's balls in a fight? Is it ok to bite? Is it ok to punch another man when his children surround him? Is it right for a parent to protect an adult child that behaves in this way? If you punch someone you had better bloody believe you are in the right and if you are in the right there is no reason to run, right? Don't we have to take responsibility for the things that we do? I just cannot understand how this has happened. It is beyond my ability to grasp.

I just need Mac. I know I will be ok when His arms are around me. If that is wrong then I will deal with that another time.

For now it is the thing that will help.