“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung
and possibly broken. If you want to make
sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and
little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.
Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless,
airless, it will change. It will not be
broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only place
outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers and
perturbations of love is Hell.”
I didn’t want to do it.
I didn’t want to let go of the offense committed against me. Of the stinging wound that tore right
thru. Of the injustice raging deep into
the seething fire of my core.
It wasn’t fair…it wasn’t right…and my heart screamed justice.
But it also wasn’t mine to make right. It is His.
We all have those messy hard relationships…that seem to rub
like metal on metal. Even when they’re
someone you love. Someone you long to have
peace and ease with. And then there are
the ones who are just there. Right in
the middle of your life. Stirring anxiety
with conflict around every corner and you just want peace. And
then there’s you…me…rubbing someone else’s metal bloody raw.
In proverbs there is a word for it…
“As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another.” –Proverbs 27:17
so one person sharpens another.” –Proverbs 27:17
…from one person to another.
Much to be learned from the ancient penning
of wisdom. Something greater and more
beautiful than I ever imagined.
There is purpose in those hard
relationships. Beauty to be had. If only we would be willing to die to
ourselves.
For He is right there in the middle of the
messes. Bleeding the ugly right
out. Bringing it under the scope of
truth and all that hides in the dark parts of our hearts is exposed with the
rubbing and clashing and erupting of self.
Sparks fly as the dull pieces are gleamed.
Because if the crusade is for rightness and
not righteousness…all is lost.
God made us for fellowship. First and foremost with Him. And then our neighbor. So that we might experience unfathomable love. It is a gift.
Expectations marred a very precious
relationship in my life growing up. And
it took me a long, long time to get it. And
I don’t know if I really every got him…but what I do know is that I stopped
trying to pick cherries from an apple tree.
And I could step back and look at the wonder of the fruit…and let it be.
I’m talking about my dad.
I grew up believing I lived in some once upon a time land that violently
clashed with reality and stirred up all kinds of deception in my heart.
I thought my dad was supposed to be some prince charming who
rode horses and played a stringed instrument and asked me about all my feelings
and understood a profoundly complicated young adolescent girl who didn’t
understand herself.
And so my frilly image and the actuality of who God made my
dad to be were at war with each other. I
kept trying to fit him into a mold that he was not divinely shaped for and I
was grieving inside believing a vicious lie that he didn’t love me. Because if he did love me our relationship
would look like my picture. And it
looked like a train wreck. I wouldn’t
let go of my dream to really see my dad for the unique and wonderful man that
he is.
And sadly it took me years to uncover the lie and see my own
reasons for holding onto a dead dream. I
thought that if the dream never came true…I would never have a part of my heart
healed.
But what I didn’t know…is that no dream or fairy tale prince
could ever fill that “deep longing which is a part of the grace given to Eve to
drive her to the River of Life” –Captivating. I had set my object of affection on something
that was never meant to be God.
In time…the Lord opened up my eyes to the madness and mended
the wounds and killed the expectations.
And I’m so thankful for the grace of my dad who put up with all that
nonsense. And never went away. And I’m so thankful that my dad is not my
creation…he is His…”
fearfully and wonderfully made” –Psalm 139:14.
So in the bloody battlefields of hard
relationships ordained by Grace…God calls me to lay down my arms and surrender
my will and exercise love…even when I don’t want to. Especially when it is undeserved.
Because that is what He does for me over
and over and over again. Mercy and
Grace. Covering me.
Called to humble myself…the mess maker of
all things…to the Healer of all things...and honor Him by honoring the
beautiful soul graciously brought into my life to bring Him glory. And he does it for my good. “Self can never cast out self, even in the
regenerate man.” –Andrew Murray
To live with a heart full of submission
rather than reaction takes incredible restraint…and humility. To turn to kindness and grace in the face of
accusation. To turn the other cheek in
the wake of a lashing. And I don’t know
about you, but when I get slapped in the face…the last thought in my mind is to
offer another shot. Swimming upstream in
a torrid current seems more attainable.
But seeing our eyes full of planks is no
small feat either. And. They. Are. Full. I
think the word Jesus calls me is a…”hypocrite” –Matthew 7:5. Yes…yes indeed. I confess…I am. Ugly messy heart bleeding out in the face of
scripture.
Blessed is the rubbing of metal. The uncomfortable rawness of pain. Lain bare before the Scar Bearer and Soul Healer
who longs to make it all right.
We are called to take up our crosses. As He did on Calvary’s hill. Nails plunged through flesh hanging
bare and bleeding red. Insults hurled
while saliva showers poured. His most trusted friends denied and deserted
Him. And still He spoke the words, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do” –Luke 23:34. For He knew the depth of depravity that loomed
inside the fallen man…yet his love and mercy are offered here...at the cross of
death for life…in place of wrath. It is
what He came for. For me. The ultimate Fairytale Savior…but this One…
is the Real Deal.
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