Last night I witnessed a very brief debate about the existence of God on facebook. The Christian in the argument flat-out called the non-Christian ignorant. As I went about my morning today I thought about that and how people are supposed to know that we're Christians by our love. All this kid was doing was showing this non-believer judgment when these two people had never met or knew anything about each other. It angered me so much that I wanted to rebuke this judgmental person, even though I have never met him.
I got in a fight with my father this morning. He's the only one I can yell at or get outwardly upset with. He was angry at me for something that I did the night before and he snapped at me about it. He said he feels like when I'm home he gets treated like crap (insert a more colorful word here) and just kind of shoved aside. I don't know why I decided to answer right back with (I have always held this back and been afraid to confront him about this) the fact that I feel like that too when I'm home because he always is downstairs in his studio and I never get to see him. I walked into the kitchen so he wouldn't see how upset I was but he questioned me further and put the blame on me by asking me why I never joined him down there in his studio (something I would never do because it's strictly his room and I know he goes there to escape from things).
He apologized later for snapping at me. That just made me feel worse about it because he seemed to care so little about the topic that has shaped my lack of self-esteem my whole life. I opened my Bible and read from John. The last part I read was when He gave His disciples a new command- to love each other.
Loving people is hard.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was no different from that judgmental Christian. In the last week since I've been home, I have said something hurtful to almost every member of my family. It's always easier to judge than it is to love. Our tongues are so difficult to tame, especially when there are sins tied in- things like pride and self-addiction, lust, and unrighteous indignation. Love is messy and complicated and tainted by the very nature of being human. Only His love is perfect, and I believe we need His divine help to love others perfectly and purely. I need His help to even just love Him. We're all so imperfect. It's such a wonder, and such a gift, that God would choose to love me again and again as I wallow in my sinfulness and self-loathing. Yet there is no other choice for Him to make concerning His children. He is love. And His name is Jealous. He wants us even in the middle of the mistakes we make. Even when we fail to do good and wrongly judge others when we should be loving them and respecting them. It's easy to get mixed up and misunderstand things, like my father seems to misunderstand me a lot.
But what's important is that we work harder for the things that don't come easy. He tells us to love each other. And if we love Him then we'll keep His commands. If we love God then we need to love others. It can be easy to complicate that idea with worldly things but it really is a simple command, a simple formula. Even so, it is a struggle and what seems like an up-hill battle for me to love others, and to love myself too. Being loved by God at one period in time was an absolute, all-out battle for me, but- to me- knowing that He loves is something that is easily believed. I've been tricked and confused many times about God's other attributes (whether He is good and on my side, etc.), but I have never been able to deny even for a second that He is a loving God.
And I want to be like Him. Loving. Just loving everybody all the time. Everyone, no matter what kind of stupid mistakes they've made, I want to see them as He sees them. And I want to be able to look in the mirror and see the falsehoods and misconceptions I have about myself in comparison to others. I can pretend all day long that the judgmental kid is just plain wrong and and an immature Christian, but come nightfall I see the truth that my reflection looks an awful lot like the picture I've painted of this person I have found fault in. I am by no means any different or better from these people who do things I disapprove of. And I need to love them too, even when they don't seem to be loving the people they encounter. Jesus loves us right in the middle of our mistakes. I need to love others in the middle of their mistakes too.
And I need to forgive and let go of the things that have in the past had such a powerful hold on me. I need to forgive my father for being distant and uninvolved in my life. I need to forgive myself for having a hand in making it that way. I need to choose love everyday instead of the excuses I make and the other words that are so much easier to say. If I choose love, that means I choose Him and fulfill His will by obeying His commands. But I need help...I can't do it by myself.
Lord, be with me each day as I make the decision to love the people I encounter whether I feel they deserve it or not. Teach me what Your unconditional love looks like through the hearts of my friends and family. Enable me to see past my impatience and selfishness God so that I can see the truth as You see it in the way I relate the those around me. Be with me as I struggle to be transformed from one glory to the next.
eb
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
home deteriorated
For the last two and a half weeks I have been living alone in a freshly-painted, tiny, noisy, old house. After being home for about a month I thought it would be difficult to go back to work on campus for forty hours a week (the whole getting up at 7 am thing is definitely not for me). I was sad to leave home at first because of my friends, but was looking forward to getting away from my family and lack of routine for a while. I expected to miss them all a lot, and I did, but I really enjoyed living there despite the lack of internet and cable. I was quite depressed yesterday when I had to leave my little house and its psychedelic carpeting. It seemed I had found a friend there- amid the creaky floorboards and running plumbing and grumbling refrigerator. Sitting next to my window at my shaky card table, I had a freedom and individuality that was precious to me. I was far from excited to head back home after coming to like this house so much.
But maybe it was less about the house and more about what took place inside it- inside of me- while staying there. Arriving there I found myself in a place where there was no one to influence me- no one to keep a game face up for- no one to please or accommodate. I thought I would suffocate myself there- live in a reality that didn't match everyone else's and not even know it. Instead, I found quiet...and solitude...and peace. I discovered a quiet place in my heart that I didn't know existed and I lived in that place.
And I found a side of God that hadn't yet been experienced. I went to work and came home to a Friend everyday, no matter my mood or my attitude toward Him or whether I had read His Word the night before. He spoke to me and I spoke to Him...a living conversation that I had never experienced before. I blossomed in His hands.
After a brutal year of struggle and pain and abuse, and a history of having terrible summers of a lack of productivity in many more ways than one, my stay in that house was a needed breath of fresh air. Maybe that's why I loved it- I could breathe there like no where else. I could learn and let go and rest. I haven't done that in a very long time, if ever.
It's understandable after having so much tangible joy there why the last place I would want to go was home. I live with a family who doesn't understand me, who talk at me inside of with me, who have treated me poorly without even knowing it. I suffocate at home in my little room- the one piece of the house that was mine until my mom started using it as her office. But I do long to be with Lis, to suffer through her pain with her like she didn't know how to suffer through my pain with me last summer.
I left my friendly house quite sad, and drove for the next two hours, the first half hour in silence despite The Classic Crime playing emotionally in the CD player. I remembered on the way there that I had sung my heart out to that CD on the way there to work on campus, but I was nonverbally disappointed to be on the road again, headed back to a place where I didn't want to be. I had thought maybe I would talk to Jesus on the way but I didn't really, I didn't really think anything, I just drove.
But then, when I ejected The Silver Cord album to insert Seattle Sessions, the radio came on and played Never Be The Same by Red. I listened to all of it, nearly crying because the reception for that station normally fizzled out after driving a half hour from home. I knew that God was speaking to me through this little miracle...that song is sort of mine and God's song, more or less. And when I put in Seattle Sessions, which my friend Mike had burned for me, I remembered that he had also put Deteriorate by Demor Hunter on the CD- a song I more than love. After listening to Red's song, I was ready to hear Him, and I did. Deteriorate has always been a song that I listen to when I am having faith-shaking trouble. But this time, I wasn't...and I sang every word with a giant smile on my face because...I can be at my absolute worst- absolute rock bottom- and He loves me. He just loves me. His love makes my pain so beautiful, and so worth it to get through.
I know at this point that I wouldn't change a thing about how terribly the year went, because it proved that I am human, and that He is God. I came dangerously close to leaving Him. But I need Him too much for that. Leaving Him just wouldn't help anything.
I drove home worshiping the God of the universe to Deteriorate by Demon Hunter (definitely not a worship song). What beauty there is in pain- in singing praise in our weakness. My joy returned as I drove further and further away from my little house, because I knew that the home I have searched for- that place where I can belong and feel free- isn't in a building but within Jesus Christ- my Savior and the love of my life. I can't say this is a new lesson, but a needed one. After the year I've had, I need to return again and again to that place inside me where He is- or better yet, just never leave the place where my spirit is unspeakably moved by His. He is my home.
eb
But maybe it was less about the house and more about what took place inside it- inside of me- while staying there. Arriving there I found myself in a place where there was no one to influence me- no one to keep a game face up for- no one to please or accommodate. I thought I would suffocate myself there- live in a reality that didn't match everyone else's and not even know it. Instead, I found quiet...and solitude...and peace. I discovered a quiet place in my heart that I didn't know existed and I lived in that place.
And I found a side of God that hadn't yet been experienced. I went to work and came home to a Friend everyday, no matter my mood or my attitude toward Him or whether I had read His Word the night before. He spoke to me and I spoke to Him...a living conversation that I had never experienced before. I blossomed in His hands.
After a brutal year of struggle and pain and abuse, and a history of having terrible summers of a lack of productivity in many more ways than one, my stay in that house was a needed breath of fresh air. Maybe that's why I loved it- I could breathe there like no where else. I could learn and let go and rest. I haven't done that in a very long time, if ever.
It's understandable after having so much tangible joy there why the last place I would want to go was home. I live with a family who doesn't understand me, who talk at me inside of with me, who have treated me poorly without even knowing it. I suffocate at home in my little room- the one piece of the house that was mine until my mom started using it as her office. But I do long to be with Lis, to suffer through her pain with her like she didn't know how to suffer through my pain with me last summer.
I left my friendly house quite sad, and drove for the next two hours, the first half hour in silence despite The Classic Crime playing emotionally in the CD player. I remembered on the way there that I had sung my heart out to that CD on the way there to work on campus, but I was nonverbally disappointed to be on the road again, headed back to a place where I didn't want to be. I had thought maybe I would talk to Jesus on the way but I didn't really, I didn't really think anything, I just drove.
But then, when I ejected The Silver Cord album to insert Seattle Sessions, the radio came on and played Never Be The Same by Red. I listened to all of it, nearly crying because the reception for that station normally fizzled out after driving a half hour from home. I knew that God was speaking to me through this little miracle...that song is sort of mine and God's song, more or less. And when I put in Seattle Sessions, which my friend Mike had burned for me, I remembered that he had also put Deteriorate by Demor Hunter on the CD- a song I more than love. After listening to Red's song, I was ready to hear Him, and I did. Deteriorate has always been a song that I listen to when I am having faith-shaking trouble. But this time, I wasn't...and I sang every word with a giant smile on my face because...I can be at my absolute worst- absolute rock bottom- and He loves me. He just loves me. His love makes my pain so beautiful, and so worth it to get through.
I know at this point that I wouldn't change a thing about how terribly the year went, because it proved that I am human, and that He is God. I came dangerously close to leaving Him. But I need Him too much for that. Leaving Him just wouldn't help anything.
I drove home worshiping the God of the universe to Deteriorate by Demon Hunter (definitely not a worship song). What beauty there is in pain- in singing praise in our weakness. My joy returned as I drove further and further away from my little house, because I knew that the home I have searched for- that place where I can belong and feel free- isn't in a building but within Jesus Christ- my Savior and the love of my life. I can't say this is a new lesson, but a needed one. After the year I've had, I need to return again and again to that place inside me where He is- or better yet, just never leave the place where my spirit is unspeakably moved by His. He is my home.
eb
Sunday, July 26, 2009
hope is the missing part
My best friend Lis had her first kiss stolen last weekend. Some mexican from work did it, despite how many times she said no. I cried when she told me because deserves so much better than for something like that to happen to her.
I hate that sometimes what we want out of life is taken from us kicking and screaming. I hate that blind disrespect can taint such well-protected innocence. I don't know why I feel like this tragedy happened to me too. Maybe because we've been friends since third grade. I'm angry with him. And angry that God would let something like that happen to someone like her. The first words she said after she told the story of how it happened were about forgiveness. Mine were far from that idea, and still are. She's a different kind of strong than I am, I think. She has the ability to bounce back after being knocked down. I have the ability to get knocked down and stay there until I'm ready to get up- usually much longer than anyone else I know. It takes strength to forgive, but it takes strength to endure the mud too. Maybe I drag myself through the mud, but at least I endure it even at high costs.
I'm not being pessimistic when I say that everything around us is broken in some way. We may not always see it- but there are cracks and pieces missing or stolen from nearly every life we encounter. The world operates on a broken system. We achieve and lose on a broken leg, broken attitude, broken heart. There's something hurting in each of us, even the happy ones. We all leave a trail of wreckage behind every step we take toward a direction, forward or backward. Our success is someone else's failure, and our failure is someone else's gain. It seems the law of consequences rules the word.
I know that I personally do what I can to learn from the mistakes I've made, the hearts I've broken, and my own heart that I've broken without anyone's help. Learning is the hard part. Changing is the necessary part. Hope is the missing part. I don't want to slide back into a place that has imprisoned me so many times before. I crave freedom and room to run and fresh air. I long to be outside and not just analyze it through my window.
Despite creeps like that mexican, I want to believe that people are good. The truth is that we aren't really. I tend to make a lot more mistakes than I ever do good. I criticize others but I criticize myself the most. And yet I find myself rooting for the underdog in all of us. We are just as capable of good as we are of evil. Things can be good again if I cling to the one Thing I know to always be good. I can be as angry as I want at the brokeness of the world, but I can't help but smile when I get to the end of that thought because He always takes something terrible and uses it for our, and His, good. I may never understand the ways that I have been broken and am broken, but I would rather focus on the glue that's holding me together every second I'm alive. My terra cotta heart will be smashed again and again, but there is an unearthly grout that will fix whatever is left into what He desires of me, for my benefit and His glory.
I may get knocked down again and again and again, but He will always pick me up. He can heal what we cannot. And when the pieces get too small- when my heart is just clay dust, He'll start again with me and mold me with new, soft, clay. He'll make me new again and breathe His breath into my lungs again and again to revive me. The broken world can't do anything to me that He cannot fix. They can take everything from me but He will still remain in me. I will still be His. And no one can take that from me, even in death. Even in death I will have freedom and room to run and fresh air. Even when I take my part in belonging to the brokeness of this world, He is still good. He will always be good.
eb
I hate that sometimes what we want out of life is taken from us kicking and screaming. I hate that blind disrespect can taint such well-protected innocence. I don't know why I feel like this tragedy happened to me too. Maybe because we've been friends since third grade. I'm angry with him. And angry that God would let something like that happen to someone like her. The first words she said after she told the story of how it happened were about forgiveness. Mine were far from that idea, and still are. She's a different kind of strong than I am, I think. She has the ability to bounce back after being knocked down. I have the ability to get knocked down and stay there until I'm ready to get up- usually much longer than anyone else I know. It takes strength to forgive, but it takes strength to endure the mud too. Maybe I drag myself through the mud, but at least I endure it even at high costs.
I'm not being pessimistic when I say that everything around us is broken in some way. We may not always see it- but there are cracks and pieces missing or stolen from nearly every life we encounter. The world operates on a broken system. We achieve and lose on a broken leg, broken attitude, broken heart. There's something hurting in each of us, even the happy ones. We all leave a trail of wreckage behind every step we take toward a direction, forward or backward. Our success is someone else's failure, and our failure is someone else's gain. It seems the law of consequences rules the word.
I know that I personally do what I can to learn from the mistakes I've made, the hearts I've broken, and my own heart that I've broken without anyone's help. Learning is the hard part. Changing is the necessary part. Hope is the missing part. I don't want to slide back into a place that has imprisoned me so many times before. I crave freedom and room to run and fresh air. I long to be outside and not just analyze it through my window.
Despite creeps like that mexican, I want to believe that people are good. The truth is that we aren't really. I tend to make a lot more mistakes than I ever do good. I criticize others but I criticize myself the most. And yet I find myself rooting for the underdog in all of us. We are just as capable of good as we are of evil. Things can be good again if I cling to the one Thing I know to always be good. I can be as angry as I want at the brokeness of the world, but I can't help but smile when I get to the end of that thought because He always takes something terrible and uses it for our, and His, good. I may never understand the ways that I have been broken and am broken, but I would rather focus on the glue that's holding me together every second I'm alive. My terra cotta heart will be smashed again and again, but there is an unearthly grout that will fix whatever is left into what He desires of me, for my benefit and His glory.
I may get knocked down again and again and again, but He will always pick me up. He can heal what we cannot. And when the pieces get too small- when my heart is just clay dust, He'll start again with me and mold me with new, soft, clay. He'll make me new again and breathe His breath into my lungs again and again to revive me. The broken world can't do anything to me that He cannot fix. They can take everything from me but He will still remain in me. I will still be His. And no one can take that from me, even in death. Even in death I will have freedom and room to run and fresh air. Even when I take my part in belonging to the brokeness of this world, He is still good. He will always be good.
eb
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