I'm not saying that preparing to assume the role of godly wife isn't something I should pursue. It absolutely is. I've always felt called to be someone's wife, and in God's time, I want to make sure that I can become a loving, thoughtful, encouraging, edifying helpmeet to the one He will entrust me to.
But the fact is, right now, I'm not married-- not in the Earthly sense anyway. Right now, I need to focus on my marriage to God bestowed on me through Jesus and His gift of forgiveness. I need to continue to immerse myself in Him, to appreciate the freedom that I have to spend hours alone with His Word, seeking out new truths and shoring up old ones. I need to see the opportunities I have in life to serve, to show Him to others, to talk with them about Him, and to demonstrate His love in even the tiniest of ways.
At the beginning of the year, I'll admit, my marriage to God wasn't doing so well. We hit a rough patch, God and me. I was angry at Him for the failings of my Earthly relationship with a man I cared very deeply about.
When I was in prayer, I asked Him over and over, "Why would You let him into my life just to take him out again?"
"God, why aren't You helping me? Why aren't You showing me what I'm doing wrong?"
"I'm trying to root myself in Your Love. Why isn't that enough for him? Why aren't You letting it be enough?"
As I think about the countless conversations we had, I was asking all of these questions, poring over the Bible, and somehow still finding myself without answers.
And I was blaming the deafening silence in my heart all on God.
Well, just like Alison Kraus, sometimes God says it best when He says nothing at all.
His answer: It's not Me.
Whenever we look at our Earthly problems and start to blame them on God, that's when things can take a turn for the worse.
God never lets things just "happen" to you or me, we always have some hand in our fate. Free will is that hand.
I had made the decision to invite this person into my life, to make a lot of the issues we'd faced together public, and then to back away from our friendship after suffering a broken heart.
That was all me. I made all of those human decisions. Not God.
Yes, He placed a man in my path. Someone I know He expected me to love. Someone I know He expected me to learn from. Someone I know He expected me to help, and to receive help from... but ultimately His bringing our paths together was the only perfect part of the scenario; we took what He gave us, and we screwed it up without any help from Him.
Both of us at times had acted toward each other without first praying about it, without first seeking His guidance, without first asking what He would have us do.
He hadn't let us fall apart; we had pushed Him out of our relationship with the weight of our own selfish desires... and our growing apart was a result of that distance from Him.
Recently, and for the last time, that person has re-entered my life. I say "for the last time," because this time, I know he isn't leaving again. Call it intuition, call it foresight, call it overconfidence, but I know it to be so. And I'm sure there are a few people who will have an opinion about whether he should have a place in my life after the events of the last 6 months.
Personally, I don't care what anyone thinks. For what you think and your skewed opinions, I'm to blame. Why? Because all the time that I was crying and complaining and telling of how deeply I'd been wronged... I was bound up in human emotion. I was not acting toward him, or even toward myself in a godly manner.
We've both done and said things that we should not have done or said.
We've both taken actions that were not rooted in God's love.
We've both ignored His guidance at times to follow our own ideas of what we should do.
And for that, we both require forgiveness.
So I'm choosing to forgive.
Because I honestly love this person--as a person and as a soul-- he was crafted by God into existence. Yes, he has hurt me. I know I have hurt him. I'm not forgetting those moments-- being human I can't. But I am choosing to walk by example, and to forgive as Christ forgave (Ephesians 4:32).
Think about that; we are to forgive as Christ forgave.
Christ forgave the sins of the people who killed Him-- who beat Him, mocked Him, and hung Him on a cross to die. Yet somehow I'm choosing to completely cut a person out of my life, because of a few careless decisions he made when he wasn't sure how to communicate with me?
Ummmm... No.
Is choosing to cut a person off for something that minor really in line with the love we are called to give to one another?
Christ forgave us AND he paid the debt for all of OUR transgressions, while he was a sinless, blameless lamb.
We, however, choose time and time again not to forgive others their transgressions, even in situations where we too bear some blame.
We hold a grudge, and let an Earthly situation weigh on our hearts so heavily that it makes us unhappy, affects other relationships, or even affects how we look at ourselves.
Forgiveness makes light that burden; it creates a fresh start. It forges a new bond. It keeps that person in our lives, yes, but it allows them a chance to atone for their transgression through action and sincere apology.
Forgiveness isn't about continually coming back to the same situation and letting the same sins rear their heads repeatedly. It's about two people actually working together to right the wrong(s) that were done. One by asking for forgiveness, the other by offering it... and the both of them by working together in love to forge a new path unmarred by those past wrongs.
But the fact is, right now, I'm not married-- not in the Earthly sense anyway. Right now, I need to focus on my marriage to God bestowed on me through Jesus and His gift of forgiveness. I need to continue to immerse myself in Him, to appreciate the freedom that I have to spend hours alone with His Word, seeking out new truths and shoring up old ones. I need to see the opportunities I have in life to serve, to show Him to others, to talk with them about Him, and to demonstrate His love in even the tiniest of ways.
At the beginning of the year, I'll admit, my marriage to God wasn't doing so well. We hit a rough patch, God and me. I was angry at Him for the failings of my Earthly relationship with a man I cared very deeply about.
When I was in prayer, I asked Him over and over, "Why would You let him into my life just to take him out again?"
"God, why aren't You helping me? Why aren't You showing me what I'm doing wrong?"
"I'm trying to root myself in Your Love. Why isn't that enough for him? Why aren't You letting it be enough?"
As I think about the countless conversations we had, I was asking all of these questions, poring over the Bible, and somehow still finding myself without answers.
And I was blaming the deafening silence in my heart all on God.
Well, just like Alison Kraus, sometimes God says it best when He says nothing at all.
His answer: It's not Me.
Whenever we look at our Earthly problems and start to blame them on God, that's when things can take a turn for the worse.
God never lets things just "happen" to you or me, we always have some hand in our fate. Free will is that hand.
I had made the decision to invite this person into my life, to make a lot of the issues we'd faced together public, and then to back away from our friendship after suffering a broken heart.
That was all me. I made all of those human decisions. Not God.
Yes, He placed a man in my path. Someone I know He expected me to love. Someone I know He expected me to learn from. Someone I know He expected me to help, and to receive help from... but ultimately His bringing our paths together was the only perfect part of the scenario; we took what He gave us, and we screwed it up without any help from Him.
Both of us at times had acted toward each other without first praying about it, without first seeking His guidance, without first asking what He would have us do.
He hadn't let us fall apart; we had pushed Him out of our relationship with the weight of our own selfish desires... and our growing apart was a result of that distance from Him.
Recently, and for the last time, that person has re-entered my life. I say "for the last time," because this time, I know he isn't leaving again. Call it intuition, call it foresight, call it overconfidence, but I know it to be so. And I'm sure there are a few people who will have an opinion about whether he should have a place in my life after the events of the last 6 months.
Personally, I don't care what anyone thinks. For what you think and your skewed opinions, I'm to blame. Why? Because all the time that I was crying and complaining and telling of how deeply I'd been wronged... I was bound up in human emotion. I was not acting toward him, or even toward myself in a godly manner.
We've both done and said things that we should not have done or said.
We've both taken actions that were not rooted in God's love.
We've both ignored His guidance at times to follow our own ideas of what we should do.
And for that, we both require forgiveness.
So I'm choosing to forgive.
Because I honestly love this person--as a person and as a soul-- he was crafted by God into existence. Yes, he has hurt me. I know I have hurt him. I'm not forgetting those moments-- being human I can't. But I am choosing to walk by example, and to forgive as Christ forgave (Ephesians 4:32).
Think about that; we are to forgive as Christ forgave.
Christ forgave the sins of the people who killed Him-- who beat Him, mocked Him, and hung Him on a cross to die. Yet somehow I'm choosing to completely cut a person out of my life, because of a few careless decisions he made when he wasn't sure how to communicate with me?
Ummmm... No.
Is choosing to cut a person off for something that minor really in line with the love we are called to give to one another?
Christ forgave us AND he paid the debt for all of OUR transgressions, while he was a sinless, blameless lamb.
We, however, choose time and time again not to forgive others their transgressions, even in situations where we too bear some blame.
We hold a grudge, and let an Earthly situation weigh on our hearts so heavily that it makes us unhappy, affects other relationships, or even affects how we look at ourselves.
Forgiveness makes light that burden; it creates a fresh start. It forges a new bond. It keeps that person in our lives, yes, but it allows them a chance to atone for their transgression through action and sincere apology.
Forgiveness isn't about continually coming back to the same situation and letting the same sins rear their heads repeatedly. It's about two people actually working together to right the wrong(s) that were done. One by asking for forgiveness, the other by offering it... and the both of them by working together in love to forge a new path unmarred by those past wrongs.
No comments:
Post a Comment