Friday, October 13, 2017

So That Healing Would Come

Broken relationship is ugly.
Whether viewed from a distance or up-close.
In the home, in the church, in our nation or in the world we have to get to a place,
where we acknowledge that we see it, and we won't have it.
We want something better.
We want healing, and we will give each other permission to learn and grow in understanding
in order that the healing would come...Here is what I'm learning.

Sometimes the cause is unfaithfulness or selfishness.
Sometimes simply misunderstanding or even just a difference in opinion.
There is shock, confusion and hurt.
Followed by silence, or at least a cold and removed dialogue.
Walls formed; caring and love being snuffed out.
It happened in an instant,
            and past hope seems irretrievable.
It is heaviness.
It is life-sucking.
It is dream-gouging.
It is faith-shrouding.
I need to remember that there is always a work in progress, with this effort at its core:
                                           to steal, kill and destroy.
   
Too much ends up, in one of those three categories and is never redeemed.

But I have also been part of, and witness to, the opposite of this process.
I have seen people move from a settled place of seemingly unflinching, stone-like, anger
into an experience quite different; a place where
   something fairly miraculous is rediscovered.

It too, arrives in the room, or the moment, in an unpredictable fashion.
It comes sometimes by choice and sometimes through revelation.
Sometimes prayed for, or sometimes just hoped for,
         and it comes when something else leaves...

                     When blame exits the room, it leaves the door open for forgiveness to enter.

I am not suggesting that we would pretend that painful wrongs were never committed.
Some acts are so destructive that to ignore them would not only be foolish,
                                                                   it isn't an authentic action toward true healing.
What I am suggesting is that holding onto our anger doesn't bring us power,
                                                                                it makes us a prisoner to our own pain.

Somehow we need to find release, even where a complete restoration is impossible.
I believe that it will seldom come to us by seeking justice.
Almost never by debate.
Our release comes by letting go, rather than trying to grasp hold of something.
Finally... no one else can pry my hand open it has to be my choice.

We do have a model.
It is strong, and bold, and also, quiet and sacred.
It is beyond us and yet available to us by His Spirit.

                                        "For God was in Christ, restoring the world to himself, 
                      no longer counting men’s sins against them but blotting them out..." 
                                                                       (1 Cor.  5:19/The Living Bible)










2 comments:

  1. Perfect and so timely, fits right in with our Bible study on Wednesday! Our group at the table discussed many of those thought provoking ways to let go and let God.

    ReplyDelete