"The narrow way is fits and starts. It's running and walking and sometimes waiting. It's mountains and valleys and darkness and light. It's not being able to see the nose on our own faces and then things suddenly opening up into a magnificent vista. It's sometimes hard, but adventures usually are. It's not efficient; it's a conversation. You're more likely to go three miles an hour than seventy. You may feel alone but you're not. God is there. And look around you: a great cloud of witnesses."- Slow Church pg 52
"One of the great paradoxes of the gospel is that we find supreme joy indirectly as we go through the fire, are ground up and poured out for each other. This process of giving ourselves up for one another is at the very heart of the way of Jesus." - Slow Church page 57
"When we reject the opportunity to forgive or ask for forgiveness, the relationship suffers. When we choose to practice true forgiveness, the relationship is not just brought back to where it was before the offense; it actually moves farther down the road to maturity." - Relationships, A Mess worth Making
I have been reading these past two months, more than I have read since I was in college. It has been a growing experience for me. How I missed snuggling with a book to explore the inner workings of minds devoted to God and pouring forth His revelations onto pages... I delight in reading.
And music! Oh, the music of this house is incredible!! Many very talented musicians reside with me now :) or I reside with them...
Reading and music
My spirit is growing and healing and soaring, I am so grateful.
However, I have also been challenged. I have been challenged because for the first time since I met Caleb, I have been focusing on my own heart issues instead of simply trying to rescue him (which should have never been my obsession, and is a large example of one of my root issues).
I love to paint the picture of myself as saintly wife, faithful and long suffering... However, my tendency toward being "holier-than-thou" has been a sin God has brought to my attention many times over the course of my life... And still, I fall into it...
The darkness and depth of my own sin is just as dark and deep and disgusting as Caleb's addictions! What a terrible reality that was to come by, in all of my sainting of myself, I was getting worse and worse!
I still have a long way to go, you can ask my sister if you don't believe me, but God has been gracious enough to reveal the many and varied places that I am missing The Way.
It starts with confession and repentance.
So here is my confession:
I've lost that "loving feeling," and I don't want to forgive Caleb...
Remember that post when I wanted to bring him home for the holidays? I think the biggest reason was, I had time to take a realistic look at our relationship and admit, we don't have one...
I wanted to bring him home to try to salvage some of that "in love" that I could always talk myself into when he was around... I didn't want to lose it. I am a dreamer, a romantic, and I finally had to admit the relationship I was hoping to manufacture by brining him home was simply a dream, no reality exists in finding that comfortable denial and pretending I can feel what I can't feel.
He was home for two days and I enjoyed our time. I enjoyed the love of the children. But there is still a brokenness and I don't FEEL love.
However, here is the hope of it: God didn't design human love to be a simple feeling.
Love is an action.
Caleb was patient, kind, and humble when he was here.
I like to believe I was too.
So, we are still operating in love... I'm just not feeling it...
Here is my sin.
I struggle with discontentment now that the feeling and dream have faded!
My prayers are being answered, a miracle is happening in our family, and I, like a selfish Israelite, wallow in self-pity over the loss of a feeling... A feeling that I never actually had any power to stop or start... And a dream that was not based in truth...
I am grieving the loss of my chains. Pray for me.
You see, this had to happen.
I always had a sinful relationship with Caleb because I put him before God. I looked to him to provide me with my deepest desire in this whole world, a desire I put ahead of everything else: Acceptance... In "Relationships, A mess worth making," Lane and Tripp say that acceptance can be a blessing, it is something we need in this life and it is a gift from God. "But (it) become(s) sinful when we allow (it) to move from a blessing to something that replaces the One who blesses."
My adoration and devotion have slowly been turning to God, as He patiently shapes my understanding and sets me free... and in the process, my worship of acceptance has fallen away and I have learned to more fully love God.
I have learned how God accepts me and calls me beloved. I have learned and am learning more each day to rest in His acceptance. So I don't need Caleb's acceptance anymore... That is as it should be. But, now, I no longer understand my relationship with Caleb! Crazy, right?!
He existed for me as a person who would accept me. Sometimes, I saw him as the only one. In this new understanding, I no longer need that and I don't know how to define the strangeness that has brought to our relationship!! I mean, yes, there are other variables working in this too, distance, broken trust, etc... But those have all been there before... For a long time...
Now, God is going to have to grow in me a true love for Caleb as my husband! And that is a strange and odd thing to admit.
My other confession ties into all of thee above:
I don't want to forgive Caleb.
Now that I no longer NEED him to fulfill my sinful lust for acceptance, I am getting mad at him more than I used to, and he is doing the right thing!! I don't like where my heart is!!
Confession is important though, right?
I am working my way throught the "relationships: a mess worth making" book, and as I read about forgiveness, I realize, I have just always Thought I forgave... But deep down, I still harbor bitterness...
AND when it said, forgiveness cancels the debt and "you make a conscious choice to absorb the cost yourself," my breath caught in my throat... Meaning, not dwelling on it and playing it over and over in my mind, not talking about it with others, not... Gasp... Blogging about it...
It is a way to try to make him pay for what he did, and it has changed me for the worse!!
So, my only resolutions for 2015 are to give these sins to God and actively work toward love and forgiveness. I know it will be hard work, but I am not afraid of hard work.
My first action was in admitting them, confessing to all of you who have journeyed with us and read my blogs, I am sorry for dragging you into the dark sludge of my bitterness!
I repent, I am sorry.
Thanks be to God for His mercy and forgiveness!!
Please pray with me that as the old, sinful relationship I had with Caleb continues to be put to death in the fire... Something new and beautiful will have time to form.
Beauty from ashes.
Amen.
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