Intentional Love

My heart hurts today.  In the past four days, I have seen anger, bitterness and hatred run rampant.  I have heard words thrown as daggers at those we call friends, but who see the world differently from us.  I have watched as our country begins once more to take sides and wonder how after fighting a Civil War which was bloody and ugly have we come to this place once more as friends turn on one another in the aftermath of tragedy.

My heart goes out to the families who even now sit in hospital rooms with their loved one's, who were injured.  My heart breaks for the families that must make funeral preparations for a life cut short.  But the truth is that these figures are mere names to me.  I know nothing of their story.  I have no idea about what their favorite food was, whether they loved movies or a good book better.  What were their dreams?  What was their most embarrassing moment?  All of the things that make us human are things that I do not know about any of these people that I have read about over the weekend no matter what side with which they were aligned.

After college I visited Washington D.C.  the Vietnam Memorial was one of the "must see" places.  I remember visiting the wall and wanting so badly to experience emotion, but I felt a detached sadness.  I could appreciate the sacrifice of all of the lives represented on its long length, but I had no one represented in the letters carved onto the face of the stone.  It impacted how I experienced something that creates such an emotional experience for some.

Events like those our country has experienced in the past few days is similar to my experience in Washington D.C.  They happen someplace separate of ourselves and they can have the impact of a detached sadness or outrage because of the very same reason, we do not know the stories that go with the names.  This detachment allows us to label those faceless names and masses.  We lose sight of the very real fact that each and every one of them is someones father, brother, mothers, sister, son, daughter or friend.  They each have a story in the same way we have a story.

It takes an intentional attempt to be self-aware to view any of these people as more than faceless names on a paper.  It takes intentional effort to slow down one's reaction enough to act and speak in love rather than expressing anger brought on by our fear at those things out of our control.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

~1 Corinthians 13:13

Paul reminds us in I Corinthians that love does not dishonor, nor is it self-seeking or quick to anger.  Rather it is patient and kind.  It loves and protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres.

The Gospel of John reminds us that God sent His Son out of love, not to condemn humankind, but to offer a means of reconciliation with Him (John 3:16-17).

Reconciliation...  Sounds hard doesn't it?  Reconciling with people who don't see things the same way we do...

Mother Teresa once said, "I have found the paradox, if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love"

What happens if each of us as individuals begin to love unconditionally like that?  What if when we experience hurt we make the intentional decision to love more?

The more I study Scripture the more I become convinced that the lasting power of Jesus ministry is not his miracles.  It is not his dynamic parables or even his resistance to the legalistic model of religion practiced by the Pharisees.

It was the strength of the love he practiced and taught.  

My husband shares a piece of wisdom from his counselor

 "Anger is fear trying to control something". 

I think we see that in full display in moments such as those we experienced as a nation this weekend.

We see it in our own reaction to these events.  It can be a little disheartening...  How are we suppose to deal with the anger that we experience from the varied perspectives that run rampant in the aftermath?  It can be so easy to become fearful and then to watch that quickly morphs into anger as we try to control the opinions of others, who think differently than we do.

There is no fear in love;

but perfect love casts out fear:

because fear has torment.

~1 John 4:15

The only true response to these events is love.  By all means hold your family and friends a little closer, but stretch out your arms to those who see the world differently from you.  The most effective way to defeat the anger that surrounds us is to overcome our fear with love.  When we learn to love people who see the world through a different lens, truly love them without the caveat of "maybe they'll come to see it my way", we embrace the love that Christ emulated for us.

The funny thing in Scripture is that we never really find out whether the woman Jesus saved from being stoned to death really left her life of adultery.  We do not see the full story of those that Jesus cast demons out of, but we seem to just assume that they walked away from their encounter with him changed.  That is the power of the strength of the love He demonstrated.  Even centuries later we feel the love in the pages of their stories and cannot help, but believe that they were forever changed by that encounter. 

So who can you intentionally choose to love this week? 

Today? 

This moment?

Embracing Change

This weekend marked a series of changes in my life.

I have a love-hate relationship with change.

Sometimes I love it because it can be exciting. 

Change can mark exciting new adventures.

Or it can be the result of really painful endings.

This week saw me walk up a set of steps in a building that has held both great joy and nearly unbearable pain.  

It was a building where I met my husband, but also the building where poorly chosen words have resulted in incredible pain that I find myself still battling.

I find myself a little surprised at the bittersweet feelings that came from the last walk up those steps.

You see, the pain is familiar.  

I've just adjusted to it and life without it scares me a little.

The emotions that I experienced exiting that building for the last time surprised me.

I thought I would experience relief, but instead there was sadness and fear.

Sadness that things had not ended differently.

Sadness at ending a chapter of my life.

Even if I have cause to walk through the door of this building again, it will not be the same.

That is where the fear comes in to play.

Change can be scary.

I had learned to cope with the pain, but coping is not the same as healing.

To heal there are moments when we have to let go of what is familiar,

We must let go so that the old life we were comfortable with does not infect the new life that God is calling us to embrace.

At the same time that I was closing this old chapter, a new chapter was opening;

The chapter that screams community.

As one door closed another opened,

This door made me realize that sometimes the old things we hold on to out of comfort actually prevent us from seeing the new life that God is inviting us into.

In having daily contact with this chapter that needed to close I was distracted.

Within an hour of closing that door, I began to change.  

I started to see the community around me differently.

I began to engage differently.

I was no longer torn between the old and the new.

See I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wastelands

Isaiah 43:19 

The reality is that God was doing a new thing in my life, but I was not fully absorbing it.

In the time I had been mourning lost friendships and the change that had felt forced on me, God was providing sources of life and connection all around me.

While Isaiah 43:19 encourages us to look for the new thing that God is doing, just as important for me was verse 18:

Forget the former things;

Do not dwell on the past.

The fear that change brings for me can make me idealize the past.

I can find myself focusing on what I have "lost" to the point I completely miss the exciting new things that God is creating around me.

Some of my exciting new is the discovery that one of my oldest daughter's best friends in daycare was actually the son of someone my husband knew from his childhood.

Another little boy at our new daycare who is close in age to our youngest is the son of one of my brother-in-law's good friends.

All of the sudden connections and community begin to develop within hours of closing a chapter.  

Change can be terrifying, but if we choose to hold sacred the former things we knew 

and to dwell on the past we will completely miss the streams that God is providing in what can seem to our limited perspective to be a wasteland.

But have you ever thought about what happens when you begin to introduce the life-giving source of water to a wasteland?

The opportunity is given for life to begin.

What can look to our past-clouded vision to be a wasteland is to God an empty canvas of endless possibilities, but it requires stepping away from the familiar and embracing the change of the wilderness and the wasteland.

What change is God trying to introduce in your life?

Does is scare you to death?

You're not alone if it does!