Festering

Up until a few weeks ago I thought I didn’t have a problem with forgiveness.

As a rule I am easy going.  My unofficial motto is “It’s all good”.  I don’t take things personally.  I don’t hold things against people.  We don’t need to dwell on the past.  I’m quickly ready to move on and move forward in my relationships.

There have been very few people who have done anything wrong to me and really nothing majorly wrong has been done to me.  Whenever forgiveness has been the topic of a sermon or Bible study I have tuned it out for the most part thinking, “I don’t need to hear this.  I forgive people easily.”

But as it turns out I do have a problem with forgiveness.  It’s only taken me 28 years to realize it, but now that I’ve realized it I see how I have let my unforgiveness fester. 

It’s been little, relatively insignificant things that I’m struggling to forgive.   And it’s primarily one person that I’m having a difficult time forgiving right now.  I keep waiting for this person to change.  To stop hurting me, to stop doing the things that drive me absolutely insane, to stop disrespecting me, to stop making me feel insignificant.

I pent up my anger, my frustration, my pain.

Anne Lamott has said “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”

Yep, that’s about what it feels like.

Up until the moment when I realized I wasn’t forgiving, I thought the situation was due to his flaws.  It’s his fault for acting that way and not changing.  But in reality it’s my fault for not addressing the issue and for holding on to what has hurt me.  He probably does not even know what he is doing is harming and frustrating me to the extent it is.

I’ve been going about the situation in all the wrong ways.  When it comes down to the anger, frustration, and pain I’m feeling it’s ultimately up to me to release them through forgiveness.

Dang.  It seemed so much easier when it was his shortcomings and not my own.  But now at least I feel I have more control in the situation.

My mentor told me I should pray for the people who I am angry with and from whom I am withholding forgiveness.  Seems like a good first step, but it is SO hard to pray for him.   For a week I persistently tried to pray for him but as soon as I started to pray even a simple blessing for him I couldn’t get much more than a couple of words in before my anger and frustration prohibited me from going any further.

So I turned to Anne Lamott’s wisdom (she seems to know a lot about the whole forgiveness thing) and I have been praying one of her favorite prayers: Help me.  Help me.  Help me….

In the very slightest way I feel my clenched fists, my anger, and my frustration starting to release.  It is the tiniest bit of release but it is indeed a step toward restoring this relationship.

Baby steps are all I can take right now and that’s ok.

Doing a Dumb Thing

Today I may have done one of the dumbest things I’ve done in a while.  I planted garlic. 

I’ve never grown garlic before but they say the way to grow garlic in northern climates is to plant it in the fall before the ground is frozen.  You plant the cloves about 6 inches deep in the soil and then cover it with dead leaves or other mulch and let it be over winter.  In the spring you remove the mulch and the garlic will sprout and then the bulbs of garlic can be harvested in the summer.

If this winter in the Midwest is going to be anything like “they” are saying it’s going to be (worse than last year), I’m pretty sure that garlic doesn’t have a chance.  Why did I just put perfectly good cloves of garlic into the soil?  This goes against all common sense and logic.  Put something into soil that is going to freeze very soon, be covered with inches and inches of snow for months, and then expect it will grow and flourish in the spring?  Yeah right.

There is so much going up against the garlic: bugs and worms and other critters that may disturb the garlic over the winter, the soon to be frozen ground, feet of snow, sub-zero temperatures for weeks.  And then there are all the challenges the garlic will face in the spring and summer: making sure no one accidently plants something else where the garlic is before it sprouts, getting the right amount of water and sun, weeds, being harvested at the right time, more bugs and other pests. 

And to top it all off, the garlic has absolutely no control over any of these external factors.  It can only do what it can with the environment it is put in.  Honestly I feel really bad for that poor garlic.

And yet garlic was created to do exactly what good sense would tell us it cannot do.  Garlic was designed to withstand and overcome all of what we think would prevent it from growing and developing beautifully.  It was made for this. 

This may sound weird, but I realized as I was putting the garlic into the soil that I have far more in common with that garlic than I ever would have thought: the immense obstacles, patiently waiting for the right time, not being in control, doing what may seem illogical, needing so much and yet so little to develop.  I was made for this.

I really, really hope this garlic story has a happy ending.  

Hope Like Nothing Else

Today I experienced Church, the capital "C" kind of Church.  I don’t mean the buildings where many people gather on Sundays to worship.  Yes, I did spend time in what people think of when they think of “church”, but we don’t always find the “Church” in these buildings and in these buildings is not the only place where we find the “Church.”

What we should think of when we hear “Church” is the vast and hodgepodge group of people around the world who are followers of Jesus.

Today I saw the Church manifest itself as:

• People who stand up and reach out to support each other when it means getting nothing in return and even if it means giving up so much more than they ever bargained for.
• The men and women who preach Truth.  Those people who help us to remember our salvation and challenge us to discover how to respond with abundant love.
• The children who participate in a different yet just as vital role in the Church.  The young ones who more often than not understand better than adults the grace, love, and surrender God asks of God's people.
• The people who aren’t willing to let their relationship with God decay, who seek out every opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with God, even doing what our culture tells us is not “cool” to do.
• The people who know that Church is not one hour a week, rather they daily and hourly live a life of being available to say “yes” to what God calls them to be and do.
• Groups of people who work together and in the end accomplish far more of God’s will than anyone thought was possible.
• People who are willing to be vulnerable, to share the profound pain and joy of God working in their lives.
• The individuals spending their lives passionately spreading the word about how God’s love is being manifested in our world.
• The leaders who acknowledge they do not have all the answers and are willing to submit to God’s leading.
• People willing to sit in silence, to listen to God, to be honest about what they hear.

I wish more people would think of what I experienced today when they hear the word “Church.”  As a collective group of people we have too often failed to be what God intended God’s people to be.  However, when we are able to push aside all the wreckage of our sin and failure and see glimpses like I saw today, the Church gives me hope like nothing else in this world.

Baggage

Lately I’ve been carrying around what feels like a lot of baggage.  Things weighing on my mind, things I wish I didn’t have to deal with, things that I wish the answers to would just become abundantly clear, trying to figure next steps to take.  Nothing major.  Just the challenges of trying to figure out how to live as a Christian and how to live as an adult (I’m seeing more and more that we are all just trying to make it up as we go along though…no one really knows…which is actually slightly reassuring).

As I packed my suitcases to go to El Salvador a month ago, I hoped that I would be able to leave some of my figurative baggage behind in El Salvador.  I was looking forward to an experience that would help put things in perspective.  I was eager for God to speak through my experiences in El Salvador and through the Salvadorans.  I was praying for a revelation, for things to be made clear.  I wasn’t looking for a audible voice from heaven, but I was hoping some time away from home and work and being among some incredible people would help we sort things out.  Through past trips to El Salvador I have gained clarity and direction in living life.

But as it turned out, I left El Salvador with more questions than I came with, less clarity, and even a little more frustration. 

Really it was foolish to think seven days in a foreign country could help me figure out life. 

The only thing that seems to becoming clearer is that I may never have as much clarity as I would like about most things.  My life will never be mapped out for me, there will always be something else to deal with, and I will always have more questions than answers. 

As a control freak it drives me crazy to not know and not have the answers.  I keep trying to gain knowledge and wisdom and I keep trying to find the answers, but it seems that as soon as I get one situation sorted out there’s something else to discern.

I live in the tension.  Perhaps life will never be settled and will always be unresolved.

But even though it often feels like heavy baggage, what if what seems like the burden of trying to figure life out is actually the proof that life is open-ended?  What if we looked at all these questions and situations to figure out as signs of the freedom we have to answer those questions and act in ways that make us feel alive?   The minute we stop asking questions or the minute we feel like everything is set and figured out is the minute we give up our opportunity to truly live.  

August

For the month of August I’m only going to have one full-time job (rather than a full-time job and a part-time job).  There are some major renovations going on at Feed My Starving Children in Aurora so the site will be closed.  The renovations will create more office space, more volunteers will be able to come, and we’ll be able to pack more food to feed kids around the world (that’s the best reason!).  I was on the brink of tears when I left last week because I will miss my co-workers, the volunteers, and the incredible part I get to play in feeding thousands of children around the world.

But at the same time I’m really looking forward a month with a little more time to do things that I usually don’t have time to do.

• Time to read good books (I’m starting by re-reading Harry Potter)
• Time to cook and eat good food, especially with all the veggies that are coming out of my garden.
• Time to enjoy the summer evenings
• Time to write and reflect
• Time for some extra sleep
• Time to make a campfire in the backyard (and look at the pitiful amount of stars that are visible in the western suburbs of Chicago)
• Time to ride my bike
• Time to be with family and friends 

Basically time to slow down and do the things that leave me feeling refreshed and I'm really, really looking forward to it all.

Here it goes!

Just Walk Away

Often when we think about being a better person or more specifically a better Christian we think about things we have to do better or things we have to do more of.  We are supposed to go to church, pray regularly, give thanks and to praise God, ask for forgiveness, forgive others, give a portion of what we earn back to God, read and study the Bible, tell others about Jesus, serve at church and love and serve people in the community. 

This isn’t an all-inclusive list, but even just thinking about what I have failed to do on this list and what I need to do better on this list leaves me feeling like a failure.  I feel guilty that I don’t do what I know I should.  I want to do better and often I make a conscious effort to do better but it seems like I rarely make any progress.  It’s a vicious cycle of guilt, failure, and feeling unworthy of being called a Christian.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these things and we should do them.  I strongly believe and have often taught others that our faith must result in action.  The Bible tells us “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” James 2:17.  No one with true faith will sit idly.  The action of loving God and our neighbor naturally follow being loved by God and having faith in God.  These actions and practices strengthen our faith and likewise our faith strengthens these practices.

But the truth is these actions were never meant to be a burden.

Through Christ, God has set me free to be the person God intended me to be.  This should create a sense of freedom and joy.  But I am often left with feeling the burden because I am weighed down by things that are not of God. 

In order to do I must first be.  I cannot do what Christ has called me to do if I am not the person Christ has called me to be.

And in order to be the person who God sees me as, I need to let go of all that is not what God intended.  It’s not about doing more.  For me right now the things I need to chip away at are frustration, the anxiety of not being in control, unworthiness, and uncertainty.  They are consuming me.  Yes, it’s a process, but every day I’d like to take at least one tiny step toward walking away from these things.

God has set you free too. Think about what is it that you need to get rid of.  Just shake it off or set it down or cut it out or whatever else you need to do.  You don’t have to hold onto all those things.  You are free to walk away and never look back.