Beautiful Fall Drive

VSF Church Camping 2012

Awesome foggy sunrise at the farm!

Ann Voskamp - What Every Hard Week Needs to Know

No one knows but you do war every single day with the slanderous voices in your head and you wrestle a bit with the death dark that encroaches around the edges of everything and you’re never the only one: anyone who gets up has to push back the dark.

I’m standing there in front of the mirror.

Standing there, looking right into me and the abyss of the mess of me that I’ll never get all right. And it comes down to this: Christianity is the only hope for this broken world because there’s no other way for the broken to get the Nails they need to rebuild.

That’s what this week needs, that’s all this week needs most:

More than needing schedules and productivity, this week will need a Savior and prayer. God’s not asking me to produce– He’s asking me to pray. God’s not asking me to climb ladders — He’s asking me to kneel and let go. Right there at the mirror, right at the beginning, the week begins to unfurl in slow, in hope.

And that’s what I whisper into the mirror:

His grace will be more than just sufficient — His grace is guaranteed to actually save. Time, me, the week, all redeemed and miracles happen in mirrors and to people we know. When we know Christ, we always know how things are going to go — always for our good and always for His glory. The sun flashes blaze in the mirror.

The week has this written all over it: God only allows pain if He’s allowing something new to be born.

a holy experience Ann Voskamp 

I love how she says this. My struggle with darkness is a normal struggle; one that each of us faces every day.

Harvest Celebration

Each year, we at Valley Springs Fellowship come together to celebrate God’s work in our lives over the past year. Over the years, these services have been both enjoyable and/or provoking for me.  

This year’s Harvest Celebration service has been fast approaching and I have been trying to ready my heart. I’ve wondered over the past couple of weeks what it means for me to not only physically show up but to also wholly participate?

At times my biggest struggle with church has been in just showing up and I have not even asked the question of my participation. The truth is, I can be physically present and not actually be a participant. In fact, I have become rather good at shutting my heart down. I know that I can come to church Sunday, talk with friends, sing, pray, give money & even take communion without ever opening my heart up to worship God.  

But don’t I have much to celebrate?

Each year we are instructed to not come empty-handed, but for me there is a deeper longing to not come empty-hearted. I want my singing, my reading scripture, etc.; to become a reflection of my heart. Perhaps simply starting with the act of offering something can become the path to Him. Perhaps, the posture of bended knee and hands raised opens my heart to greater things.

Because I do have much to celebrate!

This year has been a hard one. I have come to understand how I use abandonment in my friendships in order to control relationship. It has always allowed me to justify my anger at friends and to protect myself from feeling little or any responsibility for distance in our relationships. When relationships have felt too hard or I have felt inept, I flee.

It has been hard for me to choose not to flee; to stay in relationship, especially when I feel conflict. It has been hard to see the value of these choices when it leaves me with such angst. Staying has opened my eyes to how I manage relationship. It has made me realize how much relationship scares me. I feel so inept. I am so inept. We all are inept.

It has also made me grateful that God is not this way with me. 

I have come to see that God’s faithfulness is GREAT!

So this year I am coming to our Harvest Celebration service because I know I really do want to be there despite anything I might be “feeling” to the contrary. I will be singing, reading scripture and participating, knowing that each choice brings with it a painful dying to self. But, there is also an awakening joy and a growing hunger & thirst for him.

(One Thirst by Jeremy Riddle so describes what I feel at the moment about Harvest Celebration.)

Gazing

The truly saved have eyes of faith and lips of thanks. Faith is in the gaze of the soul...

Who can split open the eyelids but Jesus? He tears the veil to the Holy of Holies, gives me the only seeing I have. I have been lost and now I am found and I sing it softly, before the flying of the flocks south: "Be thou my vision, Oh Lord of my heart..."

one thousand gifts, Ann Voskamp 

Life is a Beach

There is an old phrase, "Life is a Beach" which obviously refers to the sand and sunshine associated with going to the beach. I experienced a rather different beach this weekend on my visit to South Haven, Michigan.

It was a gray sky that greeted me as I headed into town for the evening. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed out to the pier hoping to beat the incoming storm. The wind was already blowing pretty hard as the sun was going down. The waves were coming in and crashing up against the side of the pier. The wind was blowing sand into the air; it was stinging my cheeks and filling my ears.

But there was such beauty in the brewing storm, it drew me out onto the pier for about 30 minutes as the sun set. The power of the waves, the play of limited light in the clouds; all beautiful to me.

There is a lighthouse at the end of the South Haven pier, a point of safety for boats coming into the harbor. I realized later that you don't really need a lighthouse without the darkness or the storm. I wondered if it isn't like that for us. If our days were all sand and sunshine we would never have to look for the light.

So when it seems that the sands of this life are stinging my face and the waves are crashing up against me, I can be reminded to look up for the light so that I can find safe passage through the storm.

"Life is a Beach" but the beach isn't always calm.

Remembering Back to 1999

We are starting a Harvest series in church tomorrow where we are being asked to remember events that have spiritually shaped us over the years. I know in fact, that the single most significant event for me occurred at the beginning of 1999.

To begin with, I looked at my stack of sermon cassette tapes and I found two sermons on brokenness for May of that year. But if I remembered correctly it was a sermon on sin that had challenged my thinking. So I pulled out my journals and began piecing together 1999.  

I didn't remember at all that this sermon was a part of the Revelation series our church did in first half of 1999. In fact it was a sermon on Revelation 3:14-22.

To the Church in Laodicea (NIV)   

"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:  These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. 

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

I found a date and notes written in my old NIV Bible showing the sermon to be on Revelation 3:14-22. I wrote in the margin: We use circumstances as excuses not to look at our sin / DISCONNECTED FROM GOD. That fit!

I knew that there were circumstances in my life that I was using as an excuse to protect myself from further pain. These circumstances were keeping me at a distance from God and from others. I was so torn up internally after this sermon and although in the weeks following I would confess this to a couple of friends, it would take most of the year to walk through the incredible internal pain I felt to some sense of freedom.

When you have a life changing experience like this, it is easy to claim it as an completed event. In fact, those circumstances no longer haunt or control me, but I wonder what circumstances I am using today as an excuse for my sinful relational choices. What is keeping me disconnected from God & disconnected from others? I think these are questions worth pondering again.

I did listen to the sermons on Brokenness as well. We don't talk as much about brokenness and sin any more. We talk more about God's goodness flowing out of us despite our sinfulness.

It was good for me at least to revisit this topic. To hear again that brokenness is the letting go of things we cling to for life. What am I clinging to for life? How am I denying, justifying and blaming others? How am I using self-hatred to keep from looking at my sin?

In the 1999 sermon, Kent said, "It is at the point of where God backs us into a corner, and shame in inevitable, that finally God creates a space in our soul so that His life can flow out of us…"

I still don't go there very quietly. I tend to kick and scream the whole way. Perhaps that is the only way that I can see my anger and demand for God to make life work for me the way I think it should work. There is so little peace in the process of brokenness. Perhaps that is why we are actually willing to be broken, because in  finally giving in we find the peace, joy and endurance we so desperately need to survive.

Deep down I really do long for God to create a space in my soul so that His life can flow out of me.

All I Need

All I Need

Tell me will I ever catch a break
Cause the storms roll on and where I am, it does not feel safe
I don't know what I should even pray
But here I am, here my hands are raised

The rain keeps falling down
As the waters flood this town
On my knees I'll be found
All I need, all I need is You

Show me once again that you are real
Oh this wounded heart let it start to feel
You told me love would always be enough
And here I am, my hands lifted up

Wash my eyes to see you
Wash the stains away
Give me faith to trust you
'Cause you're the rising day

The Rhett Walker Band

I just bought this album to listen to at work and I am really enjoying it; he has a great southern country rock sound. If you listen to Christian Radio you are probably more familiar with their song When Mercy Found Me, but I chose the song Make Me New to play below.

Rhett has a great redemptive story that can be read on the band's website.



Make Me New Lyrics

I see the morning sun; I hear another train roll by
Here's just another day, I have to make it through alive
I just can't take no more, 'cause I feel lost and blind
For I am desperate Lord, don't pass me by

Oh, now's the time to stand up and feel alive
Oh, your strength runs through me
Oh Lord, yea, you make me new
You make me new

Look at this restless soul, another broken hearted man
Content in loneliness, living in a place that I can't stand
I just can't take no more, I feel lost and blind
For I am desperate Lord, don't pass me by

A Painful Widening

    If God is a self-bestowing God, then his gift is liable to engage us. If he is active, then, in prayer, provided we stay around, he is liable to act.
    Night: if God is beyond us, his approach is also liable to leave us feeling out of our depth. When the divine engages us more deeply, our minds and feelings will have less to take hold of, accustomed as they are to controlling the agenda, to meeting God on their terms and in portions they can handle. A deeper gift will feel like no gift at all. His 'loving inflow' is 'hidden'; it is night.
    If anything is felt it will probably be our own selfishness and narrowness (wood crackling and twisting as the fire makes progress). When God approaches as who he is, I am liable to feel myself for what I am. As a physical sign of growth is growing pains, so a sign of God's gift is the pain of being widened. This is the blessedness of night, that God, who wants to give, undertakes to make space in us for his gift.
    That, then, is the terminology: contemplation: a loving inflow of God; night; his love felt as pain.
    ...So global statements are being made. Night assures us: that there is somewhere to go; that only God can take us there; that he does intend to take us there; that he takes us there in darkness; and that darkness must be lived in faith.

The Impact of God, Iain Matthew

I have felt few words to describe what I have been feeling internally lately. I found myself exhaling upon reading the words above, followed by a desperate plea for it to be true. What is God up to in the darkness that feels so overwhelming to me these days? What is He making space for? Do I believe He intends to take me somewhere in it... if I 'stay around'? I hope so, I hope it is true, that He is at work in the darkness. I want to flee but I also want to know what will happen if I stay.

Losin'

Feels Like I've Been Losin - Tenth Avenue North

I can't believe what she said, I can't believe what he did
Oh, don’t they know it’s wrong, Don’t they know it’s wrong
Well maybe there’s something I missed
But how could they treat me like this
It’s wearing out my heart, The way they disregard

This is love or this is hate… We all have a choice to make

Oh, Father wont You forgive them
They don’t know what they’ve been doin' (oh no)
Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin'

Well it’s only the dead that can live, But still I wrestle with this
To lose the pain that’s mine, Seventy times seven times
Cause Lord it doesn’t feel right, For me to turn a blind eye
Though I guess it’s not that much
When I think of what You’ve done.

This is love or this is hate… We gotta a choice to make

Oh Father won't You forgive them
They don’t know what they’ve been doin’ (oh no)
Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin’

Why do we think that our hate’s gonna break a hard heart
We’re rippin arms over wars that don’t need to be fought
Cause pride wont let us lay our weapons on the ground
We build our bridges up but it’s just to burn them down
We think our pain is own apologies and get them to stop
Well truth be told it doesn’t matter if their sorry or not
Cause freedom comes when we surrender to the sound
Of Your mercy and Your grace, Father, send Your angels down

Oh Father wont you forgive them
They don’t know what they’ve been doin’
Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin’, I feel like I’ve been losing

Oh Father wont you forgive them
They don’t know what they’ve been doin’
Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin’, I feel like I’ve been losing

Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them, Cause I feel like the one losin’

Pretty Much

H.W.J.L. (How Would Jesus Love)

Back in February the Fox Chicago News reported a story about the St. Charles Borromeo Convent in Stone Park, Illinois. The sisters of the convent were quite upset over the fact that a strip club was being built right next door to their convent. They had spent much of their time ministering to the neighborhood children and found the addition of a strip club to the area a huge problem in the making.

Over the past couple of months I have heard this story repeated on the radio and each time I was struck more and more by the reaction of the nuns. I wondered if they ever thought about the people who decide to work in a strip club. The lost souls selling a very private part of themselves in order to make a living. The lost souls who come to strip clubs looking to fill the void in their hearts.

The strip club owner says he's soundproofed the building and directed the bright lights away from the convent so the nuns won't be bothered. But the sisters said they will continue to fight the club on moral grounds. "It's against my Christian, religious principles. I cannot support something that's counter to my values," said Sister Marissonia Daltoe. "They could build [the fence] taller than the Berlin Wall... but still, it's there." - Fox Chicago News

Isn't reaching out to the lost a part of why they became nuns? What if they chose to love these people instead of angrily oppose them? What if they had kind words of hope for these desperate people? My guess is that the owner of this club might even start looking to build somewhere else.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be too quick in judging the sisters of the convent. I would likely respond in a similar fashion. In fact, it makes me wonder how many times I am judgmental of others who irritate me or how many times I respond in a self-righteous manner to those who are blocking the comfortableness of my life. In those moments I am often missing the opportunity to offer love, a kind word, hope to someone desperately in need of it?

How would Jesus' love look differently toward the new strip club neighbors, the drug addicts, and the bullying boss? How should my love of others look more like his?

Great Movie: Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key is the story of the arrest and deportation of a Jewish family living in Paris back in 1942. It is set in the present day with flashback scenes of past events. As a  journalist begins writing a story on the anniversary of the Vél’ d’hiv’ Round-up she begins to uncover secrets in her own family that connect her to a Jewish family who were deported. It is a moving story about the broken pieces of the past, family secrets, and how only truth can mend and heal.

The greatest mass-arrest of Jews ever carried out on French soil is known as the Vél’ d’hiv’ Round-up. It involved 13 000 victims from Paris and its suburbs. Over slightly more than two days, the Round-up involved nearly a third of the 42,000 Jews deported to death camps in Poland in 1942.The statistics for this terrible year account for over half of the total 76,000 Jewish deportations from France."

On July 16, 2002, upon the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Vél’ d’hiv Round-up, Annette Wieviorka noted in an interview with the daily newspaper Libération: “Apart from an indirect mention in Mauriac’s Cahiers noirs (who was not an eye-witness), there is no known written personal account by a non-Jew. The press of the Résistance, particularly Jewish communists, reported the event. But people didn’t see it. They weren’t aware of what was happening. There’s not a single photo. No amateur films. Nothing. It’s an event that took place without leaving a visible trace today. For a long time, there was one photo of the Vél’ d’hiv’ that was shown everywhere. One day, Serge Klarsfeld took a close look at it and realized that it was actually a picture of collaborators interned after the war. Finally, he found one single photo showing some buses at the Vél’ d’hiv’. That’s it.”

http://www.massviolence.org/the-vel-d-hiv-round-up

Beauty in the oddest place

Even a dying dandelion can be a thing of beauty. This little weed caught my attention in passing. I had to go back and take a photo.

Jesus came for ALL sinners!

A good reminder of why Jesus came to the earth. Not just for me who is definitely a sinner, but for all sinners. Give me eyes to see others the way Jesus sees them.

Clarity

You could write a song about some kind of emotional problem you are having, but it would not be a good song, in my eyes, until it went through a period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity. Without that moment of clarity to contribute to the song, it's just complaining. - Joni Mitchell

There is something worth pondering in this quote. I often get lost in the complaining and totally miss the moment of clarity. Faith, trust, quiet patience with open eyes.... struggles and pain offer us a deeper part of the song.

Saturday Morning Cloud

On my way out of Warsaw on Saturday morning I saw this amazing "mountain-looking" cloud filling the western sky. It was so amazingly huge I had to stop the car and take a couple of photos. By the time I passed through Etna Green  I had already driven through it.

 

Last Minute Birthday Reflections

As I look back over my day today, I can see that this was really a different kind of birthday for me than in the years past. There was a sense of rest and peace to my day, instead of my normal path of dread and struggle.

As I approached my birthday celebration with friends tonight, there was just a tiny amount of awkwardness that felt more to do with being the center of attention than with any internal desire to flee. It was a wondrous surprise to me that I was feeling so free in it.

This felt odd to me because I have been feeling such a rawness over life these past couple of months. It isn't that the rawness of life was gone tonight; it was just that I felt rest in the presence of these friends who know me so well. It allowed me to feel the rawness and still enjoy being there. I feel so grateful.

Every year at my birthday party I am asked for reflections or thoughts on the last year. As it gets closer to my birthday I always feel this scramble to pull my thoughts together, to have a script of sorts to share. I was really surprised today that I didn't feel any need to scramble... It felt completely okay for me to be raw and disoriented; to just share what came to my mind. I found that this freedom allowed me to be more present tonight. This feels like such a good thing for me and for my friends as well.

What a wonderful evening of great food, great friends (such energy), and the freedom of letting myself be loved. I have such overly-generous and overly-gracious friends. I am truly one blessed St. Patrick's Day baby!

Alive!

I really like the line "the lamb of God who rolled away the stone in front of every grave." What beautiful imagery!

The Beauty of Spring

This amazingly beautiful little green flower showed up in the flowerbed among the daffodils. I do believe spring has finally sprung. The beauty of nature has such easy way of softening my heart.

'Merely Carried" vs. "Carried by God"

....To let oneself be carried 'by God' is not to run from the loneliness but to let it disclose a deeper basis for togetherness: not a honeymoon basis, a golden wedding basis.

    We spoke of Thérèse of Lisieux. For her, this togetherness meant a silver thread of naked trust, with the absolute minimum of feed-back. Poems which she composed during her months of inner darkness gave no hint of the seeming godlessness of it all. Explaining the brightness of her verses, she said, 'I sing what I will to believe.' To go forward on that basis was for her to let herself be, not merely 'carried', but carried by God.

          The Impact of God, Iain Matthew

I am most often concerned with being 'carried by others' and less often concerned with being 'carried by God'. It seems that God is wanting to show me how little I really trust him, to let my loneliness draw me to him, to not settle for being merely carried anymore but to be in search of that golden wedding togetherness. It sounds so pleasant as I write this, but I am fairly sure this type of learning is not going to be that easy.

A Small Glimmer of Resurrection

It has been a long week for me. A week of restlessness, wrestling lies, and wanting to flee all relationship. I wasn’t planning on attending the Ash Wednesday service at church this week. It wasn’t that I was dreading going or wanting to avoid going, I really just had no desire to go, I felt nothing in it. But even then I found myself praying to God about why there was no desire, why I felt nothing. It was, I think, something good to be asking him.

In the end I decided to go to church on Wednesday. Mostly it was because I knew I would have to answer to God if I didn’t go. It felt like choosing not to go would have been in direct disobedience to him. I’m not sure I have ever felt the “fear of the Lord” at that level before.

For the first time I knew the truth… I knew that I was feeling like relationships were too hard. I wanted to flee. Internally I was on high alert. I was RESTLESS. I was aware of the lies as they formed in my head. And without the lies I had nothing, nothing to base my blame on others. I felt caught. The pain was overwhelming; I didn’t know what to say to my friends as I sat there with them. I mean, how do you say over soup, “I’ve failed so miserably to love you” or more honestly, “I don’t want to be here with you, it’s too hard.”

I have felt on the edge of brokenness for days now, but have been unable to make it happen on my own. I have wanted someone to come and selfishly take my pain away, This seems like a funny path to brokenness, but it has been that same selfish desire to be out of the pain that has led me to deeply wonder if God isn’t temporarily keeping friends away so I will turn to him first. So that when I am finally able to confess these things to others, my heart will be able to really hear the pain I have caused them. Only then I will find true brokenness and resurrection.

Ash Wednesday—a call to repent. It could be an interesting 40 days. I wonder if I am being called to a vast wilderness in order to see my sin more clearly. I wonder if I am being called to give up the idea that my friends often abandon me; to ultimately see how I abandon them. My eyes are being opened to see that all the lies I have believed about my friends are really true of my own heart.

Dana put out on his blog a quote about Confession’s Path to Humility which kindled a spark that was already growing in my heart. Exposure is a hard thing and this path is quite the humbling process.

God have mercy—great mercy.

But even now I can see a small glimmer of the resurrection that is coming, a seed of hope has been planted. How different will the Easter season be for me this year?

Building Deep Trust in a Twilight Zone

“There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves-our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives-large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness. This is a very good thing. We will always remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can. The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That's a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility, but to a deep trust in those who love us. It is the twilight zones of our hearts where true friendships are born.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

Someone recently challenged me to write unedited for 5 minutes on the word trust. I wrote (in part): "Trust is the belief that someone has your best interest at heart. With that (at least humanly) often comes disappointment. I’m not sure why but Humility seems attached, perhaps because it takes a working relationship between two people to have trust and we fail each other so miserably. But over time we come to look past the failures to the heart of our closest friends, knowing the heart of a person toward you instills trust in them."

It is interesting to me that Nouwen mentions humility as well, but he uses it in connection with grace. I see now that it requires a tolerance of each other's humanness. But Nouwen doesn't simply leave it there, he says that humility and grace LEAD to a deep trust in those who love us. 

The building of trust in relationship has been and still is a struggle for me. I find it hard to assume friendship, to believe I am wanted, to move freely in relationships. However, I will say I do it better than I did 25 years ago... and even better than I did 5 years ago. I feel forever grateful to my friends who have been willing to enter into my "Twilight Zones" over the years, who have offered me grace when I know I didn't deserve it.

Humility continues to wash over me these days as God is allowing some previously hidden parts of me come into the light. It is hard to see the truth in my choices, it is humbling to say the least. Humbling because I know I will make the same relational choices again. I know that I will hear the same lies in my head, will twist the truth again, but my eyes are now able to see it clearly. Repentance is hard but refreshing.

My hope is that 5 years from now I can say that I did it better, that I trusted others better and moved more freely. My hope is that my eyes will stay open long enough to see others that I will stop fleeing long enough to love better.

The Greatness of Our God

Give me eyes to see more of who You are
May what I behold, still my anxious heart.
Take what I have known and break it all apart
For You my God, are greater still.

No sky contains, no doubt restrains,
All You are, the greatness of our God.
I spend my life to know, and I'm far from close
To all You are, the greatness of our God.

Give me grace to see beyond this moment here.
To believe that there is nothing left to fear.
That You alone are high above it all.
For You my God, are greater still.

Great words from Hillsong: God is about taking "what I have known" and breaking it "all apart". I stand on the edge of what feels like yet another layer being ripped away. I am mixed with awe that he wants to do yet more ripping and revealing. I feel an almost excited anticipation and also a bit of trembling, wanting it despite knowing there will be a cost. "Give me grace to see beyond this moment here."

Seeing Fear Accurately

"For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,  but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day."  - II Timothy 1:6-12

Fear feels so powerful that it sometimes can even stop us from moving, but that fear is not from God. These verses are a good reminder of that God has a bigger picture in mind and that I can find security in the knowledge of his plan for me. Sounds much easier than it is....

The Right Questions?

Why do we tend to return to old wounds? I find myself again and again returning to the familiar pain associated with abandonment. I am not referring to the pain of my father's absence but rather the sense that all people will eventually abandon me.

The questions that rise up within me are ones of personal reflection or introspection: "Why do I go back there? How does going back into those painful wounds work for me?  Why would I want to feel abandoned? 

This past week I began re-reading a book by Donald Miller called To Own A Dragon.  I came across this section, a section that really stuck with me. So much so that I have been unable to move on into the rest of the book.

“Here is the real truth I am stammering toward. John MacMurray isn’t my father. My boss isn’t my father. The cop on the street isn’t my father. My father split and that stinks, and none of these guys are going to replace him. And what that means is that they are not responsible to tell me I am a man. Any love or affirmation they give is a gift, but holding them responsible for the insult my father cast down is inappropriate. The wound I have isn’t there because of them.” - Donald Miller, To Own A Dragon

It isn't that this section of the book is a exact reflection of my story. My father did leave and that did stink. Yes, it harmed me and it has made me look to others to father me. All that is true, but those things aren't what spoke out to me. What the passage did was make me wonder if the questions I have been asking recently [above] were the right questions for me to be asking.

I have placed my friendships in a place they don't belong. I have made friends responsible for carrying parts of my soul that they aren't supposed to be carrying. And when they have failed to father me, I have assumed that they have abandoned me. 

Don said, "The wound I have isn't there because of them." So, the questions I should be asking are: what happens between me and a friend when I start believing they have abandoned me? How does this path harm relationship? How does it cause separation? How does it take away my responsibility in our friendship? Who is really abandoning who? Is it really me abandoning them?

Which then ultimately leads me to begin asking how this translates to my relationship with God? Father, please help me find the right questions. Have mercy on me when I can't seem to turn my eyes away from my own pain and wounds!