It’s only Saturday, and I’ve already had a very interesting weekend. Yesterday was full of activities and, since I was punctual to my appointments and since they were well-coordinated, I managed to be where I said I would be; and the day ended on a very good note – driving up the scenic route with my friend, Jan, from Ormond Beach.
The GPS told us to take a left when we knew we came in from the other direction. But we listened to the GPS and drove north for miles on Beach Road, under over-arching oaks, at a moderate speed, enjoying deeply meaningful conversation. We talked about her life and my life and kids and husbands and jobs; and made proposals to each other about how we might make our situations different. Toward the end of the trip, we both began to quiet down a bit. We were muddling it all through our own minds. I know what she says is true. She has nothing to gain from being honest with me. She only wants to see me flourish the way God intends for us all to flourish. She and I both, know that at some point in this process, we need to ACT; or, accept the lives we now live.
As I approached my house, I had mixed emotions. I used to love coming home after being gone all day. But lately I feel like I have an uninvited guest that cannot or will not leave. That guest has a multi-faceted personality. She is tired, grumpy, hungry and thirsty; she smokes cigarettes and drinks beer (not realizing that those vices make you hungrier and thirstier), and she sleeps a lot during the day. At night she prowls through the house, visiting the refrigerator, looking for something to satisfy the uninvited guest within her. On the other hand, she cleans and gardens and mows the lawn and takes out the trash and sweeps the patio and cooks most of the meals. These are things that I greatly appreciate about her – the real help that she offers. But I can’t pay her in dollars for that work because she will only use it toward her vices and not on improving her circumstances. So, my thinking is that I am giving her a place to sleep and eat and bathe and wash her clothes – the humane things. But am I really being humane? THAT is the question.
This is the first day she will have to greet without a cigarette in her mouth; so it’s hard to tell how she will handle it; or if she will handle it at all. I have seen the desperation welling up for the past few days. She knew this day of reckoning was coming. What she doesn’t understand is that God gives us these lesser challenges to see if we will stand or fall in the face of adversity. If she can conquer this hill; she will surely be conditioning herself to take the mountain. Every man and woman has challenges to meet. I do believe women have a harder time because we were designed to love and nurture and pamper and soothe; so we tend to only see the needy side of personalities. Men don’t have all those hormones clouding their thinking, so they have a little better grip on reality than we do. Men – true Godly men – know when the snares of the devil are being laid before them; and somehow they deal with it much more gracefully than I ever did when I had to “man up” and make a decision I didn’t want to make…which brings me back to my uninvited guest: my multi-faceted guest.
How do I continue to show grace, but steer her toward the crossroad that SHE must face? How do I show love while standing firm on the conditions of her staying here? Should I push her out into the streets to force her to look at her heart; or should I wait on the LORD to do what He wills?
This is what happens when a woman divorces her husband and tries to raise daughters without a father. This is what happens when the daughters have the same conflicts as Cain and Abel and the same trappings of the Prodigal son. This is what happens when her daughters think of themselves as having been emotionally abandoned, for whatever reasons. This is what happens when their mother cannot forgive her own mistakes. And no matter how hard she tries – once the damage is done – she surely cannot get the Genie back in the bottle – that is, without the grace of God… which brings me back to my questions about grace.
In this process of dealing with an unregenerate soul, I am also being forced to look harder at my life – before and after Christ. Was there more Inventory that needed to be taken? Were there unresolved offenses that still needed to be confessed? If I confess them now, will they be forgiven or used against me in some unadulterated blame game? If I confront, will I win or just open yet another door for the evil one to enter in?
In an excerpt from Frederick Buechner this morning, I read:
“To say that God is spirit is to say that life does care, that the life-giving power that life itself comes from is not indifferent as to whether we sink or swim. It wants us to swim. It is to say that whether you call this life-giving power the Spirit of God or Reality or the Life Force or anything else, its most basic characteristic is that it wishes us well – and is at work toward that end… Heaven knows terrible things happen to people in this world. The good die young, and the wicked prosper, and in any one town, anywhere, there is grief enough to freeze the blood. But from deep within whatever the hidden spring is that life wells up from, there wells up into our lives – even at their darkest and maybe especially then – a power to heal, to breathe new life into us. And in this regard, I think, every man is a mystic because every man at one time or another, experiences in the thick of his joy or his pain the power out of the depths of his life to bless him… What matters is that we open ourselves to receive it; that we address it and let ourselves be addressed by it; that we move in the direction that it seeks to move us, the direction of fuller communion with itself and with one another.”
AND, in a second reading from James 4, I read:
“The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously…therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up”
I pray He purifies my heart and guides me in the right direction. I pray that He will give me strength to not be double-minded. For my heart aches with compassion that I cannot show – for a life I cannot save.
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