The Little Things

Why is forgiveness so hard?

Maybe it’s because hurt penetrates deep inside of us and no matter how forcefully we try, we cannot reshape the past. Words said and actions done cannot be taken back. Ever.

Or maybe it’s because we believe we have a righteous cause to defend, that our anger has meaning, that we have a right to endure this cavernous, coursing hatred for another.

But is hatred ever justified?

We were people who despised Him with every inch of our fibers. Even though we rebelled against a loving, merciful God, committing the worst sin possible, the sin of insurrection and blindness and hostility, God never hated us. Even though we abusively crucified and rejected and spit on and tortured and brutally slaughtered His perfect Son, His gloriously beautiful Gift for us, He loved us.

If God, in His perfect justice, did not justify hatred even when we committed such evil against Him, how can we, in our petty selfishness, justify hatred on our brothers?

But then, how can we shatter our unreasonable hatred and swivel an 180^o and actually demonstrate true love and forgiveness? How can we splinter the strangling chains of anger and hatred and malice? How?

By looking down, by descending from our lofty platforms, our precarious high heels. For we are not better off than the guy next door. Only by God’s grace are we saved, and it is not of our own doing, but of the free gift of God. We all sin and we all need forgiveness. That man who cut us off, or the family member who continually irritates our pride, or the cashier at Target who disfigured our day. If they are brothers and sisters in Christ, then they also have experienced His love, just as we have. We’re on the same platform. But if they’ve never encountered God or His astounding love, then aren’t they to be pitied? Shouldn’t we sense a deep compassion for them, instead of irrational anger?

We also need to remember the times when others forgave us. I can sure recall plenty of times when I have spoken to injure others purposely, accidentally made lives more difficult, or just behaved in all foolishness without thinking. People around me forgave my faults, sympathizing in my humanity and need of Christ. And we need more men and women like that in this world. People who look down and understand that we possess a common goal and purpose, and in perfect honesty, we’re all in this forsaken mess together.

Also, realize the kind of God we have. Micah 7:18-19 states, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” For Christians, God chooses to forget our sins. He does not delight in anger or wreaking vengeance. Instead, His Word promises that He forgives us willingly, and He delights in steadfast love, finding joy in forgiveness and the restoration of love and mending broken hearts into a gloriously intimate relationship with Him. I don’t know about you, but I could break out and dance. Hallelujah. That we have a God who chooses to throw away all the rubbish we have ever said and done. How great is our God!

When I look back now on the things that caused the unbearable anger to bubble over these last few days, I feel incredibly ashamed. Ashamed that my God has done so much for me and I refused to do the little things for people around me. Thanks be to God, who has given me His glorious grace and mercy and love and refuses to let this broken heart of mine go until He makes it wholly perfect and glorious for His glory.

Inner Tears - A Free Verse Poem

Blinded.
That’s what we are sometimes.
Frozen statues gazing coldly down on the already frost-bitten world.
Never seeing,
Never listening,
Never caring.
Our eyes, our ears, and our hearts were designed by God above for a reason.
Not so we can dwell in rapturous ignorance of the tears and wounds and cries of our neighbors.
I don't think Christ would be proud.
Strangers elbow their way past pavement cracks.
Hectic moms and weary workers jolt elbows among the crammed-full grocery aisles.
Actually, cars wedged in traffic contain real people.
Real people.
People with dreams and heartaches and souls.
People designated for a living Hell.
A Hell with eternal pain, eternal agony, eternal torment.
And faces parade before my eyes.
Cloroxed canvas masking broken lives and genuine hearty laughter and soul conversing with soul and eyes that pierce and intensify my every fiber and how one smile can so satisfyingly intertwine two separate identities, knowing that their souls are embedded into mine and how can warmness and acceptance and love all exist in two spherical orbs and I cannot breathe.
I whimper and attempt to cover my eyes like an elfin child and my heart cracks inside.
It has abruptly been awakened.
Awakened by this scene of destruction and devastation, and I cannot visualize any human being with a soul enduring such a soul-wrenching anguish for eternity before tears embark and I feel so overwhelmingly criminal and I can no longer endure the screams inside my head erupting from people I clench so resolutely within me.
And who am I?
Who am I that I have brutally passed them by before without caring, without my heart probing for their every need because we all require help in this forsaken world, and who am I to deny them any help that I could possibly give?
Jesus Christ revealed the way to me.
He opened my eyes, and who am I to perversely turn my head from noticing the blindness of the world around me?
And who am I to fail to offer this gift of eternal water to gasping, parched throats?
May it never be.
And God, I am so sorry for never seeing, never listening, never caring enough to truly know people.
To love them as much as You love them.
And who am I to deny them this luxurious gift of eternal life with You?
Forgive me if someone ever stumbled over my stone-cold heart.
Forgive me for never seeing, never listening, never noticing.
Revive my heart.
God, will You please give me strength?
Will You please help me reach them?
Will You please help me fracture their prison bars and unveil their eyes and shatter the darkness surrounding their life, so they can finally see You in all Your glory?
Oh God, give me strength.
I remember the future of those I love. Of those I clench deep within me, my fingernails digging into another’s skin and flesh and heart because I can hardly let go but I need to shield these beloveds from this darkness within themselves but their eyes remain masked and they cannot see the Way and oh good Lord reigning in heaven above, will You please just look down on this mess of spinning earth? God, how can I help them see? I cannot even bear to see them suffer on earth, and this eternal darkness causes my knees to cave in.
I am overwhelmingly weak.
I cannot determine their future.
Their hearts and minds and very souls remain corrupted with the dirt of this world, and all that I do cannot alter that fact.
But You can.
Oh God, have mercy.
I can only accomplish so much.
But help me do what I can.
Give me Your eyes that I may see people as You see them.
Give me Your ears that I may better hear the cries from every heart.
Give me Your heart that I may love people as You love them.
With a never-ending, never-dying, never-failing love.
Oh Lord, strengthen the work of my hands.

A Simple Message

Hi.

Allow me to cut the formal salutations and get right down to dirt and grime and business. Because this is what this blog is all about. Taking off our unrealistically perfect masks and revealing our true emptiness because we are nothing of ourselves without Christ’s holiness. And I want this blog to be a friendly place without judgment or criticism because all of us stand equally guilty before God and are only here today because of Christ. So let me unscrew this jar of jelly and begin by telling you who I truly am and what this blog is doing floating out in the realm of technology.

First off, I am a born-again Christian with enormous dreams and irrational expectations. Irrational as how pi can never fully end because the string of numbers floats off into infinity and no human can comprehend infiniteness, and neither is it any easier for me to perceive reality. When I was four, I accepted Christ with my mom but did not truly grasp what Christianity meant. I understood that Jesus had sacrificed Himself as a perfect, aromatic offering of ripped flesh and wasted body to God in order to rescue me from an eternal, living hell of existence without God. Later, He had victoriously risen from the dead, conquering the grave and providing a forever, never-ending, never-dying life with Him in heaven for all who accept that lavish gift. Belief wasn’t the issue here. I just couldn’t mentally visualize the concept of surrendering my life to His will and living each day for His glory. Five years later, I started to doubt my salvation, especially when I sinned miserably. I felt shattered under ever present, crushing weight of sin like Atlas stumbling under the leaden burden of the world. A particular sin overcame me again and again, and waves of guilt caused me to choke on my own weakness. But then, I gradually realized that Christians still sin. We aren’t perfect people and we will always fail. But we are not satisfied with failing. We can look to God for forgiveness and realize that although we may trip and tumble down the steep stairs of life, we have a God mightier than our broken selves and that He still loves us despite how we fall time after time again.

I still struggle with my sin. I am far from perfect. My sin still affects me in innumerous areas, like when I squint into the mirror in the morning and feel amazed that I’m still alive. I never feel good enough, which often triggers a self-indulgent depression. I always feel like I’m a failure and seek good grades and achievements to boost my self-esteem, as if trophies and high grades can eliminate my mistakes like bleach removes stains. Because I fail so much spiritually, I want to atone for my mistakes by having a palpable worth to demonstrate that I am a good person, when really I’m not. When really, I am a chaotic, jumbled mess, and I constantly discover that trying to be good enough only reveals the emptiness inside. 

But even though I cannot fathom why, God loves me, and that makes me worth something. That alone fills the cross-shaped hole in my heart. 

I have a Savior who covers up my imperfection with His perfection.

He loves me, even though I sin and fail Him day after day after day. I am viewed as perfect before God because of His Son’s goodness and love and mercy. And that’s all that matters.

I don’t have to be good enough because Jesus has been my good enough.

So this is my blog. A blog where I can come to terms with who I am and collapse on my knees because I am unable and undeserving, and only Jesus can redeem us from our fallen selves.

This is my story. A story of brokenness and tears and sin so bleak it shames me to remember the past. But this is also a story of how Light erupted through the blind darkness and provided dazzling, gloriously real hope. This is a story of Jesus and how we can discover joy in the night and whisper praises when there seems to be nothing to give thanks for because we have a God who will never abandon or forsake us or stop loving us, and even though some days we don’t feel like living, He supplies the strength to carry on.

This is my heart. This is my true self where I can reveal my mistakes and no longer pretend to be a perfect angel because I’m not. Because I am nothing without Christ’s perfection. Without Him, I am only a girl, one more person in the 7 billion faces wandering through this temporary world, endeavoring to find rest, when in reality, there is no rest on this desolate world. The only rest we can obtain is extraterrestrial. 

This is my signpost. I want my life and this blog to be a huge blinking arrow pointing to the One who deserves all praise and glory. I am alive today only by His goodness and His grace and His ever-present hand directing my life. Please realize that I myself am a work-in-progress and fail many, many times. I’m sorry if my writing can seem overly prideful or emotional sometimes. But I am so incredibly thankful that I have a Master Carpenter, who continues to remodel and superglue together this shattered heart of mine, molding me into His likeness everyday, and that makes each day worth living.

To know that we are worth something because of the Savior holding our worthlessness together and who is shaping us into perfection. To know that we don’t have to try to achieve perfection because God sees us as perfect already. 

I truly can’t imagine how He could grant us a sweeter gift than this beautiful, glorious self-identity in Him.

Lord, thank You.