I had a good day today. It occurred to me about seven o’clock tonight that God did not give me the spirit of rejection, he gave me His Spirit. The Spirit of power and love and of a sound mind. I may have spent most of the first 27 years of my life feeling entirely rejected and alone. I may have spent part of the last three that way, but I do not have to live that way anymore. I do not think there is a snap-my-fingers solution. I think it will continue to be a gradual process, but I can keep learning how to be in communion with fellow believers. I am no orphan anymore.
Allowing these feelings of rejection and isolation to control me is one of the ways I live my life in insanity. This week’s step study lesson is on insanity versus sanity. I have a long list of insane things I no longer do. There are some that I still do.
I think of all the things that I have struggled with externally. Things that would make many people shun me for admitting. I still think my greatest sin has been a sin of the heart. Selfishness. I have been selfish in absolutely absurd ways. I definitely used to have a heart of stone. I had so many rules and so much legalism and a heart that was stone cold. I don’t anymore.
I was finishing my laundry tonight. It was a lovely evening, in which I pretended the world did not exist and ignored all texting and beeping noises. As I finished, I had a weird thought. I thought, “I am feeling tenderhearted tonight.” It was weird because I have never used that phrase outside of reading it in the Bible! What I meant was, I am feeling vulnerable, but I was also feeling loved and open to remaining vulnerable. Generally, if I feel vulnerable, I feel scared. I used to feel naked and exposed. I know I was for all practical intents alone and none of my triggers were anywhere near, but it was nice to be able to think of all of them and remain tenderhearted if only for a short time.
Today I had my first class of an eight week course in Christian leadership. It is not going to be boring. When I read the first readings for it a few days ago, I realized reading all this information is going to make me feel a bit insecure sometimes and change me. It will probably change me a lot. I need to be changed a lot.
I have not been to my school since early May. It was so odd to take my time walking home and realize the radically different person God has transformed me into in the last five months. It was also odd to realize what a different person I am in class. I love Jesus. He is my everything. So gracious when I have been so cold. He didn’t decide to pass my hurting, angry, contemptuous heart by. He called me to follow Him instead. I cannot wait to confess the sins that have been weighing on me over the last couple days. I just cannot decide who to trust. They are after all unfathomable even to me. I am so glad God changes hearts and is way more unfathomably loving than sin is despicable.
I get to think a lot about forgiveness this week. Since I have come to an understanding that forgiving someone does not mean I will no longer have pain when I think of them, I have had a much more loving heart. When relationships break, I want to feel like a knife was put in my heart. Because relationships were broken, my Savior suffocated. May I never feel apathy again. May my heart become ever more tender for what made my God bleed. May I experience pain, as He did, so I can love this world as He did. May I never be callous ever again. May I never get used to seeing sin. May my heart bleed while I do not judge, but choose to love like He did.
PS: Oh my God! I just started reading my blog from January. Then I was looking at recovery as not having to experience pain someday on earth! Now I look at it as being able to experience pain! How much these 12 steps and accepting hardship as the pathway to peace will do for a person!!!
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat.h When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”
Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”
“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.
Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silveri to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”
Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”
“That’s right,” Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.
“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.” – Luke 7:35-48 NLT