Real

This is real.

It is 10pm and Elijah is in his crib crying again.  This began at 7:30 when I first started the process of putting him to bed.

Brooks got home late tonight after a long day at work.  We had already eaten as timing is everything with a ten month old.  His soup and grilled cheese were cold on the stove.  Mine were half eaten at still sitting on the dining room table waiting for me to get a moment to clean them up.

After an hour and a half of trying to put him down, including a crying session in his crib (him not me... yet), I scooped him up, put him in the car, drove to Seneca and back.  He was perfectly asleep in the car but when I put him in his crib, crying again.  By this time, Brooks is in the bedroom trying to sleep himself.  Our house is small and the likelihood that he has achieved sleep is slim.

Now it is 10:40 and the baby is still crying.  I may not be far behind.

This is real.

This is also real.  The Lord and Maker of the universe knew me and loved me before the foundation of the world.  He also knew this night and how He would use its events to stretch me out, spread me thin, and show me what I am made of.  What comes up from my heart are not good... but He is.

(Written six years ago but never published.  It is still true to shows in different ways.  That crying baby is now a huge six year old who sleeps well but can be quick to back talk, roll his eyes, and storm off over not getting his way.  I am still being stretched thin at times but the Lord and Maker of the universe is still good and still faithful to complete the good work that He began in me.)

Running on Ice

I think I have written and re-written this post about five times since this summer, never having the guts to actually publish it.  Here is the latest and final version.  It is different than what I normally post but hopefully truthful and real. (I actually wrote this many years ago and just found it as an unpublished draft.  I went ahead and published it as no one reads blogs anymore anyway and it is for me to remember and think through these things again. God give me grace to love others through disappointment.)

I read this on facebook today... "It's a sad, sobering thought to realize that in order to love the people who are in your life, you also have to accept that you can't avoid having your heartbroken either. Sometimes people that you love get sick. Or they die. Or they change and then make decisions that hurt and disappoint you. Or they move away and you lose touch. Or they simply move on and find others to love. There's a great risk in loving someone...there's also a great miracle, too, because you decided to 

love them anyway. ♥

A few minutes later, I read this on a blog written by someone I know who struggles with loneliness and sadness that she feels she is often not included in the community she see around her...

This summer's By Faith magazine has an article titled "If Grace is Received, It Must Be Given".  I read it a couple of months ago and have been stewing it around in my brain (and hopefully my heart) since.  The writer, Robert Petterson, discusses how vertical grace (undeserved favor from God towards us) should direct horizontal grace as we interact with others... "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

What does this have to do with the Little Old Lady who was ugly to my sweet five month old in the pool this morning?

Petterson begins by pointing out five truths summarizing God's grace to us as interpreted from the Bible:

1-  There's not a single molecule of my being that is not corrupted by sin.  Before His grace apprehended me, I was dead in my sins: I had eyes that could not see, ears that could not hear, and a heart that could not feel apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.  Since I have been redeemed I must still say with the prophet Isaiah that even my "righteousness is like filthy rags" next to God's holiness.  No matter how sanctified I become, I will end my life says what Paul said at the end of his days: "I am the chief of sinners."

2-  God has chosen to love me unconditionally.  He doesn't love me for what I am, or what He foresees I might be.  Nor will He ever reject me for what I am not.  As Paul writes in the first lines of his letter to the Ephesians, He loves me for no other reason than it gives Him pleasure and brings Him glory.

3-  He loves me specifically.  He loves me uniquely, just as I am, the total package with all its weaknesses, eccentricities, and quirky behavior.  He wrote my name in the Lamb's Book of Life before He every spangled the night skies with a single star.  He died for me specifically, not just for a nameless, faceless mass of humanity.  He called me to Himself by name.  The fact that He loves me like this exhilarates and humbles me at the same time.

4-  His love for me is irresistible.  I wasn't dragged kicking and screaming without a choice in the matter. When the Holy Spirit opened my eyes, I wanted to run into the arms of Jesus.  IN the words of John, I loved Him because "he first loved me."  Forty-five years after He found me I find His gracious love more irresistible than ever.

5-  His love will persevere to the end.  Jesus said, "No one can pluck my sheep from my hands."  Paul put it another way: "Those he justified, he will glorify."  I know what "he who began a good work in me will carry it on to the day of completion."  If today I have the most sinful day of my life, I can know that when I put my head on my pillow tonight, He will not love me any less than He did this morning.  And if I have the best day of my life, He will not love me any more.

Yes, these are the dreaded "Five Points of Calvinsim".  But yes, these are the sweet summary of God's pursuing, never-stopping love for me.

I say I believe these yet clouds of anger and the desire to get even followed me out of the Rec Center today.

Petterson says that if you believe these five things, than you also must love others with the same five points... including the LOL...

1-  You won't be shocked, disappointed, disillusioned, or angry when others mess up.  You will accept them for who they are: sinners, like you, desperately in need of God's grace and your love.

2-  As a result, you will have no other choice but to love them unconditionally.  You won't love them for who they are, what they do for you, or what you hope they might become.  You won't reject them if they don't measure up.

3-  You will love them with specific grace.  It is easy to love all Christians in a general way.  It is quite another thing to love specific people for what they specifically are, in spite of their particular weaknesses, eccentricities, and shortcomings.

4-  Your love will demonstrate irresistible grace.  Such unconditional love will draw them irresistibly to you, and then irresistibly to the Christ who has filled you with such irresistibly love.  It will have an irresistible force drawing others who witness this love to the same Christ.

5-  And this grace turned horizontal will persevere to the end.  It will never forsake or abandon its commitments or covenants.  It won't run from those who frustrate, reject those to irritate, or wall off those that disappoint.  In the words of Paul to the Corinthians, this love "...always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres..."  In short, it never fails.

This is an intimidating post as many people who may read it have seen multiple ways I have not extended grace to those around me.  Multiple ways.

In light of this, it is very sweet to say that the first five points ARE true (and I promise I am not trying to make a Calvinist out of anyone who reads this.)  There is hope for a repeat offender.

To borrow a line from a song, horizontal grace is a lot like running on ice.  You only get somewhere when you fall.  In light of my failure, the sweetness of God's love for me shows itself to be even sweeter, and deeper, and mightier, and very full of underserved favor.  Much different than the way I wanted to treat the Little Old Lady who was so ugly to me and my son at the pool this morning.  In the end, her offense to me was much smaller than my offense to her.

May the Lord continually be pointing me back to Him and His faithfulness to me on the cross.  May He give me much grace as I continue to learn, stumbling, stumbling, how to show His grace to those around me.  May he teach me to forgive someone who has forgotten what it is like to have a small child. May He forgive me for the evil eye I shot her several times on the way to the family changing room and the terrible things I wanted to say to her.  May He teach me to treat her with kindness and even love next time I see her at the gym.

May I also learn to not try to bring a baby to a time slot called "adult swim".  I really should have known better...