Compassion and Mercy Can be ashes of Sacrifice

My one constant prayer during this journey is, “Jesus, help me see Truth in all this.” That is a big prayer. I guess I didn’t say which truth, did I. In His infinite grace and faithfulness, He uncovered truth in my marriage, and to my surprise…truth in me.

I truly want to understand where my enemy weeps. Perhaps that will help me understand why the “enemy” chooses to wound.

Will that change his character?

No.

Will it change my decision?

No.

My understanding and planting seeds of compassion and mercy doesn’t change my enemy; however it does change me.

Whatever happened to compassion and mercy in the church? Oh we have plenty for the world, but what of it amongst ourselves? When does the “Pharisee” malignancy start? Perhaps it is a form of religious dementia. We forget where we came from and the pit He pulled us out of.

Most pastoral counseling I received on this journey has been “Be submitted and obedient. God blesses these.” The other very annoying counsel was, “Sometimes marriage is just a sacrifice.” I sacrificed and died to my flesh more times than I can count. Did it change my marriage? I’m not real sure. I know it changed me. I know that one day, if God wills, I remarry, I will be a much better wife and life partner because I’ve learned from this.

Marriage is a road riddled with sacrifice – kind of like a well-traveled highway. Some sacrifices are small and barely noticeable in the matrimonial pavement; like giving a kind word instead of a snide remark, or ignoring a criticism knowing your spouse is under stress. Other sacrifices are potholes so big we lose ourselves, like in an affair, financial infidelity, or abandonment.

No matter how big or small, all sacrifices have one thing in common. Something has to die. By bonfire or a knife in the heart, death is the main ingredient.

The Pharisee vs The Child

I’ve been a Pharisee more times than I care to count. I’m embarrassed to view myself this way, but I must in order to give all legalism within me its walking papers. Let’s look at the comparison of a child of God - meaning one that has that childlike joy of the Love of God - to the all-knowing, all-seeing, oh-so-perfect Pharisee.

The Pharisee - Sees the Word as a manual of instructions
The Child - Sees the Word as love letters
The Pharisee - Sees God as a bookkeeper of wrongs
The Child - Sees God as a loving parent who overlooks childlike mistakes
The Pharisee - Demands sacrifice and obedience
The Child - Delights in mercy
The Pharisee - Uses fear of displeasing God as a means of manipulation
The Child - Doesn’t understand how you can displease a loving Father
The Pharisee - Blames, accuses and uses guilt and points fingers
The Child - Points the finger into the heavens and delights at what he or she finds
The Pharisee - Has a consummate gift of noticing the speck in another’s eye
The Child – Helps the other person bath the eye until the speck is removed
The Pharisee - Believes keeping the law earns God’s love
The Child - Believes being loved by God helps motivate one to keep the law
The Pharisee – Pursues a lifestyle that minimizes mistakes
The Child - Makes mistakes and learns from them
The Pharisee – Surrenders control of their soul to rules
The Child - Surrenders control of their soul to Jesus
The Pharisee – Has a fascination with honor and power
The Child - Doesn’t care
The Pharisee – Emphasizes personal effort and achievement
The Child - Emphasizes exuberant joy at God’s love
The Pharisee – Edits feelings and makes stereotyped responses to life’s situations
The Child - Is aware of his or her feelings and loves to express them
The Pharisee - Represses emotions
The Child - Is spontaneous with emotions
The Pharisee – Loves labels
The Child - Can’t read them
The Pharisee – Dominates people and situations to increase prestige, influence, and reputation
The Child - Accepts people out of sheer delight of who they are
The Pharisee – Seeks to master God
The Child - Wants to be mastered by God
*Paraphrased from Abba’s Child By Brennan Manning.
**Just my random thoughts

For years, I’ve been dominated and mastered by Pharisees in the church. They counseled me to be submitted and obedient and God would bless me. This is true; however there are times when submission to the Lord is more important than submission to a perceived mandate (i.e. the institution of marriage is more important than the individual). I always thought these leaders knew better because they had the mantle/title of pastor or leader. They were merely a Pharisee in hiding.

I feel like I’ve been untangling a large knotted ball of twine the last few years. It is exhausting to figure out which way the knot goes and which way to pull it out - Am I in sin, am I not? Is the sin of divorce worse than the sin of lying or stealing? Will God still love and bless me as a divorced woman because I was the initiator of the horrible deed?

It is like a monumental sifting process.

I’ve forgotten how to be a child of God. I’ve been a Pharisee looking in the mirror.

The "C" Word

My new friend, the childlike part of me, had a serious jolt today by that dreaded word “Cancer” invading my safe place. The mother that brought me forth, gave me life, nurtured, cuddled, and kissed away ouchies has bladder cancer. What a horrible word. It is treatable, thank the Lord, but it is scary nonetheless and makes me realize how fragile these gifts, parents, are to us.

The newly-found child within me wanted to run from these new shadows imprinted on my walls. Not now, Lord. Not now when I so desperately need her nurturing, cuddles, and to kiss away my new ouchies.

As I helped her with her catheters and showering I was seized by shifting circumstances. Just 40+ years ago she was doing much the same for me (minus the catheter). Being this intimate with my mother brings such a vulnerability to our relationship. There is a sweet sadness to it, if that makes sense.

I am catapulted back to my insecurities as a little one in this house. Fear of abandonment was a big thing with me. Don’t know why, really. My mom was a stay-at-home mom while dad was a hero fighting fires. I remember having nightmares of my mom leaving me in a car in a parking lot and having large statues (one looked remarkably like the Statue of Liberty) fall on the car. It was a recurring dream and I’ve never discovered its significance. I always attributed it to the usual childhood fears.

That same fear whispered in my ear today - abandonment. Just when I need my mom most. Am I really this narcissistic? My mother is battling cancer and I’m worried about being abandoned. The adult in me knows that she has a 70% chance of beating this…a good odd in today’s cancer percentages. But the child in me sees her locking me in the car, walking away, and statues falling in slow motion.

I was hoping to connect with the Dana-child that danced endlessly and sang at the top of her voice putting on shows for anyone willing to sit in the same room. Not this Dana-child. I wanted to find the Dana-child that was completely soaked in her emotions, giving in to them at will. Not the teen-adult Dana that was told her feelings and perceptions about abuse were wrong and sick.

In Brennan Manning’s book, Abba’s Child (is anyone tired of me quoting this new favorite toy?) said, “To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. The Son of Man did not scorn or reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive emotional antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.”

What a concept!! To actually stop an abuser in their assault before any damage is done. To tell a husband early on that stealing is wrong and lying is an abomination to a marriage. To stomp one’s adult-foot and say “Get out” if sin is a continual threat to the family.

If I had grasped this 35+ years ago until now I wonder how different I’d be.

I wonder where I’d be.

I read somewhere that if a brook did not have rocks in it the water would lose its song.

I guess that just means that this child within and the adult without have a lot of singing to do!

Visiting Haunted Places

In the middle of this pilgrimage, I find myself in my childhood home to care for my mother after surgery. Soon the worry of her health and the logistics of appointments recede and I am sitting in my room as a different person than the woman that left to go on her honeymoon. Oh it isn’t the last time I found myself in her home; but it is the last time since I was stepping out to a new beginning.

Here I am again. Only this time instead of hope, excitement, and dreams of white picket fences, I’m scared, lonely, and wondering if I’m going to spend the rest of my life crammed into two rooms.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I am often haunted by the proverbial “What If’s” that all us humans wrestle with. What if I’d taken that job and moved? What if I’d said ‘yes’ my first love? What if I hadn’t married my husband? You know the ones. Those deep, thought-provoking questions that do nothing but haunt us like the shadows on the walls during the night when we were children. There is no real harm in them per say except the images that spring to mind and wrap us in a vice-like grip keep us from drifting to sleep…or keep us from moving forward in life.

I sat with my daughter tonight looking through old photo albums when I was her age. Ahh, now there is a part of the young woman I misplaced. Except this one had a few secret pains as well, but there was more of the little girl present back then. Now, the little girl is a shadow-thought. Kind of like the shadows on the wall of my room as a child.

It is so like the Lord to bring me here during this season. God is good and even has a sense of humor! I’ve caught glimpses of the shadow-child on the walls just before I sleep. The difference between then and now is that I’m not afraid of them. I welcome them.