Recently my sister gave me one of her Netflix logins. Unfortunately, because I am a tv/movie junkie and borderline hermit, this has become a huge problem. Case in point: I started watching the first season of "Once Upon a Time" and from the opening credits, I was hooked. 22 episodes. I was obsessed. I watched late into the night. All weekend long. Every spare minute, I was glued to my computer. The show is about a town, Storybrook, where all the fairytale characters live together, in modern times, under the evil queen's curse. But the thing is, they don't remember anything - not the past, not about magic, not even who they really are. They have forgotten their true identity.
I love this show for lots of reasons but the single idea of the forgotten identity has completely wrecked me...because in so many ways, I think its also the curse of our modern world. We go through our days, drinking our morning coffee, heading to our jobs, answering emails and phone calls or driving our trucks or taking care of our kids, we pay bills, we plan for the next calendar event (birthday, wedding, dentist appointment), we watch our sitcoms then fall asleep at night with a nagging sense of something more, some greater meaning or purpose...but its just out of the periphery. We have a fuzzy sense of it but most of the time, it feels just beyond our reach...foggy...surreal. We have moments of clarity when we hear a great message or God interrupts us with something miraculous or wonderful and we're reminded of it when the skies get dark and our hearts get broken by death or loss or general numbness.
I'm not smart enough, or articulate enough, to bring it into focus entirely but I can try and explain what I know in this moment. We were created. We were formed. We were designed. We were dreamed up. By a God capable of creating mountains and oceans and trees and giraffes and sunrises and flowers and snow and horses and stars and Hawaii. And that's the short list. And of all he ever created, only we were made in His own image.
Only we were chosen.
Adopted.
Loved.
Saved.
I struggle with trusting God. I always know he's able to do whatever I'm asking but sometimes I wonder if he's willing. If he's paying attention. If he cares about my small requests or my temporary happiness. And I know in my head that he knows best and his ways are good and his timing is perfect. But that doesn't change anything about how it feels to be stuck in a situation where he doesn't seem to see me or care about my hurt or worry or fear.
I want to have great faith. But I get worn out sometimes from believing and not seeing. From clinging to truth while this world batters me with lies. Sometimes it just gets to be too hard and just like a toddler, I want to just have a complete fit. Sometimes I do. Literally. Sometimes I go into a cave of self-pity and just stay there waiting for a rescue I really don't deserve.
But my God is a God of rescue. He always pursues me. He helps me remember who I am. Whose I am. He helps me remember that if he loved me enough to create me and choose me and adopt me and love me and save me...of course he cares about the details of my life. If he knows the number of hairs on my head, of course he knows about the desires of my heart. Of course he cares. Of course he will move heaven and earth for me. Of course. Of course.
And just like that, even if only for a moment, the curse is broken. I remember.
Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does
for me. Psalm 103:2
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
on hardheartedness
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
I got online today with a blog post in mind: hardheartedness. Imagine my shock when I saw a draft with that title already started...in October. Apparently, this is a lingering condition.
I am naturally a very tenderhearted person. It makes me weak or emotional in some ways but I've always counted it among my better qualities on the whole. I cry with strangers in airports, I ache for lonely people I pass on the street, I long for everyone to feel loved and known and appreciated and I desire to hear God's voice and walk with Him and sense His leading.
But lately, or perhaps not so lately, I've noticed a certain hardness in me and I don't like it. Oh, I might call it by a different name - I'm just crabby or irritable or tired or overwhelmed - or I might chalk it up to a momentary or situational indifference or apathy, but at the heart (pun intended) there is something deeper...darker...harder.
I'm not sure where its coming from either. Loneliness. Frustration. The day-in-day-out of routine and stress and bills and to-do lists. The neverending cycle of alarms going off and exhausted crawling into bed at night feeling like there's so little to show for the day...for my life. Worldliness. Sin. Disobedience. Maybe it's just sadness. I'm homesick for my family. The holidays are over. Working full-time now so every day for the next 40 years looks scarily similar. Rejection. Hopelessness. The loss of loved ones. So many little things (how can these pants not fit and where did those forehead lines come from and I really spent that much last month) and so many big things (will I spend my whole life alone and will anyone ever really know me and still love me and is anything I do in life really going to matter) that somehow attach to me until I feel like I'm encased in concrete. I feel like I'm stuck out in a dust storm...dirty, gritty, dry, brittle, rough...hard.
It is evident in the many things that frustrate me now, in the kindness I'm unwilling to show, the way I shut people out and avoid doing the things that would require feeling, the way I pick and push and nag to start an argument, the way I make excuses and complain and whine, the way I justify my rudeness and antisocial behavior, the way I read an insult or offense into every encounter, the petty annoyance at the perceived flaws of those around me, the way I shut the world out to lose myelf in a movie or tv show, insensitivity to truth or insights that used to fire me up, a lack of desire for spiritual things, a pessimistic outlook and constant assuming the worst, the list goes on and on...
And today, in this moment, I don't know how to fix it.
I am a self-improvement junkie. I like to see a problem and find a solution. I like a checklist, a plan, a to-do list, softening your heart in 3 easy steps. I like the closing statement and the wrap-up summary. I literally googled "how to cure a hard heart" this morning with pen and paper in hand to get this little issue handled and get on with my day. But the thing is, my heart didn't get hard overnight. I can't expect that an online how-to or wiki-article to soften it in an instant. I don't know what to do. But I know where to begin. Lord, help me.
Perhaps recognizing it and being grieved about it and wanting to change it is a good start. And ultimately, I know it can be changed:
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
Today's Jesus Calling chips away a little more:
Softly I announce My presence. Shimmering hues of radiance tap gently at your consciousness, seeking entrance. Though I have all Power in heaven and earth, I am infinitely tender with you. The weaker you are, the more gently I approach you. Let your weakness be a door to My Presence. Whenever you feel inadequate, remember that I am your everpresent Help. Hope in Me, and you will be protected from depression and self-pity. Hope in Me, and you will be protected from depression and self-pity. Hope is like a golden cord connecting you to heaven. The more you cling to this cord, the more I bear the weight of your burdens; thus, you are lightened. Heaviness is not of My kingdom. Cling to hope, and My rays of Light will reach you through darkness.
I don't have any clarity or answers yet, and I still feel the weight of a cold, hard heart...but I know that I'm not alone. I know it is not permanent. I know I want to keep chipping...
-C.S. Lewis
I got online today with a blog post in mind: hardheartedness. Imagine my shock when I saw a draft with that title already started...in October. Apparently, this is a lingering condition.
I am naturally a very tenderhearted person. It makes me weak or emotional in some ways but I've always counted it among my better qualities on the whole. I cry with strangers in airports, I ache for lonely people I pass on the street, I long for everyone to feel loved and known and appreciated and I desire to hear God's voice and walk with Him and sense His leading.
But lately, or perhaps not so lately, I've noticed a certain hardness in me and I don't like it. Oh, I might call it by a different name - I'm just crabby or irritable or tired or overwhelmed - or I might chalk it up to a momentary or situational indifference or apathy, but at the heart (pun intended) there is something deeper...darker...harder.
I'm not sure where its coming from either. Loneliness. Frustration. The day-in-day-out of routine and stress and bills and to-do lists. The neverending cycle of alarms going off and exhausted crawling into bed at night feeling like there's so little to show for the day...for my life. Worldliness. Sin. Disobedience. Maybe it's just sadness. I'm homesick for my family. The holidays are over. Working full-time now so every day for the next 40 years looks scarily similar. Rejection. Hopelessness. The loss of loved ones. So many little things (how can these pants not fit and where did those forehead lines come from and I really spent that much last month) and so many big things (will I spend my whole life alone and will anyone ever really know me and still love me and is anything I do in life really going to matter) that somehow attach to me until I feel like I'm encased in concrete. I feel like I'm stuck out in a dust storm...dirty, gritty, dry, brittle, rough...hard.
It is evident in the many things that frustrate me now, in the kindness I'm unwilling to show, the way I shut people out and avoid doing the things that would require feeling, the way I pick and push and nag to start an argument, the way I make excuses and complain and whine, the way I justify my rudeness and antisocial behavior, the way I read an insult or offense into every encounter, the petty annoyance at the perceived flaws of those around me, the way I shut the world out to lose myelf in a movie or tv show, insensitivity to truth or insights that used to fire me up, a lack of desire for spiritual things, a pessimistic outlook and constant assuming the worst, the list goes on and on...
And today, in this moment, I don't know how to fix it.
I am a self-improvement junkie. I like to see a problem and find a solution. I like a checklist, a plan, a to-do list, softening your heart in 3 easy steps. I like the closing statement and the wrap-up summary. I literally googled "how to cure a hard heart" this morning with pen and paper in hand to get this little issue handled and get on with my day. But the thing is, my heart didn't get hard overnight. I can't expect that an online how-to or wiki-article to soften it in an instant. I don't know what to do. But I know where to begin. Lord, help me.
Perhaps recognizing it and being grieved about it and wanting to change it is a good start. And ultimately, I know it can be changed:
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
Today's Jesus Calling chips away a little more:
Softly I announce My presence. Shimmering hues of radiance tap gently at your consciousness, seeking entrance. Though I have all Power in heaven and earth, I am infinitely tender with you. The weaker you are, the more gently I approach you. Let your weakness be a door to My Presence. Whenever you feel inadequate, remember that I am your everpresent Help. Hope in Me, and you will be protected from depression and self-pity. Hope in Me, and you will be protected from depression and self-pity. Hope is like a golden cord connecting you to heaven. The more you cling to this cord, the more I bear the weight of your burdens; thus, you are lightened. Heaviness is not of My kingdom. Cling to hope, and My rays of Light will reach you through darkness.
I don't have any clarity or answers yet, and I still feel the weight of a cold, hard heart...but I know that I'm not alone. I know it is not permanent. I know I want to keep chipping...
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