Friday, 01 February 2008

• Heaven Knows.

  [it would be a lie
  to run away.]

  There are these disconnects in my life. One of them keeps being brought to my attention, and I'm at the place now where I can't ignore it anymore. Nearly everyone in my life I have really good relationships with, but as seems to be the case around the world, it's in your own family where the most hardship can come.

  I don't, or didn't, know why there was this disconnect. Why being open and vulnerable and loving was awkward for me, or even if it really wasn't and I was just percieving it as such. God's done such a number on me these past months, really teaching me about loving people and showing me sooo many areas where I've been dumb and careless in how I do that.

  One of the biggest things I've learned about love is that love costs something.

  We really have three ways of demonstrating love.

  1) Our time. 2) Our resources. 3) Our energy.

  What I have learned that if one of these is not be tapped, chances are high that I'm not really loving that person. And this isn't about measuring love, but it is about the fact that love must cost you something. It can be utter joy to pay it, but love requires something of you.

  It's this that makes me think about those people in question, and makes me confront myself on how I actually love them.

  And I was trying to figure out why it would be hard for me to connect with these people, and my Father is kind enough that He gave me a hint, I think. And that is because there are hurts that have never been redemptively touched. I'm not totally certain what all of them are, but I know that issues are formed when something core in me is violated, intentionally or not. And if there is never any release or reconciliation for that, my soul as a self-defense mechanism will harden toward them, so that hurt cannot be propitiated further.

  But neither then, can I receive much of anything from them, good or bad. Or give it.

  I have full confidence in the Father completing the work in me that He has begun, and I know that He will show me where I need to let things go, things that I'm not even aware I'm holding onto.

  God's been teaching me a lot about the heart, and about how we unconsciously interpret our relationships with people and super-impose those impressions onto God. It's a pretty huge thing, one that I'm almost ready to talk about.

  My Father is in the business of making people whole, and that makes me in the business of making people whole. And, happily, in becoming whole myself.

  I'm going to go hang out with my sick friend. It's love is all about what it costs you, however joyful the paying may be.

  I remain your humble servant,
  -Ethan
  

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