I’ve hit many walls in my life. Some hurt more than others. Some surprised me and shook my ability to trust. Some made me feel isolated. Some left lifelong scars that I hid for as long as I could. And others- well… I hit them all over again. This week, I’ve been the energizer bunny- running full steam ahead; only to crash, retreat, erase it from memory, and start the process all over again yielding the same consequences. These walls, for me, are the hardest of all.
I can appreciate the way God teaches me lessons. Now- He would tell you, that I’m the slowest and most stubborn person when it comes to listening to His cues of refinement, but, in turn, He would also admit that I am usually grateful after I give up on the fight. And I am. I like a world that makes linear sense. You make a mistake, there are consequences. Sin always has consequences, and they are easily the scariest consequences to untangle. At the root of the mess that has been made… all fingers are pointing towards you. It’s a lot of weight to carry around. Believe me- I carried my cross for a long time before I knew Jesus, and even still, because I don’t understand His grace…there are days I try to pick it back up. I try to pick it back up because I know that I deserve the splinters it causes and the sores it rubs raw… because I know that in a linear world that it makes sense for me to be punished, because even on the days I feel closest to my Father in Heaven… I STILL ask Him the question: “How can someone as good as You, love someone as horrible as me?” I don’t care how many sermons on love, faith, trust, grace, mercy, and selflessness I hear…. It. Just. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.
There are a lot of things that don’t necessarily make sense to me. Take my parents, for instance. It doesn’t make sense that my parents are still madly in love with each other. My logic tells me: people make mistakes [lots of mistakes]- the longer you spend with the person, the more mistakes you witness them make- the more mistakes you witness them make, the less you like them and want to be around them- the less you like them the more you want to run away forever and ever- if you run away forever and ever your marriage is over and, as a result, you are alone and miserable. Unfortunately, that chain of events happens to a lot of marriages in our culture. My parents are the exception to this rule. I’ve seen some of the mistakes each have made in their lives, and they are more in love today than they were 25 years ago. It. Just. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.
So where does this leave me? I’m someone who tries to make sense of things that are discombobulated. I put puzzle pieces in their correct spot, I put band aides on my nephews’ elbows when they jump from insanely high inanimate objects, and I play double intense super solitaire [when I’m feeling extra crazy]. It’s the curse of Eve… to want to put things back together… to make them “right” again. And lately, this curse has been a wall that I can’t keep myself from running into. It’s a wall God keeps placing in my wake to expose me for exactly what I am… a person incapable of fixing herself.
Yep. Suzy-Fix-it, deadbolt-self-installer-self-described-bad-a, chick-doesn’t-need-a-man-to-do-a-darn-thing… is incapable of fixing herself. So why do I spend so much of my energy trying convince the world [and myself] that I’m so strong? Well, for one, I like to see who has the balls to call my bluff. My parents for instance, call me out on those shenanigans as quick as you could cook a bag of Uncle Ben’s instant rice. My best friends do the same thing, [though, admittedly, more bluntly and more difficult for me to absorb]. And my Father in Heaven- well, He makes a point to tell me that I’m “full of it” [he doesn’t say the bad word] every single day. The truth I always expect them to reveal to me is: you’re lonely, you’re broken, you’re suffering through self inflicted guilt, you’re ugly, It’s not about you, you’re on your own. Instead, they tell me: You have community, you are filled, you have been redeemed, you have a beauty that should be recognized by others, you love the Lord and know it’s about Him, you’re supported. It. Just. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.
This unfortunately doesn’t have an ending with superlatives and intricate prose to show you the answer to my conundrum. I wish it did, but I can’t stop running into this wall to figure it out. I know the answer is GRACE, but a word is just a compilation of letters without an origin or understood weighted meaning. Truthfully, though I could define it, and emphasize its weight, I still don’t understand it. I don’t understand how it could make me beautiful in a man’s eyes, or how it has glued the hearts of my parents together for so many years, but most of all… I don’t understand how it could make a man carry a cross, up a hill, bleeding and gasping from exhaustion, to some accounts-intestines dragging across the path He walked, crying from pain beyond anyone’s understanding, in constant prayer-not for Himself-but for those cursing Him and slowly killing Him, enduring the nails piercing His veins and bones and cartilage, hanging on a tree for the remainder of His human life-not for Himself- but for mankind. So… preach away pastors, and biblical scholars, and those with a gift of a beautiful and naïve childlike faith…. I’m thankful that you “get” it. But for me… I’m thankful for the gift of grace, I’m beyond speechless that a love exists that would endure through every circumstance; I do my best to “accept” it…. But- It. Just. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.
So for now… this energizer bunny will keep going and going and going… probably until I sit at the foot of my Father. Only then will it make sense to this ugly and undeserving heart like mine. But until then, I should start expecting a lot of bruises….
-Kami
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