some days

Sometimes I suck at all this relational stuff. 

 

As much as I want to be a people person, as much as I've always been one, some days I just strike out.  You know what I mean?  There are days when I've been the best friend that I can be to someone only to find that it's not enough or that it's too little too late, or that in spite of all my best intentions, I've not been able to meet a deep-seated need of friends who I care much about. 

 

And so I hurt.  And I probably pout, too, though I won't necessarily admit it.  (I try to teach my nine-year-old not to pout, you see.  So I shouldn't.  Right.) 

 

When I was in the CLB, the "apostle" once was talking about when people leave the church, and they simply said "people leave, you move on, you don't let it affect you."  I was taken back by those words, because to me, it devalues the relationship you had with that person.  And having watched them as people did leave them, I saw very little grieving on their part from lost friendships.  (To be fair, maybe they hid their pain.)  But most of the time, any pain was deflected to condemning those who had left their "fold"; any regret that was expressed was over the time that they had "poured into" that person.

 

Then when it was our time to leave, though I had requested no contact from them, there was a part of me that wondered, "Do they even miss us?"  And my sarcastic inner voice would reply, "yeah, probably all the hard work you gave them over all these years." 

 

Why do I bring this up?  Because when I'm having a hard relational day, week, month, there is a part of me that wants to say, "I'll just write them off.  I don't have to chase after them.  Let that person think what they will."  Somewhere I think I picked up some bad theology of friendship/relationship.  (I think I know where I got it…reading above again…)  BUT the love of God, the little voice of grace that lives in my heart, speaks to me and refuses to let me do this.  I can't shut people off, I can't turn away from them even internally, just because they don't believe in me or because I've failed somewhere and they have suffered the consequences of my life, or because it's just so hard to love them. 

 

Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 5:14:  "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died."  This gives me hope, because there is some thing that Paul is saying here that's hidden.  He's saying that it's Christ's love that compels him…not his own goodness or his own love or own kindness that he uses, but love that has been place in him by the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

 

So when I have these days where I suck at relationships, I can rely on the Holy Spirit to love them for me through me.  Christ have mercy.

present with the Lord

This week I was asked to do a funeral for a baby who died at six months in the womb.  The mom had to deliver the baby, so they decided to bury the child and honor his memory and the place he had in their hearts.  It was one of the hardest funerals to do.  Understandably, there were a lot of tears and sadness. 

 

But this was different than other tears at a funeral.  It wasn't tears of loss of the place this little person had in their lives (except of course the immediate family), but it was more of the loss of what could have been.  It was the loss of the future person that this child would have become.  Would he have been good at school or sports or mischievous?   What would he have become as an adult?  Where would he have gone to college and who would he have married?   

 

As the family grapples with the fact that this little one is not going to live out his life in their family, they also look toward a future where they will see him once again and spend eternity with him.  King David said, "He cannot come to me, but I will go to him." 

 

We have a promise in Christ that eternity will be a large place of fellowship and support and love.  "I go to prepare a place for you…in my father's house, there are many rooms…If I go away to prepare a place for you, will I not come back to take you to where I am?"

 

What does all that look like in reality?  I used to be taught in Bible College that everything could be known about what heaven and eternity will be like.  We "knew" practically all that would happen in the "end times."  But in recent months and years, I've become a little lax on the dogmatic-ness of those beliefs.  Good as I think the scholastic work they're based upon is, I think part of life and death is living in and with the mystery that "truth be told" we really don't know what it will be like "on the other side." 

 

Paul said that when we die we're "present with the Lord."  I think that's enough.  I think that's the point.  Whether our visions of heaven, or hell, or tribulation and rapture, are correct or not, the heart of the matter is what we do in our relationships here, will determine our relationships there.  Our heart connection with God here will survive even death. 

 

Paul also reminded us that the same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us.  Wow.  That's a lot of power, but yet we do not see it.  How come?  I don't have all the answers, in fact today I feel as though I have very few.  But knowing that the power of God dwells with his people makes it a little more bearable to face reality of life and death.  Just knowing that the end is not the end, but just the beginning of being "present with the Lord" whatever that may look like.