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30 July 2006
Surgery
I can’t believe this has only been two days. It feels like it has been weeks. Every ancient wound of mine is reopened. The emotional impact of this was like a time bomb. It waited until now to go off. I can only assume that this is by God’s mercy.
First, all the Kennedy School wounds. Her friend, J, while trapped in Beirut, attacked all the things that I defend, attacked my brothers and sisters in arms, even as they were coming in to get her. Surely she was under emotional stress, but this cut to the bone. Two years of being spat on for my calling creates some pretty deep ruts in one’s soul. Even worse, though, is her denial of anything simple in my world. I live for simple things. I will die for simple things, like love. Like honor. To destroy that idea is to tear away all my innocence in a very cynical world. I still choose to love her. I would still die for her.
And then C’s email. It caught me with no defenses, with my guard down. Well, not entirely. And I thank God for that. First, I would pray ‘I will not fear anything that comes out of these gates’ before reading my email during this recent story. I am certainly glad I prayed that Friday. Second, I was in accountability with several friends throughout and about the story. The parts of the attack intended to make me feel ashamed and alone were rebuked by that fellowship. That I was not a freak. That I was not alone. That I was not without honor. That I was not worthless. That I was not all the things my Adversary wanted to tell me I was on that day.
On that day, every ancient wound was open. Every high schooler who called me a freak, every affection that was seen as an insult, every part of my heart that was seen with disgust, every time I felt alone, every time I was told that I did not fit in, every denial of my personhood, every single piece of hatred the enemy had spoken to me in the course of 27 years of life, she reopened each of those all at once. And it could only have been her to do it. Someone whose heart I trusted regardless of our state of relations. Someone who had been through the same things. Someone who was my sister. Someone against whom I would not have had my layered defenses activated. I feel so naked. And this may be the point.
I thank my friends for their support through this. But all I can do is go to the cross, and tell Jesus, ‘Daddy, hold me…’ I do not know what else to say. I have nothing else to say. This is all of me, all here at once, with no defenses, no arguments, nothing to keep me safe except Him. So perhaps this is surgery. Perhaps this is how He reopens all the pain I have been hiding, been compensating for, been rationalizing. So it is all His, all this pain, all of these things I have no answer for. May He do something beautiful with something that just looks tremendously bloody to me. It wouldn’t be the first time, I suppose.
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses..."
"Catch your breath hit the wall
scream out loud as you start to crawl
back in Your cage the only place
where they will leave you alone
'cause the weak will Seek the weaker until they've broken them could you get it back again
Would it be the same
fulfillment to their lack of strength At your expense
left you with no defense they tore it down
and i have Felt the same as you,
I've felt the same as you, I've felt the same
Locked inside the only place
where you feel sheltered where you feel safe
You lost yourself in your search to find
something else to hide behind
The fearful always preyed upon your confidence
Did they see the consequence when they pushed you around
The arrogant build kingdoms made of the different ones
Breaking them 'til they've become
just another crown
Refuse to feel, Anything at all
refuse to slip, Refuse to Fall
can't be weak, Can't stand still you
watch your back, 'Cause no one will
you don't know why they had to go This far
traded your worth for these scars
for your only Company
don't believe the lies that they told to you
Not one word was true
you're alright, You're alright,
You're alright"
- "Simon," Lifehouse.
18:40 Posted in Faith | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Vengeance
‘Lord, draw me in deeper to You. Whatever is left behind when I am drawn in, whatever desires are not in accordance with Your will, burn them away in your cleansing fire. If my desire for her is not in accordance with Your will, please release me of it. If my desire for her is in Your will, please give me the strength to bear it.’
Oswald Chambers speaks of praying that God would take vengeance on those parts of us not in accordance with Him, so that we would be free to follow Him. Those parts of ourselves, the fear, the hatred, the resentment, the pain, those are the parts that hurt others. In them the Fall is contained and continued. I think I’m starting to understand the desire for vengeance in the Psalms, the pleas to God that He would turn loose His wrath on the psalmist’s enemies.
The deep wells of brokenness from which she conjured her hatred, I pray wholeheartedly for vengeance upon those. I pray with all my heart that God would pour out His wrath on the parts of her which hurt me. I pray fire upon her walls, her minefields, her systems of defenses so meticulously constructed to keep everyone away from her brokenness. But here is the difference. I do not pray this because I love her less. I pray this because I want to see her healed. I pray this because God loves her more, and He is jealous of all of her heart. And here is the New Testament revision to the Psalms of Vengeance: that she may be healed. That once God destroys her defenses, once He renders her deep places of brokenness open and vulnerable, that He may pour out His Spirit to heal her heart. That He could make her whole. And here also is the difference between this world’s justice and God’s justice. The justice of this world merely seeks to balance brokenness. God’s justice seeks to conquer brokenness to draw all men to Himself. No matter what happens, no matter if there is against all hope some miracle, she is first and always God’s. I pray that He may have her whole heart.
I am instituting some mental disciplines on this thing. There are a number of stock prayers I want to use to rebuke the enemy and re-focus on God in the midst of this thing.
- cf prayer [Change 5 Mod 0.] (Whenever she comes to mind, used to refocus on God.):
’Break her heart and change mine, Jesus.’
- temptation prayer [Change 1 Mod 0.] (Whenever the enemy offers me a counterfeit of God’s promises.):
‘Im not going to run.’
- keep walking prayer [Change 1 Mod 0.] (Whenever God calls me to keep moving forward.):
‘Im not afraid anymore.’
The only way the water bears your weight is if you keep your eyes fixed on its Creator.
18:35 Posted in Faith | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Fairytales
At one point, she told me I had her mistaken with some character in a book. This point is addressed in the response email. But there were two stories she forgot.
The first is Vader/Luke. The circle is now complete. The girl who was once called ‘a white girl with a tan,’ has said the same to another. The same way that her identity was targeted and destroyed, she has now done that to another. And the Fall has been passed from her to another. But it stops here. I give this to God. She does not define my identity. She cannot destroy it. I will not spend years trying to disprove someone in my past who will not remember my name. I am God’s and His alone. He made me, He defines me. So then she is Vader. Not entirely complimentary, but remember that Vader ends up being redeemed. (I am not questioning her salvation, but these deep reservoirs of pain within her. ) Remember, though, that against all hope, Luke always believes that there is good in Vader, that he can be redeemed. And he ends up being right. God can heal her deep pain. I believe that with all my heart. And my prayers are fervently for that.
The second story is similar. Theoden/Gandalf. Saruman’s wrath through Theoden is expressed most fiercely at Gandalf when he comes to set Theoden free. He offers Gandalf peace if he would just leave. He attacks fiercely when Gandalf tries to set his prisoner free. My Adversary keeps parts of her heart enslaved by this deep pain. He hates my prayers that she would be free of them, that God would break her heart and send His healing spirit over the pain she bears. But I am an adopted brother of the Lion of Judah. I will not be afraid. And my prayers will remain strong.
As for the accusation that I don’t know anything about her, I would ask why, then I was able to at points take her breath away, at points bring water to her eyes, and at points say words so significant that she would write them down even as I was speaking them. I was not speaking my own words there. I pray that I am not now.
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29 July 2006
Desire
NOTE: This is where this whole story started, two and a half months ago.
So the deep theological insight. It will sound totally obvious, but it is revolutionary for me. God is not offended by our desires. We should tell Him the desires of our heart, and He will either meet them, or will change our desires into what He wants them to be, if we submit those desires to Him through obedience and communication. When I wanted [one kind of aircraft], I totally wanted them. I prayed at length about them. Yet over time, I found talking to God that I started wanting [another kind] more, felt led there and ultimately thats what I ended up wanting, and thats what He gave me and blessed. It wasnt that I asked once, He said no, so I abandoned all hope and waited for something to come along that He would say yes to. Not that at all: I actively pursued [the first kind], expressed that desire to God, but was willing to obey, and would not take matters into my own hands (ie make Ishmael.) So He kenw more about what I really wanted than I did, and He showed that to me over time. Its like the old saying 'you cant drive a parked car.' I didnt go zero to 60 back to zero and then back to 60 on desire. I desired passionately, and pursued passionately, and God directed my pursuit (changed the vector not the amount) toward what He had for me, as long as I 1) continued to communicate my desires to Him, and 2) did not try to go outside of His will to meet my desire, kept obeying. And remembering the parable of the widow, God will not get annoyed if I keep asking 10 zillion times, as long as I am willing to obey His answer. And I can ask again. At some point, either He says yes, or He changes my heart into something that wants what He wants for me. Crazy thought, that our desires are not offenisve to God. Even more so, if we try to convince ourselves to change our desires by ignoring them, we leave ourselves open to attack. The enemy knows where we are lying to ourselves, and will exploit it. He will provide us corrp[ut means to satisfy those desires, which will blindside us, as we are pretending those desires dont exist. The only way around this is to be open and honest, and totally submit those desires to God.
Not entirely surprisingly, this was relevant to me on the old issue. I realized that I still did love her, and ignoring it didnt change it, in fact, it made me more vulnerable to attack, as I was not allowing God into the place in my heart I had walled off and erased from the maps, because I was not willing to go there. So the enemy would use that as an avenue against me. For some reason, I though God would be offended if I told Him that desire. Im not sure where that came from. But after talking to some friends on some sort-of unrelated topics, God totally spoke to me about being honest with Him. So after much prayer, I told Him my desire that somehow He would bring about a miracle, that somehow totally beyond my ablitiy to imagine, He would bring together His daughter (cf) and I, and that all things would be made new again between us. It was a strange thought, to be lobbying God, but I thought more about and realized our idea of submission is far too passive, and in a way far too lazy. Too much like the Buddhist Nirvana, we seek to forget desire to allow ourselves to obey God through our own strength. But obedience is active. We need to desire, to desire passionately, fiercely, yet yield these desires to God and never seek to fulfill them outside of Him. And He will grant us the desires of our heart, either now, later, or in changing our desires into something that He has for us. I never look back and want [that first kind]. I am ecstatic I went [the second kind.] But if I hadnt wanted [the first kind,] I wouldnt have been as happy in [the second kind,] I would have always had 'what if' questions. So I acknowledge this to myself and God. For some reason that I cannot totally understand, especailly given her and my history, I am still in love with [girl.] I still passionately and totally desire her as a mate. And this is yielded to God totally now, in a way it wasnt before.
Desire is like the offerings of the old testament. We dont kill the offering, let it decompose, and then carry the scraps to the altar. We take the offering, in all its life and vitality, and kill it on the altar, giving it totally, almost unmanageably, to God. If we do not feel our desires, we cannot really sumbit them to God. Yet we must obey Him still in our desire, for desire is not license. So in acknowledging this desire to Him, in petitioning Him about it actively and continually, I become the widow of the parable. Yet I will continue to direct that desire, that request, to Him and Him alone, and I will not seek to meet it through my own strength. If there is to be a miracle, I will recognize it, I will see His authorship. But until then, I will bring all my tenacity to bear.
And here I learn something about faith. 'Oh Lord, I believe, please help me to believe.' God brings us to the limit of our strength, our works, when we realize that all we can do through our own strength is open ourselves up to His love, and this is not any work done through our own strength regardless, merely an acceptance of His amazing work on the Cross. Faith is the same way. I am realizing that I only have enough faith to ask God for faith. But this is enough. So I pray for the spirutual faith Paul talks about, that God would give me the faith and hope to pray this prayer, to persist in it. That God would strengthen me to endure in this desire until He changes her heart or mine. That I would petition Him without ceasing on this, without losing hope, as much of a fools hope as it is, as crazy as it is. Only in His strength can I pray this, yet anything that is beautiful in me is Him regardless. Yet in His strength, I find myself praying more selflessly, more compassionately, more passionately that I had before, than I had through my own strength. I want her not because of any of my impoversihed, controlling weak love, but because she is a daughter of God, because she reminds me of Him, because I see her through His eyes again, and because I could serve Her well as a husband. I ask Him for the opportunity to fight for her heart again, and I as Him for the strength to fight. So I desire fully, recklessly, crazily. But I desire in submission to Him. And I will persist in my petition until He answers in changing my heart or hers. Either way, I learn much about Him, about faith and about hope. Interestinglly, in the context of praying these prayers that I had for some reason (fear and the avoidance of pain) banned myself from, I feel much more free to worship Him, much more joyful. I am able to bless her, which was formerly an act of the will, now my heart truly desires that she is blessed, that He makes His face to shine upon her. This is amazing to me. And this is, once again, my hope. That the old would pass away, and all things would be made new again. In this world and the next.
There is an aspect of dominion, of being a man, that I do not think that I had previously grasped. If a king had a son, a prince, he would want that prince, who he was training to be like himself, to be aggressive in decisions, to be eager to wield authority, to be passionate about his role. That prince would need to be submitted to the kings authourity, not trying to bring about his plans in his own way, not schemning without telling the king. But if the prince was totally submitted to the king, the king would love to hear of the princes desires, his ideas, his petitions. This is far better than having a morose, inactive child who hardly wanted to bear the mantle of prince, who sat in the corner, and said 'whatever you want.' And in this is dominion. God desires me as a man to not be passive, not to run in fear from desire for fear of bring hurt. He wants me to bear the mantle He has given me with vigor and energy, to desire fully, yet bring those deisres to Him for fulfillment, whether directly or indirctly through teaching me about what I really want. Desire leads us to establish dominion, but that dominion is to be one of love, one submitted to God. And this is active submission, very different from the weak-kneed passive submission which is so much safer and so much more widely practiced. Consider a man with his family. That man should greatly desire the love of his family, and should desire greatly to love his family in return. Yet if He does not submit that love to God, it becomes domineering and controlling. Only in submission to God does the man become free to pursue his desires fully. For the man to sumbit the family to God by devaluing and denying his desires for them is for him to shortchange them and God. So in this is the true nature of dominion: to desire fully, yet yield fully to God. Never forget the first half of what Christ says in the garden: 'I ask that this cup be taken from me, but not my will but Yours be done.'
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Reservoirs
Something occured to me. I had not thought her capable of an attack of such violence.
It is those shown the greatest hatred which are capable of the most hate. It is in those deep reserviors of hatred that they pull out this viciousness, from all the wrongs done to them that they string together a symphony of dissonant chords to be hurled at their adversary. These deep wells of hate are walled off from all love, closed off to all light, boarded off to God. In in these wells, hatred ferments, creating a brew of violence which waits to be distilled into a weapon. For someone to have the temerity to challenge these deep wells of bitterness, they become the greatest threat. And like anything else, these deep wells protect themselves first, and direct all their vitriole upon the trespasser. It is from her history that she built her attack against me, the deep wells of hatred she still holds on to (as do we all.) And this is how we continue to pass the Fall down through generations. So my course of action is clear. I will pray with all of my heart against these tremendously broken places in her life, that God would heal her heart. I will pray that He will change my heart away from her or hers toward me, but I will pray as well that God changes her heart and heals these deep wells of brokenness. She is more than the way that she acted toward me. But I am not her savior. Jesus is. So I will pray that He will save these parts of her heart.
There is also a question of targetting. God showed me this in prayer. I thank Him for this. When God rebukes us, even when He does so forcefully, He carries out violence only on those parts of ourselves which are not in line with His will. And even in this violence, He has a gentleness about Him. When the enemy attacks, he goes right for the jugular. He attacks everything about who we are. There is a viciousness about his attacks, a desire for blood. In her accusation, she categorically attacked all of the centers of gravity of my identity. She had learned first-hand how to do this from cruel people in her past. But there was no gentleness, not even the stability of wrath. Just blind hate, the desire to steal, kill and destroy. She is not alone in doing this. As much as we desire to be instruments of God, we allow ourselves to be instruments of Satan far too often. This is all of us, all of the sideways glances, all of the times we entertain bitter thoughts, in all of this we give ourselves to the enemy as his instrument. In the spiritual, what she said felt like the enemy attacking. There was no light, nothing of God in it. I thank Him for the strength to redirect the attack to Him, I surely do not have the strength to deal with it. And so He is scourged again. But the blood from those lashes is mixed with the blood from all the times I have caused Him to be struck.
Back to targetting. A military only targets threats, only targets parts of the enemy's army which are especially effective. Our Adversary is the same way. This is true about abortion, yet we have not realized how or why yet. And this was true here. She has a tremendous destiny. Yet, the enemy neutralizes her with these pits of despair, with all the history that she spends her life running from. All of us spend time trying to answer people from our past, people who dont even remember our names. But these keep her neutralized, afraid, in some mockery of safety. They keep her from becoming who she was born to be. And the enemy fears who she was born to be. My prayer is a direct assault on those fears. So the enemy's most effective attack on me is to do exactly what he did: use her to attack me, and have her systematically tear apart my identity. But God is bigger than my idenitity, and bigger than this attack, and bigger than my enemy. He is bigger than this thing, He is my salvation. And so if the enemy finds my prayers offensive, then I will redouble them, and I will pray specifically against this brokenness in her life. (Of course, I still respect her boundaries. Im not going to talk to her, or know anything about her, or have any interaction with her in the physical. But her boundaries cannot and will not extend to my prayers. No matter how much she may want them to.)
This, I think, was the first time she was honest with me. Ever. The first time she took off all the interlocks of logic and actually told me how she felt. She had felt this all along, but had not only hidden it from me, but much more so from herself. This is the same spirit that caused her to turn away in disgust from me the first time I expressed interest three years ago. But she covered it in lots of syllables and friendly intentions so that the words would be palatable to her as she said them. And this goes back to the root of the issue. For some reason, the idea that I may love her is the offense. And my greater offense is not in respecting her boundaries, but rather in not being willing to kill my heart so as to remove the offense. Even when we were ostensibly friends, there was always the idea that were I to express any interest or attraction toward her, all interaction would end in fire and flame, like it had before. In effect, she had preconditioned our so-called friendship upon my acting as if I were a male homosexual, unable to feel any attraction to her, and hence safe. And the deepest betrayal that I could possibly do, in her eyes, was to be honest about my feelings toward her, boundaries or no.
There is a deep brokenness here. I have had friends who were attracted to me, and I would never consider their attraction an offense. Ever. Their hearts were precious, and even if I could not return their affections, I never saw them as offensive. I was honest and direct, but I never saw any even potential betrayal there. Even if that meant I had to take an extra step to be gentle with their heart, that I had to watch what I said. And if one of them were to openly pray that God would change my heart toward them, I would in no way resent that prayer. Being seen through eyes of love should never be an offense.
At one point, she had mentioned a former friend who liked her at one point. She ceased to be friends with him because "he acted like a gentleman, and followed all the rules, but [she] began to mistrust the tenor of their interactions, and hence resent [their] interactions." His offense was not that he didnt follow her boundaries, but that he still had feelings for her. His love was the offense. And his unwillingness to kill his heart so that he wouldn't feel that love was, in her eyes, a lack of respect for her. But she was as wrong in this then as she is now.
There are deeper things here, things I could never approach in any alternate history. Things that can only be fixed by Someone who can turn the bitter heart of a Saul into a broken and joyful Paul. So I will pray, with whatever courage He gives me, that she would free of this thing, free to be loved.
15:20 Posted in Faith | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Vindication
There is, I think, a tendency when one has been verbally assaulted, to ignore any possible correctness in the assault. I cross-checked myself on this. One of the accusations was the implication that if I were to describe my actions to any real Christian guy (or girl,) they would explain to me why my actions were so tremedously wrong and offensive, and that surely that guy would agree that her interpretations of my actions were correct. This hurt, as it assumes a total lack of accountability to friends in my actions. It is also entirely incorrect. During the entire course of events described in the accusation, I was relying on many (more than 10) very real Christian guys and girls for council and accountability in my actions. I thank God for these intimate friends. Last night, they read the accusation, and not only provided a shoulder, but additional good council. Which was to follow the course of action I had already intended, to pursue through prayer. That if I still desired her, and if I was at peace with God about it, then I should continue to pray that prayer: 'Lord, change my heart, or change hers.' And they defended me. They told me that I was in the right, and she was in the wrong to have said the things she said, in the way she said them. They are my friends, and not hers, but I have not known them to say things just because I wanted to hear them.
I am not vindicated by being right. I am not vindicated through some argument. I am only vindicated by the Spirit of God moving. But only in company of friends can one find the strength to keep moving when all other strength has failed.
I realized somethign else. For far too long. I thought love was a choice of the will, somethign you just stuck your chin out and did, regardless of how you felt toward the person. I was wrong about this. Loving those who hate you is not playacting until you feel like it. It is still a choice, but a choice to let God fill you with so much love, that there is no part of you that is not filled with love, so that love spills over to all the relationships (even shattered ones) in your life, regardless of your previous feelings toward that person. You choose to let yourself be overcome by love, and that love drives out all hate and fear. Then you actually mean it when you love them.
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28 July 2006
The First Day of My Life
Hi Friends.
Sorry I haven’t written any boring theories for a while.
Here is something more important.
I think I finally understand faith. I am not afraid anymore, for the first time in my life. I finally understand what it means to look upon your Beloved, torn to shreds, being pulled dead and limp off of the cross, and to somehow hope against hope, to believe somehow the words He spoke will somehow come to pass, to believe that He is right even if it means all your reason and logic, everything your eyes can see is wrong.
This is especially disconcerting for one who has used reason and logic, pretty much his whole life, to hide from pain, to ultimately hide from love.
Long story short (for the first time in my life,) boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl sort of likes boy. Boy moves forward. Girl disengages. Boy gets hurt, and says words that hurt girl. Repeat. Boy and girl decide to never talk again. Boy does everything he can to forget girl. Boy dislikes anything that reminds him, boy turns to logic, to reason, to work, to anything that will make the memory of his love for girl go away. Yet, somewhere it is still there. Not that this is the first heartbreak for boy. Far from it. Yet the other ones are forgotten, and this one just won’t go away. Boy spends time with a few great girls, girls who were his whole list of things he wanted. Yet even with them, he thinks of her. Boy distrusts desire greatly. He distrusts his heart, for he truly believes that to follow it is to be hurt.
Yet, there is something in the stillness of prayer, a whispering. His desires are still alive, even if scourged by flails of logic. And his desires want God even more than her, but they still want her. So at some point, boy turns to face his fear. He yields his desires to God. And he prays… ’God, change my heart or change hers.’ Soon, he realizes that he will need more faith, hope and love than he has to continue to pray this. So he asks God for this. And he seeks blessings from friends, (male and female) and parents. He seeks their advice and counsel as a cross-check on his actions. They are very supportive.
Unexpectedly, more so in the midst of it than in the recounting, God not only does not change his heart away from her (which is how he originally thought the prayer would be answered,) but he becomes even more in love with her. Even more unexpectedly, he dreams crazy dreams that he had not dreamt before, dreams of a house full of beautiful children, dreams of scuttling what seems to be a very promising military career to become a missionary to closed nations. And things begin to happen in the physical.
So against all probability, girl and boy have an email exchange. Boy responds to what seemed to be a positive, open email from girl. Boy cross-checks this with male and female Christian friends, as boy has been known to get it wrong before. And girl responds.
Pause for a second. A while ago, I realized I had been focusing too much on outcomes. Outcomes were, at least to me, about a measure of control. Hence, I had been too concerned with analyzing every comma, ordering all my events. At come point, though, I realized this whole journey of desire thing was between me and God. If He chose to make it about me and her, than I would rejoice all the more, but it is about me and Him until and unless he were to do that. Hence her response was relatively and strangely unimportant. I remarked to a friend, that even if she said ‘I hate you and hope you die,’ it would not change my desires, nor change the journey of desire I am on with God. Surely, I have said the same to Him and He loved me still. Love is unconditional, even if its expression is highly conditional. The love is unchanged, the way one can express it, though, is contingent on the other person’s willingness to receive it, for love will not force itself upon someone.
Anyways, the ‘if she says ‘I hate you and hope you die’’ thing turned out to be prophetic, if with more syllables. That was unexpected, given the council of my friends, and the seemingly positive previous email. Her response was wounding, and intentionally so, in every possible way. All those vulnerable points, the scars from my histories, all of them were struck cleanly and systematically. Belittled, insulted, all the things I hold of value were attacked. With the precision of an Israeli air strike. My honor, my courage, my friendships, my dreams, everything. As if that was the only way to finally get through to me. As if you kick the dog, if will finally leave you alone. As if it was reciprocity. It should have hurt more. And this is what puzzles me. A year ago, it would have been devastating. I would be in tears. Yet I am not. In fact, I forgave her even as I read it. This is certainly strange to me. And then it struck me. I actually believe in this faith thing. That even in the midst of the hurricane, if I keep looking at Jesus, the water will still hold my weight. And I was right: it didn’t change anything. My desire is still for her. Jesus can change it if He wants, but my prayer is unchanged. ‘God, my heart is yours to change. Change my heart, or change hers.’ Somehow, I still have the faith, hope and love to believe that He will answer. This is beyond me, and I embrace it. In one of my prayers a month ago, I heard God answer that ‘she is yours.‘ I accept that, even though I have absolutely no ability to make it come to pass. If that happens, against all logic and all advisories of my eyes of flesh, it will have to be Him. But I accept that. Like still believing, having never seen someone come back from the dead, that your Lord will truly rebuild the temple in three days. Where does someone even start to do that through their own power? One can only start with belief.
I recognize her right to say whatever she wants. I respect her right to build boundaries, and I will observe those boundaries. And she has the right to resent my actions, if she chooses, as I have the right, which I relinquish, to resent hers. The thing that hurts the most, though, is the distinct impression that she resents my heart. As if my love for her was offensive, that my heart, was in some way, disgusting to her. And she is wrong to do so. But I relinquish my rights there, as well. And I ask for a love I do not have, one that keeps no record of wrongs. For if there was a record of mine, how could I stand?
I once said I would fight through hell to find her heart. I did not know how prophetic that would be. But I mean that as much now as I did then. It is only through a strength beyond myself that I can see this thing through. Yet I find myself stronger than I ever expected in my weakness. Praise be to God. I believe. He will answer my prayer. Whether he changes me, or her, or both, my heart is His. I am not afraid anymore. And I will hope beyond what this world calls reason. My heart is His to move, but until He moves it, I will persevere. If this is faith, this is it.
19:40 Posted in Faith | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this | Tags: Faith
25 July 2006
Raw Data
I wrote this last time things fell apart with her. Some of it was right. Some of it was incomplete. I regret my actions in that iteration of the story, and the previous two. I was a fool then, a fool for only myself. I do not regret my actions in this iteration. I am equally a fool now, but I am a fool for Someone. And I will be a fool for Him any day.
Disposition: (How to keep the good yet move forward. How to rejoice in the story because I trust the Author.)
Brokenness should be conquered, not balanced.
Positive: I saw in echoes something that I will one day see in fullness (I recognized things that I like (and things I dislike) in a future spouse.)
Data: a) Many good things about c. Should look for those, especially in a purified form.
b) Many good things about N I never appreciated until now. (Unfortunately it took me seeing what it looked like to not have those things to realize how important they were and how much I took them for granted.)
c) God is faithful and has given me a desire for a spouse. He will provide that right on time.
Negative: God didn't deny me something, but rather saved me from a lot of heartache, if something would have happened. In effect, He saved me from C. This I have heard clearly over the past week from Him.
Data: a) B had noted this to me and I had ignored him, but was a very important data point. From our conversations (and this was neither secret nor in confidence, but openly proclaimed), c was comfortable with an active male homosexual (s?) and kept him as one of her closest male friends. I am all about real relationships and witnessing, but I would not be comfortable keeping one of my pilot buddies who routinely engaged in sexual sin in my closest group of friends. This indicates certain assumptions/comfort levels with unhealthy attitudes about how males should be. These assumptions would have been the source of much dysfunction.
b) One of my friends who was a more senior pilot was talking about how great a marriage was when all the people were working toward the same goal, and how terrible it was when they werent. I felt that linked in my mind to this episode. Her and my goals are still too asynchronous, I am limited to how much I can change mine (10 year commitiment to one airframe that I cant change), and she was not ready to consider changing hers, I think. That would have been ugly.
c) I have heard a bunch of stories of broken heart and divorce within military familes recently, even with a good Christian friend of mine. One of them particularly caught my eye, where the guy was desperately trying but his heart was being broken and he was about to give up, where his wife acted very bipolar to him, insofar as she cared and then didnt care at all, even though they were both Christians. And he was at his limit and ready to give up. And I felt as if God was saying that as things were now this is how they would have gone if I got what I wanted.
Narrative: Mostly previously briefed.
Synopsis: Sequence 1 Upon further reading, the relationship can be identified as a compliant/non-responsive boundary malfunction. I tried harder, and she allowed me to. I tried so hard as to bear the whole weight, but she wasn't willing to respond. The less she responded the harder I tried. I was the compliant, trying to shoulder the whole responisbility. Fault is not the issue, but learning is. I should have drawn better boundaries, I was trying to care so much that she would care back which was bad. She was the non-responisive, she expected I would care and felt as if she could interact with me when convienient. Only at the end did we seem to move beyond this.
Sequence 2 The compliant/non-repsonsive problem was compounded by there being a male/female dynamic involved. Were a mutual friendship maintained, possibly issues and concerns coudl have been communicated without it involving male/female complications. However, with a growing compliant/nonresponsive relationship developing, I reinterpreted that as her wanting me to take the lead in a romantic relationship, as she would respond when I would initiate, yet she would never initiate. Additionally, she seemed to be comfortable with some very direct and intimate statements from me, as she would respond positively to those, but would never reciprocate. This exascerbated the previous dynamic, and led to the confrontation, and the terminal sequence.
Recommendations: Seek in a spouse one who loves to return love, one who will be chased and respects herself, but one who respects me and loves to love me back. Pursue, but let her respond in her own manner (even if it is asking to be pursued more.) Respond in kind, even if in a different role (guys and girls have different roles in courtship, but they should both be invested.) Seek in friends ones who challenge back, but express as much concern back as I give to them. Always care, always love, always be compassionate, but remember the things about the pearls and the pigs. There will be people who value the pearls. I do them a dis-service if I do not save the pearls for them.
General Analyses.
1) Demanding respect is not the same as being abusive.
2) Being controlling should not be confused with being confident, nor with strength.
3) Weakness often masquerades as strength.
Specifics: 1) I do not regret telling C the whole story from my point of view. I do not view it as catharsis, but as a necessary element of the conclusion. I do not view the facts of telling as inappropriate, as she was a willful, volitional actor in the sequence, and little of the retold story could not have been reasonably forseen or assumed by her. I do view my manner of telling as not as loving as it could have been. Relating to previously referenced book, this is a consequence of one who has experienced boundary violations for an extended period of time and seeks correction. However, this is not an excuse, I should have been more kind to her in the way I said it. What I really regret, though, is taking so long to tell her the story, and telling it to so many other people before telling her. Taking two years to tell a story is unacceptable. It should have been told, at the second iteration's beginning, and if both of us could not resolve that past, there should not have been movement past there.
Recommendation: Open communication is essential. Medium of communication should be considered (in order, face-to-face, phone, written mail, email.) I appreciate directness, so I should be direct, open and honest, but not unkind. I shuld learn how my spouse communcates, and make myself available to her most direct communication.
2) I do not regret presenting her with the question of whether I was worth fighting for from her point of view. It was the first real attempt to establish my own boundaries. Due to the imbalance of the relationship, there had to be an opportunity to equalize the effort. Simultaneously, I did not do this in a manipulative manner, I was willing to let her go with no hard feelings if she wasn't interested in really investing in me, which I felt she really hadn't. Presenting her with such a choice and being ready to hear either answer allowed her and I to clarify our boundaries. The boundaries were then clarified because of the course of action that led to. Hence, a stabilized situation is better than the previous asymmetry, for even if no relationship exists, we are no longer hurting each other. This would not havve happened if such a question were not asked, as she was comfortable being pursued from a distance, and I was placing her ahead of God and trying to fight with Him for her.
Recommendation: If a relationship is not moving for quite some time, it may be time to provoke a fight. Not in a sense of getting back, or whatever, but in a sense of laying all the things on the table that both people are avoiding for the illusion of peace. One must fight well, though, and fight for the other person, even as they are fighting with the other person. Then previously ignored problems can be solved. (When two faultlines are moving against each other, and they catch up on a piece of land, the only way they can keep moving is with an earthquake. And the longer the earthquake builds, the worse it is.)
3) I do not regret the whole course of action. I am glad that God is able to redeem my fallenness, and may he use it to bring glory to Himself. I do believe that certain things said in the terminal phase of the relationship were things He had given me to tell her. Even looking back I believe that. He only tells me my story and not hers, but I believe that He used part of my story to help her and part of her story to help me. I think the sequence of events could have followed a quicker parallel course where all those things would have happened, but with less brokenness, but I believe this is something God will redeem, in a way that will only make sense looking back from a ways.
Recommendation: Neither fear past nor future. And never run from either. Submit them all to God and see what He does with it. Things that were broken in the past are echoes of God's promises for completion in the future.
Action Points: (Weaknesses I need to submit to God, things I did right that I need to do some more.)
Weakness #1) I can love truth more than people.
This is not a weakness persay, as the both go hand in hand. But when I speak the truth, I have to speak it in love. I can be unintentionally unkind in my bluntness, and I need to consider anesthetic before performing surgery sometimes. I also need to understand that sometimes the obviousness of an answer to me, the solution that stablizes the equation, that sometimes it doesn't look like that to someone else. Even if I am right, I should not expect them to be moved by the sheer correctness of the answer, it needs to be tempered in love.
Weakness #2) I can be tremendously selfish.
It was only toward the end that I quit thinking about what I wanted, and started thinking about honoring others. Instead of what was owed me or whatever, I needed to think about them and how to be Christ to them. I saw that in a guy whose wife just cheated on him and divorced him and he still loved God. My pain is nothing compared to that, and I was so absorbed in it. Therefore, I should ask God to teach me how to love x. (x=whoever, CS Lewis notation)
Weakness #3) I can assume much and ask little, and hear only myself talk.
I need to learn to listen. Unfortunately, me and her had interlocking weaknesses on this one, as she never really understood much about me, as the majority of our communication was about her, even if we were both talking a lot about it. I assumed much about her, and asked little, and many assumption were wrong. To paraprhase SerenityI should have asked her anyway. I would have liked to hear her say things, even if my analysis already told me that they were the case. So I should ask more questions and listen.
Strength #1) I have finally learned what it is to be a man in a relationship.
I have inherited a tendency to be attracted to controlling women. I have called it strength, but I have been wrong. Very wrong. It is something that would allow me to avoid the responisbilites I should bear, allow me to be weak where God is calling me to be strong. It took this to teach me to stand up for myself to a girl, to create boundaries where I am not comfortable with being walked on, because if I am comfortable with that, I will recreate it time and again. Episode in coffee shop where she tells, not suggests, what I should order, was very inappropriate given our level of relationship (thought she was kidding, but upon retorting back, found she was serious. Found creative solution, problem shouldnt have existed though.) Stepping up and being a man involves taking responsibility. That means taking responisibility for overcoming brokenness insofar as you can manage, not just casting the blame on the other. A woman is submitted to a man, but he raises her up above his own head in prayer to God, so he holds her higher than himself, but she must submit to him to allow him to do that. Otherwise, there can be no harmony when both players compete for the same role, for as they do, the other role goes unfilled and the relatioship suffers. With my spouse, I welcome her arguing with me over decisions, as I would rather hear objections up front and deal with them (enhancing the solution) than have them brew. I will not, however, fight with her over my role. I can not honor her in this way, nor is she allowing herself to be honored. It also shows a need to control, and generally speaking when a woman cannot submit to her husband, she has a real hard time submitting to God. Of course, when a husband does not honor and love his wife, he generally does not honor and love God.
Strength #2) I have finally learned to pursue. And I dont want to find a me with two X chromosomes.
Attraction between an availaible male and an available female is perfectly natural, and something never to be ashamed of. Even if it doesn't work, if both people are emotionally healthy, they can deal with it as adults and perhaps be friends afterwards (eg. S.) So therefore, I should never feel as if the girl has a right to hate me for liking her. If she does, its her bad, and her issues. However, I need to be chivalrous and not obnoxious about it, of course. So these are fair rules. I have the right to pursue as long as I am chivalrous and not obnoxious. If it goes somewhere, cool. If not, then we can be mature and figure out a friendship (which has worked many times in the past, if not in the mishap sequence.) I will remeber these rules for the future.
Also, There is a difference between be friends and being romantic. I previously expected that things would just fall in my lap and everything would kind of be comfortable. But I did not understand that loves involves risk and must to be exciting. This is not to say things should not flow naturally, but there is a dance to it, and there are different roles in the dance. This is good, and a husband should romance a wife, as well as be her best friend. And these two are separate, though complimentary. The friendship should ideally lead, then the courtship sort of abridges the friendship to find if there is a romance there, then in its conclusion, the two are fused together in a marriage. But neithjer should I expect both roles in the dance to be the same, nor should I expect to find a duplicate of me with breasts as an ideal mate. Citing a grief observed, it is in being complimentary, not the same, that love is found. If you have two of the same people, one of them is irrelvant. So I should be romantic and pursue, and pursue someone who is not me.
Strength #3) I have finally learned to submit my heart to God in regards to girls. (a man with authority must be under authority.)
God loves my future spouse far more than I could hope to love her. Therefore, I must love him first, and submit my love for her to Him, or else I grasp and control and hurt her by competing with God for her love. She has to love God first, and then me. Similiarly, I must love God first, and then her. We must both be cool with this, and even demand and expect this, and encourage it. As a single guy I ask Him for His daughter's hand. But I must be willing to play my role in His story, not wrestle Him to try to be the author.
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