Love: It will fly you like a kite, it will throw you to the ground. But it’s the best thing I have found.
I’ve been staring at this blank white page for a while now. There’s a lot of space. Empty space. My fingers brush across the keys of the keyboard. I only have 26 letters to work with — 26 letters to string together into meaningful sentences. I get why some people choose to express themselves through art. Sometimes words fail us, and the only way to say how we really feel is through the soft, or rough, calculated, or freeform strokes of a brush. I’m listening to music from the 1940’s in the back ground as I write this. I like how the big brass instruments rise and fall as they tell their story through breath and sound, not words. But I’m not much of an artist, and I’m a clumsy musician, so words are the only option I have left.
The three weeks leading up to my trip to Israel were some of the hardest weeks of my life. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God wanted me in Israel for the summer, but the path to getting there was filled with so much opposition that as the trip came nearer, the fight got harder. I stepped off the plane 3 weeks later like a weather beaten ship returning to the harbor after a rough storm and was reunited with my heart that I had left there 3 years previous.
One by one my friends flew in and joined me in Israel, and we arrived in Tel Aviv with no plan, no agenda, but to simply live our lives and be the Kingdom.
What would it look like if instead of preaching rules and religious traditions, I loved people just because? What would it look like if instead of fearing sin and avoiding any situation in which I might encounter it, I embraced my freedom from it through the blood shed by Jesus and went and sat with the "worst of sinners"? What would it look like if when I failed, when I messed up, that instead of shame and guilt and condemnation there was only grace?
That is what my summer looked like.
I made a lot mistakes, and maybe I gave too much of myself, but I loved him the only way I knew how. I loved him because for a second I caught a glimpse of him through God’s eyes. I felt the love that Jesus had for him. He was like a tree in a hurricane, bending beneath the weight of His love and mercy. To experience God’s love for someone like that is rare and it was a first for me.
In times like these most people would say, “You need to do a better job at guarding your heart.” In fact I was one of those people too, 2 days before any of this happened those were the words out of my mouth to a friend experiencing what I was about to go through. I tried. I really did. But what does that even mean? I think I spent too much of my life guarding my heart, keeping it on a shelf, where it sat and grew more and more unbreakable. The more I tried to guard it, the less I was able to use it. To allow love to flow through it. I think that through this entire experience God wanted to teach me grace – not just to teach it, but to fully experience it.
I should probably define what I mean by grace. Because if you’re anything like me, it’s a word you hear a lot and don’t really know what it means. Grace simply put is getting something that you don’t deserve. I deserved punishment, but instead I was shown mercy. I deserved shame, but instead I was showered with love. I don’t deserve any good thing, but he gives it to me anyways. I deserved to die for my sins, but instead he died for me. Because God is love, and grace is something he knows I desperately need. Not laws, but grace.
He was the first person I kissed. Ever. I’m almost 24. Yeah. Now I need you to have grace on me and not think I’m the worst “missionary” ever. I decided a while ago that I’m not a missionary. I don’t want that title. I’m simply someone who has decided to live their life for God’s Kingdom wherever I may be. He was also the first person I crossed any physical boundaries with. You’re probably wondering how that’s living for God’s Kingdom. Trust me, I’ve wondered the same. But it was on the floor in a puddle of tears that I realized that I needed God’s grace, and it was there that he met me. He didn’t just remind me of scriptures and promises or have someone tell me it’s going to be okay, but he allowed me to experience it. To tangibly feel the weight of shame and guilt removed from my shoulders and to feel the heartbeat of heaven inside my chest. I think I know now why the author of that most famous Hymn didn’t just pen the words, “Grace how sweet the sound.” But he called it, Amazing Grace… Because when you experience God’s grace like that it truly is amazing. I got up off the floor after that.
None of this is really easy to write. I’ve gotten up like 36 times and started doing something else since I began writing this.
It happens to a lot of people I guess. You start off with all the best intentions, but then your emotions get involved and then it starts getting messy. I’m still trying to decide if emotions came before or after the fall of mankind. Late nights don’t help and a lot of time spent together probably isn’t a good idea if you’re trying not to let your heart get involved with someone who all the alarms and red flags went off for.
I want to talk about him, without painting him to be the villain. Because if I wrote every little thing he did to me that was terribly hurtful, you’d probably think he was a villain. But he’s not. And I have to remind myself that if it weren’t for Jesus showing up in the midst of my messy and broken life, I would be doing the same things too. Although, truth be told, there are some moments where I just want to punch him in the face. But then I catch a glimpse of that imaginary What Would Jesus Do bracelet on my wrist and refrain.
I’m talking to my sister right now on facebook, filling her in on some recent developments. As I’m talking to her, I’m realizing that I’m still pretty angry with him. I’m still pretty hurt. And I’m still pretty heartbroken about how it all went down. It went down in flames, burned all the way to the ground.
You’re probably wondering what I saw in him. I saw past his mess. I saw past his crazy behavior. I saw past all the selfishness. I saw past the walls he put up to hide his pain. I saw the good that was in him. I saw the man who God created him to be. I saw it like a timeline. I saw the end, but I couldn’t see the journey. I put all my expectations on this future him, but was dealing with the present him. I know God has a purpose for his life. I know God chose to reveal himself to him. I know that he really likes Jesus now. I know that he gets it without fully understanding it yet. I know that when I leave, God still has his hand on him. That it’s not up to me to try and save him, that’s God’s job. I learned that I didn’t really believe that God could do it without me. I thought God needed me. But the truth is He doesn’t need me at all. He chose to use me, but he doesn’t need me. I put my trust in myself and that’s where I went wrong. That’s when things started getting messy. That’s when every little thing he did caused my heart to break piece by piece.
I don’t hate him. I don’t blame him. I don’t hate myself either. Life is a journey and I know I’ll look back on this in 6 months and I’ll know more than I do now. But right now I’m going home to heal. I leave in 2 days. But I’ll be back in a year. Because this is where the Lord wants me, of that I’m sure.
