Just Thinking . . .

Yeah, so this post has nothing to do with my kids. I just have to constantly post pictures of them. Just in case all both of you who read this blog might forget what they look like.

But . . . maybe in a way, this post does have something to do with my kids. I'll get to that in a second . . .

Look at this post from my friend. Amazing. I loved reading that. And thinking about forgiveness. But I'll get to that in a second, too.

This morning our Sunday School lesson was about anger. I was the facilitator of the lesson this morning, and that always makes me nervous. I don't want to say the wrong thing or hurt someone's feelings, etc. etc. etc. When you're talking about a subject like anger, you never know when you may unwittingly say something that strikes a personal chord in someone's life.

I do have a problem with my temper and with forgiveness. But the forgiveness thing . . . it's not so much forgiving my brother or sister. Not that I don't struggle and have to deal with my human emotions of hurt, anger, disappointment. Not that I don't have to put grudges aside from time to time. However . . . it is so much easier for me to forgive my brother or sister than to forgive myself. But I'm in the mix. I have to extend forgiveness to myself as well.

I've been feeling like a lousy mom, a lousy wife. Satan's been attacking me from every angle. Last night and this morning the arrows were flying. Because I've been too hard on the kids (see, this DID have something to do with the kids!), been yelling too much, my patience has worn too thin, I've felt lazy and useless . . . all those things that Satan likes to whisper in my ear. Regardless if they are true, I have to accept forgiveness from my Savior. I have to confess and then accept the forgiveness. It does not honor Him to do otherwise, and yet . . .

If only I could really buy that favor from God. If only I could purge somehow, could pay, could beat my back until it bled. Then I'd feel that I deserved it. But I don't. And I can't. And - He doesn't even want me to.

I was saying this morning, in regard to sin and anger and Romans 3:9-12, it is human nature to act according to sin. That's what we are born to do. So why should it surprise us when our brothers and sisters let us down, hurt us, anger us? They are doing what it is in their very nature to do, since sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden. And someone said, "Why should it surprise us when we do what it is in our nature to do?" meaning, why let myself off the hook? My brother or sister can't sin? But I can allow myself to do so without batting an eye. And I thought, yeah, that makes so much sense. I'm the same. And the forgiveness that comes down to me through my God, through my brothers and sisters; it's the same too. And I must accept it just as they must.

But the enemy truly is crouching at my door. He wants me to feel like I need to earn, and that's one of his greatest tools of deception. And I know that! If it could be earned, I'd have something to show for it, but Christ will get the glory for all. That's the way it is. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Forgiveness is freedom, for the forgiver and for the forgiven. I need to go the full circle.

Brennan Manning does a good job of explaining in the preface to his book Abba's Child:

"Self-flagellation has a personal history with me. When I was twenty-three years old and a novice in the Franciscan Order in Washington, D.C., the order practiced an ancient sprirtual discipline on the Friday nights of Lent. A designated cleric stood flat-footed beside the stairwell on the first floor, slowly and loudly reciting Psalm 51 in Latin. Miscerere me, Domine, secundum misericordiam, tuam.
"Meanwhile, the rest of us entered our cells on the second floor clutching a noose-shaped instrument of torture measuring twleve inches long; it was colied telephone wire. Throughout the duration of the psalm, we whipped our backs and buttocks to extinguish the fire of lust. I flailed away with such reckless abandon that I raised blood blisters on my back.
"The following day in the showers, a cleric took one look at my bludgeoned body and reported my condition to the novice master who reprimanded me for my intemperate zeal. Truth to tell, I was trying desperately to make myself pleasing to God."

And then, on page 22-23 of the same book, Manning goes on to say:
"But God loves who we really are - whether we like it or not. God calls us, as He did Adam, to come out of hiding. No amount of spiritual makeup can render us more presentable to Him. As Merton said, 'The reason we never enter into the deepest reality of our relationship with God is that we so seldom acknowledge our utter nothingness before Him.' His love, which called us into existence, calls us to come out of self-hatred and to step into His truth. 'Come to me now,' Jesus says. 'Acknowledge and accept who I want to be for you: a Savior of boundless compassion, infinite patience, unbearable forgiveness, and love that keeps no score of wrongs. Quit projecting onto Me your own feelings about yourself. At this moment your life is a bruised reed and I will not crush it, a smoldering wick and I will not quench it. You are in a safe place.' "

And anyway, Manning and I seem to have missed this part of Psalm 51:
"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnte offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

We were getting it right all along.

How can I do anything but let the tears wash down my face as I hide my soul in the cleft of the Rock? I am, I am in a safe place. And my Abba loves me. May I stop trying to make myself pleasing to God, when I should know that I already am.

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" 1 John 3:1