On Performance

"And what about you, Arvyl?"  Justin asked.  "What do you make of--"
     He stopped midsentence.  Ronin followed his gaze and saw that two children, a boy and a girl, crouched at the edge of the clearing, peering past a berry bush at the three warriors.
     They were looking at Justin, of course.  They always looked at Justin.  Children were always captivated by him.  These two looked like twins, blond hair and big eyes, about ten, far too young to have wandered so far from home at a time like this.
     Then again, he hardly blamed their curiosity.  When had such a battle come so close to them?
     Justin had already slipped into another world, Ronin thought with a single glance.  Children did this to him.  He was no longer the warrior.  He was their father, no matter who the children were.  His eyes sparkled and his face lit up.  At times Ronin wondered if Justin wouldn't trade his life to become a child again, to swing in the trees and roll in the meadows.
     This love for children confused Ronin more than any other trait of Justin's.  Some said that Justin was a druid.  And it was commonly known that druids could deceive the innocent with a few soft words.  Ronin had a difficult time separating Justin's effect on children from the speculation that he wasn't who he seemed.
     "Hello there, " Justin said.
     Both children ducked behind the bush.
     Justin slid from his horse and hurried toward the bush.  "No, no, please come out.  Come out, I need your advice."  He stopped and knelt on one knee.
     "My advice?"  the boy asked, poking his head up.
     A hand gripped his shirt and pulled him back.  The girl wasn't so brave.
     "Your advice.  It's about today's battle."
     They whispered urgently, then finally came out, the boy boldly, the girl cautiously.  Ronin saw that they each carried a wooden sword.  The girl was shorter and her left hand was bent backward at an awkward angle.  Deformed.
     Justin's eyes lowered to the girl's hand, then up to her face.  For a moment he seemed trapped by the sight.  A bird sang in the tree above them.
     "My name is Justin, and I..."  He sat down and crossed his legs in one movement.  "What are your names?"
     "Billy and Lucy,"  the boy said.
     "Well, Billy and Lucy, you are two of the bravest children I have ever known."
     The boy's eyes brightened.
     "And the most beautiful," he said.
     The girl shifted on her feet.
     "My friends here, Ronin and Arvyl, aren't convinced that I can single-handedly bring the Horde to its knees.  I have to decide, and I think that you might be able to give me some direction.  Look in my eyes and tell me.  What do you think?  Should I take on the Horde?"
     Billy looked at Ronin, at a loss.  The girl answered first.
     "Yes," she said.
     "Yes," the boy said.  "Of course."
     "Yes!"  You hear that, Ronin?  Give me ten warriors who believe like these two and I would bring the entire Horde to its knees.  Come here, Billy.  I would like to shake the hand of the man who told me what grown men could not."
     Justen stretched out his hand and Billy took it, beaming.  Justin ruffled the boy's hair and whispered something that Ronin couldn't hear.  But both of the children laughed.
     "Lucy, come and let me kiss the hand of the most beautiful maiden in all the land."
     She stepped forward and offered her good hand.
     "Not that one.  The other."
     Her smile softened.  Slowly she lowered her sword.  Now both hands hung limp at her sides.  Justin held her eyes.
     "Don't be afraid,"  he said very quietly.
     She lifted her crippled hand and Justin took it in both of his.  He leaned over and kissed it lightly.  Then he leaned forward and whispered into her ear.

Wind and Lightning

Wind and spirit are the same word many places in scripture used so interchangeably that sometimes it is not known which one is meant.  That God would associate Himself so closely with something so unseen and unpredictable is terribly hard for me to bear at times.

I have this image in my mind of a sailboat of old stranded in the middle of a windless ocean for days with its sailors with nothing to do but wait.  Or row.

When God's spirit is not blowing in my life, I feel forsaken.  I try to position myself better to catch whatever remains of the wind, but when even that goes still I give up.  I eventually get so tired of the lack of activity that I start rowing.  The biggest problem comes when I then distrust the wind due to its lack of predictability and choose to just row all the time instead of trying to catch the wind again when it comes back.  I don't think God ever intended for us to be rowers in this context.

Lightning striking the earth is depicted as God sending down His answers to prayers in scripture.  Pretty crazy when you start looking at just how often lightning strikes the earth on any given day.  Is there really anything else more unpredictable than lightning?  We know the situations that usually surround it (clouds blown in by the wind), but never its exact path.  Just look at it.  It's all jagged and erratic.

I struggle to accept the unpredictable nature of God.  I am finding that it is nearly impossible to have a fulfilling relationship with someone so unpredictable.  There seems to be only one way to make this happen--complete unwavering trust.  I use the word trust instead of faith on purpose because it makes so much more sense to me and faith is one of those words that is just caked up with the gunk of dead religious experiences.  

Trust is the path God has had me on for eleven years.  It is the most basic of all tenets of following Him and I still struggle to make much progress with it.  This much trust I am developing though, when I am weak, He is strong.  When I go the wrong way, He isn't pissed.  He is refusing to let me build a foundation on lies.  He is placing me on the high place of truth at all costs and pains and He is doing it as gently as possible.  He wants what is best for me way more than I want it for myself.  Just like I love my son, He loves me.  I must hold on to this one truth if I am to make it.

So, when I am struggling, does it show more trust to tell Him that I don't trust Him knowing that He'll understand or to try to launch out into something that I think is Him but to do so fearfully?  I guess this question boils down to another question.  Of motive and action, which is more important?

A Break in the Clouds

A dear brother texted me a word from God this week.  It was something along the lines of the correlation between how he saw himself in relation to God and how that reflected on how he treated his son.  He challenged me to allow myself to see God's view of me as the same as my view of Maz.  He specifically said that God is amazed by me.  This was hard for me to accept in that moment.  I have always accepted the theology that God is a good Father, but my experience has been so removed from that.  I have to admit that I have lived according to other beliefs.  As I have struggled with my set of abandonment issues, me not being good enough has been at the center of it.  Things like how I always let God down and slip into sin, how I just don't have that great of faith, and how I just can't perform like someone who is in love with Jesus should have been at the forefront of my thoughts.

Many times in the past week or two I have been amazed at my son and how his personality is developing.  His own sense of humor is starting to emerge instead of just completely mirroring mine or Melissa's.  I love it!  The passion that I have to love him relentlessly and represent the love of a good father to him fuel me to never let a day go by without expressing my love to him and to let him know that he is special.  Today, as we were walking in to my in-laws', I had one of those moments where he just said something so awesome to me that I welled up with love and actual amazement that my son is soooo stinkin, well, amazing!

I told him that I love him.  I told him that I am so glad that I get to be his dad.  I told him that I think he is just awesome and that being his dad is one of the best things in the whole world for me.

My brother's comment was quickened in my mind and heart at that moment.  I almost started bawling right there.  (One more moment where emotion that I would gladly have lived in for awhile was brought on in a moment that was not very conducive to it.)  I pushed it down, but held on to the thought that God must love me at least that much.

I have known and tried desperately to hold to the belief that all this darkness and hurt coming to the surface recently was God revealing something that He wanted to rip out of my life and destroy.  It's performance.

I am not a slave or a hired hand.

I AM A SON!

I got an answer to one of my why questions today.  Why do I have such a passion to be a good father when so many other unfathered men end up being unfaithful dogs just spreading seed and moving on?  I have a heart for my son because it is God's chosen portion of Himself that has been given to me.  It is His reflection to me of who He is.  I can trust this part of my heart because it is directly from Him.  I can trust that even in my imperfect state, God's love for me is at least as strong as my love for my son.

My love for him is the purest and most selfless love that I personally know and understand.  I don't think I ever really understood love until after he was born.  Something amazing was born in my heart at the same time that he was born into this world.

I understand my son.  I know when he is pushing the lines and when he is just being a kid.  I am patient with him.  I seek for opportunities to expand his knowledge of what is appropriate and what is over the line in all areas of life.  Most of all, I just love him.  I love to spend time just making him laugh because there is no greater sound in all the world to me than the delighted laughter of my son.  (That is not hyperbole.)  I love holding him close in a huge squeezy hug until he's like, "Alright, dad.  Let me down."

That's what I am to God.

I am His son.

The Years Between

John 5

The Healing at Bethesda

 ¹ After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

 ² Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. ³ In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; ⁴ for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.] ⁵ A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” ⁷ The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” ⁸ Jesus *said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” ⁹ Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.

I wonder what a normal day looked like for the sick man during those thirty eight years.  Do you think he thought that he would ever get healed?  Obviously he had some hope because he kept trying and positioned himself so that it was at least a possibility.  I wonder how many of those were just going through the motions.  I wonder how many of those years contained any joy in the midst of suffering.  

Two things about this passage I love: 

Jesus' compassion and the man's response.

The first explains itself.  The second sounds a bit like this to me when I read it in my head. 

"I'm doing the best I can here, but I'm on my own and just not strong enough to beat out the competition.  I have to keep trying anyway though.  What choice do I have?  I'm a Cubs fan.  There's always next season."

Seriously though, I wonder, even though I know it won't bring me any answers, what was the point of those 38 years and why didn't Jesus heal more of the people there?  

As I continue to ask my why questions, it comforts me to know that even Jesus asked God why.  

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"

The Duality of "Why Me?"

Many times, especially recently, I have asked God directly, asked of others or simply wondered to myself, "Why me?"

Why was I abandoned?  Why did You choose me to be so stunted and weak?  Why am I not worthy of being loved and taken care of?  Why did You even allow me to born if You  were just going to make me worse than everybody else?  Is this some kind of cruel joke?

Anyone who can quote scripture can tell you that it is a mistake to ask these questions of God and that once my faith is strengthened I will see the futility of it.

Anyone who has gone through the depths of pain of loss or abuse knows that you can't not ask them.

Grief is a deep vacuum that continues to search for any answer to fill it.  No matter how hard you try to hold in these questions, they will come out one way or another.  It's best to just let them out.  Even though they may never be answered, it lays a foundation of honesty that is essential for moving on, right?

I've grown more comfortable with this concept of just letting myself be free to express or ask whatever I need to of God.  If I don't show Him trust in any other way right now, I think this expression of trust is the one He's looking for anyway.  So as I was again talking with some dear brothers as a release valve recently, another meaning of "why me?" struck me.

We were talking about how there are little to no men in the church that have survived this wound and gone on to live a victorious life.  So why me?

Why am I not in prison?  Why did I not end up completely unable to believe in God at all?  Why have I been able to hang on for so many years even though I feel like a complete reject every day?  Why haven't I abandoned God the way that I feel abandoned by Him so many days?  Why do I have an insatiable drive to love my son well so he never has to face these same wounds instead of abandoning my own family like so many men do in my shoes?  Why do I care about anyone at all besides myself and whatever makes me feel good in the moment?

The other side of "why me?" is the sufficiency of grace in action even when it doesn't seem sufficient to me.

God, You're a little too good at knowing exactly where the line is.

The Father Loss

Back in August, it was recommended to me to go through this book.  I was almost offended at seeing myself as a victim, but I could not argue with some of the insights about my behaviors that matched up with classic victim mentalities.  I've never been abused sexually or physically.  I struggle to call the things that have hurt me verbal abuse.  I do admit to being neglected.  None the less, I started to read and have slowly pressed onward as it started to hit more at home.

My conclusion so far:  the deprivation of a resource, substance, or ability that is necessary for healthy development is just as damaging as purposeful abuse in that it leaves the victim at a loss at how to go through life.

God is called our Father for a reason.  This is His design.  When a child grows up in a home with a loving father, it is natural for that child to understand that God is for them.  It fits for them.  It just makes sense.  God chose parents (both mother and father) to carry a part of His image.  Why would He do that if not to build into us from birth who He is?  His design, His plan is horribly marred when one of these elements is absent.  I can only speak from the aspect of the missing father because that is what I have experienced, but I would love to hear from anyone who has had the experience of dealing with the abandonment of a mother so I can better understand.

I never met my biological father.

He abandoned me from before birth.

My image of God is damaged because of this.

Just like my physical body would be underdeveloped if I spent my whole life getting little to no protein, my ability to understand God as a father and relate to Him is feeble at best and barely alive at its most accurate.  I have absolutely no idea how I am even able to still cling to the hope of one day knowing Him as a Holy Father.  I desire it so badly, but I constantly push Him away based on my skewed perceptions or just plain run away and "hide."  How am I supposed to run this marathon of life with a broken leg?  I understand that there are many out there that share my circumstance.  The problem for me is that I don't personally know any of them that are my age or older and that have successfully recovered from it.  I feel that much more alone and disadvantaged because God remains silent other than to tell me to keep digging and there is no one here to help lead the way through the darkness.  There is no one that has gone before me to impart to me the necessary wisdom to survive.  In my sphere of experience, I am blazing a trail and I hate it.

Never knowing your father seems very similar to me to losing a loved one.  It is a loss and it must be grieved.  So I share my grief here as I process it and will hopefully share my healing as God brings it.