A huge problem I find in myself is procrastination. Today I was
going to write this post, but when it came time, I decided to instead clean my
room. Now I sit on my floor surveying the newly organized room I will leave in
a couple of days. And again I think. I really
ought to get writing…but really, why; it’s not like there’s a deadline or
someone who really needs to read this. BOOM!
(God doesn’t show me things quietly; He understands how thick my skull can be
and tends to use 2X4’s.) I realized that I don’t write these things for anyone
else, I write them for me so I can understand just what is running through my
head. So I my thoughts…
Sometimes we get to love people for a season; knowing all the while that it is only for a season, that it is not returned; all to be reminded that love is not all about me whomever the ‘me’ may be. The troubling thing with a situation like that is it can lead to bitterness. Knowing how things will turn out in the end does not always change our feelings in the now, nor make us more understanding when that end has come. I’ve always been on the more skeptical side of emotion. I tend to doubt the sincerity, especially when the emotions are mine. The verse in Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” is one I have always relied upon. Obviously I am not anti-emotion; I just prefer to not dwell on what I feel.
I don’t think I was becoming bitter or anything dramatic,
but I did not understand why, in spite of knowing how things would end; I would
choose to love someone. Usually after thinking that I would berate myself and
say that love should never be about self, which I believe, but it is hard to
convince one’s self of with a clenched jaw and knitted forehead that we should
expect nothing from those we love.
Sometimes we get to love people for a season; knowing all the while that it is only for a season, that it is not returned; all to be reminded that love is not all about me whomever the ‘me’ may be. The troubling thing with a situation like that is it can lead to bitterness. Knowing how things will turn out in the end does not always change our feelings in the now, nor make us more understanding when that end has come. I’ve always been on the more skeptical side of emotion. I tend to doubt the sincerity, especially when the emotions are mine. The verse in Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” is one I have always relied upon. Obviously I am not anti-emotion; I just prefer to not dwell on what I feel.
I don’t think I was becoming bitter or anything dramatic,
but I did not understand why, in spite of knowing how things would end; I would
choose to love someone. Usually after thinking that I would berate myself and
say that love should never be about self, which I believe, but it is hard to
convince one’s self of with a clenched jaw and knitted forehead that we should
expect nothing from those we love.
Then, at the beginning of break, I was sitting alone in a
friend’s car while she was running errands. The song I’m Not Who I Was by Brandon Heath came on. I believe I replayed it
five times – there was quite a line in the post office. I have always been fond
of the song, but what caught my attention that day was the verse that sang,
“Well the thing
I find most amazing
In amazing grace
Is the chance to give it out
Maybe that's what love is all about”
Living out grace is why we love. Knowing
something is one thing, but being able to articulate it? That shoves it deep
into our souls. At least, it did mine; alone in a crowded parking lot on a
snowless December afternoon. God, through beautiful chords, let me understand
what He had been trying to teach me all along. I am to love those around me as
He loves me: unconditionally, without expectation.
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