A continuation of the Summer 2012 series. Catch up on Part One here.
I’ll try to muddle through this posting, but it’s more complicated and detailed than most others and the things I can/am willing to share in this atmosphere are limited.
This lesson came in Tennessee surrounded by high school kiddos. They were great. I loved getting to know them and spending time with them. I also loved being reminded how great college is. I am not the one who dreams of a do-over of the teen years.
I had already realized a big fear when it comes to the L word talked about previously, but what I hadn’t seen was a deeply rooted anger attached to that fear. As the fear dissipated my anger became more apparent. There were people I was not only mad at, but hated. I had never thought that much about who I was mad at or what I ought to do about it.
Obviously.
My reaction was to seethe inside. Maybe rant a little to my close friends. But to fully-completely-totally surrender my anger/hurt to the Lord? It just wasn’t done. Though I thought I had. [See The Song that Spoke to understand how God started opening my eyes, though this summer I realized just how deep the feelings went: beyond my heart and into my very soul muddying the waters.]
Oh I forgave those people a hundred times over, but that anger was never let go.
I saw it so completely after hearing several speakers for a high school convention. They all seemed to be pointing out the same thing to me – my sin. Not just that I am sinful, no, my specific sin. And I didn’t know what to do. I was supposed to be the mature one, the leader.
Leaders get broken too.
There was a night of confession toward the end of the week and I told the gathered group of girls mine – don’t worry, I wasn’t the only adult at this point. I didn’t want the attention focused on me, the week wasn’t about me, but I did need to admit aloud that I saw where my problems were coming from. After I spoke, the girls talked about their confessions and I loved them more.
Those girls still cross my mind often and my prayers more still. Though they’re young and so unaware in so many ways, their simple love and acceptance that week – of each other especially, but also towards me as an outsider – was juxtaposed to my hate in such a way that it glowed-ugly as I had never seen before.
I stayed up that night for quite some time. I’d like to say I prayed, but I didn’t for a long time. I sat. No thoughts, no meditation. Just still.
Then I confessed to my Father. It was so hard at first though I know He already saw everything. And for the first time in a long time I could breathe. And I cried.
Then I slept and knew that the battles were not over, but the Victor is my King.
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