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Faith Life

Bitterness Does Not Become You

There is only one way of victory over the bitterness and rage that comes naturally to us–to will what God wills brings peace. ~Amy Carmichael

Frog

Bitterness.

It’s a wheel lock. It’s a leaky pen. It’s the hard plastic packaging you bloody your fingers on every time.

It’s a jar you can’t open, a box you can’t reach, the bicycle in the driveway you trip over in your hurry.

It’s a chain cuffed to your ankle, bill collectors at the door, a snarly guard dog and a sinkhole at your feet.

And he knocks at the door, eyes full of sympathy, the guy with tools. A key, a pencil, some scissors, his own muscular hands, and long stretching arms. A hand to help you over, chain cutters and checkbook, dog treats and wood planks. Whatever you need to leave the land of bitterness and regret. Because you will never be whole unless you do.

Oh, he knows how badly you were wounded. He sees the tear-splattered trail of hurt that never seems to find a satisfying end. He remembers your shining hopes, shattered on that distant day. He tastes your disappointment, your longing for what might have been, what should be now, what can never be again.

He notices how bitterness has been your poorest friend.

Jesus offers his tool box. “Let it go.”

 Behind The Bitterness

“When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.”  Timothy Keller in Counterfeit Gods.

Psalm 73:21-26

What has bitterness ever done for you?

Photograph by Melanie Hunt
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Faith Life

The Gift Of Fog

It is by suffering that human beings become angels. ~Victor Hugo

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The fog lingers, sending an icy chill into a mid-summer morning. I shiver on the cool wood bench, willing the sun to break through out of pity for my thin sweatered self.

Beauty often comes wrapped in fog on the California coast.

And human beings love our comfort, don’t we? When it’s hot, we dream of icy waters. As winter winds howl, we imagine lying on warm sand.

When surrounded by the crowd we pray for solitude, and then anxiously wait for the phone to ring, a text or tweet to rescue us from the silence.

In a controlled environment, we adjust the thermostat, a comfortable 70 degrees no matter the season. The chill, the searing heat, is not of our choosing.

If I had the power, I would be tempted to prune away your pain. The green waste bin would fill with difficult people, ugly uncertainties and any twinge of critique or crisis. You would never have to sit in the damp fog of suffering.

I would be your helicopter parent, your well-intentioned friend, my own self-protector, hovering with a blow dryer at the first hint of mist. And so deny us both the gift.

The gift of empathetic depths, of heroic heights, of generous breadth.

The Gift of Fog

Coastal Redwoods lend a living metaphor. Their roots send nourishment to the rest of the tree, as is expected. But, unusual for their species, these giant trees reach high with mitt-shaped leaves to grab, not curse, the fog. Through tiny pores, the nutritious water travels through leaf and branch to nourish the roots below.

The same languishing fog of my morning misery brings life and health to trees around me. Can it be that the cold swirl of adversity holds a gift for me as well?

We are biologically wired for challenge–we thrive when we are tested. Growth, nourishment, the warmth of the blessing often come wrapped in fog.

Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything. James 1:2-4

What have you learned from the fog?

 

 

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Faith Life

On The Way To Beauty

Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. ~N.T. Wright

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I’m a seeker of beauty but I struggle to describe it.

Beauty is a word, like love and peace and freedom, that leaves both a lingering scent of promise and the sour smell of past assumptions piled on top.

Beauty is subjective, and the word is misused, but tenacious nonetheless. However we define or deface it, beauty haunts us.

As an entering college student, I was given a test meant to determine which major and profession would fit my interests. I scored high in two areas: Nature and Beauty. In their characteristic, pragmatic way, the test designers pointed to taxidermy as a perfect job for me.

Taxidermy.

I’ve been struggling off-road ever since, distracted not by beauty but its opposite. There are so many reasons in this world to cry foul. I hack away at ugly, and lament its noxious presence, with its twisted intentions and poisonous attitudes sending runner roots into every human heart. Including mine.

I’m wondering now if it’s time to put the weed spray away and try planting beauty where I can.

In France, I met Ted Nuttall, a water-color portraitist of considerable talent and an easy demeanor. Ted paints ordinary people, caught by his camera in unguarded moments. The people in the portraits are beautiful, because beauty is what the painter sees.

I asked, “Do you grow to love these unsuspecting models as you labor with your paintbrush?”

“Opposite,” he replied. “I love people, so I paint them.”

Beauty As A Sign

In his book, Simply Christian, N. T. Wright describes the biblical message,

a story of what the one creator God has been doing to rescue his beautiful world and to put it to rights. And the story…indicates that the present world really is a signpost to a larger beauty, a deeper truth…not just the beauty of God himself, but the beauty which, because God is the creator par excellence, he will create when the present world is rescued, healed, restored, and completed.”

I’m a pilgrim, a planter, and a teller of the story, and at every turn I choose the cause of beauty or the thief that would destroy it.

Are you planting beauty, or distracted by the ugly?

 Photograph by Melanie Hunt
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Faith Life

The You Hidden From Our View

Sin is not simply the breaking of a law. It is the missing of an opportunity. ~N.T. Wright

Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle. ~ Alice in Wonderland

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At the end of the winding Galamus Gorge, hidden in the crags of the foothills of the Pyrenees, perches the Galamus Hermitage. A chapel, built when the nearby village was saved from a deadly epidemic, hides the natural caves behind, where one solitary hermit dwelled.

What was it like to live long lonely years removed from the comforting sound of other voices, the touch of other hands, without seeing the smiles and scowls we take for granted every day? Was it torment or relief?

As a die-hard introvert, there are times I dream of a hidden life, safe in some cool cave from the noisy extraversion of the world. Would I be content to be known only to myself, invisible to the complicated crowd? More important, would I be “me”?

The Hidden Life

JAHARI WINDOW

The Jahari window, familiar to self-help gurus and corporate consultants, is a sometimes useful aid to self-understanding. The results of a simple test are shared in the form of a four-pane grid.

#1 The OPEN self, information about you anyone can know. Some of us are hermit-like. We parcel out a pennyworth of self-disclosure, while we watch for a hint of rejection. The challenge is to allow this area to grow, to let yourself be known.

#2 The BLIND self, those quirky traits, egregious sins and saintly habits known to everyone but you. The challenge is to learn to step behind the eyes of others when the subject turns to you.

#3 The HIDDEN self lurks behind your careful self-presentation. The challenge is to shorten the list of areas withheld, to tear down your facades.

#4 The UNKNOWN self is yet to be seen, hidden from even you. The challenge is to let God have his way, to trust him with what you may not like, to watch him uncover what can’t be predicted–the potential and purpose for which you were designed.

Are you hiding yourself in hermit garb, or are you ready to risk being known? 

 

 

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Finding Your Life, Unexpected

An identity grounded in God would mean that when we think of who we are, the first thing that would come to mind is our status as someone who is deeply loved by God. ~ David Benner

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The journey to knowing God and knowing self follows the same, often arduous path. We don’t find one without the other.

But the lie we stumble over on the way is a potent one: Life is a self-design. You are the meaning of your own being.

I am my life. I decide who I am. I work alone.

We craft our image, composing a self, preening in the mirror of our choosing. The dressing room is littered with effort, outfits tried and found wanting. Accessories scatter as we pick through the bin to find something

  • original, yet acceptable,
  • charming, yet purposeful,
  • cute, yet calculating.

We have goals to achieve, worlds to conquer, and crowds to impress…and so little time.

We are gladiators in the cruel arena of validation. Every moment we must justify the air we breath, our place on the planet, our position in the pecking order.

And we count and hoard the treasure of every “like” we can get, every evite to the party, every plaque on the wall. We fortify our defenses against the constant threat of nobody-ness.

I am my life. I thought I knew who I was. Why do I feel so alone?

Ah, but you are not your life. Your life is bound up in another. Crafted, yes, but not by your design. Life is not something to be made, but found in relationship with the Maker.

I fought in the validation arena. I learned to pose and posture so only the parts I was proud of showed. Everyone became a threat to the dazzling image I had in mind. Every failure was a fatal blow. The applause was never loud enough, my accomplishments were always eclipsed by more-talented others. The world orbited around me as I labored to create my own worth out of any material at hand.

Until, one evening I died. Standing in the moonlight on a bike path near my home, I surrendered all and felt no loss, just oddly free.

God is my life. He knows who I am, and he made a way for me to be found.

Galatians 2:20

Are you trying to make, or learning to find your life?

 

You may like: The Ultimate Identity Theft and God Wants To Make You Real.

 

 

 

 

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