Just the smallest step

I'm gazing out the sitting room window. Behind me rests a shelf of books.

Each author resides upon his own spine, and out this window their eyes must look.

Their thoughts, each kept so quietly hidden, beneath each cover, upon each leaf;

Their silent banter, their own perceptions – of life and joy and pain and grief.

This window has no convection or tint – nor does it alter the light passing through.

Differing opinions, profound and unique, are fruits that grow from each author's own view.

“See? God loves them!”, claims Rice, “And brings lightness of heart.” “But,”says Van Braght, “remember the price.”

“To serve Him doesn't ensure life's a balm.” “And that”, concludes Golie, “is the cause for our vice”.

I presume there's a parallel to our own existence – since, it seems, no two people agree.

I guess what I most need is not better wording, but to be exchanged with the book next to me...

So I'll think about it then...

How do you treat people you care about?

This is an interesting question - well, maybe interesting isn't the right word; Indefinite is probably better. I've heard it posed frequently to me (or in close proximity to me) and it has always been rhetorical - an answer really isn't expected, it's only posed for affect. So I have never undertaken to consider it seriously. It was posed to me recently, however, and I was assured that it was an entirely serious question - Deliberation was intended. And so I will deliberate...

It is an impossible question to answer without a context, and the context for this particular scenario is the realization that some relationships are permanent and some aren't. And the discernment between those two types of friends can be difficult for an individual. So the natural thought that arises (for an inquisitive person) is, "I'm having difficulty discerning this for myself, so how do I care for the relationships that I want to retain in such a way that the person discerns that I want the relationship to be permanent?" 

It's been a couple of days now and I don't think "permanent" isn't the right word to use, I think "enduring" the word I'm looking for. Because we are not in control, God is, and we know that he will remove us from relationships as best suits His purpose. The only permanent relationship that I know of is marriage and the only reason that that is permanent is because that is the one relationship that God will not separate during life.

So how do you show someone that you want the relationship to endure? Not endure time (cause that is up to God) - but to endure life; the mountains, the valleys, the caves, the peaks, the plains, the hills. How do you show that you want are willing to plod on, to work through all of it - that hardships don't cause you fear, that you are willing to endure pain for the sake of the person?

...I wonder if the deliberation is the hard part, because it seems that the answer is simple...

All that is needed is a gift; a gift that cannot be manufactured - the heart. Because that is Love.

Love endures all things

This is Home

What defines home for a person? What gives each individual a sense of permanency in their environments? Why do we sense a need to move on – a sense of transition – in certain scenarios until we find...whatever we're looking for? And why do we yearn to “continue” as long as that is lacking? And what are we looking for? And when we are content with where we are, how did we find it? What gives us our sense of belonging, of attachment to one area, and of dissatisfaction with another? And we say we get “homesick”, but what does that mean? It's more than just shyness or overload of unfamiliarity. Its like an insecurity almost, an insecurity that results from the lack of something. The same lack that keeps driving us forwards (or back) to whatever “home” that we're wishing for.

I'm going home

That means that were I am isn't home, and why is that I wonder?

And that means that I know I'm looking for something, and what is that I wonder?

And that means that there is hope within me of something “better”, and where is that from I wonder?

Home is where the heart is

So we move on until we find a place to leave our heart. And if we've already left our heart, then God help us, because we need to turn around - or spend the rest of our life moving on...

But wait

Maybe “the heart” in the saying is not our own. Maybe it's the other around us. Maybe the search is not about where we leave our heart, but maybe it's about where we find it! Maybe we are wishing not for a resting place, but for an accepting place.  Maybe that's what gives us the sense of belonging, maybe that is what is called home...

Daughty - Home

I pledge allegiance to my Father, for I know I am His son...

It is strange the ways God chooses to answer our prayers. It is definitely not from a worldly point of view - He decides according to thought processes that we can not understand. He chose to answer my prayer that night. Well, it wasn't like a flash of light or a sudden inner cleansing - it was simply that He attached my mind to my heart. And all that knowledge, an biblical truth that I knew and had learned (and been told over and over) flooded my heart. I wasn't at that moment either, it was the next morning talking with mom (one of the many times) and I suddenly realized that all my dysfunction, all my anger and resentment, all the failure and pain, all of my intolerance of weakness, everything, was a result of living in the reality of an orphan. I needed to prove to God. I needed to be good enough to be accepted, I couldn't tolerate imperfection, because it meant that I wouldn't be accepted. I needed to earn God's love, to earn His attention. And that was my reality. And all God did was reveal to my heart that He loved me. And do you want to know something, I think it was at that moment that I was "saved". I honestly believe that I wasn't His child until that moment. Because it wasn't until that moment that I gave Him my heart. I understood at that moment that He had accepted me as His son, not because of my worth but because of His love - the love that my heart craved to find. He had rescued my life. I say 'moment' for lack of a better word, but really it was a weekend; no sudden  "Aha" moment, just a perceivable relief that deepened with each passing moment. A relief that turned to joy  because my burdens were being relieved.

My story continues, it is still moving onward today. Out of the freedom God gave me I have realized a lot about myself that I had always kept hidden. I'm compassionate, caring, sensitive, emotional, empathetic, loving, vulnerable - in short, everything that I had considered weaknesses. And this is who I have become because of God's love for me. I suppose this part of my story is a lot shorter than the "darker' part, but if that is so, it's because this reality is so much harder to put into words - maybe it is just something that has to be lived. I'm different than a lot of people think I am - and that's because they knew a "manufactured" Craig, either a healthier or harsher one; whatever one I used to isolate myself from the individual. I'm not perfect by any means, I still struggle with all the remaining baggage - and it will define me for my whole life. But I am changing, and I am changing for the better - thanks to God.

I want to make a difference, I want to help others find understand what has given hope to live again. I see people in pain and I hurt with them. I see pictures of me everywhere, and I want to help them out of it. It's not sympathy, it's not charity - it affects my life, and may cost me it one day. When I see myself, I know that the only way out for them is to get them to reach out, and the only thing that I know will make that happen is if they find someone who will not walk away. Someone who can take all the abuse that will be heaped on them, someone that can endure pain to the depth that they will be hurt without turning away. That's what brought me out, and that the only thing that I can do to help - allow myself to be pushed, but to never walk away. And I try, but I can't, my baggage is still there, I don't endure, but that's not what this is about...

It's about why I do this, it's about why I analyze, it's about why I love, it's about why invest, it's about why I try to make a difference in my small sphere of influence. Because I know the value of one person. Because, if it means the life of a soul, what does it matter whether my heart is torn asunder - to make a difference in one person's life, I will give my own...it's what Christ did for me, Thanks be to God.

I wish I could cry...

There was another time in my life...

I want to share some about my own life - to take a break from analyzing life and just "relive" it. It is something that always brings me hope. And I guess I want it to do the same for you...

I have not always been who I am now; I haven't always had an open heart that I wear on my sleeves; I haven't always been caring and compassionate; I haven't always been emotional and sensitive. This vulnerability is something new to me.
I suppose I was a typical "Christian kid"; I grew up with parents who were God-fearing and we went to church every Sunday, had bible studies during the week, prayed before meals. My childhood was somewhat sheltered from "destructive" influences and I took "healthiness" for granted. I suppose I was 4 or 5 when I "became a Christian", said the prayer, etc, and moved on, never seriously questioning what it had meant to me.

And so I grew up...

But something was wrong. I went to church, went to bible studies, lived the life that looked right, but inside I was deteriorating. I was fighting something, but I could never define it; I was craving something, but never I knew what. And I was bitter. I don't know when I first noticed it - it came on slowly. It was dark and discouraging, and deep. It wasn't a mild resentment like what results when you don't get your way, it was a smothering veil that settled beneath my surface. I grew tired of church, I grew tired of God, I grew tired of believing, and I grew tired of life. I was stuck with this anger that I couldn't control - it wasn't rage, and I actually have a hard time calling it anger - it was more like extreme withdrawal or suppressed rage. And I d
couldn't find the root. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I prayed, I cried, I pleaded, but what came wasn't the answers I was looking for. I studied the bible, read every self-help book on anger, and listened to people tell me that I needed to not be selfish and to not expect my way. But I couldn't agree, I could sense that the root was elsewhere. And tried to find it, but couldn't.
And I withdrew. It didn't seem to have much to do with my anger, I didn't consider it a problem at all actually. I just thought that I was made that way. I aspired to be unemotional, unaffected by people, and to be like a machine - like Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to be pure driven by logic, untouchable by any "weakness" and unmoved by it. I refused to get "close" to people, and took no pains to avoid hurting them. I shut myself up so deep that no one could reach in. And I dared them to, because I knew that no matter how much they pitied me, that they didn't love me - and I would prove it by hurting them until they dropped me, turned and walked away. And in the bitter hurt of those moments I would laugh with pain, because I knew that it would end that way. I wanted to be someone who would discourage any sort of help, I wanted to scare people from trying to reach out to me, I wanted to push everyone so far away that no one would ever have hope of trying to touch me - and I did, as effectively as I could.
And my "aloneness" only caused me to recede further, every person I succeeded in "breaking" only made me withdraw further. I was digging a hole that could not be filled by another.
I never questioned whether the bible was absolute or not, I never doubted that God existed, and as far as my "beliefs" went - I could answer any theological question logically. I knew what I believed! It was all there - and that is what I wore on the outside. And as long as that is what people saw, I never sensed that they bothered to dig and see if I was okay inside. And if they did, it was to give themselves some "goodygoody" feeling that they had "helped" someone in need. And that hurt me more
I detested church, shunned Christians, avoided bible study - and yet cried to God still. Picturing Him as some unemotional Father that expected perfection from His children and expected them to come up with it. Can you picture an orphan? Throwing every effort into proving that he is worth being loved and accepted? And the rejection and hurt that he feels every time he fails? That was me. I would have given anything to be out of that snare, but I loved being in it. And the internal battle raged - it still does.
And I gave up, I gave up trying and accepted my reality. I was good at being all the people I was  - I learned  to cope with the pain in life, with the rejection. I was done with trying to find a better life. And I had unconsciously disguised myself from myself, so that I deceived myself and others effectively.

People hurt me, God hurt me, friends hurt me, family hurt me - I hurt me. And I detested myself for that sensitivity. But I knew I needed to survive so I had to cope. I refused myself emotions, I refused myself feeling, I refused myself sensitivity, I refused myself relationships, I refused, well, myself. I had manufactured different "craigs" for different situations to keep myself untouchable, I had knew how to treat people to avoid closeness. And if they "threatened" my heart (by reaching for it and caring for me) I was a good enough judge of people to find their most sensitive spot and I hit them there  I knew that if I pushed everyone away, eventually they would all turn and walk away. And if they didn't make themselves vulnerable, but only approached me out of a desire for personal satisfaction at helping someone - I put on one of the manufactured personalities, the one that I sensed would convince them that I was healthy. So against the two types of people that approached me, I could hold my own. And of the two, the ones that threatened me the most were the former type, the ones that did approach me vulnerably and with genuine care, but the more threatened I felt the more "aggressively" I retaliated - I actually enjoyed hurting them enough to shut them up, just like me.

And I still grew up...

I don't suppose I want to explain anymore in this direction, I think it is understandable and I don't think I want to go any deeper. Suffice to say, it only got darker. But, I happened to be invited into a bible study, like many before, and despite not wanting to, also like many before, I attended. It was a study on Sonship, and it was less of a bible study and more of an internal reflection. And in answering the questions posed about myself I starter to reveal things about myself I had never realized. I continued to go to the study, and to answer the questions - alternately ignoring my own dysfunction and realizing it, dependent on what situation I was in. All of life was dark to me, I never had a climax - so to speak - I had dulled myself to every feeling, and I had done so some years before. But I know that I struggled over the course of the study, struggled with things that I had long since given up on - but honestly, most of the struggling was only at the study, and more with trying to "Leave the Bible at the Study" (so to speak). Anyways, sometime early spring (mid march, to be exact), after the study had been going for some months, there was an assignment given. It was to share with someone outside the study (and outside our "christian" circles) what it meant to us to be "Son's of God". I don't suppose that I was anything that I hadn't heard before - and I knew that I wasn't going to share with anybody, simply because it meant nothing to me. But I prayed that evening that of God wanted me to share with someone, He was going to have to let me know what it means - otherwise, no-go. By now I knew He wouldn't answer, but I prayed, maybe because I hadn't completely given up...And then fell asleep doubting God...

But God did answer.

And that will be another post...