You know those moments in life where you are certain God speaks directly to you? Well, the last few days have been those kinds of moments for me. Writing is my safe space, so I decided to bring those moments to paper. I am not necessarily good at writing, but there is something about it that feels like a calling. Now, I struggle with knowing what to say and so the task of writing seems daunting at times. However, in the moments when my soul is moved, words seem to flow freer and more easily. Like what I am saying matters. Hopefully, my words today will matter to someone reading.
For those who know me or live in my community, know that I've battled the repercussions of an unfortunate incident, which happened about a year ago. For those who don't know me, my husband, my eldest, and I were arrested at a high school baseball game after one of us (not me) was ejected for arguing with the umpires. Insert hands over face emoji now. After news of the arrests was out, my husband was asked to resign from a job he'd held for almost 20 years. I plan to eventually write about my feelings regarding that incident and its repercussions, but this excerpt won't focus on the incident itself, instead, I'll focus my writing on the state of my heart before and since that incident.
My heart, an already fragile organ, was tattered, worn, broken, patched up, healed, and yet never stopped betting. My mind, however, almost gave up a time or two, but my heart was stronger than my mind. Praise the Lord! Though strength is prominent now, rest assured during this past year, weakness inched in and overtook many of the days and even some entire months. I watched as the faith that I had grown for nearly thirty years crumbled. Uncertainty, which I struggled with even at the pinnacle of my faith, surrounded every aspect of my life. Uncertainty was strangling me. The things I once found joy in were tainted, maybe because my family acquired a disapproval rate from the people in our lives. Maybe because I trust too easily. Maybe because people just let you down. Maybe because of Covid. Whatever the reason, my heart kept sinking deeper and darker in despair. Please understand that I wanted more than anything to have the faith. To live out the testimony. To be an example of trusting God. But that's not exactly what I did. I continued to want and wish for that kind of faith, but I didn't do a great job of working at growing it.
Depression and anxiety have a way of clouding vision and intercepting drive and motivation. So, while overcoming everything, I found myself bitter and jaded instead of having blind faith. Needing proof or having doors opened was the only way I could navigate a belief in God. This was not the place I'd spent years teaching and preaching to youth about. This was not the place I'd been living in for almost 30 years. I felt lost in this place. I was on foreign soil, and yet I consumed the lotus flower because I couldn’t break myself free from residing here. For many months, I drifted around this location with hate in my heart and anxiety eating through my soul hoping God would audibly or physically show up helping me believe again.
Recently, I threw that lotus blossom down and clawed through the thorns that encased the path of my heart, but it seems that no matter how many vines I pull off the path there are more waiting to creep over and take hold. After reaching the year anniversary of the incident and settling the legal aspects from the incident ($450 in court costs for all three of us if you were curious. I have never hid anything about that night or the ramifications of. If you want to know, ask me.), another rush from the drowning waters almost pulled me under. However, this time God did speak, and He was louder than the waves.
As I texted a friend about the resounding opinion of a Facebook bandit, he responded with:
“Be encouraged that those folks' opinions don't matter one bit. And, here is one of the hardest things to do: pray earnestly that they will find their own joy and peace with God.”
As much as I want to live out the motto of people's opinions don't matter, I can't. I absolutely suck at NOT caring what people think. I don't want to care, but I doooooo. Way. Too. Much.
However, I did take his words and let them penetrate my hardened heart. I felt it soften a little. The next morning my YouVersion devotional was so on point. It was about LOVE. God’s whisper was becoming louder.
When I opened Facebook and scrolled through, sooooo many posts about love or worry or others opinions being moot danced on my screen. Then I came upon this beaut, which pierced my heart, and the thorns and vines that once strangled it simply fell off letting me know with God’s help I control me and my thoughts and actions.
“When we complain about someone, even in our spirit, our hearts are hardened toward them. When we pray for them, our hearts are open more to Christ. And this changes our world and how we see everyone in it.”
Can you see how all of these messages and topics are lining up? Do you sense God is communicating? Can you hear his voice boom through the air?
The opinionated Facebook bandit said in her post that I should “set a shining example for my own children, other children in my community, as well as adults.” And you know what? I should. Now, I don't think I've set a horrible example these past 20 or so years, but I'll admit I've had a few not so great days. However, I've tried my absolute best to follow the two greatest commandments: 1. LOVE GOD 2. LOVE OTHERS. To me, this is everything. Sometimes, the lack of genuine love in the Christian faith hurts me. I don’t write that to create an uproar or an argument about theology. I simply write it because those two commandments are red-letter proclamations made by the greatest human to ever live. I find when I am truly centered on loving people and loving God, I'm in a state of abounding joy and resonating peace.Plus, it just makes me happy.
I will be the first to admit that when I am not committed to being a person centered on love, my connection to God flounders. I can’t see or feel His presence clearly. The relationships within my life and at work suffer. I am not the shining example that I should be. What the opinionated lady failed to acknowledge in her post was the current state of my heart. She spoke of me as if she knew me, but if she really knew me, she'd know how the state of my heart was suffering and had been suffering for quite a while, even before the incident.
To truly display grace and love to others, one must be empathetic, understanding, and aware of the state of the heart. However, people aren’t necessarily aware of those things. They aren't quick to learn or asses the state of your heart. What they are is quick to judge, and even quicker to talk about you. In those talks, they tend to fabricate a reality that doesn’t truly exist. Their audience is quick to listen, repeat and add to. I know because I have been the audience. We've all been that audience. Yet, after you have been the topic of the talk, you don’t listen as intently anymore nor repeat as quickly as you once did, particularly when the things you heard about yourself never happened. Lol! Seriously, if you are gonna talk, know what happened.
So, what should we do? We should love. Years ago, I was challenged to read 1 Corinthians 13:4-12 and replace the word love or its pronoun with my name.
4 LANA is patient, LANA is kind. LANA does not envy, LANA does not boast, LANA is not proud. 5 LANA does not dishonor others, LANA is not self-seeking, LANA is not easily angered, LANA keeps no record of wrongs. 6 LANA does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 LANA always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 LANA never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Wooooo. That’ll preach. Let it be known that Lana is not all of those things. Lana has failed miserably in being and doing all of those things. But you know what Lana’s heart wants? It wants her to strive to be and do all of those things because the greatest commandments are centered around loving. Love is what we all crave. Love is what covers a multitude of sins. Love overlooks ugly hearts. Love seeks the best for others. Love is the only action that allows you and me to be like Jesus.
Let me leave you with an excerpt from a book I find to be a most poignant read for learning how to truly live. A dying professor teaches his former student about life’s important stuff. If you haven’t read Tuesdays with Morrie, I suggest you take the time to read Mitch and Morrie's story. For now, hear their conversation:
Have I told you about the tension of opposites? he says.
The tension of opposites?
Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.
Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
A wrestling match. He laughs. Yes, you could describe life that way.
So which side wins, I ask?
Which side wins? He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. Love wins. Love always wins.
So, when life has you in a chokehold, remember to love without limits. Pray earnestly for hearts to find, accept, and give authentic love. Because when you are giving love, love is healing you. ❤️
