Tuesday, July 15, 2014

PSALM 133 - Just Give Me A Little Peace!!

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!  (Verse 1)

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Romans 12:17

I've been challenged to choose recently. Between what I know in my heart God told me, called me to do, and what other Christians I love perceive differently. It's an excruciating dilemma. My question to God was/is: "How can you be telling us two different things?" I raged for a bit, so certain of my convictions, knowing the hours I'd spent before God getting things just right. Hours on my face in the middle of the night. Miles of walking the beach and straining with Him over what seemed like an irony of spirit. It caused a breach. Over what is essentially His. What to do. What to do. Eventually, I understood the unmistakable voice of Jesus say: "Love them. That's the more important part."

Of course, that meant giving up a thing that cost me two years of my life and a need to see it through to the end. It meant saying to Jesus that whatever has been rearranged and changed that kicked my gut with a palpable grief wasn't as important to Him as loving my brothers and sisters. The rest is up to Him. Even now as I write this, I have to take a deep breath and let it all go again. But that is what He's called me to do. It might be that I was right all along, I don't know. Don't care anymore. I just don't want to be on the wrong side of God on this issue or any other. So far as it now depends upon me, I want to live in peace with those I love.

But...there have been times when living in peace with a Christian brother or sister isn't possible. Peace at any price is not what Jesus is talking about. I've been so betrayed by another Christian that, though I forgive, having relationship with the person isn't possible. Women who've been abused by a "Christian" husband aren't commanded to stay at any price. Peace is a thing given by the indwelling Christ. I think it's really only possible in relation to Him.

When we were first married, my mother became so offended by our perceived behavior that she decided she never wanted to see us again! At barely twenty-one, my daughter heart was devastated. We hadn't done anything wrong, really. We bought a Mustang Mach I she couldn't sit in, we didn't keep my sister over night in our one bedroom apartment...little things she thought were about not wanting her in our lives. "You are the most selfish people I've ever met!" We were simply in love and oblivious. We were about to move for three months to California from Texas and I couldn't bare my mother's broken heart. Daddy came to the house for lunch after Mother's meltdown, had ham sandwiches, pickles and chips and tried to come to some solution with me. Prayer. That's all we could come up with. Later in the day, Daddy called. "Please come to the house tonight around 7. I've told your mother that we are going to pray. She's not keen on the idea, but she'll be here."

Sick at my stomach, holding the hand of my new husband, whose own heart ached, we approached the front door to my parents' house. "I've told your mother she can't say anything until we first talk to Jesus. The same goes for you two," Daddy said, gently. Mother looked shriveled. I'd never seen bitterness so obvious on someone before. Like an acid that ate away her joy. She wouldn't look at us. When we sat down, she started to say something. "Flossie," began Daddy, "I told you we aren't talking until we talk to Jesus first."

We sat around their round maple table in the kitchen and bowed our heads. Where to start? Who? Daddy began. Got tangled up in words. Stopped. Then, after like what seemed an eternity, Bill's tear-filled voice struggled to pray. "Jesus, I'm so very sorry that I've hurt Flossie. I don't know what we did, but it was never meant to bring her pain. Please help her to forgive me for being insensitive. For saying wrong things." Bill wiped the tears pouring from his eyes. "Jesus, please let her know how much I love her."

It was up to Bill to bring peace that night. Not because he'd done anything to purposely harm my mother, but because she needed peace. Not many men would've done what my man did. But it melted my mother. That's what she needed to know: that Bill loved her. Wasn't wanting to leave her out of our car or our home or our lives. "Why did you say those things, Bill?" My mother needed some clarification. Bill didn't know. Wasn't exactly sure what things Mother meant. "I guess I'm not very silver-tongued, Flossie. If I say something to offend you again, please just tell me in the moment. I will never be intending to be mean."

Forever after that, until her death in 1985, Mother didn't question for one second Bill's love for her. He became her son that day. It wasn't until my father's arrest for child molestation that we understood the fullness of Mother's insecurities and heartbreak. All the years of her marriage she felt unloved and insufficient for Daddy. It had carried over to us. As I listened to her grief for the months after the arrest, it was clear that way back then, even, she was building up a wall against feeling emotionally abandoned by her daughter, too. We never know the depths to which peace is necessary. The gift it is when we do all we can on our parts to bring it to another.

At the last dinner He had with His best friends, Jesus challenged them to live in love. And when the one who couldn't dine in peace with them, Judas Iscariot, the traitor, was gone to do his dealings with the priests, Jesus prayed over the disciples who remained. "Make them one as We are One." What joy it must give our Lord for us to love each other. To give up for each other. To care for another more than we care for ourselves. To wash each other's feet. In so far as it's up to us, that we keep peace. Not with a Judas. But with our brothers and sisters who love Jesus as much as we do, but who might just disagree with us.

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