Do You Know My Pain?

03 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Seeking Peace in Christian Living, Faith

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I read some quotes by a well known preacher spoken to those considering suicide. I can only wonder if he truly understands their pain? I have grown up hearing how people who commit suicide are selfish. How they will burn in hell. How they are this and that and nothing ever good.

Do you ever wonder what people who have committed suicide must have been thinking? Battling? Do you ever wonder what wounds they were carrying? How they perceived the way people had treated them?

I realize this isn’t a pretty subject but I tend to approach things from the dark side so often. My point is this, what am I doing today to show the love of Jesus to someone around me. Someone who may be hurting so badly and so deeply that I can’t know it. Or do I simply ignore it in my busyness? How can I be the essence of love today?

You see, I believe the love of Christ can save anyone. And, I believe we are called to be the love of Christ.

So, when I hear about someone committing suicide, I can only think they were not surrounded by the love of Christ. Who’s fault is that? No, I don’t take the blame for someone committing suicide. Afterall, it was their choice in the end. Yet, you won’t hear me talking about how selfish they are or where they will spend eternity. In fact, I can’t help but wonder if Christ doesn’t surround them with the love they must have been missing while on this earth. It’s a question I may never have an answer for.

The love of Christ saves. The love of Christ can stop Newtown massacres. The love of Christ can stop suicides. The love of Christ can end wars. The love of Christ has the power to end pain.

Oh Lord, let me show someone your love today.

Grace and peace.

Hurting

15 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by Seeking Peace in Christian Living, Faith, Prayer

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hurting, kids, killing, lost, love, murder, tragedy, wounded

What happened in Newtown, CT yesterday was a tragedy that will never be able to be explained. 20 children dead. 6 others killed. Why? Why? Oh Lord, why?

There will be loud and incessant chatter from those blaming God and guns over the next few days and weeks. All of those people are missing the issue.

I cannot begin to fathom the mental torment of someone who walks into an elementary school and starts killing innocent people. I cannot. I cannot begin to fathom the mental torment that a Jeffrey Dahmer, a Unibomber, a Adolf Hitler must be dealing with. I cannot. But, I do know it exists.

There are people who choose to take their own life instead of the lives of others. They too are going through a level of mental torment that many people cannot understand. It’s a mental torment I am closer to understanding. Some overcome it. Many don’t.

The challenge is not that guns are available. Do we ban ropes? Sheets? Knives? We allow people to operate cars who are drunk. These are all symptoms of a bigger problem. A problem revolving around mental and emotional issues. A problem that is often swept under the rug. Or ignored. Or laughed at. Or locked up. Certainly a problem that carries a stigma from many of the “normal people” running loose pretending they don’t have problems.

I haven’t met one single person that wouldn’t benefit from counseling. Not one. I’ve met a bunch who don’t think they need it or who just won’t go but I don’t know any who haven’t battled wounds and scars that need healing and need help.

We will never legislate evil out of the world. We will never have enough laws to prevent evil. Only love has overcome evil and only love will ever overcome evil. Love for the hurting. Love for the battle weary; love for the scarred and the scared, the wounded and the hurting, the lost and alone.

Today I will call people I love and tell them I love them and I am here for them. I will also consciously look for others who are hurting, who are enduring problems that no one wants to talk about. I will pray that God brings those people my way and allow me to reach out to them, not to fix them, but to only love them.

Grace and peace.

Do You Know Me?

18 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by Seeking Peace in Christian Living, Conflict Resolution

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God's eyes, grace, love

This post may morph into two separate posts. It is a mash-up of two thoughts from today. One is the idea of “biblical point of view” and the other is respect for others. I’ll start with the respect for others as I begin thinking about how it all works together. (That was a lot of rambling, huh?)

As I stood in line at Freebirds today, I was struck by the young man helping. He was very polite, courteous and helpful. He also had a nose ring, oblong spacers in his ears, at least 4 piercings in one of his ears and tattoos. Not exactly the path I have followed. As I took it all in, I wondered how many people judged this young man based on a) his courteous attitude or b) his appearance.

“What’s that going to look like when he’s old?” Heard that question before? How many 80 year old people are proud of their pristine, still smooth as a baby’s bottom skin? There are so many things we worry about for tomorrow while missing the joys of today. I have more “I wish I woulda’s” than I care to count. Multiple piercings are not among them but I know what I wish I would have done, why judge what another person has decided to do. If he regrets it all when he’s 80, that is his issue and won’t be mine, either now or then.

“The body is a temple.” Oh wow. I wonder how often this is uttered by people who have filled their bodies with bad foods, cigarettes, or who have filled their eyes and minds with worthless, if not blatantly evil, TV shows and movies. God didn’t give us our bodies to be perfect. If so, few would measure up. He gave us bodies to use, to fulfill the work of Jesus in our time. And what does ashes to ashes and dust to dust mean? Is God going to be hacked off if our body, that will decay, has a tat or a piercing on it? Seriously, there are people in our daily periphery who are starving to death; starving from malnutrition, starving from loneliness, starving from the absence of God in their life and I just find it impossible to believe God worries about what someone inks on their body.

Finally, how can we say anything about another person’s choices if we don’t know that person. A little over a year ago, I had a gentleman at my church attack me for a decision I had made that he felt was contrary to the Bible’s teaching. He felt this way because he made an assumption about a situation and didn’t know the facts. He attacked me in front of friends and while they tried to stand up for me, I simply let him talk. We parted without further conversation because my friends thought it best to get me away from him. Some months later I had the chance to talk to him and told him I didn’t appreciate how he treated me and what he said and that I disagreed with him. He started over on how my choice was wrong and I just asked him, “do you know me? Do you know all the facts? I ask this because God knows me, He knows my heart and He knows the fact and I rest securely in that.” Jesus knew the people he talked to. He knew their situation and He knew their heart. I didn’t know the guy behind the counter, how he grew up, why he did what he did to his body, what his experiences were, what his heart was like. How can I make judgment without knowing a person.

I write all of this because I have experienced judgment again recently. I know what it is like to have people talk about you behind your back, to cast judgment on you without all the facts. It hurts but I know God knows me. He knows my heart. He knows where I have failed and why. I won’t hold it against anyone for speaking against me. I pray that God (and I) will show them the grace and mercy He has shown me. I am a sinner. I have fallen short of His perfection. God knows me.

I hope to capture my thoughts about others and turn them over to God. I hope to see people as God sees them. I hope to give them the love and grace He casts on them.

Grace and peace.