Roots Growin' Deep

4 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. Hebrews 12

Peace with everyone. What an interesting and novel concept. The Scripture doesn't say that we will always have peace with everyone, but that we should endeavor (strive) to have it. In this over-sensitive world that we are living in, it doesn't take much to offend someone. It's a sure bet that I'm offending somebody, just by breathing or taking up space on the planet. I've thought about this a good bit recently -- maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I figured out at some point that I can't please everyone. That bothers me, but now I'm getting too tired to care. I love ya. See ya, bye.

But that root of bitterness. It is a vacuum that sucks the world dry. We all have it, to some degree. Some people have it more than others. I've known people who have had the most terrible things happen to them, but they are walking, talking pictures of grace. Then others, who have no apparent reason to be angry, are smoldering, seething wraiths, poisoning the very air in the room. They are leeches, draining the blood from the people they influence. Bitterness defiles many. It takes a kind, innocent person and reminds them of all they should be angry about. Things that they never noticed or cared to take offense at get put under a microscope of human injury. Suddenly they become large and ruinous. No wonder the Bible tells us not to go with an angry man....because we become like him, in time.

I've written before about my Mama and how God freed her from her torture chamber of bitterness that she had towards her own mother. I saw that up close and personal, with God giving her the grace to forgive her mother. It transformed our family from the inside out. I saw the power of forgiveness, not just in her relationship with her mother, but in her newfound ability to ask us to forgive her when she had done something wrong. There is nothing as beautiful as a person admitting that they were at fault, and then humbly asking forgiveness. This is the heart of the gospel, too. The point where a person recognizes that they cannot save themselves, that they are beyond rescuing...and then admitting their sinfulness and their inability to be perfect. Then asking God for forgiveness and throwing themselves at His feet. It's opposite world, where what we naturally would do, we don't do. The arm of God scoops us up in His redeeming grace and gives us a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone.

I know now that there are some people that I cannot make peace with, no matter how hard I try. There's not enough energy in the world to fill some vacuums and I am not strong enough to force someone to love or accept this gal. But this I can do...I remember long ago, a teacher told me to make a list of things that had been done to me that were wrong or evil. Then make a list of what I had done to hurt other people. I was admonished to forgive those that hurt me, to lay them at the cross, and then to go to the people I had hurt and ask forgiveness. It took a while for me to remember myself. As I began to make difficult calls and visits to those I had offended, a joy and peace came over me that I had never experienced before. That's the Holy Spirit and the grace of God right there, and not of this world. 

It is easy to let time and busyness steamroll over me (and us), easy to quit noticing the deeper things that really matter. I think it's time to make a new list and catch up with my devil self again. Pull away from things that don't matter. Add back stuff that does. Ask forgiveness. Grant forgiveness. Throw myself on the Savior. Yep....

Trophies for the Victor

We all remember where we were when the Twin Towers fell. My family was at our annual beach vacation in Panama City, surrounded with friends and more family. As we sat in mute shock, then ambled around the campground for days, we had no idea how much the world was about to change. We were numb, frightened, unbelieving.

It seemed to be the start of many other things crumbling in the world as well. Within a year, the company my husband worked for (he had been there 23 years) lost their footing. Their stock was reduced to pennies and he lost his considerable stock options. Twenty years of a 401K was reduced to rubble, his retirement was gone and in the end he lost his job, something we never imagined was possible. We had always enjoyed wonderful insurance and benefits, plenty of vacation time, and enough money not to worry much. All of a sudden, it seemed like something had exploded and we were deaf with the concussion of it. I remember feeling like I was underneath the water, not moving, not breathing, not feeling. 

Our family went through one disaster after another, real trials of all sorts. Ken went into construction and home building, with 7 jobs in 6 years as that industry started to unravel. He almost died from a freakish liver abscess. We lost a 14-week pregnancy, then lost two more early pregnancies. We had always presumed upon the future, assuming things would stay the same. But of course, they didn't. As the economy crumbled, so did our options. We put our beautiful dream home on the market, with no lookers. We surfed from month to month, trying to figure a way out of the paper bag we found ourselves in. I had been a muralist/faux finisher, doing artwork in beautiful homes. When the downturn happened, rich people quit paying for murals and started remodeling their homes, since they couldn't sell them. I joined my sons and their boss, doing residential painting and picking up work from all over Atlanta. 

Ken had been saddled with a big truck and insurance payment from his work vehicle that was left over when a company folded that he was working for. Then the thing croaked. A beautiful monster truck in the driveway, that we couldn't pay to get fixed. Monthly payments still came. Monthly insurance bills still came. Friends at church helped him work slowly on it, but the monster wasn't budging. Meanwhile, my little Ford Explorer was creeping up in miles. It had 217,000 on it when a non-insured driver wrecked and totaled it. It took us seven months before we got the payout on that car. 

Limping in our work, a bum truck in the driveway with no money to fix it, 6 doctors trying to sue us for that old hospital stay, a mortgage, kids to feed, no car, no retirement, no future. We were at the bleakest place, with the fewest options. I begged God for relief, for answers... the skies seemed leaden. This had now stretched out for years. Amazing that you can drown for that long. It was the grace of God that kept us from succumbing or killing each other. I learned a lot, particularly that what happens to men in these situations is that they cope by going into caves and women cope by becoming shrieking worrywarts. Where Mama is running around, pulling her hair out and repeating the phrase, "This is a perfect time to panic!" -- Papa is submerged somewhere with an occasional platitude of "It's gonna be okay." I now know scads of couples who didn't make it through. When the world turns inside out, the cracks in your marriage get bigger and it's a miracle if you don't get swamped.

There came a time when the Lord started turning over the boat, though it came slowly. The truck got fixed and sold (leaving us $400 for groceries), Ken got steady work at a ministry, our elder gave us his son's small car that he didn't need anymore, insurance paid out for my wrecked car, our house sold so we paid off the doctors and had enough to buy our beautiful old Victorian in Villa Rica with the cash we had left. Many, many things conspired to get us to a better place. We still have to work until we die, but maybe that's for the best anyways. I see a lot of people wasting their days. I still worry and fret. Ken still likes to pretend there's never a reason to panic. 

We're busy with work, children, grandbabies, church, life. Too busy. Sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, when the hormones are putting another log on the fire, I'll stop and remember the hardest of those days. It's God's grace that got us through, and it's God's grace that still holds us. I have to remind myself that we're in America and we've never even missed a meal (we could've probably benefited from a little fasting). Suffering is all relative, and compared to the rest of the world we are filthy rich. This ain't all there is. Our little trinkets and houses and treasures, it's just stuff that's going to rust or get transferred to somebody else. We're going to die. Maybe in our sleep, maybe in a hospital bed, maybe in a burning tower. 

God has taken us through deep waters. There will be more to come, for sure. Meanwhile, I'm chained to His chariot.