Keeping the Commandments

Well, you know what they say about pride going before a fall. Just this afternoon I was so proud of myself for all the progress I'd made. Well... I had a real suckarific evening.

The good news is that Sara was with me when I got the horrific phone call, so when I bawled my eyes out in the middle of Wild Oats, I at least wasn't alone. I've pretty much spent the past five hours crying. I don't want to go into details, since basically what happened was that a family member hurt me, and I really don't believe in trashing people, especially in a public forum. Honestly it's a struggle that's been going on for a really long time, and I don't know... I can't explain it without going into detail, so I won't.

What's my point, besides the fact that there's a number of commandments that it's taking every ounce of strength I have to not break. I mean really, what's wrong with a little homicide now and then? Great. Now this person is going to be murdered tonight, and I'll be at the top of the suspect list. So be it. Lock me up, and let's all pray I don't get a girlfriend named Spike.

But back to my point. The above was supposed to be funny, but not sure I accomplished that task. I am so depressed right now. I was telling Heather that I feel so empty right now. And she did the "oh so not helpful when I'm in depressed mode" thing and said, "Yes but that's more room for God to fill you." I have absolutely no problem with that, except that while I intellectually know that, my heart still hurts, and frankly, I don't feel God anywhere in me.

Yeah, I know, sucks to be me. I just need to get over myself and accept God already, except that I thought I did, so I don't know what my problem is. But then I remembered a conversation I had with Rae shortly before my conversation with Heather. She was talking about how she'd talked to this person about her lack of faith and that she needed to think about the Footprints poem. I started thinking about the footprints poem with the situation tonight. During the hardest times, the person only saw one set of footprints and was angry because he'd thought that was when God had abandoned him, except what it really was, was God carrying Him. I think about how angry and hurt I am, and honestly, I am mad at God. How could He let this happen to me? How could He have put me in this position, that most of it, I had absolutely no choice over?

I hear His answer, just as the person in the Footprints poem heard it... Because He loves me. The truth is, as much as I lament this horrible place I'm in, it could be worse. And truly, without God here in my life, having protected me from the worst of what could have been, I would not nearly be as happy as I am. I would not nearly have as many of the blessings. No I didn't have a choice, except one. I chose Him. Just as He chose me. And regardless of these things that threaten to destroy me, He is there. He has saved me from far more than the nightmare of what could have been instead.

So while the temptation to just say, "Screw it," and blow something, or someone, up is probably stronger than it's ever been, the strength to say, "I choose to love anyway," is also stronger than ever. Abraham was justified by his faith. He chose to believe God and it was credited to Him as righteousness. Tonight, I am choosing to believe God and to trust that He has this in hand. And I pray that tomorrow, He will give me the strength to do the same.

In keeping the commandments, there is a danger, of course. The rich young man had kept them all since he was a boy. But he still could not let go of the one thing holding him back from true intimacy with Christ. The greatest commandment, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, is one I know I don't always keep as I should. My mind gets full of a lot of other things, like this hurt I'm dealing with. But the second-to love my neighbor as myself-that, too, is a struggle when it comes right down to it. This person who hurt me, I'm so filled with hurt that I can't see how to love. I have to ask myself, how would I want to be loved by this person so that I know how to respond.

Which leads me to the realization that as empty as I feel, I'm pretty full of a lot of junk.