A mud bath

I haven’t been able to write in weeks. Every time I approach this space I am afraid. Too many emotions all crowding around my heart and head trying to escape onto paper. Too much risk of exposure, of damaging relationships already damaged. It’s always better to hold it in, wait for it to pass, keep my cool and my thoughts to myself so I don’t hurt anyone, don’t do something I’ll regret and can’t take back.

And I just don’t have it in me to write about things that aren’t relevant to my now. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to write a story, even one about Jesus – there’s so many to choose from, but none of them make it past the blinking cursor until I give up and turn away from the screen.

The truth is that a messy conflict happened in and around my orbit. And I found myself surprisingly floored, outraged, feeling betrayed by the rules and principles upheld and supported in the conflict by those people I’m closest to. The craziest part was that I found myself feeling protective of someone I never would have imagined feeling protective over.

I’m not going to point fingers. It’s far too easy to do that in a conflict, and all it does is allow either side (me included) to say “but” and bring up an opposing argument. The truth gets lost in the chaos and heated exchange of small facets of the conflict being defended as if they’re the whole. Too many facets and too many faults makes for a whirlwind of judgement that no one can see through. Not me, not anyone.

I am going to tell a story though, of what happened in my heart over the past two months. It has to do with my previous post about seeds and soil that’s hard and a gardener. (See The farmer )

For years I’ve struggled with a certain relationship, been stuck in resentment and frustration over the ties to it that I couldn’t cut. I did whatever I could to distance myself from this relationship. I both dreaded and hated every forced encounter. Judged every belief and behaviour, because that’s what happens when you’re tied to a broken relationship. There’s a timeless truth in the old movie Pollyanna that my gramma loved:

You will find whatever you’re looking for.

If your eyes are looking through your own anger, your own hate or fear, that is what you’ll see in whoever you’re looking at. We can’t help it. And our brains are incredibly talented at latching onto that perspective, building it, letting it grow from a snowball into a snowman sized boulder.

And the most ironic part of it is that we don’t realize that we don’t actually have the ability – the capacity to know someone’s soul when we’re looking through eyes filled with criticism and hate or fear. We can’t see them. We can only see their false self – the worst parts of who they are that don’t and have never belonged in their souls. I believe this with all my heart, with as much passion as I believe that Jesus is the walking, talking, breathing definition of Love.

Worse, we can’t see ourselves with those eyes, either. It’s that log in the eye verse. Our brains have this crazy ability to separate ourselves from what we see. In a split second of hate or hurt our brains forget we also have a false self and worst part that’s been stuck to us through the mistakes and the lies we believe about who we are. With those anger eyes we act as if we’re on a higher level of ground – as if the secret struggle we deal with daily, be it addiction, lying or whatever harmful hook we’re stuck on, doesn’t exist since we think no one can see it but us.

Over several years of this I had moved on, pretended like this relationship didn’t exist, shoved it into a very small corner of my life and happily went on my way. Jesus and I worked on other things. But then Jesus did something inside my heart, plunged those big hands of his right into the hard sunbaked rebellious soil.

And I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t even think to ask for it. I certainly never saw it coming. Do you hear me here? I. DID. NOT. ASK. This is NOT self improvement Thursday. This is not a sermon or a telling you, the reader, to try harder. This is an experience. This is a tale of my teacher. My person who fights for me even when I don’t realize I need fighting for. This is a what it’s like to be in relationship with a soul seeker, heart specialist, and fierce lover.

Seemingly between one blink and the next I found my face cradled between my favourite pair of scarred hands, just like that man in the bible who couldn’t see, cool mud lathered over my eyes in the silence that often sits between us, and when two big, rough thumbs gently wiped it away, the hate wiped off with it. I didn’t ask Jesus for it and he didn’t ask permission. I’d already given him permission to work on my heart years ago when I let him in. And I’ve been asking him constantly what he’s doing in there – if anything at all.

The funny thing is that even after what Jesus did for me, nothing really changed in that relationship. That person was still the same, with the same beliefs, the same behaviours, the same things that we couldn’t agree on. But suddenly I had grace – Jesus’s thumbs swiped it over my eyes like a corrective lens when he washed the hate away. It didn’t affect my vision, those jagged pieces I didn’t like, because I could see. I could see who this person was meant to be, I could see their heart, their soul. Their hard earth parts were still there, but so was this treasure that Jesus made. He let me feel his love and his desire to gather them up next to his heart. He let me see his delight in who he’d made them, in the gifts he’d buried inside them and his excitement when those things shone through to the light of day. Let me tell you something about grace. It is not loving despite. It is not benevolence. It is not pity. It is a powerful clear vision through the mess to see what’s hidden beneath, what’s meant, what’s created with love. It’s binoculars that are owned and tailored by Jesus.

Now I’m left on the other side of this silent earthquake inside me. And I’m still facing what feels like a huge divide between me and those I love. It’s hard to let go of hurt. Especially when it involves old hurts and family members. The temptation is there to let my eyes film over with that old lens of anger, with hate directed somewhere else to protect the hurt and hide it. To pretend I’m not filled with any jagged edges myself.

Except I keep sending sideways looks at Jesus and know that sparkling clear grace he left in my eyes for that person doesn’t get to be selective. And if that’s how he looks at me, if that’s his standard vision – I want it. I want that grace to stay. And it’s a lot easier to wipe that hurt/hate film away now that he’s already done it once. He’s a mover and shaker of hearts and he can move and shake my heart any day if that’s what comes out of it.

(Please note: this post is not excusing harmful behaviour or saying such things should just be swept under the rug and forgotten. Nor is it advocating lack of boundaries in abusive relationships or with abusive people.)