Something happened this weekend. Who am I kidding? A lot happened this weekend, especially on Sunday and especially in Vancouver. Hockey gold! It was a day to remember! Unfortunately for me living on the other side of the other country it was also a day to remember but for much different reasons. . Unfortunately I missed the game. Being the good Canadian that I am I skipped hockey to go on a peacekeeping mission. As sure as i was that Canada would win gold that night, I was equally sure that I would step out of a meeting victorious. Reconciled. Restored. It wasn't that I wanted to win and I wanted the other side to loose, I thought for sure we'd all win. I thought we'd talk, we'd hug, we'd move on.
Well it's a good thing Canada won or the night would have been a total waste. I took a risk. Those who love me warned me that it could go horribly wrong, that it could do more harm than good. They were right, I left more wounded than when I arrived. I left the meeting in darkness and despair with the chorus of Brad Paisley's "What if she's an angel?" running through my head.
What if she's an angel sent here from heaven
And she's making certain that you're doing your best
To take the time to help one another
Brother are you going to pass that test
You can go on with your day to day
Trying to forget what you saw in her face
Knowing deep down it could have been her saving grace
What if she's an angel
Do I think I'm an angel? GOOD GRIEF NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do I think that God used me Sunday night (and the 7 months before it) to show a certain group of people where they need to learn compassion? Absolutely.
It got me thinking about the angels in my life that have been brought to show me my weaknesses. Jesus said "whatever you do for the least of these you do for me." How have I responded to the least of these? Have they come to test compassion and love? Are they God with skin on? Waiting to see how I'll react and fill their needs? It's the other side of what we normally think of the people who help us being angels or Jesus with skin on........ I'm afraid if that's the case then I've failed a lot of tests. Good thing God has compassion on me....
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given is not to waste pain. There's a German saying about paying the teachers toll. The teachers toll is the pain or experience involved in learning a lesson. I sure hope that the size of the lesson is supposed to be relative to the toll paid because I paid a lot. Last night in a hospice training session we talked about not asking "why me?" But instead, "if it has to be me what can I learn?" So what have I learned from the past 7 months of pain? Too much to write about. One of the things is learning from others mistakes. I was just going to quote a line in the following poem but it's just waaaaaaaay too good not to share the whole thing:
The Women On My Journey
Rev. Melissa M. Bowers
To the women on my journey
Who showed me the ways to go and ways not to go,
Whose strength and compassion held up a torch of light
and beckoned me to follow,
Whose weakness and ignorance darkened the path and encouraged me
to turn another way.
To the women on my journey
Who showed me how to love and how not to live,
Whose grace, success and gratitude lifted me into the fullness
of surrender to God,
Whose bitterness, envy and wasted gifts warned me away
from the emptiness of self-will
To the women on my journey
Who showed me what I am and what I am not,
Whose love, encouragement and confidence held me tenderly
and nudged me gently,
Whose judgement, disappointment and lack of faith called me
to deeper levels of commitment and resolve.
To the women on my journey who taught me love
by means of both darkness and light.
To these women I say bless you and thank you from the
depths of my heart,for I have been healed and set free
through your joy and through your sacrifice.
I know never to say never. My friends and I joke that we did our best parenting BEFORE we became parents. It sounds harsh to say that I would never treat anybody the way I was treated. So let me put it in the form of a prayer.
Dear God, let me recognize the angels you send into my life. And to treat them as if they were in fact you. To understand that hurting people hurt people and that you came for them. Help me to see past the anger to the pain and know that you're big enough to handle it. Only the hands strong enough to be nailed to the cross are strong enough to handle the weight of the world. You are not scared or threatened by anger; you don't see it or the pain that causes it as sin. You came for the sick not the healthy, the sinner not the saved. You, and me as your servant came to meet people where they're at, in all the mud and the muck that isn't of their own making even if I think it is. Besides, you'll help them clean up and you'll love them until they are. Help me to remember that Jesus had friends in messy low places, and if I want to be more like him I'd better start relating more to those low places than to clean high churches. A ship is safe in the harbour but that's not what ships are for. As a former missionary I always took the command to go into the world to mean to go overseas. Today I understand that the world may be waiting for me at the home of a divorced friend.
God help me to do more sacred listening than compulsive fixing. There's healing in listening. In all situations you would be there listening, understanding, knowing. True pull up a chair and turn off your cell phone listening. There's healing in crying with someone. Nobody should cry alone, emotions are a gift from you and they are not to be feared or shamed away. Help me to preach the gospel at all times but use words when necessary. Sometimes people need a slice of pizza more than they need a quote from proverbs. God let the gospel I preach be that of unconditional love. Help me to remember that you love the sinner but hate the sin and that it's not always my job to point our the sin but it is always, always my job to love. Help me to remember the words of 1 Corinthians 13 that tell us what love is and not remember what love is not. Forgive me Lord of all the things that I have done in what I called love.
More later. For now I'm off to reconcile with some angels.
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