Pain.
What has caused you the most pain you have ever been in? Surveying both physical and unphysical pain, what then? I know for me it was hearing my ex husband say three times he was sure he wanted a divorce to the judge on our DDay.
That pain has since plagued my mind and clouded my heart with a deep-seated bitterness and a attitude of cynicism that nothing could penetrate. My last blog entry touches on this a bit, but that was a whole week ago! It’s kind of amazing what can happen when you FINALLY realize what’s tripping you up!
I’ve had a week from hell to sum it up, it would look like this… work, car, money, car, work, work, work, car, health, money, work, health, and car, car, car. Let’s just say, I lost it a little. Had my little wah wah “why me” 5 minutes of tears and… ok, maybe 10 minutes of tears, don’t judge me! At the end of all the bad events that kept up, one after another after another, including getting locked out of my apartment building by my neighbor, I finally decided it was prayer and devotion time (Yes, it took me THAT long to get there… again, don’t judge me). I opened my Bible to that avoided spot and dove in… 1 Corinthians 13. And I thought about what my problem is with this whole passage. It’s not that I have a problem with the passage, it depicts something so amazingly beautiful, it depicts Christlike love. In all the ways mentioned Christ has show His love for us FIRST, and then called us to be imitators of that love in those ways. The problem is it’s all self-giving, unmerited love. Unless one is TRULY a follower of Christ, this type of love is foreign; it cannot and will not be known or exhibited. This is the type of love that died on a tree in order to save those who hung Him there. The world thinks they know it, and can do it, but this love is a completely “you first- always” type of love. Not easy, and only possible through Christ.
This week in my Theology class we are studying Ecclesiology, with this week’s emphasis on love for each other, marriage, divorce, and remarriage. I was less than thrilled about most of this but timing is everything I guess. Most of my reading, and there is a ton of reading, kept referencing 1 Corinthians 13. One thing mentioned was the similarities between these love commandments, and the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) something I never thought much of but they are basically interchangeable underscoring their importance.
More thoughts on this when it’s not 11:34pm on a Sunday night with a foreboding Muffy-less Monday ahead.
~Jennanana
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