CHRISTian

This is the part I cannot and do not and never will, understand. This is the part that makes no sense to me and doesn’t allow me to bridge the gap between me and others. It is the thing that doesn’t allow me to be as giving (of my life) to them as I am to one who does get it and doesn’t leave me baffled.

There is a book by our founder, called Desire of Ages, a play on how Christ is the desire of all nations, according to the Bible. It is a book even the most disinterested pastor sometimes tells church members to read. It doesn’t have any of the practical steps one should take like Paul’s writings had so it’s a ‘safe’ book for them. It doesn’t talk about who should and should not be a minister, a member, a missionary…

But it’s the very book that changed my life when I was 16 years old. It is the book that opened my eyes to the magnitude of God’s love for me. And because I knew how much He had loved and sacrificed for me, no sacrifice was too much. I would give up anything to tell Him, “Thank you!”

But why don’t our church members do the same? We have so many very plain commands in the Old and New Testaments about how to show our love, show Whose kingdom we are aligned with, how to be “holy priesthood and a royal generation.” But we don’t obey. We are not holy in our habits and choices. We are just meh. There is no line of distinction between us and the world like there was between Israel of old and the world and like that between the early Christians vs the rest of the world.

Why? Why don’t we do what we know we should do? Why isn’t Christ’s sacrifice worth our dying to self? Why do we act as if the Word is just a bunch of suggestions?

The current chapter my friend and I are on, in the book, is one I hate. The older I get, the more painful Christ’s emotional, mental Gethsemane experience becomes. The harder it is to continue reading the rest of that awful evening and the more heartbreaking it is to know that not only are many ignoring His cry, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (All of them, not just the ten.) but they are actively teaching others to also ignore Christ’s call to obedience and reverence. I hate that we don’t care about anything that was written in the New Testament, let alone anything written later by our founder that would show the world that we are His.

At the same time, this passage is one I always hold onto. I love it. I mentioned it to my step mom in law recently. If Christ the Creator could want sympathy, how much more do us weak ones not deserve sympathy and love? My point was that to feel abandoned by those we rejoiced and mourned with but who don’t do the same for us, is not wrong. It is normal. It is expected that we’d assume those we loved out loud would be as loud in loving us back.

Their silence is deafening.

The trivial, light conversation when there are deep painful ones is painful too.

So, like many others as we age, I continue to sift out the people who only have a ‘surface only love.‘ I want deep connection and real conversation. I want heart to heart, and two hearts need to be united in order to understand each other fully. And that can only happen when your principles, habits and values are guided by the sane Person.

I am so thankful that I do have someone who sits with me in my moment and doesn’t insert herself in my tears. She knows I sit with her too and so she gives me a chance to get sympathy just as I give her a chance to get sympathy from me.

I need that in this trapped season of hardship and worsening AS and Sjögren’s suffering. I need it as my children’s situations worsen in many aspects or the future becomes more dire, as the light at the end of the tunnel grows dimmer. And so, though I will never understand those who spit in Christ’s face after all He went through for us, I sure understand those who want to give up even more, for I do too.

I have this constant feeling that I owe Him so much MORE! The gift He gave was all of heaven, an eternal peaceful life! What can I give back to Him, stop doing that will thank Him adequately? We wrestle with the questions together, as we read His word, together. I am grateful.