THE ARMS OF GOD AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN

I thank God for the arms of love awaiting me in Pennsylvania at the end of this amazing trip. I thank God for the loving arms here that will send me so lovingly upon my way. What I do not look forward to is the intervening hours of aloneness, especially today. 

This is a hard day. 

My parents have now both been dead for about eight years. I will not see my children today. It is not only Christmas eve—a day with no spiritual connection for me, but rather familial—it is Rebecca’s birthday, and the anniversary of the day I proposed marriage to her. I proposed marriage that day—and succeeded. She proposed divorce shortly thereafter—and succeeded.

To lay out for you two other ends of a similarly sad spectrum (I ought to avoid this for the sake of all, yet here I am; I cannot seem to help myself): I seek reconciliation, she seeks absolute and total separation for the eon. I fail in my quest, she succeeds in hers.

I would like to be cauterized against pain, but my heart operates differently. It does not follow any of my wonderful rules for it. I am just too open, too honest, too “there.” I do not travel through life with a shovel, to bury. If I carry a shovel at all through this life, it is to unearth. I live and try to walk across the cemetery—through it, out of it—and I will walk. But I refuse to cover my tracks, or pretend that I never walked across a cemetery. In life, I taste both the good and bad, to the dregs. I stop "drinking" only to a finality. (Where is the finality? When we are all consummated in Christ.) Whether this is a blessing or a curse, I don’t know. Often, if feels like a curse. But I would not be the person I am, without it. (Therefore, I have answered my own question.)

Part of me does not want to be writing. I would rather “leave it be.” But since I'm unable to do that, I may as well do it with verve, or whatever of that I can muster. Why hold back? You are my friends. Why make this blog anything but an honest communication? If I am not honest, nothing is learned, nothing is new, we’re none the wiser. So now I reach out to you. Why? I would rather die exposed, than live hiding. 

This, too, shall pass. Tomorrow will be another day. And then, so will the next day. Unrequited love hurts, and I shall not pretend it is anything different. The love of Christ trumps all. Agape love trumps all. The best thing about agape love is that it requires not an ounce of requital. It loves, even in the face of rejection. In fact, it requires rejection for its display. (Damn it.)

Thus, the shovel. 

If agape love is all one has at the moment, it is good enough. It has to be. After all, it is the love of God.