No Grasping

Separation, estrangement...the words evoke distance and pain...both part of my journey over the past couple months (see previous blog entry).  To love and then to be estranged...whether from friend or partner or child or parent, is to experience a kind of living death.  The cords of relationship are broken, and emotions linked to grieving--anger, depression, and bargaining--cycle round and round again.

"How can she treat me this way!?"   "What did I do to deserve this!?"  "Where did I go wrong?"  "Maybe if I do _____ he will love me again."   "How can I manage without this relationship?"  Tears of heartbreak and frustration flow...even after you think you've made progress in "accepting" the situation or at least found a way to distract yourself from the pain for awhile.

This I know for sure: we cannot make anyone love us, no matter how hard we try!  But what are we to do with the pain of rejection?  As one who seeks, often stumbling, to follow Christ, I've looked for answers in scripture and in a helpful book I read a few years ago while dealing with rejection in the workplace.  The book is Jesus and Power (David Prior) and its theme is "No grasping!"

Jesus never tried to grasp for worldly power or recognition or acceptance.  He knew rejection, but emptied himself of all but love, and a will to obey God...unto death.  Can we who follow him do less?  Not if we would know the joy, the peace, and the power he promised. No grasping allowed, only loving, and believing that he who calls us "friend" will give us all we need.   (Philippians 2: 3-8; John 15: 9-17).

But there is something we ARE to grasp, and that is faith...faith that God is at work in us and in the lives of those we love (who are loved even more by Him!)...teaching us how to love.  And we have critical roles to play in this work through prayer; this I'm learning in a deep way from a book read and re-read in recent months:  Intercessory Prayer (Dutch Sheets).

A wise friend--with a wisdom gained through enormously painful family struggles--shared with me early in my own hard journey that "God is always working to bring order out of chaos."   He is also working to bring healing where there is hurt, and light where there is darkness.

Just before I left Ecuador in late September--for a second trip to the US within the month--a double rainbow filled the evening sky above the Andes.  Brilliant light at one end of the rainbow pierced the mountain...for me a powerful symbol of God's promise to bring light to darkness.  I await the fulfillment of this promise within my family, and in the wider world, while doing my part through prayer and prayer-led action.