Like his father, my oldest grandson has the sweetest, compassionate heart. He has been like that his whole life. They lived next door to us when he was little. As a toddler he would bang on their door and yell when I drove up. Of course, Granna always had time to stop in. When it was time for me to leave he would sometimes, most times, cry this heart breaking cry and hang on to me...I couldn't stand it. I would pick him up and take him to my house for 20 or so minutes then he was fine. This went on until he started school. I used to say he chose me but I realize now it was just an outward expression of his inward love... his tender heart.
He and his little brother stay with me a couple of days a week after school. I love that part of being a grandmother. Though, they are already beginning to eat me out of house and home! Sometimes, on Sundays after church he opts to come home with us. He knows more than likely Papaw is going to fall asleep in the recliner and Granna is going to lay down for just a little while and without his little brother there is not much to do except watch movies or play on the computer.
Now that it is football season we watch football movies...Facing the Giants and Remember the Titans are our two favorites. I'll never forget the first time we watched Remember the Titans, he cried because of the car accident and subsequent death of football player, Gary. However, recently, that nine-year-old had another revelation...and was appalled. For the first time he caught a glimpse of the hate that underscored the picture of teenage boys coming together as a championship team. He saw the obstacle the team faced but did not understand racism at all. Needless to say not much napping went on that Sunday afternoon.
He began with the incensed statement: "I can't believe people would treat each other like that just cause they are a different color!" Then the questions began... "That's just not right is it, Granna? Were you alive then, Granna?" Sigh...no it's not right and yes I was alive ...sometimes history is just plain ugly.
I was really fortunate. My parents shielded us from the repulsive part of the racism that took place while we were little. We heard about Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr... we celebrated the Voter Rights bill (my mother still registers voters to this day and she is 77!) and we mourned the loss of great leaders in the battle to change the south. Though really, we were much to young to understand until we were older. How much do you tell a fourth grader? Especially one who has never even noticed skin color?
And so, I breathed a prayer and started with the Bible. 1John 4:19-21 " We love because He first loves us. If anyone says 'I love God' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother."
We talked a little about slavery, about Lincoln and Frederick Douglas and fast forwarded to Dr. King and voter's rights...we talked a little about Central High School and desegregation. We talked about the hate of man handed down generation to generation and how it was hate that fueled a whole country to mistreat, abuse and neglect an entire population of people... and unfortunately some people still have it.
We finished with the love of Christ who sees sinners and saints - good people and bad people and that the color of their skin does not matter to HIM what-so-ever! That he is lucky to have friends of all colors and that it is up to us; Papaw and Granna, Mama and Daddy, and he and his friends to make sure that it is the love of Christ that we hand down generation to generation.
I caught a glimpse of the realization of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream in the indignation of that nine year old's reaction to the discrimination he saw in the movie. It is my prayer that we Americans, we Christians especially, have finally arrived at the point in time where we truly judge men based on the content of their character and not on the color of their skin.
I heard a politician say one time, "There is nothing wrong in America that can't be fixed with what is right in America." and I believe that. What tradition are you passing to the next generation?
Showing posts with label unconditional love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unconditional love. Show all posts
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Unconditionally
I was thinking this morning about how truly blessed I am to be loved just as I am. Good, bad, indifferent… how my family and friends seem to look past my many faults and love me anyway. I know how difficult a chore that must be sometimes.
It is hard not to hold others to a higher standard than we expect others to hold us to, isn’t it? We expect so much from others and yet our own personality quirks, moods, or prejudices keep us from hitting the mark which is the bulls eye of unconditional love. We crave it, expect it, seek it out, willingly accept it, bask in it, and then we are unwilling to give it whole heartedly.
It is easy enough to love unconditionally when we are talking of our own children, less so when it is our spouses…or our children’s spouses… or our own in-laws. Not so easy when it is the co-worker that ruins our day just by saying hello. And it definitely comes slowly to the needy friend who monopolizes our time and energy with problems that either seem trivial or are created of their own accord and could easily be remedied by the simple act of forgiveness.
Unconditional forgiveness and unconditional love go hand-in-hand, do they not? I mean forgiveness is really something we do for ourselves. We can actually forgive someone else and they never even know it! Jesus, Himself was our example of this simple truth while on the cross he uttered a simple phrase. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34
I did not, could not understand that concept before I became a Christian. How then do I explain it to my young friend who holds a hybridized theory of religion picking and choosing the things which make her feel comfortable…who says she believes in Jesus as the Savior but has never experienced the freedom true redemption brings? A young friend who is being devoured by jealousy, doubt, insecurity, and unforgiveness in her heart for another. Seeds of hate and resentment that are consuming her soul and leaving a wake of destruction so wide it is hurting those who love her and she doesn’t even realize it!
I do not, by any means, discount the fact that she has been hurt. She feels she has a right to be mad and is willing to hang on to that anger with every ounce of her being until she feels she has been rightfully vindicated, whatever that is. Oh how I wish she could understand… that which she is clinging to is a love killer and the love it is killing is her own!
I know prayer for her and this situation is all I can do but it does not stop me from wanting to grab her and scream at the top of my lungs that it is all about the forgiveness factor. That true unconditional love has to pass through forgives for it to be viable. That we need to seek out the good and not the faults of others in our lives because it is there we find happiness. That she reach out and grab hold of that Jesus she knows so little about and hang on for dear life…for all eternity!
I cannot help but think of the interviews I watched of the 9/11 victims families…of their last conversations… of the mother, the wife, the husband… who would give almost anything to turn back time to just minutes before the plane smashed into a building where their loved one sat at a desk with a hurting heart because of something said, done, or left unsaid. People who would take back words spoken or actions done without thought in haste and anger. People who now only pray their loved one knew they were truly loved.
Life is too precious, too fleeting to live it in a state of unforgiveness…and yes, sometimes it requires a little swallowing of the pride, an attitude of losing the battle to win the war, a little self sacrifice…but the rewards are long-lived and so very satisfying.
Father God, today let me see past myself, my wounds, my hurt and give me a heart of forgiveness. May the reflection I see in the mirror today be the promise of you…the spirit of you…for I know that it is when I see past myself to others that I can be a servant to you.
It is hard not to hold others to a higher standard than we expect others to hold us to, isn’t it? We expect so much from others and yet our own personality quirks, moods, or prejudices keep us from hitting the mark which is the bulls eye of unconditional love. We crave it, expect it, seek it out, willingly accept it, bask in it, and then we are unwilling to give it whole heartedly.
It is easy enough to love unconditionally when we are talking of our own children, less so when it is our spouses…or our children’s spouses… or our own in-laws. Not so easy when it is the co-worker that ruins our day just by saying hello. And it definitely comes slowly to the needy friend who monopolizes our time and energy with problems that either seem trivial or are created of their own accord and could easily be remedied by the simple act of forgiveness.
Unconditional forgiveness and unconditional love go hand-in-hand, do they not? I mean forgiveness is really something we do for ourselves. We can actually forgive someone else and they never even know it! Jesus, Himself was our example of this simple truth while on the cross he uttered a simple phrase. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34
I did not, could not understand that concept before I became a Christian. How then do I explain it to my young friend who holds a hybridized theory of religion picking and choosing the things which make her feel comfortable…who says she believes in Jesus as the Savior but has never experienced the freedom true redemption brings? A young friend who is being devoured by jealousy, doubt, insecurity, and unforgiveness in her heart for another. Seeds of hate and resentment that are consuming her soul and leaving a wake of destruction so wide it is hurting those who love her and she doesn’t even realize it!
I do not, by any means, discount the fact that she has been hurt. She feels she has a right to be mad and is willing to hang on to that anger with every ounce of her being until she feels she has been rightfully vindicated, whatever that is. Oh how I wish she could understand… that which she is clinging to is a love killer and the love it is killing is her own!
I know prayer for her and this situation is all I can do but it does not stop me from wanting to grab her and scream at the top of my lungs that it is all about the forgiveness factor. That true unconditional love has to pass through forgives for it to be viable. That we need to seek out the good and not the faults of others in our lives because it is there we find happiness. That she reach out and grab hold of that Jesus she knows so little about and hang on for dear life…for all eternity!
I cannot help but think of the interviews I watched of the 9/11 victims families…of their last conversations… of the mother, the wife, the husband… who would give almost anything to turn back time to just minutes before the plane smashed into a building where their loved one sat at a desk with a hurting heart because of something said, done, or left unsaid. People who would take back words spoken or actions done without thought in haste and anger. People who now only pray their loved one knew they were truly loved.
Life is too precious, too fleeting to live it in a state of unforgiveness…and yes, sometimes it requires a little swallowing of the pride, an attitude of losing the battle to win the war, a little self sacrifice…but the rewards are long-lived and so very satisfying.
1 Corinthians 13:4-13 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect will disappear. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” ~NIV
Father God, today let me see past myself, my wounds, my hurt and give me a heart of forgiveness. May the reflection I see in the mirror today be the promise of you…the spirit of you…for I know that it is when I see past myself to others that I can be a servant to you.
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