As a young adult and college student, I have begun to notice many things from the past and the present with a new perspective. Recently it has come to my attention that it is hard for me to love the people who love me the most. Maybe this is not a revolutionary concept, but let's seriously consider it for a few minutes.
First and foremost, love was perfected (1 John 4) when Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice for me. He, above all others, loves me. He knows what it means to love me. He has loved me and continues to love me. Let's be honest though, it is hard for me to love Him. It does not come naturally, due to our fallen nature, to love and serve the Creator. Our flesh wages war against us so it is not easy to love Him. It takes energy, commitment, and diligence to devote love and service to Him. There's no room for complaint here, I'm simply making the observation that it is, at times, hard to love Christ, especially when we are faced with uncertainty and heartache.
Next in line to take the blunt of my inability to love perfectly are my family members. Quite frankly, I have never seriously doubted that I was loved by my family. However, I constantly am faced with failure to love them. My parents and sister never deserved the way I treated them in the past. Why is it hard to love them? I don't know that I have an answer.
Admittedly, sometimes I "make up" for my inadequate love for Christ and my family by easily loving, serving, and giving to close friends and even acquaintances. Maybe I do this so I can selfishly feel that more people love me; to fulfill a desire to feel more and more love from those around me. Should I not feel sufficiently loved by Christ? That should be my sole contender for love, and yet why do I so badly "need" to feel loved by those around me?
Noticeably, there is no tangible solution. Maybe our solution is to consider the other side of the perspective: why is it hard for the people who I love the most to love me? I think we'll find that the answer to that question is rooted in how we love Christ and how we see the world and those around us; because I love imperfectly.
It's a perspective change that must take place. I delight to know that the transformation of the renewal of my mind is opening my mind to change how I view the simple nature of loving and serving others. It is hard to love those who love us the most.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Inadequacy
Yesterday I was blessed by six one-on-one fellowship times with three brothers and three sisters in Christ. Each one was innately unique, special, and encouraging. Although such a social day can be wearisome, I finished the day with a great smile on my face for I had heard six accounts of what God is doing, six accounts of lives being transformed, and six accounts of inadequacies.
By the conclusion of the evening, I came to understand the common theme of our stories, which are complexly interwoven on various points: we are inadequate, we have failed, but we have hope.
In the words of one, "...my self-focus limited by ability to love myself and consequently love others."
In the words of another, "...I was ashamed that I had not stood up for what I knew to be true..."
And yet the words of another, "...I am inadequate, but may my inadequacies be found in Christ."
Our stories are not all that different. Sometimes we forget that when we have our "self-focus" perspective. We tend to think we are the only one's struggling with this or that, or that no one understands, or that somehow our perspective is inherently unique. While there are aspects of each of those statements that are true, our stories still are not all that different. We each struggle with failure, we each have inadequacies, and we all know these truths, but do we believe them for ourselves?
On a practical level, nothing changes except our perspective. We still have regrets, we still have inadequacies, and we still fail. Perhaps we need to be reminded of the most complex aspect of our faith: Jesus Christ died for our inadequacies because He loves us. Even better, those inadequacies died when He died and we are now adequately alive in Him.
Hearing the stories of our friends, our families, and even strangers should entice us to examine how our stories are intertwined in the story of Christ. What an encouragement that we share that story so that we may fellowship, rejoice, mourn, grieve, laugh, and celebrate our lives together as brothers and sisters!
As one of my dear friends told me yesterday, "...my heart is heavy with the weight of inadequacy and failures...thankfully I am not alone."
By the conclusion of the evening, I came to understand the common theme of our stories, which are complexly interwoven on various points: we are inadequate, we have failed, but we have hope.
In the words of one, "...my self-focus limited by ability to love myself and consequently love others."
In the words of another, "...I was ashamed that I had not stood up for what I knew to be true..."
And yet the words of another, "...I am inadequate, but may my inadequacies be found in Christ."
Our stories are not all that different. Sometimes we forget that when we have our "self-focus" perspective. We tend to think we are the only one's struggling with this or that, or that no one understands, or that somehow our perspective is inherently unique. While there are aspects of each of those statements that are true, our stories still are not all that different. We each struggle with failure, we each have inadequacies, and we all know these truths, but do we believe them for ourselves?
On a practical level, nothing changes except our perspective. We still have regrets, we still have inadequacies, and we still fail. Perhaps we need to be reminded of the most complex aspect of our faith: Jesus Christ died for our inadequacies because He loves us. Even better, those inadequacies died when He died and we are now adequately alive in Him.
Hearing the stories of our friends, our families, and even strangers should entice us to examine how our stories are intertwined in the story of Christ. What an encouragement that we share that story so that we may fellowship, rejoice, mourn, grieve, laugh, and celebrate our lives together as brothers and sisters!
As one of my dear friends told me yesterday, "...my heart is heavy with the weight of inadequacy and failures...thankfully I am not alone."
Friday, April 9, 2010
One Cat, One Liver
Friday evenings tend to be either exhilarating or mundanely indicative of a weekend of homework. Nonetheless, tonight would classify as exhilarating.
One of my friends is a biology major. She is highly intuitive and deliberately thoughtful in her continual quest for knowledge. Tonight, she superseded the realm of normal by enticing myself and another cohort to accomplish a dangerous, smelly mission in order to obtain one thing: a liver.
Our options were as follows: recent roadkill that was preserved enough for dissection, a live animal from a pet store to be sacrificed for science (ethical questionability was noted), or human biopsy (most likely living). The most cost-efficient and practical method was to find roadkill, which is seemingly not a complicated issue in Midwest America.
So, tonight, we embarked via vehicle onto the freeways and byways of central Indiana in search of recent roadkill. Within five minutes of our travel, we saw several options. However, it was my keen sense of sight which ultimately led us to the perfect specimen: a deceased cat, later named Mocha, preserved outside a home along a state highway, wet from previous day's rain, but in great condition for dissection and extraction of a liver.
As is custom in America, the man, myself, allowed my two fellow female colleagues to have the pleasure and opportunity to retrieve Mocha from the ditch with trash bags and latex gloves. Quick retrieval and a steady foot to the pedal led us back to the science facilities available to us for the dissection of Mocha.
Upon the arrival of said biology major's lab partner, we (they) proceeded to remove the cat from the trash bags only to discover a plethora of maggots, roaches, lice, and various other infectious creatures. At this point, I was safely on the other side of the room with an abundant amount of paper towel in my nostrils as not to smell the rotting carcass.
A quick decision making process led us to move the laboratory surgery outside of the facilities with fresh evening air and a perfect sidewalk for infectious insects to run away. Within ten minutes, surgery was underway; scalpel to skin, scissors to ribs, and tweezers to greater omentum. The liver was found beneath the diaphragm (where it normally is) and all four lobes were successfully excised with a small presence of maggot inhabitation.
After cleaning up the surgery "room" and equipment, the liver biopsy was placed in a protective tupperware container and placed in freezing conditions for later analysis.
Friday evenings tend to surprise you in many ways. Mocha surprised me tonight. I'm sure we surprised her too. There is great joy in surprises. God continues to surprise me everyday by what He's teaching me and those around me. "Be still and know that I am God." Perhaps we just need to be still before Him, trust Him, and take time to see what He's doing. I think that doing so will surprise us. And that will bring us joy, which we will hold onto until our faith is sight.
Whether you dissect a cat (RIP Mocha) or study organic chemistry, Friday nights will surprise you. Be willing to cherish those surprises.
One of my friends is a biology major. She is highly intuitive and deliberately thoughtful in her continual quest for knowledge. Tonight, she superseded the realm of normal by enticing myself and another cohort to accomplish a dangerous, smelly mission in order to obtain one thing: a liver.
Our options were as follows: recent roadkill that was preserved enough for dissection, a live animal from a pet store to be sacrificed for science (ethical questionability was noted), or human biopsy (most likely living). The most cost-efficient and practical method was to find roadkill, which is seemingly not a complicated issue in Midwest America.
So, tonight, we embarked via vehicle onto the freeways and byways of central Indiana in search of recent roadkill. Within five minutes of our travel, we saw several options. However, it was my keen sense of sight which ultimately led us to the perfect specimen: a deceased cat, later named Mocha, preserved outside a home along a state highway, wet from previous day's rain, but in great condition for dissection and extraction of a liver.
As is custom in America, the man, myself, allowed my two fellow female colleagues to have the pleasure and opportunity to retrieve Mocha from the ditch with trash bags and latex gloves. Quick retrieval and a steady foot to the pedal led us back to the science facilities available to us for the dissection of Mocha.
Upon the arrival of said biology major's lab partner, we (they) proceeded to remove the cat from the trash bags only to discover a plethora of maggots, roaches, lice, and various other infectious creatures. At this point, I was safely on the other side of the room with an abundant amount of paper towel in my nostrils as not to smell the rotting carcass.
A quick decision making process led us to move the laboratory surgery outside of the facilities with fresh evening air and a perfect sidewalk for infectious insects to run away. Within ten minutes, surgery was underway; scalpel to skin, scissors to ribs, and tweezers to greater omentum. The liver was found beneath the diaphragm (where it normally is) and all four lobes were successfully excised with a small presence of maggot inhabitation.
After cleaning up the surgery "room" and equipment, the liver biopsy was placed in a protective tupperware container and placed in freezing conditions for later analysis.
Friday evenings tend to surprise you in many ways. Mocha surprised me tonight. I'm sure we surprised her too. There is great joy in surprises. God continues to surprise me everyday by what He's teaching me and those around me. "Be still and know that I am God." Perhaps we just need to be still before Him, trust Him, and take time to see what He's doing. I think that doing so will surprise us. And that will bring us joy, which we will hold onto until our faith is sight.
Whether you dissect a cat (RIP Mocha) or study organic chemistry, Friday nights will surprise you. Be willing to cherish those surprises.
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