Clinging

For the past 3 1/2 years God has asked us to give up stuff and relationships- our house, the contents of our house, my sister, my father, and with the death of both of them, my family of origin for all intents and purposes, dreams for this acreage, and now, even more. I am heartbroken. I thought surviving the death of my father and the lost dreams, hopes and unanswered prayers might push me to the edge of faithlessness.Why? Because I had prayed faithfully and fervently for almost 3 decades and I took seriously the promise that "the prayers of a righteous man availeth much." The fact that my prayers availed little to nothing caused a paradox for me: either I was not righteous or God's promises aren't what they seem to be.
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I am not a girl of this generation that believes "God loves me and so do I." I am a girl of a generation that believes that God loves me and reached out His hand of mercy to lift me from the miry clay. Because I am a grateful survivor of pagan madness, understand what I was saved from and have a vague understanding of what it cost Him, I can't give up on God. While I fail at so very many things, I am a pit bull when it comes to something I am convinced of -I hang on and don't let go. And so, because God's promises have to be true, I have spent the past 2 1/2 years taking a searching and painful moral inventory with the intent of discovering areas of unrighteousness in my own life. I am ever in need of the Savior's Grace and Mercy- daily. I am just that much of a scr*w up.
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I can own that (further proving I am not a girl of this generation). I really have no big ego investment in proving that I am more or less righteous than anyone else, or get it right or know more. I am too busy working out my own faith with prayer and trembling. And I get that other people scr*w ups too. In my economy it's the human condition.
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Because we are all scr*w ups we can be mean. I get that people can be mean without meaning to be. I've been so myself. Like I said before, I believe it's part of the human condition (fallen and in need of salvation). But there is another kind of mean. That which is intentional, on-purpose and designed to wound. And frankly, right now,  I feel like I am hemorrhaging from the heart.
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I don't understand the point of this particular meanness. I am having a hard time understanding just how God wants me to respond. How I want to respond is with a commitment to put these people, and everyone condoning their actions, away. Away from my heart and my life- forever. But I can't and be honest. My 10 year old and I were having this same discussion last week as we cleared a field. She told me that she was going to consider these people dead. She is too hurt, too aggrieved and too confused to make sense of it all and I have no answers for her other than to let her cry more. And we talked about Wrinkle in Time and exthroi and unnaming. And I told her that as followers of the Living Christ, we are called to Name. Only followers of the evil one un-name. My own conviction holds me fast.
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But this morning I came un-done- why, why, why?! My 13 year old bear hugged me with every ounce of his gangly, scrawny self and reminded me that God loves me. That He loves me. That He loves me. And if I am going to respond to His love, I have to respond to His love in every area of my life. That is a hard word. And one I don't know if I am strong enough to live out. I wonder if God has forgotten that I am a jar of clay. 2 Cor. 4:7-12 has been my mantra and my song for over 2 years. I don't feel like life is at work in me. I feel like I am wasting away and with it my stuff, family, dreams, hopes, vision. I am afraid that those people and voices that have mocked and ridiculed us religiously for the past couple of decades might have been right all along. And frankly, that terrifies me because it means that God's will for my life cannot be truly known. And I need it to be. I need it to be.
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I don't know what else to do right now but cling. I cling to the word that says we do not lose heart. It's not a suggestion, it's a declaration.I am perplexed but not driven to despair. It's a declaration. And I am clinging to that. Because He is True and His Word bears witness to His Truth. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 16-18 (NIV)

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.