War

My heart was made very apparent to me recently. Something I couldn't explain occurred, and instead of digging deeper to the core of it, I placed the blame on who I believed was most likely in error. Because it made sense, because it's happened before, because it's in their character, because it gave me an outlet for the anger I already had stirring against them. And then the situation turned out to not be at all the way I thought and I realized that for all my intentions of forgiveness, the brutal and vulgar feelings I was carrying around in my heart, though carefully hidden, were still very much there. And I was mortified by the state of my heart, the state of my soul, and the depths to which my anger had ingrained itself. The war raging within me had never been more mortifyingly apparent.

There's a war of the flesh, and it rages between our desire for the holy and our desire for the righteous. I heard a sermon this last Sunday that was all about forgiveness and the process that it entails. The pastor used the acronym PEACE: Prayer Empathy Act Confess Example to describe the process of forgiveness: forgiveness defined as a renewal and a peace between two people, but it comes with wisdom as well. Wisdom that tells you when it's okay to be with someone and maintain a living relationship and when it's better to keep space and distance as acquaintances or nothing at all. In both cases, renewal and peace can still be worked. And in my life there are people in which tension, anger, judgment and revenge still boil in my intentions and part of my soul screams that I've been wronged and am entitled to cut them out, never say anything to them again, and think the worst of them. Another part of me wants to pray for them, empathize with why they do what they do, be honest about how I feel toward them and my desire to change, take ownership for my part of the dissension and remember the example that Jesus lived for me to follow. But it's a constant war. There are plenty of people that keep telling me that I'm sending mixed signals about what I want with people, that I just need to make up my mind, but it's war of the heart and it's not that simple. As the pastor at Newberg Christian said, "We need to act ourselves into a new way of thinking instead of think ourselves into a new way of acting." I want to take action toward forgiveness even if my other actions won't always line up with that.

The song "Skin & Bones" has been stuck in my head for days and seemed fitting, but I got it from this dance on SYTYCD and upon watching it back realized that the dance is quite fitting as well. It fits not only as an allusion of my struggle with myself but also as a representation of my struggle with others, the parts being interchangeable.

9/1/11