With this crown
how can I not
but dance
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion.(Psalm 103:2-4)
(Photo credit: lanietuu)
Filed under Forgiveness, Love, Psalms, Worship
Two days after Christmas, 2009. I fed my belly with too much lumpia, atole, chocolate cake…
I overindulged. Something had to change. That’s when I started running every day.
We live at the top of the hill, so those first days I ran half a block (downhill) and walked half a block (uphill), three times. Three times around the block wasn’t much. Still, each day built on the one before. Eventually I started running all the way to Oak Valley Ranch Park (a whopping quarter-mile—downhill), around the park some, and then back home (walking).
The momentous day I tried running uphill, I think I was “running” as fast as I walk. But I did it and did it the next day, too.
I’ve been running daily for more than two years now, working up from almost-negligible, to three miles a day. I still go slowly, but I go.
Earlier this year, someone close to me had hurt me. I was angry like a mad dog. That Wednesday and Thursday were the most raging days I could remember. I fed my heart with too much bitterness, resentment, near-hatred (or, if I dare to admit, just plain straight-out hatred)…
I overindulged in anger. Something had to change.
When I jog, it’s always a pray-run. As I jogged that angry Wednesday I asked God my standard question that works for any circumstance. It is a standing prayer: “Father, how do You want me to respond?” When I pray like this, I often get no neon sign, no immediate answer.
But this time it was immediate, in big, flashing neon:
Love her.
Impossible, I thought, feeling my upper lip wrinkle. IM-POSS-I-BLE.
Yet I chose to remember God’s works in my past, and the remembering was crucial. Though I felt the opposite inside, I prayed out loud in faith: God, I remember years ago when I thought it was impossible to forgive Daly. But you did the impossible and helped me forgive in that relationship. I believe you can do it again, in this relationship.
(I spoke these words with my vocal cords, but inside I thought, yeah, right.)
I turned left, up Centennial Blvd (the steepest part of my running route). God brought to mind the run with endurance
verses. I felt my leg muscles pushing off the pavement, steadily, and I realized I no longer consider that steep part difficult. There was a time, though, when I refused even to attempt that route, turning right instead of left because there was no way I could run up that hill.
But one day I tried it, and it was hard. After doing it every time it was not only possible but, beyond that, no longer difficult.
This brought new meaning to the phrase “run with endurance.” If I would try loving her just once, then, as I build up my endurance, repeating loving acts, then rather than seeming impossible, it would actually no longer be difficult. It would eventually become easy (the yoke of Jesus is like that).
In order to “run with endurance,” I first had to … start running.
Run a little now, and a little more tomorrow, and the endurance will keep building. The biblical run with endurance
doesn’t happen at the first attempt; it happens over time, when I run over and over. It doesn’t mean I can wake up in the morning and, if I set my jaw firmly enough with a bullet between my teeth, I can finish any race, whether marathon or hundred-meter dash. Endurance is built up, not instant.
The transformative process is always done littly by little, small obediences over and over.
- Jean Fleming
I turned left to do the steep uphill in this relationship. My first act of obedience was to call her on the phone. A little later, I called her again simply to ask, “How are you?” I kept running up the hill, showing her acts of love, because my Father told me to love her.
It occurs to me that, now, I don’t consider this a hard path. Not anymore.
Father, thank you for teaching me how to run with endurance. Get me started in the areas I still haven’t tried the hill. Keep me going in the areas I have.
…and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus…
(Hebrews 12:1-2)
(Linking with Ann Voskamp, who hosts a community of those who share about Love. Click on the Holy Experience badge below to read more posts on Love!)
Filed under Forgiveness, Obedience
(continued from Part One, here)
“Newspaper” can be a verb. Several college friends traveled to Colorado, attended our wedding, and “newspapered” our hotel bathroom.
Later, I found out how they got in.
How did they know where we were staying?
We married in August. That summer I lived and worked on campus. While friends were in my dorm room, I left to go to the restroom. One of them took that opportunity to open my planner (which I trustingly left in plain view), turn to August 27, and see the words “San Juan Inn” I had written. (Why did I write it down? Did I think I’d forget?) In this way, he easily discovered which hotel we booked for our wedding night (which, of all the nights of my life, there would be only one).
How did they get into the room?
In small-town culture, trust tends to win over suspicion. A girlfriend approached the hotel front desk and said, “I’m Monica Sharman. I left my purse in my room. Can I have another key?” The receptionist questioned her a little, but she kept insisting, “I’m Monica Sharman!” She got a key. They got in. They worked quickly. The result: floor to ceiling, a bathroom crammmed with crumpled-up newspaper. Only two miles away, Charles and I posed for pictures and mingled with our guests.
When everyone found out I was angry instead of amused, I began to receive quick and sincere apologies. One apologized the next morning on the phone. I forgave her right away.
After the honeymoon and back at college, another walked to our off-campus apartment to apologize in tears. I forgave her on the spot.
Another spoke no apology because he didn’t need to; he had refused to participate.
Several didn’t bother to apologize, probably because they heard I had already declared a blanket forgiveness the day after my wedding. I forgave them, too.
One came to our apartment on other business. When he found out I was upset about the wedding-room break-in, he shrugged his shoulders a little. “Sorry, but it was just a joke.”
Just a joke?! Didn’t he realize that of all the nights in my entire life, only ONE would be my wedding night?
I said I forgave him, but it was a statement made through clenched teeth. I forced myself to say it, though, because isn’t instant forgiveness what all good Christians are supposed to do?
My anger did subside, but only to build up and boil underground again like a predictable geyser about to blow. Then the Old Faithful of my bitter unforgiveness would spew. Grrrrrr.
At every eruption I scolded myself: You said you’ve forvigen! Get over it!
It seems a silly thing to be angry over, but years of contrived, self-deceived “forgiveness” magnifies everything out of proportion and perspective.
My geyser spouted regularly—for five years. Finally, I asked dear Kathleen for help. She prayed for me, gave me counsel, and, finally, I truly forgave. God gave me grace to forgive. All anger and bitterness—gone from that point on.
Why did it take me so long to figure out that there is a difference between insincere spoken forgiveness, and true forgiveness? I can’t merely speak it. I must also mean it.
On our fifteenth anniversary, Charles and I spent a night at a lovely B&B in Ouray, one of my favorite places on earth. No one broke in, no one intruded.
But even if they did, I would have made sure I meant “I forgive you” before I said it.
Another thing I’ve realized: yes, of all the nights of my life, only one was my wedding night. But then, there are all the other nights, too.
Filed under Forgiveness
For the first five years of marriage, my mind frequently came to rest (or unrest) on this fact:
Of ALL the nights of my ENTIRE life, only ONE is my wedding night.
With that anger-arousing chant I kept digging myself deeper into bitterness. Whenever my memory played and replayed what happened at my wedding-night hotel room, I fumed and thought, yet again: I can’t believe what they did to me on my wedding night—the only wedding night I’ll ever have.
“They” means our closest friends. College friends.
Because San Juan Inn was only a few blocks from the reception site, I booked our room there. That was my first mistake.
We had several hours between the morning wedding and the evening reception. Before checking into our room, we ordered a four o’clock fast-food dinner (because who wants to eat at a crowded restaurant on their wedding night?). I’m guessing it was the first time the Taco Bell cashier looked out the drive-thru window at a man in a tux and a woman in a pearl-and-lace wedding gown. I ordered a Mexican pizza and Soft Taco Supreme. Charles ordered a few burritos. Extra salsa, please.
After dinner and a couple of hours in our hotel room, we dressed again in tuxedo and gown and drove to the reception where we greeted, smiled, and posed for photos. We clinked crystal goblets and cut another wedding cake.
Was it 9:00 p.m. by the time we pulled into the San Juan Inn parking lot? I don’t remember. I do remember I was glad to be alone with Charles again. Oddly, the bathroom door was closed. I opened it to find the bathroom stuffed floor to ceiling with crumpled-up newspaper.
One thing I wish someone would have told me: if you marry during college, watch out for the pranks. College kids seem to think wedding-night pranks are essential to the festivities.
Too slowly I made the connections: a hotel room five minutes from the reception, college friends not present at the reception, the trusting nature of small-town hotel receptionists, the ease with which over a dozen people can stuff an entire bathroom with newspaper.
Then I saw on the bed a big green construction paper folded in half and signed by the pranksters to commemorate their deed. What a greeting card. I would have preferred a Hallmark sent unintrusively by mail.
On that green paper, each culprit recorded his or her name with a signature. To them it was a fun note for a funny prank. To me it was a guilt record. I had it in writing.
That’s when the thinking began:
This is my one and only wedding night. I can’t believe they did this to me.
Our room phone rang. Though I was fuming, the handset did not melt when I picked it up.
“Monica?”
She sounded nervous. “Did you think it was funny?”
I then spoke a self-damaging lie that would plague me for the next five years: “I’ve already decided to forgive everyone.”
(continued at Part Two, here)
(This Wednesday Ann Voskamp hosts a community of those who share about Forgiveness.. Click on the Holy Experience badge below to read more posts on Forgiveness!)
Filed under Forgiveness
