In Which I am Not a Victim of My Dad's Sin

Over the weekend I saw the latest Christian movie "Home Run" which details the story of an infamous baseball player with an alcohol addiction--and the mess that trails him as he clashes with grace.

At one point in the movie he has screwed up for the upteenth time, but this time it effects his very own son. He is sitting in a barn after drinking too much and he calls his Celebrate Recovery leader. He looks up at him with a face painted in shame and breath tinged with liquor, "I have an alcohol problem and I just don't know how to stop."

"I know" his friend replies, nodding his head, "I know."

Dad, I needed space this year and it was right and it has freed me up. You needed to sober up too, because let's face it, I can't make you stop--and I accept it now. I needed the space to learn it, and to wrestle some too. But I'm sorry for the way I have set up these unspoken requirements for you, completely conditional and biased in my offerings.

As though you should be punished. Held to a higher standard because you've messed up too much. Because your mess-ups have seeped over into my life too. 

If he finishes a year in that program, then you can call him. I remember thinking. He has to make it at least a year. Don't waste your time on him--or your thoughts. He won't make it a year. Once an alcoholic, always one. How many times have we been here, anyhow? He is never going to change.

Dad, I don't know why I have so selfishly decided you weren't worthy of my time until you earned it. 

Perhaps it happens as I remember what you stole from me, how you crushed my innocence and my dream, and I just hate you. I want to make you suffer. But the truth is, it's me drinking the suffrage overflowing with a heaping spoon of unforgiveness on top, whether you're lifting the glass or not.

As the pedestal bearing the gravity of my daddy issues continues to sink, I am finding myself so acutely aware of my own sinful heart, the sin that so far exceeds the label of abused. 

Your know, I have been hiding under the victim shell and pelting rocks your way every painful thought that crosses my mind. And a few years later, well those rocks have piled up into a flat out wall. Even when it is my sin. Like the night I gave myself permission to throw up a lot of food that I ate because you chose to leave rehab prematurely and it was my heart you left out in the dust of once again. Thinking of yourself before your family, again. Nothing has changed, I remember thinking. Or the way a few nightmares landed me in a heap on the floor when they ended with you and your sin against me. The way I spent the next week depressed and alone. Rightfully so, I rationalized. I am the victim here. 

That was my choice and it's time I own up. I have been labeled my whole life and now I do it to myself? Maybe it feels safe. Maybe it makes everyone else feel for me, justifies the darkness somehow. Maybe it puts makeup on the sin as it suddenly dwells in disguise. 

So I recall the countless times I have said those exact same words--I just don't know how to stop. 

I didn't know how to stop throwing up or cutting my skin. How to stop wanting to be loved. I had no idea what to do with the thoughts that reminded me of the used rag I measured up to be after I lost something most pure. I didn't know how to press through the darkness. Heck, I couldn't even stand up more or less run with perseverance.

Two bombs went off and it could have been anywhere, anyone. Sin is becoming a church word that no one really has time to think about, even down here in the bible belt, because it makes us feel uncomfortable. Best not step on any toes yells the postmods. I go to bed some days expecting to see Jesus before the alarm. And I weep because I'm not ready, yet my worship extends such bold words that echo come Lord Jesus, come. I know I mean it, it's just my heart is so ugly and dark.

Dad, you screwed up. But just because you hurt me does not validate my sin, it doesn't justify it. Nor does it justify the deep down conditional love I've mustered up towards you in my heart.

I am tired of living enslaved to this once-abused-girl mindset. 

No poor creature stands in need of divine grace more then I do, and yet none abuses it more then I have done, and still do. And it is all beyond me. 

So dad, I guess we have more in common then I'd like to admit. At the end of the day, sin is sin. There is no ranking. This truth defines us both, you know? It is setting us free when we choose.

Lately, my lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel, and my ways recluctant to amend. I bring my soul to thee; break it, bend it, wound it, mould it. Unmask to me sin's deformity, that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.

I hate the way I hate you. The way I hold the grudge. The way I still want you to love me the most.

I have been reluctant to amend, slow to acknowledge the breaking and bending. The mask always feels better, doesn't it? It's coming off now and hating it isn't enough. Dad, I just don't know how to stop blaming you for my dark days, how to stop seeing you only in light of your sin. 

I longed for a love you just don't have to give. God used an incredible fatherly figure to step in and guard me and guide me into more intimate understanding of His own love for me. As I see even that fatherly figure let me down, I realize all the more God is the only perfect one, the only one who offers me something unconditional and everlasting and redeems through it. The one who give us a new name.

Ya'll, I am not a victim or a bulimic. Dad, you're not an abuser or an addict. We are children of God. And He commands us to forgive, just as He has done for us. There is nothing radical about it.

Lord, help me to unmask my sin and flee to obedience that your glory might be magnified in my brokenness. 

Dad, I don't need anything from you. But, I still want it.

And I believe God is opening the door after just over a year of Him locking it shut. For now, I will write you a letter.

I look forward to seeing His glory on display in whatever way He would [or wouldn't] allow us to pursue relationship in the months & years to come. 

A New Season, A New Blog

Well I knew that eventually this day would come...bittersweet I must say. Driven by my lack of blogger-technological knowledge, I have finally caved in and started anew in this world of blogging. Amazingly, it has been just over a year since I left for Australia and since "My Life a Melody to His Name" was created for the purpose of promoting that mission trip. After much prayer and thought, the Lord has really just shown me a new direction for my journey as a blogger, one that I felt deserved a fresh start, so to speak. Hence the new blog, "Forgiveness Made a Way."

 

I must confess, my originality in coming up with a new title for this blog was completely overtaken by a love I have for this song they keep playing on the radio. Hence the title, "Forgiveness Made a Way" comes from a lyric in this song by Chris August called Seven Times Seventy Times. This was a personal song he wrote about the brokenness of his childhood and his family life. It is in reference to Matthew 22:18 where Jesus tells Peter to forgive his brother who sins against him not seven times but seven times seventy times! Just as the author of the song pleaded with the Lord to teach him to forgive those who have hurt him in the past, along with those who continue to sin against him, Lord all this to echo as the cry of my heart as well.

What a burden it is to labor and toil with unforgiveness hanging from my shoulders like a bag weighed down by rocks. I know I have done it so many times and yet, here I am once again. This is quite an interesting place to be. I have a choice to make. And let’s be real—it is certainly not easy either way! Making the decision, the choice (because it is a moment by moment choice to forgive), to forgive someone who hurts you is not a joyful or freeing feeling at first. It is uncomfortable, unwilling, and certainly not simple to achieve. I am stubborn. So very stubborn. I guess that is one thing I have going for me when in comes to training for a triathlon—even when I am coughing up flem from being sick, my stubbornness ignites my will to press on. This works the same way with unforgiveness—even when I am weighted down and miserable, just barely making it, my stubbornness ignites my will to cling onto that unforgiveness. Oh how I love to be right.

Of course, it feels good to be in control. It is easier to hold onto something that would be incredibly painful to let go of. I guess a lot of times it feels as if the pain inflicted upon me by someone else just doesn’t seem to hurt as much as the pain I experience when I die to myself and choose to forgive. Hurt so good, I guess you could say. After the initial uncomfortableness wears off, though, the joy of loving like Christ, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and living for someone far greater then myself finally seems to kick in and wipe the tears and pain from my eyes. Forgiveness is a gift.

Sometimes I forget who I am and what I am capable of—scratch that I often forget! Oh how wretched I am. A sinner in desperate need of the merciful forgiveness of an almighty Savior. Who would I be if I were not covered by the blood, made new, made clean and white as snow? Ummmmm can you say SEVEN TIMES IS JUST NOT ENOUGH!!!! Praise the Lord He forgives us over and over and over and over again. Seven times seventy times doesn’t even begin to cover my desperate need for His radical forgiveness. So Lord, forgive me (once again) for my selfish need to cling to the unforgiveness you so graciously yearn to take off my shoulders. Forgive me for ever thinking it is freedom to cling to those hurts and heartaches—to hesitate in yielding them to you. Forgive me for my yearn to be in control—to be right, to have the final word. Forgive me for thinking I have a right to be mad, a right to be hurt, a right to seek revenge, a right to do anything but forgive. Etch your sacrifice on the cross, your heart of forgiveness towards me so deeply into my skin that I fail to escape it when it is me who must forgive, as you have so graciously pardoned my array of sinfulness.

With great excitement I have begun this new journey as a blogger, and I believe this is going to be a season of learning forgiveness (moment by moment) and finding overwhelming satisfaction in Christ alone.

I pray that you experience His love today and are comforted by His death which enables you to live forgiven and free. His mercies are new every morning, what a gift.  

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

22Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.^f

23“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents^g was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26“The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.^h He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

30“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”