ENFORCING THE RULES...OR ALL THINGS HAVING TO DO WITH LOVE

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

I've had something stirring around in me all day today yet was unsure of how to express what I have been feeling. It revolves around the conflict in relationships that seems to be the norm and leaves a trail of pain and broken and damaged lives. My 19 year old just gave me the nudge I was in need of to try to put some of this down. Maybe it will help someone else along the way as this process of writing always helps me?

Amie is doing an Internship this summer running a camp along with three of her friends. She stopped as she was walking by a minute ago to tell me she had to give her testimony today of what Father is doing in her life. She then said "You were a big part of it." To which I responded "Really? What role did I play in what you shared with them today?" She then began explaining how she described how Father is setting her free from feeling like she could never do things well enough and could never measure up. She is learning that she is loved and accepted just as she is. And she said that all began to change in her life with the changes Father had begun to work into my life a few years back. You see, Amie had had a lot of mistaken notions about Father shaped into her due to how I was living with her. I had been led to believe enforcing the rules and teaching them responsibility based upon the rules was how love worked. Turns out I was seriously wrong. Papa showed me that, as he began to help me see that he had never lived with me in that way. He had always been engaging with me with the kind of love described in the passage above from 1 Corinthians 13. As Amie was telling me these things her eyes began to fill with tears. And then she said that she read her favorite part of The Shack to them. She had never told me before that the moment with the blue jay was her favorite part of the book of which I will end this with.

"Almost as if on cue, a blue jay landed on the kitchen windowsill and began strutting back and forth. Papa reached into a tin on the counter, and sliding the window open, offered Mr. Jay a mixture of grains that she must have kept just for that purpose. Without hesitation, and with a seeming air of humility and thankfulness, the bird walked straight to her hand and began feeding.

"Consider our little friend here," she began. "Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around." She paused to let Mack think about her statement. "You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around."

Mack nodded his head, not so much in full agreement but more as a signal that at least he understood and was tracking. That seemed simple enough.

"Living unloved is like clipping a bird's wings and removing it's ability to fly. Not something I want for you."

There's the rub. He didn't feel particularly loved at the moment.

"Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly." She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. "And if left unresolved for very long you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place." from The Shack chapter A Piece Of Pi

Fighting to enforce the rules is all about taking the freedom of others away and if 1 Corinthians 13 is an accurate description of Love, enforcing the rules is antithetical to loving people ....it's clipping their wings and grounding them. Amie seems to have begun flight school sometime after Papa got my attention and began to help me see the difference.