Crushing Kindness

These past few weeks of writing silence have been filled with wrestling. I haven’t trusted my voice not to be filled with resentment or defilement towards others. My heart seems to be mostly settled towards Aaron. Where I’ve hung up has been with God. I’ve surrendered left and right this year, over and over. I’m sleeping in a bunk bed. I’ve given up the right to make most of my decisions about my schedule, my finances, my life. I’ve loved a man and then walked away. And I’ve been willing to trust God and die to self up to a point—but in the stack of hard that has landed since breaking up with Aaron, I’ve hit a wall. My heart said, enough is enough. I got angry.

I hate ministry politics. I’m going to state that loud and clear. I hate politics in general—the separate sides and everybody vying for their own way, no one really stopping to listen to the other. If there’s one place you’d think would be safe from such goings on, it should be the body of Christ. Maybe that’s why, in that context, they feel more painful than all the rest. And I’ve been stuck in it’s web these past weeks—feeling used, speaking up, feeling misheard, invalidation, watching a friend be dishonored and kicked out, confusion, lack of disclosure, questions, silence from leaders, crisis, lack of emotional and spiritual safety, offense, valid needs gone unmet, immature shepherding. This mess has felt more painful that breaking up with Aaron.

I became a walking zombie, trying to physically fulfill the expectations people had of me but my heart completely checked out and screaming. I couldn’t find the Lord. He felt so far from me. I needed to hear his voice so badly. I didn’t know what to do or how to navigate this mess. I wanted relief. I had to pull away for a week to process. And in the midst of sharing with a mentor she asked me, do you want His presence or do you want rest?

That’s the rub. I wanted His presence, but I wanted it on my terms. I wanted it with benefits. What I really wanted is rest, relief, for the whole mess to right itself, for God to come storming in and vindicate me, take my side. But God isn’t into politics. He’s not about sides. He’s about refinement. And even though I’ve surrendered a lot in the past ten months, it’s not enough. He wants another layer. I have to lay aside my anger and acknowledge that He’s God. I’m not. His ways are right. No matter how wrong the others involved may be (and of course my perspective on that is biased), where I partnered with the enemy and slipped into offense, that is mine to own and take care of. I didn’t want that to be true. I banged on the wall of the shower one morning and swore, yelling at God. I didn’t want the mess of my heart to be my fault. I was the one getting hit with a sledgehammer over and over and I was the one that has to do the hard heart work to fix it? It didn’t seem fair. But I knew He was right. I had to own what was mine. I had to find a way to forgive.

So that’s what I’ve been fighting to do. But first I had to find His presence. I needed to understand that He was with me in this web in a tangible way. Which meant that I had to lay aside my indignation that what He’s chosen to give me is hard. Okay God, I give up. I miss you. I want your presence in my life more than I want you to fix everything.

But God, you’re crushing me, I cry out in protest. And He gently replies, I AM crushing you. To save you from yourself. I have been very kind to you.

Will I accept that? Will I believe that this whole painful ordeal is meant for my good, to teach me something I’m going to need, to crucify another layer of my fleshly nature? Even though I may not understand why for years? Can I look at this mess and know that the Lord is kind—not just generally, but specifically, to me? I hope so. I think I’m even beginning to.