Irrational Wounding

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Back in high school, when I briefly took organ lessons (Mom hoped I would play hymns), one of my practice pieces (definitely not a hymn) went like this:

You always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn’t hurt at all.      You always take the sweetest rose and crush it till the petals fall.         You always break the kindest heart with a hasty word you can’t recall.

It certainly touted an attitude far from biblical hymnody. Hurting someone’s feelings, crushing a sweetheart, speaking thoughtless words all classify as cruel and unloving. But the last line of the song made it even worse:

If I broke your heart last night, it’s because I love you most of all.

Nonsense.

This sounds a lot like a cad twisting the truth to make his beloved forgive him. He says he loves her more than anyone else because of what he did or said that wounded her.

I don’t know why this song popped into my head today, but when I gave it a little thought, the chickens came home to roost. I was reminded of many-a-time when I expected Nate to understand why I had to serve others rather than him. For example, I’d make his favorite meal, then take it down the block for the family that had just moved in without saving any for him. Or he’d invite me out to dinner but I’d say, “I’m on a diet. Let’s go to a movie instead.” These things and many others made me as caddish as the guy in the song.

When we’re dealing with those outside our family circle, we control ourselves well. We don’t speak harshly, raise our voices, or lose our patience. Rarely do we say no. But those in our inner circle? We often take their love for granted and assume it’ll always be there, regardless of what we do. The truth is, those family members who are treated poorly by the ones they love don’t always stick around. When love isn’t reciprocated, it sometimes dies.

God loves differently than we do, carefully considering our needs. Jesus was the ultimate example for us when he put our needs ahead of his own. He took the torture and death we were slated to receive and did it eagerly… lovingly. Instead of “hurting the ones he loved” as the song says, he allowed himself to be hurt. He volunteered to be the “sweetest rose,” willingly crushed so we wouldn’t have to be.

There is no possible way we could ever pay him back for what he did, but one thing we can do is mimic his love by loving our family members sacrificially rather than hurting the ones we’re supposed to love “most of all.”

“He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

Angelic Sculpture

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Snow angels are made in several ways, and last week, after a good blizzard, we finally got to make the first ones of the season. Jack has his own angel-making method, throwing himself into the snow on his back, wriggling and squirming upsidedown. A child uses other ideas. She lies flat on her back, arcing arms and legs, then trying to stand up without making a boot-print on her angel. As for me, I like the idea of building a snowman-angel. And a true artist can carve an angel from a giant brick of snow.

The morning the blizzard came, while brushing my teeth I was wondering how much shoveling I’d have to do and how much time it would take. Then I heard the melodic sounds of a snow blower, and before I could even rinse my mouth out, I spotted my next-door-neighbor at work on my driveway.

Bob always has a positive word for everyone, and he let me know, once I got outside, that he thought the storm was beautiful. More impressive to me, though, was his unflagging determination to help the widow next door. He and his wife Linda have come to my rescue more than once, and that morning it happened again.

For the rest of that day, every time I looked outside, seeing Bob’s snow blowing lines on my driveway was a fresh blessing. Later, while thanking God for these neighbors, the Lord reminded me of the way Nate and I originally ended up next door to them.

We’d been casually looking in the area for several years, having outgrown the tiny summer cottage my sister and I shared with our spouses and 14 children. We knew we needed a second house but were frustrated with the unavailability of cottages in our price bracket. When a house came on the market at the right price, the location, size or condition wasn’t right.

Then one day, at the end of another unsuccessful hunt, the realtor said, “I heard a rumor another house was about to come on the market. Nothing’s official, and we don’t have the key yet, but let me make a call.”

That turned out to be the one. And when Nate and I bought it in 2000, we envisioned decades of family use and an eventual retirement for the two of us. Neither of us expected widowhood, but of course God knew it was coming and was preparing an optimum setting. The unlikely timing of the house “about to” come on the market with all the right features was the beginning, but most significant was his placing us next to our compassionate neighbors.

Then, when “we” turned into “just me,” those two neighbors turned into angels.

And now I know the prettiest of all angelic snow sculptures is made by the parallel lines of a snow blower.

“Whoever brings blessing will be enriched.” (Proverbs 11:25)

 

Ice Cold

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Last night the thermometer outside my kitchen window sunk to 9 degrees. When I put my head on the pillow I was thankful for my furnace and prayed God would rescue anyone faced with spending the bitter cold night outdoors.

But this morning when I came downstairs, the house was surprisingly chilly. I turned the thermostat up to 72, then 74, and even 76, but the indoor temperature remained in the sixties.

After church, while doing dishes with my coat on, I called the furnace man, Norm, and presented the problem. He asked when I’d last changed the filter. “Never,” I said.

Directing me to the basement (without any judgment in his voice), he walked me through the process of finding and removing the old filter. “Hold it up to the light,” he said. “Can you see through it?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

“No. It’s completely black.”

Without any criticism, his thoughtful response was, “Then our problem is easy to fix. Leave the filter out for a while and your house will warm right up. Then get some new filters tomorrow.”

While I was blubbering out gratitude he said, “Why don’t you take the old filter with you? That’ll help you get the right replacement.”

After we hung up, I stood in front of my purring furnace, filthy filter in hand, and broke into tears. It wasn’t about the warming furnace but the ice cold separation from Nate. He hadn’t been a handyman, but he did do a faithful job of replacing furnace filters. My heating dilemma had highlighted, in an unexpected way, how far away he really was… from the furnace, the filters, the house, and mostly from me. It was one more new bit of widow-awareness and felt like a sledgehammer to the heart.

One of the ways God cares for widows is by placing kindhearted people within arm’s reach, right when we need them. Last summer when the furnace was being installed, Norm mentioned ”my husband” doing this or that, which prompted me to tell him my husband had died. Today on the phone he seemed to remember that, handling my shortcomings with compassion. Whether or not he knew it, he was an instrument of God’s grace. And this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced “gentle handling” from “strangers.”

We’re all familiar with the Bible verse that says we should offer kindness to everyone, because that “person” might really be an angel in disguise. I’m learning the reverse is true, too: certain people act kindly toward me so quickly, I don’t even have a chance to initiate kindness first.

And that’s how our tenderhearted God arranges life around his widows.

“I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us— yes, the many good things he has done.” (Isaiah 63:7)