Sandpaper

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer. ~ author unkown

This post is dedicated to my friend gwen :) (don't worry, I'm not planning on revealing any of your outrageous secrets.) ;)

Life makes us face a lot of challenges and puts burdens on our backs that we don't understand often enough. Sometimes we can make sense of them when looking back...and then we can gladly say yeah, I grew. And sometimes we can't. But the times that I actually understood things when looking back was mostly in relationships. In general, to be honest, it's not that rare for me that when I first meet someone, I don't appreciate them as a new enrichment of my life, I get annoyed by the differences and run to God with a big frown, asking "so..why THIS?" But I've experienced something amazing over and over, that once I begin to SEEK a person's heart actively, I start finding the most beauteous things that I feel like dusting off and keeping.. :) By now I wonder how many people I've passed by without getting to know, convinced that they had nothing to give me. In reality I probably walked past a mine of gold... So I need to believe that God's making sure I don't block off what I'm actually in need of receiving - or of giving...He knows exactly who walks into my life and whose life he puts me in..

I have a way of calling people I truly consider amazing "great humans". And I feel so unspeakably RICH to say the great humans I know just don't even fit into my heart...I have been blessed inconceivably throughout nerve-wrecking circumstances and a pretty chaotic road... Blessed with relationships that have cost me a lot and given me so much more in return.. :) I want to talk about sandpaper friends. Friends who aren't only fun to be around, but inspiring, challenging, and shaping....I don't know if you've ever rubbed your HAND against sandpaper but I guess after some time it'll hurt. I don't think that's a break to the metaphor though. I'm talking about relationships that can cause pain because you're willing to open up, because you choose to keep seeking and wrestling and ultimately loving in spite of all the odds that could make you say "you're crazy" and run off. Some weeks ago, my pastor said "If you don't have problems in your relationships, I'm wondering, what kind of relationships do you have?" I didn't need to think about that for long, I know pretty well that I have problems in my relationships, more than a lot and more than temporary ones. What he said was comforting to me (as you see, I remembered the sentence) because pain and exhaustion doesn't necessarily mean you're taking the wrong road...rather that your soul is being sanded, sanded through ache, into something beautiful. Sandpaper friends are caught in a process of changing, together with you. What's bonding you will always at the same time be what's deeply transforming you, chipping away the rough and harsh, the egoistic and the fearful, bit by bit..creating a magnificent figure from a chunk of unformed rock....

Gwen is a sandpaper friend of that sort. :) I have learned so, so much through talking to her, sharing my life with her and listening to her head and heart. Not only in terms of actually getting my grammar filed, but I've learned things that I know she didn't even intend. My horizon has been expanded not in miles, but in worlds. The more I thought I was giving, the more I actually received...

I want to encourage you all to go in search of sandpaper friends. They may not be the kind of friends you'll share bracelets and pillows and your entire life with, or maybe they will. That is the thing with friends, don't try to categorize them. You will at most recognize them by the trait that they're as different to you as they are the same. There'll be fields of constant wrestling and things on which you couldn't agree more. :) Both the gaping disagreements and the deep-rooted unity have their incomparable beauty and significance. Friends who always agree with you, who never give you the chance to fight against a current, are probably scared of you. Don't go in search of someone who'll never question you... I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better ~Plutarch. Wrestling - in whatever way it occurs - may make your head or your whole life go up in flames from time to time, it may drain your depths and fill you with entirely new ambitions. Allowing others to sand you is letting their universe, their soul virtually collide with yours. There's no chance you won't FEEL the collision, and there's no way you'll stay the same. But growing is the best thing that can happen to us.. :)

You don't need the same convictions or the same favourite colour, that's the stuff friends were made of in kindergarten. The beauty lies in learning to see beyond what you thought was normal....realizing that your normal is Jupiter for someone else. I've learned a lot about myself, come to see what I actually consist of, what I'm lacking and where I'm aching.....nothing can replace all that revelation..

Gwen you are entirely precious to me, in all the facets that you've let me see.. Over and over I stand there, marveling at the Creator's handwriting all over you. :) You are hilariously funny and profoundly deep....I admire you and try to learn from you even when it seems quite clearly out of my reach. ;) I'm happy because I know that our tug-of-wars, changing glances in silence and above all the feeling of being understood and appreciated has shaped me for all that's still to come. I owe you an enormous thank you, for so much more than just putting up with me every day of my life...for wandering off-road with me and helping me to fight the drowning waves of the system. :)) 
I'm grateful to God that I don't have to say "I miss you" yet..

A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. (:
~Lois Wyse

Is it because you've never seen?

I find it stunning how strongly we rely on our eyes. We cross the street - putting our lives on the line - because we don't see any danger coming. Our eyes are immensely important for survival, our eyesight is our main source of perception. Without our eyes, we'd be caught in nothingness..... Although we know that our eyes play plenty of tricks on us - a mirage in the desert or merely a 3D coordinate system in maths that seems to be bending towards us o.O - we hardly have a better reference to tell us what IS and what ISN'T. What we can see, we believe is there. And what we can't see (unless it's scientifically proved and has some Latin name) is NOT there.

Assuming that life is only a tiny part of our existence and eternity is what we were made for, and assuming that it's true that we need God badly, I find it astonishing that "only" because we can't SEE him, we don't believe in his existence. What an unspeakable risk! - not only in terms of being lost for eternity, but even for our lives here - risking that at one point we'll look back and realize that our lives were nothing because we didn't believe in the one thing that counted. I think most people who don't believe in God reason it by saying "I can't see him"...Although sight is just one of our senses, we're willing to bet everything on it. I wonder, if we saw God, would we still say we doubt him because we couldn't smell him? Why is it that our eyes are the ultimate judge? Especially when it's about something as fatally important as the existence of God.....

Do you think seeing with your eyes creates bigger belief in you than grasping with your heart? Let's be honest, our hearts perceive the deepest and most complex of all things....we know that we can't see love for instance. But when it comes to God, we make our eyes, our deceivable, breakable little body the big referee. I'm wondering....would you consider that wise?

I personally spent most of my life doubting God's existence. I can relate to people who have trouble believing in God 1000x more than to those who've never even THOUGHT about the possibility of doubting him....I always felt like the biggest unbeliever in Christian rounds. I remember asking some girls at a camp "Do you ever question whether God really exists?", their answer was fast and simple: no?. I know what doubt is; genuine, deepest doubt running through every part of me. Doubt or unbelief can be so strong, that believing becomes so......unreal, unreachably far away. Doubt can become the foundation and the content of your life - your identity. Whether it's not believing at all, or simply questioning everything in every detail, doubt can become a way of life.

I want to point out that doubting is a choice. Even when people feel they aren't capable of believing - that's like saying I'm not capable of making my heart beat. Your heart beats on its own. You can BELIEVE without ultimately feeling "able" to. No, you can't "create" belief, or make your faith "grow". :) That is incorrect talk...The trigger is your decision. Those who take God seriously with all their hearts find believing as hard as anyone else. Believing NEVER gets easier. Miracles don't change that. It's a constant battle. But everyone is capable of drawing their sword. Including you. Your ability to believe is there, you just need to let it out of its prison.

Just now I was listening to a song called Blinded Eyes.. One of the last lines is Open your heart, He'll open your eyes. I was thinking about that... You WILL perceive God if you're willing to. Although it sounds so easy, it IS so much about whether you're willing to humble yourself down to saying God, if you exist, come out. But that little request (which is a confession that you're not absolutely sure about things) costs a lot of broken pride....Believe me, I've been there - talking to a wall when you don't know if someone's listening feels...humiliating. Some are kept back by fear. Afraid of getting their hopes up that there IS a reason, an answer, more to life...scared to ultimately be disappointed. That at least is part of my story. But God is mind-blowing. My disappointment again and again is looking back at my tiny expectations. Maybe you don't know which muscle to flex to "open your heart", yeah it sounds a bit abstract. Opening your heart means laying down your defense weapons. You may not be aware of it, but if you don't experience God in your everyday life, you're actively keeping him out, you've closed your eyes or you're holding your ears shut. The best thing you can do is to start looking for the door that you've kept locked - and opening it...because you CAN. :)

7 times 70 times

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked "Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered "I tell you, not seven times, but seven times seventy times." - Matthew 18, 21-22 

:) I dunno if you're the kind of person to start a check list to make sure you forgive the people in your life exactly 490 times.... x) what Jesus meant to say is clearer when looking past the numbers - he wants us to never stop forgiving. That is a high, high ambition, especially cuz for me the big battle is not really forgiving the 324th time, but actually, in the heavy cases, the first time. What should I do when I'm convinced I can't forgive at all?

This is a really hard topic. :/ ..and there's no easy answer to it cuz I don't know about you, but I know what it's like to be hurt, to feel deceived, violated, disappointed so badly that forgiving seems the LAST thing coming to my mind. I'm convinced that if God knows anything about us humans, he's aware that forgiving will seem impossible for us in way too many cases to make it 7x70 with everyone. Where should we take this grace from, when we hate someone or something someone has done (or is still doing) so badly?...The Bible says that God won't forgive us our sins if we don't forgive others. I've thought about that many times...and there's this voice inside me saying God, by all means, that is not fair.
But I think we often have a misconception of what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is not the alternative to justice. It actually doesn't even have much to do with the person who hurt me. It's about MY heart, my soul, my restoration. Time can bury wounds under oblivion and dust, but time cannot heal. HEALING means that it's cleansed and repaired. And that can only begin when I choose to forgive. 

Here's why...

When someone hurts us they inevitably leave a mark on us, and that stays. Whenever we see the mark, we're reminded of that person, so basically the person stays with us. The people who've hurt you are locked to you with an invisible chain. You drag them around with you, wherever you go - day and night. Sometimes you can ignore them, other times their presence will drive you insane. Forgiving means tearing that chain apart. Letting the person go. For a moment we might feel that isn't fair because now they're free when they actually deserve an ugly prison. But the truth is that by holding onto their guilt, YOU are in that prison so much more. The moment you forgive, you break the power they've had over you. You are freed...

About the question of not being able to forgive.....I think everyone has that :) this one thing (or maybe more), the corpse down in my depths, my untouchable spot that feels like forgiveness will never have a chance. I know I do...and when I just THINK about "letting go", my stomach turns. I can't. This is MY pain. And I have a RIGHT to hold onto it. I have a right to be angry, to keep my wall built up. I have a right to be suspicious, to never trust again. I have a right to NOT forgive.

I think the I can't is pretty accurate. I can't. You can't. You can't let go of a situation or a person just like that. The ONLY thing that can bring us to the point that we want to let go and let healing in, is when we receive the unbelievable forgiveness for all the crap WE've done. Whoever hasn't met and breathed in the grace of Jesus, HOW do they want to forgive in return? Lots of people think they've forgiven cuz they tell themselves they did and it doesn't really hurt anymore because time has sort of covered it. So why is forgiveness locked to God?.... REAL forgiveness, real healing is only in the hands of the healer. And if time as a healer turns out to be a flop, where will healing come from?..

God knows pretty well that we're incapable of forgiving on our own. That's why he's going to do almost all of it for us. HE wants to break the chain between you and what's hurting you. But, as in all cases, he won't force you to let go of your pain. I think in many cases the fact that we're still hurting is because we aren't WILLING to leave it with God. I have a RIGHT to be hurt now. I am so much like that.. But what changes my heart again and again and makes me capable of forgiving is one intense look at Jesus. God himself...... WHO has the bigger right to destroy everything, to kill us, to pay us back? We have hurt him so, so badly.......we have broken his heart - do you know that? The gigantic paradox is that he NEVER stops forgiving. :) He forgives everything. Do you know what that means? EVERYTHING? Anything a human could commit can be healed because God chose to make this offer unlimited.... :)) God knows that our hearts need forgiveness and that we're in need of forgiving others ourselves. He doesn't want to teach us a hard, cruel lesson. He tells us to forgive because he wants us to HEAL....

To be able to forgive, I need to admit that I HAVE been hurt....God does not expect you to belittle your pain.....That is really really important. Most people run away from the word forgiveness because they think it means saying It wasn't that bad. Or It's fine now, I got over it. You know, GOD is the last person to tell you to get over something and move on. His definition of forgiveness means allowing the pain to BE pain, allowing everything to be real - the anger, the whole depth of the wound. And realizing I HAVE been hurt. The worst thing you can do is deny. God wants you to be honest. He knows the truth... :) Forgiving does not mean you're saying it wasn't bad...or that there won't be any scars and that "everything will be alright"...maybe you'll be scarred for the rest of your life. In some things I think that I will be. But Jesus can start healing me when I hand it to him...and only then. And one day, he will heal EVERYTHING, completely, and forever. :)) Don't believe that by holding onto your pain you can in any way pay your violator back. A false conclusion, you're blocking healing out of your life.... One of Satan's most beloved schemes though - more pain through pain.
Forgiving means giving it to God..... :) THAT is the only thing that will set you free. You can trust him with your pain. Hand it to him, speak it out. Including your hatred, your bitterness, your walls.... God will react. When you choose to forgive, you'll find Jesus getting up before the end, in your place, and demanding justice for you. No one is going to get away with anything... That is why you are FREE to forgive. :)

Healing is not a fairytale, it exists. And it's so close, in your reach. You don't need to feel strong or "ready" to forgive. No one has that strength...God will give you what it takes to make it right.
More than 7 times 70 times...(:

You're all I want, you're all I need, you're Everything

I want to share something with you that has moved me immensely.... (:

For me what it shows is the ultimate and most personal truth that there is.. It is my story........I see myself in it, from the start to the end. And it shakes me more every time because it seems to become more TRUE every time I watch it...

Then watching it I realize that so often I have a totally wrong picture of who God is. The way he appears here probably doesn't even get CLOSE to how he really is....I can see him in this though, I can see him so strongly and it makes me want to throw away every insufficient and screwed up picture that I've held onto.... He is so much better.

Find me here

Speak to me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That's leading me
To the place
where I find peace, again

You are the strength, that keeps me walking

 You are the hope, that keeps me trusting

 You are the life to my soul

 You are my purpose, you're everything

And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest

 You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall

 You still my heart, and you take my breath away

 Would you take me in, take me deeper now?

:) Here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xawyyz_lifehouse-everything-drama_people

REVENGE

Although we still have all week to write something, I felt really badly like saying something to what we watched in history class today. When I got home just now I felt exhausted....the whole topic won't leave me alone. It keeps coming back - the genocide of the Armenians....Someone tell me, HOW can humans be this cruel?.....I'm lacking the right words.

While I was watching the movie I could barely keep my senses together. I felt like jumping up, doing something, maybe screaming or throwing up, but it felt like the worst and most unbearable option to just sit there, watching and listening to the devastating facts....and knowing there is nothing you can do about it. It has happened. Inside I was screaming to God...but I didn't know what to say. I couldn't ask God to step in and help...And I was pondering on the thought why? WHY did this happen? Does God need to prove to us that we are cruel?.......Whilst watching I felt anger, deepest anger grow inside me. Anger at the world. The stupid injustice. HOW can things be so disgusting, so revolting, so......unspeakably rotten and wrong?!.....Why are humans SO, SO STUPID? These are the moments I could start hating man...

This afternoon I sat down at the piano and I wanted to play something...I leafed through the music books that I have...and suddenly I felt so ashamed. So embarrassed that we sing the songs that the wealthy, healthy, carefree Christians of the West have written, without a CLUE of the suffering on this earth. And I felt like not singing anything anymore.....Justice....WHERE in the world is justice?...What made me angry too was the thought that I don't even have a right to hate those who do such incomprehensibly cruel deeds....I feel a wall of frustration rising up and I need to release it on someone who deserves it. I bet you know this feeling - the wish for revenge. Because revenge is the brother of justice. And God knows that better than we all do.

When we hear revenge we so quickly put it in the same drawer as doing wrong, impatience, aggression, evil. And that is true in one sense. God clearly says that WE are NOT meant to take revenge on others. But not for the sake of evil to continue knuckling earth down....God has reasons, and they are wise (one look at the world and we can all agree that WE are not wise..) The reason we're not supposed to take revenge on others is for the sake of JUSTICE. Because revenge WILL come. HE will bring justice to all the injustice, the pain, the quarrel, the unspeakable suffering on this earth. Justice is PROMISED to us. It is prophecied. Which means, judgement will come. Relief. The satisfaction for our body and minds - which are constantly screaming for it....we WANT justice. The fact that life is unfair drives us insane...

I have to tell you, the moments I see cruelty as horrid as today, it COMFORTS me to know that God will take revenge and set things right. The day of perfect justice is sure to come. Because the perfect one himself will be the judge. And yes, there will be mercy...but only if a price high enough was payed. There won't be one deed, one hurt that will not be payed for. There will, FINALLY, be no "getting away" - not with ANYTHING. Every time you've been hurt, it will be revenged...... :))

This is one of my favourite verses in the Bible:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair... Isaiah 61, 1-3

In the Bible revenge (or vengeance) itself is put so close to comfort. The Lord's revenge IS our only comfort...

 

There's a song based on this verse...It is one of the BEST songs for my life...:) It is my hope, in all this CRAP that we are confronted with... That he is coming. And he WILL SET THINGS RIGHT.