Dealing with *&$#!

There has been a lot of heated discussion in the circles that I live in lately about dealing with scandalous sin.  I have tried to keep my head down and keep on swimming, but some days I sink.  The battle rages on, and I am too tired to fight.

We all deal with sin, ours and others, in different ways.  Our God is big.  He created each of us  individually, and He knows us each intimately.  In all of this, I will stick close to Him.  I will not criticize anyone else as they deal with their own walk with God.  He is their master, not me.  I cannot possibly know or imagine what they are dealing with.  Some people need more time than others to first of all face their challenges, and to muster the energy every single day to keep on moving forward.  Somedays they won't move forward, they will just need to be still and know that we serve and eternal God.  He isn't rushing us.

God has brought some very hard things into my life.  Ugly things.  Things I did not want to be part of my story.  I came to God with plenty of ugly, I was hoping He would just let that be good enough for me.  For reasons known only to Him, He trusted me to suffer more.  And yet I trust Him.  I get the feeling that there are a lot of people that want to hear that if you do all things right, you will avoid suffering.  Sorry folks, that right there is a lie.  Read the Bible, suffering is a big  part of the deal.  If you love people, you will get to watch them suffer too.  Yep, even your little, adorable, innocent children.  You are going to have to trust God's grace is big enough to heal them too.  You can't protect them from every hurt.  You can't keep all the bad guys away.  You can't stop the wind and the rain from being too much sometimes.  You are not their savior, the pastor is not their savior, the principal is not their savior, Jesus is their savior.  He loves them.  He suffered for them, so that they would know how to suffer like He did.  If you are a really great parent you will model suffering well for them, because every time they suffer, so will you.  It is hard.

Sin tends to isolate us.  Facebook tends to isolate us.  Blogs tend to isolate us.  We feel free to say things when we are alone, that we never would if there was a real live, flesh and blood person sitting across from us.  So here I am blogging.  I have talked to people face to face, and then read their blog the next day and thought, huh.  I find the real life, real time conversations to be very healing and human.  I find the blog posts to feel like rocks hitting my head.  Maybe this will feel like a rock to you.  If it does, I didn't mean it to.  I don't want to enter the public fracas.  I am a peace lover at heart. I want to all hold hands and sing together.  I am hoping we will all do that in heaven TOGETHER.  One of the ironies about all of this is that I love everyone involved, EVERYONE.  They are my brothers and sisters in Christ.  It hurts to see all the accusations, ignorant comments, false information, true apologies, true humility, and striving for peace.

My hope is that in the end, I will have been faithful to God.  How can I glorify Him in this?  I want to protect the people God brings me to protect, forgive the people I need to forgive, hug the people that need hugs, and not let my heart be hardened.  I may need to do things in the process that onlookers won't understand.  Trust God.  He leads us all down different paths to glory.