The Ramblings of A Muse

“You, on the other had, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around…Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings and removing its ability to fly. Not something I want for you…Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly…and if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were created to fly in the first place.” -God, in The Shack

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am reading through The Shack this week. I am on my second read through, but this particular selection is pulled from one of the two most profound and thought provoking chapters in the book, and it got me in the first round. I found such truth in this paragraph (which is actually pulled in parts from several paragraphs, but what was removed is internal dialog of the other character which doesn’t affect the context or intention of the selection above) that I felt the need to re-post it. It’s one of those things which I can’t put into words that well, but when I read this portion of the book, something shifted.

I have always judged myself based on my mistakes and how far I have fallen short of people’s expectations…whether it be parents, friends, people of supposed importance, or even God. I have defined myself by my mistakes and declared myself unlovable because of it. This is silliness, really. It is also completely limiting – crippling, even. To live under the weight of alleged disapproval can be an overwhelming burden to bare. Actually accepting that regardless of flaws, regardless of faults, I am loved fully and without condition by God…it brings a freedom like no other.

The difference between God’s love and the love we know as humans is that, unlike humans, we can never “let God down”. In order to let God down or disappoint Him, there would have to be expectations to be met and fallen short of. The cool thing about God (and the thing that rocked my world entirely) is that we can’t possibly let Him down…because He doesn’t have expectations to be met. He loves. He loves. He loves. End of story. He loves without condition. He loves simply because we are His. To me, at least, when faced with the awe inspiring truth that I am adored beyond all reason by the God of the universe…the rest of this world and it’s nonsense does indeed grow strangely dim.

Another interesting shift has been the one about where I choose to set my focus. The past few months, or nearly a year really, have been focused on a small group of characters. I recently learned that where we fix our eyes, therein lies our hope. No wonder I felt so hopeless up until recently. My eyes were fixed solely on my situation and the lives of those around me. Hope can not be based on people. Hope is found in God.

“Perhaps when all you see is pain, you lose sight of me?” – God, in The Shack

How true that pain has the ability to blind us to the very presence of God. We sit wallowing in our own misery and expect God to show up and fix everything. God is already there. He never left. Regardless of what we feel (or more accurately, DON’T feel), God is who he says he is. We’re just too preoccupied to see Him.

I wish there was a way to articulate all that is going on in my head and heart. It can’t be done, for now. There’s just too much. Only this time…too much is NOT a bad thing.

Music is the soundtrack of emotion. This video is just a glimmer of what I’m trying to get at.