We are allowed to go our own way
Entry posted by markdohle
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We are allowed to go our own way
There is a woman I know that is doing a very brave thing. She is going to give a presentation to a group of women about her journey of faith. It is an honest account, rubber to the road sort of rendering. Honest, humble, filled with faith in God, as well as a deep self knowledge that allows her to understand her need for grace. By her childlike trust in the group, she shares how her faith has led her to embrace life and to always say yes, to an ever deeper experience of the love of God in her life.
What is grace? We all experience it from time to time from those we know and befriend. Or perhaps from perfect strangers, who step in and gift us with their compassion, patience and love. We receive when we are not worthy. When we accept there is a healing. The deeper we understand our need the more profound the effect. So the deeper one falls into chaos, into a life of self destruction, as well as a life that spreads only pain and sorrow to those around them, the more profound and painful the experience of being touched by the love of another, that opens up the doorway into the soul. Human grace and love is a small flame compared to the infinite fire of the mercy of God.
When all has been stripped away, when we have nothing to hold on to, that is when mercy can enter in. The only difference between those who know of their need and those who don’t is self knowledge and the courage to face its implications. Humility comes from truth, not from evasion.
It is easier to believe in some impersonal force. It can be ignored or even manipulated through ‘magic’, but a reality that is infinite, loving and compassionate is another thing all together. It can be a fearful thing to know that we are being pursued in our weakest selves, in areas that we reject about ourselves, by infinite love.
When we run from the love of another human being, if it is a love not based on some form of self centeredness, we suffer for it. For we are allowed to go our own way, to make our mistakes, and to go through a great deal of inner turmoil as we seek in all the wrong places what is offered us.
Love rejected, when there is a pursuit that does respect our freedom, is experienced as wrath, for what should be a healing balm is experienced as smothering. Love is love; our response will put us in a place where we will experience it in one way or another.
Power, drugs, sex and rock and roll, pleasure and riches will only show us our emptiness, for in the end, if it is not infinite, it turns to ash. The heart has an infinite capacity for love; all of our loves point to that and to stop the journey is to opt for a self imposed prison. Love brings pain, as does any path we choose. Some pain can be healing, other sorts can just be an eternal cycle of disappoint and despair.
Grace is the ‘ring’ that gets us off the Merry-Go-Round.
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