Amazing Love (Grafted into the Vine series)

This series is especially difficult. I knew it would be. I knew it would challenge me and take me to places I didn't want to visit again. I knew God was going to stand me in front of the abandoned "homes" of my life and show me things I've strove to forget. This is one of those things - I've tried desperately to bury this. This is a piece I wrote for a woman who once held a position of extremely high esteem in my life. She loved me - and I loved her back b/c she taught me how to be loved, and in being loved, how to love.

I genuinely believe that until you are able to accept love, you struggle to love others. Not understanding the value of who you are, or that you are worthy of love simply because God says so is to find yourself living in a place of perpetual performance. The desire to be loved drives you to do rather than to simply be.  This woman genuinely showed me my flaw in my loving of others, and she did it through loving me without condition. She loved openly, despite my filth, my seeping wounds, and the barbed wire personality I used to keep people at bay. She dove in fully, and through her God fully revealed the value of being loved. 

When she betrayed me, when her love was absent and left a void inside of me, when it broke my  heart, I quit writing with God. I turned instead to blogs, and  turned away from the submitted pen that my life had been in God's hands. I refused to write creatively again - because this wounding had been so severe, so amputating and so destroying to me.  

In revisiting this piece, God showed me some things. Yes, the wounding was terrible. Yes, I had good reasons for putting up walls while He continued to expand my tent. Yes, I was completely validated in being too hurt to trust so soon again. But we are moving past that place, and He's been the one on the waiting end this time.  This isn't a new piece. . .but just like the very character of God, He has redeemed it. I doubt I will ever read it and not think of her, but with the simple change of a capital letter, God has redeemed love for me yet again. 

We all have places that are absent of the light of Love. What is the breaking point? When does the crack get so big that the light it lets in makes the pain of being seen worth it?  Don Williams wrote this about the painful cracks and breaks we endure. . ."That's how the Light gets in."

This is how Love got in for me. 

Amazing Love

I’ve stood before here in this place

where light is strangled in blackness that is night

Where broken heart and tortured soul find rhyme to the chaos inside

Here on my nakedness You see my shame, 

my sin,

my living death indeed

And yet before barely I whisper “let me go” You’ve wrapped round me your arms,

neglecting that filth 

which brought me here

Blazing eyes with love within seeing that which I want to hide

You find in me what’s real

Here is where you have spoken life into my living death. . .

           . . .where freedom frantically launches flight and batters broken wings against prison bars

You’ve stood me here in naked splendor/shame to face which has been hidden

in front of me

My eyes worn soft with longing

a heart daring to truly live

You’ve captured and now hold in your hands

And I see which was the purpose

Love, amazing Love

Grafted into the Vine (Part 1)

For the last several months, I've been dealing with my own issues of belonging. I am in many ways an "orphan" and in some very different ways absolutely not an orphan. My father (whoever he is actually is) is absent in my life, and my mother has done her damned level best to isolate me from people who actually love(d) me, as well as hammer home the belief that I don't deserve that love. I've spent much of my adult life in "survivor" mode - trying to learn what healthy relationships actually look like, and how to have them.
I am such a lucky woman to have been married to such a good and patient man for nearly 18 years. But despite the commonly held mis-belief, our spouses aren't all we need. I find that people who make such broad statements are the ones who have other, healthy relationships, as well as a good foundation for relationship from their parent, and thus they really don't have a measurement for such a statement. People were created for relationship - God said so in the very beginning.

Specifically, I'm drawn to a concept some fringe Christians refer to as a "spirit of adoption." In the simplest definition, this is a heart condition. A person finds themselves so attuned to the adoptive nature of God the Father that they themselves enter into a covenant relationship with people who share no genetic relation. It's a radical notion. . .and one that isn't well understood by many. There are varying degrees of this mindset - everything from the inclusion of non birth children in family events to the people who actually legally adopt the "kids" they've invested their love into.

People might wonder why an adult would want to have a "new" or "spiritual" parental relationship with someone. The reasons can be varied, but the root is pretty much the same across the board. It's b/c something was lacking during the formative years. The sense of not belonging to is unimaginable to most people - unless you're that person. Not having an identity can cause you to develop multiple identities - none of which are the real you. Not experiencing the unconditional love of a parent creates serious issues when you become one yourself. When you are chosen by someone. . .when who you are is finally good enough. . .when no matter what you do, they love you anyway. . .it doesn't matter what your age, those experiences are so incredibly life giving.

Reading about the love of Jonathan and David, as well as John and Jesus and later John and Mary, I'm reminded that God's plan for salvation and redemption is underwritten by a foundation of adoption. We are grafted into Him - born separate, and at the time of our choosing, the Vine Husband (God) carefully cuts away and exposes our growth centers, and grafts us into Him. There's never been any other way. . .and in fact we are considered to be joint heirs by Jesus Himself, not only by the Father. Jesus - the Son who has no problem sharing His inheritance or His sonship with someone like me.

Blessed doesn't begin to describe the incredible experience I've had over the last couple of years with my spiritual family. I am blown away by the generosity of the real kids who have welcomed me, and who have shared their parents with me without restriction. I've been to their homes to celebrate adoptions and birthdays, and Thanksgiving; I'm allowed to love their babies; sister friends have wept with me during my deepest grief. . .and still my Heavenly Father says this is just a scratch upon the surface of the plans He has for me.

One of my favorite worship musicians recorded a spontaneous song about this very thing - he is himself an adopted child. This speaks to me in such deep places. Enjoy.

The Spirit of Adoption ~ Jason Upton

Breaking off rejection with the spirit of adoption
You're not alone

Breaking off rejection with the Spirit of adoption
I'll never leave you
My word is my promise
I sealed it with my blood
Faithful from generation to generation
I will never leave you
Be the children you were created to be
I'll never leave you
Be the very child you were created to be
I'll never leave you