Putting the Pieces Back Together

Comes a time when things are wrecked,

Times when harsh words are spoken,

Then there’s the awareness to simply reflect,

Then the courage to correct what’s broken.

***

The marriage relationship is a special institution, but it’s not devoid of the strains of life where coupledom extends into the realm of the extraneous. Sometimes we just cannot live with our partners – yet we have the covenant relationship. We cannot leave. And we cannot give up in seeking a reconciliation of unity.

But most of the time emotions run high and our spirits flag when exasperation becomes the theme in the marital dynamic.

Times like these both partners are readily forgiven for feeling insane, where the logical thought is blown away in the midst of a cloud of feeling in rebuttal after rebuttal.

Picking up the broken pieces and putting them back together, to remake that beautiful vase so it will contain water again for the flowers of life, is easy as reflecting quietly in the moment. One person can do this. Both can do this. But words must cease.

There is a great deal to be said for humility in the strained moment – the sense of true bearing by the ability to look above the situation and to notice what is happening.

What is maddening by nature needs not to be extrapolated and given fuel. When we fuel our marital fires we are being really unwise. No matter the importance of the issue, fighting with guns ablaze or pouring copious volatiles over the mess, will not solving anything.

When we are given to arguing and there appears to be many irresolvables, it’s best that we accept the things we can’t change. It might be easier said than done, but considering that most of the things we argue about are relatively minor (in the overall scheme of life) can we find within our minds to conceive how life might look like without such a resolute grip over the issue(s) we cannot let go of?

Some issues are critically important. We need to have the poise and the patience to communicate well. Prayer helps.

But putting the pieces back together having had a ‘barney’ of monumental proportions has to be a marital couple’s top priority.

***

There is a blessing for every marital couple that reflects on harsh words spoken, where there is the combination of humility and courage to correct what’s broken.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

The Conflicts That Break God’s Heart

Life is long, and with a few exceptions there is much angst. We become infuriated over the simplest of things in retrospect, and only as we look back we are our own worst enemies. Conflict is a thing that becomes us in a flash. And in all this, there is the heart of God, grieving as if invisibly contained within heaven.

The conflicts that break God’s heart are those that become irredeemable. They occur over important issues and trivial matters, alike. And whilst there is sense in every conflict, there is just no sense in extrusions of parting where good friends (people trying to follow Jesus) – adult friends; family also – can be no more.

Knowing that God is grieved – the Divine heart broken in heaven – we then play out a choice; to turn back to God in repentance and heal our side of the rift, or we remain comparatively far from God in maintaining the pride contained within our resentment.

Again, the context is Christian unity; where we, as Christians, ought to get on.

Turning Conflict on Its Head

The greatest conflicts have the richest of histories and no one should undermine the damage done. Can the damage be undone? That is the great question. There will always be varying schools of thought on both sides of that camp. Sometimes it’s best that parties just part company, but we ought to believe that reconciliation is always possible.

It depends on both parties as to whether the damage can be undone or not.

Both parties have their half of the control and it takes both to work together, though only one party needs to start negotiations. God isn’t bothered who starts the negotiations; all that matters is that they are started in grace.

God can do something about the conflicts that break his heart, but it requires obedient humility on both sides of the argument, and also an abundance of patience in the side engaging in the peacemaking initially.

***

These are the facts:

Both sides did wrong. Both could have done better. Both are partially responsible; for both the conflict and the restoration if that is to occur. But equally, both sides were hurt and, therefore, both require compassion, and since they are likely to be the only ones interested in reconciliation – for they are the only ones who will benefit – compassion needs to be their mainstay toward the other; even beyond the hurt they continue to experience.

***

Christian conflicts break God’s heart; it wasn’t for disunity that Jesus hung on the cross. Knowing these grieve God, should we extend our conflicts one more day? We should do all we can to heal rifts with everyone we have conflicts with, and especially when it comes to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Jesus’ Yoke, Work, Rest, and Balance

“Jesus is not talking about the rest of a vacation or a quiet afternoon by the fire, but rest in the centre of life, activity, work.”

— SHERIDAN VOYSEY (Author of Resurrection Year)

Work and rest must operate together,

Existing in tandem if either is to serve,

Balance is found when we’re light as a feather,

Even though we’ve worked with passionate verve.

***

I often wonder whether the world has gotten a whole lot busier or whether that’s just our excuse. Of course, we have a myriad of tools that are supposed to make life easier, but the pace of life seems to be so frenetic it’s almost like we need these tools just to keep up.

We can wonder if the above biblically-stated advice is never more relevant.

I wrote an article on Making Time Work Through Margins, and I guess this idea is much akin to that one – we somehow need to wrestle the balance between becoming a manic workaholic and being a hermit. We need to believe that God’s will for our lives is that we would be efficient and effective workers who are skilfully able to manage the balance between work, rest and play.

Surely this is where the heart of wisdom is involved – discerning the way, then doing it.

An Image of Jesus’ True Yoke

Amidst the burdens of life, some of which involve the struggles of work, or of balancing our time, or of wrestling with grief or a mental illness, amongst many examples, there is this concept of rest.

The yoke of Jesus as portrayed in Matthew 11:28-30 perceivably involves two concepts coupled together, as if a yoke of oxen – burden and rest. (I use the word ‘burden’ as the generic term encapsulating every idea that is the opposite of rest.)

It wouldn’t be much good if we had a Saviour who had solutions that didn’t work in real life. We cannot continue to go around and around and around the issues of work-life balance only to become confused and exasperated, again and again. That makes no sense.

It is better, by far, to understand rest in the context of work, and even allowing ourselves rest before work, so we are well prepared for the work we do.

It is no good to venture into escapism, just as it is no good to put off our rest indefinitely. Neither escaping nor burnout achieve God’s will.

In our everyday we ought to find rest; we are blessed to plan it in.

***

Jesus’ yoke for the burdened is a workable rest right in the midst of the burden. Rest has to occur in the middle of a busy day or it doesn’t work at all.

With awareness and the conviction of courage in action we can plan in and accomplish our rest so our work is the best and most enjoyable it can be. Rest supports work and work enables rest. Work and rest must coexist – both of them, simultaneously, God blesses.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Mars, Venus, Love, and Respect

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus; one book put it that way.

Yet it seems that two people cohabiting together as a married couple will need more from each other than the acceptance that they are completely different. Too often we get stuck in stereotyping men and women. We can no sooner categorise either before we run into the roadblock of ignorance.

Women may wish to be loved and men may wish to be respected, but don’t these two outcomes of God’s grace through us run together? Surely the woman wants to be respected as much as she is loved, and the man needs to be loved as much as is respected.

I wonder if it is even discernible whether men need to be respected more than loved, or women need to be loved more than respected. I think it is a moot point.

Sometimes we try to make too much of the biblical mandate.

There is much that can be made of Ephesians 5:21-33, and Paul does write in terms of husbands loving their wives and wives respecting their husbands. And maybe it can be said that when a husband loves his wife he respects her and when a wife respects her husband she loves him.

Rather than stop at one, we could go into both virtue and make the most of both of them for our partners.

Growing Both Love and Respect

When we imagine ourselves as able to love unconditionally and have such respect we reveal the true virtue of humility — where pride is nullified and we don’t respond in a hurt way by things that might otherwise hurt us — we offer a lot of safety and dependability to our partners. Maturity begets grace as grace begets maturity. This surely applies to both men and women.

Surely it is also God’s will that we work on both love and respect, treating those of the opposite gender more as partners in humanity, rather than Mars or Venus foes that cannot be understood.

As men and women we have more in common than what we think. We can still appreciate our differences as we celebrate our similarities. It’s best we all invest in both love and respect.

***

The routine withholding of love and respect in marital relationships can spell the death knell of a union. Conversely, when both partners resolve to love and respect the other because they want the best for them, marriages can soar to previously unknown heights of mutual satisfaction.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

The Toxicity of Holding of Hurts

FROM DEEP BENEATH comes the swollen undercurrent of pain that breaches the reinforced doors of the unconscious mind as it rears forth via the spoken medium of hurt.

Such expression is palpably endorsed and forced by anger that bridges the chasm of our self-control; it works under the instructions of our pain, against our better judgment.

We don’t always do what we know to be the best thing.

There are times when we insist upon holding the hurt that both angers and grieves us, for we want justice, and we cannot let go until justice is served! Wrong upon wrong has been dealt us or those we love and we just cannot let it go.

Yet the more we hold on, the more we stew in our own juices, and the harder it becomes to let go. The more we think about these matters, the more we feed the swelling vestiges of the body of our torment. All the injustices are just reinforced.

Whilst we might appear justified in our own minds, confident and comfortable in our own hearts with this action, we do not see the delusion affecting our community before us. Holding the hurt longer and longer will only stifle growth—and here’s the pity: in others, too, not just ourselves.

Justifying the hurt in any way, no matter how justified we truly are, blocks the forward motion of God’s operant grace for forgiveness. God can do nothing if we or the other remain resistant, stubborn, and steadfast in only our personal concern.

Allowing Forgiveness to Abide

All that remains in reversing the trend of holding fast to our hurt is the decision to forgive and get on with the rest of our lives, free, without being held back. No matter how much we are hurt—or how justified we are—holding onto our pain is a dead-end solution.

Holding on is every hindrance, whilst letting go—and simply being prepared to contemplate letting go—is freedom replete in all manner of virtue: peace, joy, contentment, wisdom, and reason, to name a few. We must allow forgiveness to abide.

All that stands between a held hurt and letting go is a decision. The will can do this instantaneously. We can will anything into action by our deciding to do it.

***

No hurt is justifiably held, but we’re forgiven for desiring justice. Our hurt is the spoken representation of our pain. Letting go of our hurt is trusting God to heal us of our pain. It is as simple as deciding that to be healed is infinitely better than holding on. But we will need to keep deciding to let it go. What we let go of we need to let go of.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Your Suffering and God’s Compensation

“It’s in the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings... that your noblest dreams are born... and God’s greatest gifts are given... in compensation for what you’ve been through... it is well.”

— Whintley Phipps

The grandest of solemn truths is cast before us above—by the heart of a person who has touched their tragedy, breathed of its noxious fumes, and lived to survive to tell the tale.

Suffering is a qualification like none other.

It takes us intact and crumbles our world in front of our eyes. It forces us through a process of extraction, where essences of us are swallowed whole by it. What remains is the material God can use.

Suffering predisposes us to blessing if we can humbly bear it.

These are the tests of us: can we sustain our humble obedience? Will we do the sharp and sticky deep middle-ground work that will connect us to God in the midst of torment and pain?

When groans replace words and grimaces mould our smiles into sickened vestiges of yesteryear, and we become, for the time, nothing, we are ready for the test. If we will obey God, trusting the Presence of the Healer, the Lord of Glory will fill us with his Spiritual inspiration—that long-awaited dream!

Returning From Suffering’s Source

Having knelt at the cross, and having done so routinely, perhaps for months if not years, God lifts us gradually from that miry dearth—for instances initially, then for longer, more sustained periods. We resent—at least at the outset—that we must do our cross-work, but it’s what Jesus warned us about and modelled by his own life.

Suffering’s a great antipathy and a messy anachronism that never suits us, but its source is based in a recipe that has worked from the ancients until now, eternally.

Suffer well and we thrive. It’s because it’s the greatest expression of faith there is. It’s easy to obey God when there’s no test afoot. We miss the mark when the pressure comes on; the typical human default.

God is saying, “You can get through this—hope in me—there is enough of me to help you through—my grace is sufficient!”

Returning from suffering’s source is the eventual outcome. Nobody remains there. Adjustments are made and God forms us into new people.

***

Deeply inside, where our pain finds its real identity, and where we bear it well, is born both a dream and God’s equipping for a new thing. It is the Lord’s compensation for what we’ve been through.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Shutting the Door on Shame

“O guard my life, and deliver me;

do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.”

—Psalm 25:20 (NRSV)

The cost of our connection with sin is inevitably shame. And in the complex world of relationships there enters a complex interdependence of shame between souls relating with one another. Sometimes we don’t know whose shame we are feeling, ours or theirs. Sometimes as we protect other people we, in fact, protect ourselves. Yet sometimes when we protect other people we are embarrassed for them, as we could imagine them being embarrassed for us in the same circumstance. Sometimes we feel shame for others’ sin—for the affect it’s had on us (e.g. abuse or neglect).

Shame is an incredibly relational subject. Maybe it’s only when we have fallen short within our connections with others that we feel emotions like guilt and shame.

But apart from a godly shame that draws us into repentance for sins committed, God wants us to shut the door on shame; to instead draw daily on the forgiveness in grace.

Grace, of course, is God’s gift to humankind so spiritual freedom is accessible. Otherwise sin would forever set us apart from God.

Overcoming the Burden of Shame

I’ve been thinking a long time now about how universal traits for shame are. And whether people consciously admit their shame or they drive it down deeper into their psyches it doesn’t really matter.

Because shame is intrinsically connected with sin—the inward and outward manifestation of the disconnect with ourselves, let alone God—we, as thinking and feeling human beings, particularly if we consider ourselves ‘moral’, struggle when we fall short. Then we experience shame.

Our consciences are implicated.

And for this, I’m sure, grace came about. Because we could never, ever, reconcile our sin, and still these days are thwarted by its presence, God stepped in and made a way for us to live, heads held high, even as we are—sinners.

Shutting the door on shame is possibly as simple as instituting habitual and instinctual repentance at the foot of our sin. In other words, immediately having sinned we confess it and step forth on the path toward repentance. Our shame is hence relieved. And in instances of having not sinned we step into thankfulness for the wisdom implicit in grace that kept us clear of temptation and kept us, for that moment at least, true.

Shutting the door on shame is as simple as honest confession and movement toward repentance. The quicker and more efficient we do this the more effective our absolution at the conscience level is. When our shame comes as a result of what’s occurred to us—beyond our sin—we confess this too, seeking God’s healing.

***

God wants us to live free with our heads held high, having dealt with our shame at the cross. Because shame is connected with sin we need to draw on grace, each day, in learning to live shame-free.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Allowing Pain To Turn Into Sadness

THE MAN sat there at his computer, and, as he looked through old digital photographs and other sweet and sour remembrances, he sobbed. He knew not what it was he was sobbing about, but it got more and more intense—he got untidy, real messy. He wasn’t worried or concerned. He knew it was therapeutic. He knew he needed it, even though he’d have preferred to be happier. He somehow sensed the greater reality of pain, and being sad was allowing the pain its own voice. He was allowing his unknown and unspeakable pain its expression, though he knew it to have no bounds. It was a leap of faith to let go emotionally.

The man spent himself that way for an hour or more. He could have taken longer, but the purpose had been achieved already. He had converted the inexpressible into an expression of grief that actually meant something.

He felt vaguely and posthumously satisfied, but humbly realistic to know that beyond the moment’s healing nothing really had been achieved.

But that’s okay. The man knew that the moment was all he had; it’s all we ever have.

Enjoying Sadness for the Faculty of Expression

Pain is otherwise left untapped. Sadness is a salve and a valve. It breaches the walls of an intact china mausoleum and, instead of shattering that magnificent facility of lament, it respects its role—the keeper of all pain—and gently allows the overflow so the brittle material is not exposed to breaking point pressure.

The faculty of expression is a powerhouse of blessing, though sadness, of its own, is nothing to rave about. Such a faculty of expression—to sob one’s guts out—and, yes, by this author’s direct experience—is somehow necessary; for a good many people.

It sounds like an oxymoron—to enjoy a sadness. It isn’t. It’s one of those spiritual paradoxes of the secret life known only to a select few, but it should be more broadly known.

We all have pain; unspeakable pain. There is more in this reservoir of emotional indifference than any of us would reckon on, and the potential is even great, i.e. for the issue of grief.

Anyone who loves in this life will experience grief, and pain is what underlies all grief. And there is so much pain beyond grief. Sadness, as a valve and a salve, is thereby essential.

***

Sadness is a vital part of the healing process, for it’s the language we speak in expressing our pain. Better sadness than unbridled and vitriolic anger. Sadness is a genuine therapy as we allow the Spirit of God to dress the wounds of our inner, unspeakable anguish.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Recovery Having Disappointed Someone

When being in two places at once won’t relate,

Because we know it never does,

What can we do to re-inflate,

The relationship that’s abuzz?

We ensure we make up some way,

Creating a turn of trust,

We certainly go beyond what we say,

We take action beyond what’s discussed.

***

If we are apt at pleasing people, and to a point we should be, we will have some awful difficulties in disappointing people. Yet to live this life is to disappoint people. We cannot go far at all before we betray and frustrate and overwhelm people by intruding on their expectations of us. It’s not our fault, but it remains a reality of life.

This issue is bound to either cause to be perplexed or it could liberate us.

We have the option of remaining at odds with ourselves because we cannot stand to disappoint people or of accepting the fact in advance of the time that those who meet us and love us will often end up most disappointed because of us. We must be especially cautious of those who love us, because where there is an extreme of affection there is likely to be just as much an extreme the other way, too. Some people end up behaving like they have borderline personality disorder—love us then hate us, all within a short period.

We have the option: will we be determined to be frustrated and dismayed and feel forever guilty or will we accept that people will say we hurt them when, in fact, they hurt themselves? This shouldn’t be a hard choice.

But then there is this situation. When we must disappoint someone, because we cannot possibly please them, even if we want to, what are we to do?

The imposition of action is our only option.

This is not so much about making up as it is about understanding relational dynamics; that all relationships are about currency: of two forms: 1) The sort that operates like money, where we must invest in order to manage trust. To withdraw too much in our relational bank accounts makes us bankrupt to the currency of trust. 2) Trust has to be managed and made relevant now; it’s no good having had a trusting relationship—it must be current.

Acknowledging these two forms of currency compels us to do whatever we need to do to restore and maintain trust; to redeem the redeemable moment so the relationship has hope for the future.

***

We cannot please everyone all the time. It is an exercise in futility to attempt it. We best plan what we might do to recover situations when we disappoint people. We have the choice whether we determine it is worth it or not. And trust is always the major currency. No relationship is irredeemable. We can redeem a relationship by rebuilding trust.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

When Grace Turns Karma Upside Down

“You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics; in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that ‘as you reap, so you will sow’ stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.”

— Bono

We have all done a lot of stupid stuff. We are sinners. Yet God loves us. Nothing can separate us from the love in God, in redeeming us by the Saviour’s love. This ‘love’ defies all our logic.

It is impossible to get our heads around grace.

Grace takes what we can understand as ‘karma’ and turns it upside down, confusing any semblance of civility we might otherwise have. Love becomes a rocket, fuelled exponentially, its flight based on the rules of an unknowable Ruler. It overwhelms logic every time logic gets close to understanding life.

Science is enshrouded in knowledge, yet it’s never nearer to the Source of all knowledge.

The closer we get to thinking we’ve got it all together in life, the closer we get to being very legalistic, and the further we are from actually knowing what life is truly about; that life is about relationship and that God requires us to be just, merciful and humble (Micah 6:8). Grace is about relationship.

Karma is as karma does, perhaps.

We can expect it to work when we see it work, but ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’ is a long way from the understanding of how life actually works. It explains some of life, maybe, but it doesn’t explain how an All-Righteous God can forgive a sinning humanity.

The wisdom of God makes humanity’s so-called wisdom a mockery—and without effort. God doesn’t even need to try. Yet, we do try. We are wired to try and discover what it is this life is about; to ‘discover’ God, even if we don’t believe.

But grace just confuses all our logic and effort.

***

Grace makes a mockery of the concept of karma, simply because the love of God located in the cross of Christ cannot be pigeonholed in anything any human can understand. In grace there is no cause-and-effect. Grace is a higher justice, a higher concept of virtue; the highest and purest love. Love, by fact.

Love, as defined through grace, is incomprehensible.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.