Sometimes we’ve got a hard time forgiving ourselves for our sin.
Ironically though, the Lord has a hard time remembering them. Obviously, He isn’t becoming senile on us. He chooses to become “forgetful.” We’re told repeatedly that he has completely forgot and forgiven all of our darkest evils, and twisted agendas.
“He will again have compassion on us; he will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
Micah 7:9
Once we turn away from those very dark things, we find that the true God is patiently waiting. We discover that his arms are wide open, and he’s running down the path to meet us (Luke 15:20-21.)
There is something noteworthy and special about a forgiven sinner.
In a deep sense we have been altered. We have become a new creation (that word can easily be translated as “species.”) Something tangible has happened, an alteration has taken place. We’re something completely new and totally different–a forgiven believer now exists! “If anyone belongs to Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new!” (2 Cor. 5:17)
By our faith in Christ’s death, we discover that the power of our sin has been shattered.
And for the first time, we have the ability to say “no!” We can now turn and go the other direction. We can walk in such a freedom and awareness of being loved, that it really easy to let Him change us from the inside out. Like the prodigal, we must turn our backs on the pigs, and go home (Luke 15:16-17.)
“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
“The wise people will shine like the brightness of the sky. Those who teach others to live right will shine like stars forever and ever.”
Daniel 12:3, NCV
“So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord.”
2 Corinthians 3:18, CEV
In my teenage years, my mom and I attended a series of services in a Christian commune. (This would’ve been in 1972 -73.) They all lived in a single house and had started a Christian rock and roll band. And they knew how to pray.
I was impressed with what I saw.
When they gathered together for worship, they began to ‘glow’. I would stare at them and they became ‘illuminated.’ I had never seen anything like this before. The presence of Jesus was there making Himself known in the hearts of His disciples. I had been given eyes to see the supernatural.
Since then I have heard many testimonies of that same dynamic at work. Confessing believers engaged in prayer and worship, have their countenance changed while in the Lord’s presence. Peace and joy and confidence affects them in a profound way. Their physical appearance is altered, and they proclaim ‘a peace that passes understanding’ that can’t be explained in any other way.
Since I became a Christian in 1982, I have retained those images in my thinking. I’m now very aware of the “witnessing presence’ of Jesus in the lives of His people. And scripture itself, on several occasions, points to this wonderful dynamic in action in the lives of consecrated believers.
When the light comes, it can’t help but transform those of us in darkness. Our faces, hearts, and countenances change. We’re the human vessels for peace and joy (especially knowing our sins are forgiven).
The prophet Daniel talks about ‘shining like a star’. This isn’t possiblein the mechanics of normal life as an unbeliever (at least for any real length of time). That simply can’t be manufactured. The only possible answer is the Christian’s faith. Namely, that Jesus Christ who is indwelling every believer, reflects His presence out into a dark world.
A few winters ago I was out walking on the Alaska Bible Institute campus. Twilight was settling in and 20-30 yards ahead I saw a child’s sled left in a snow pile. In the monochromatic world of an Alaskan winter, the ‘shining’ sled glowed and couldn’t be missed. I saw it from a distance–it was lit up and shone out into the falling night.
You and I who bear His presence are to be fluorescent.
His activity in our hearts is to make us astonishingly conspicuous. We can’t hide His presence (even with sin). We have been irrevocably changed by the Spirit’s residence. We have become ‘glow-in-the-dark’.
Perhaps this is how it supposed to work?
“You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden.”
It’s been 15 days since I got the news. My sister Suz passed away at 4:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning.
I hate that phrase, “passed away.” It makes it sound like she floated off in a gondola across the sea.
She died. Why do we shroud death in such wishy-washy language?
I never went to visit her before she died. I had plans to visit Memorial Day weekend. But that was a week too late. I really need to stop planning to visit loved ones who are sick and just do it.
The cards and condolences all give me permission to grieve this terrible loss. But I’m scared to let myself grieve. I can’t think about this loss of my oldest sister without remembering the loss of our sister Peggy (who also died on a Thursday), and Daddy before her, and Mom before him. The grief seems too much to bear.
Grieving is doubly difficult when every impulse to let tears fall feels like teetering on the rim of the pit of depression. What if I let the grief run free and it drags me into that hell I haven’t really known in over 20 years? I remember that place of desperation all too well and I refuse to go back there.
It’s not that I haven’t cried about her being gone. I definitely have, but it terrifies me when I do. And why do the tears keep coming back once they’ve been cried? How do I grieve but continue to live?
I know this deep sadness is different from major clinical depression. I know the reason for these tears. When my depression was at its worst I had no idea why I couldn’t stop crying. The incessant tears served no discernible purpose. But the head knowledge that my tears of late do have a purpose—the loss of someone I dearly love—doesn’t alleviate the fear that they may drag me into another bout of depression.
The other day I queued up a few Chris Stapleton songs on YouTube while I worked on a relatively mindless project. I fondly reminisced about when she bought us tickets to see him at a small venue in Portland. Then a song came on that I hadn’t heard him sing before called “Drink a Beer.” The next thing I know I’m bawling and my heart feels like it’s breaking into a million little pieces and being compressed in a vise all at once.
Today, as every day for the last two weeks, the hard cider in the fridge calls to me. I usually wait until after work to have one. But I’m on vacation this week and today 3:00 p.m. seemed like a good time to have one. It’s 5:00 p.m. somewhere, right? And at least I’m not drinking tequila in her honor.
Maybe it’s the compound grief that is making it harder for me to cope with this loss. I don’t remember it being quite so unbearable when Peggy died, but then Suz was there with me for that loss. We began the grieving together. Now all my family support it on the other end of a telephone line.
When Mom and then Dad died, I was already depressed. My grief was fused with the vague despair of my mental illness. I suppose it could be that fusion that makes grieving so difficult now. I can’t seem to separate the two states of sorrow.
And yet this spiritual discipline of writing my thoughts and fears on paper helps me to gain a clearer perspective. I’m reminded as I write of a favorite Bible verse. John 11:35 says, “Jesus wept.” The occasion was the death of his dear friend Lazarus. Even though Jesus knew he was about to raise Lazarus to life again, Jesus modeled grief over the loss of a loved one. He declared in that shortest verse that tears are a normal part of this broken life we live in a world of sorrow upon sorrow.
The same apostle who recorded this verse penned the book of Revelation where we are told God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:4 NIV.
These tears I cry for my sister are normal. This grief is okay. Today won’t be the last time I grieve this loss. This will likely not be the last loss I will know in this broken world.
“We will never be the same as we were before this loss, but are ever so much the better for having had someone so great to lose.”
I wrote this poem a couple of months ago. I wrote it while trying to process the struggle of dealing with one sister who suffers with mental illness (bipolar disorder and bulimia) and other family members who don’t understand.
I have experienced seven years of major clinical depression myself, and over the last few years have come to the realization that ending up there again is not outside the realm of possibility if I’m not ever vigilant. But that doesn’t make the family relationships any easier, and I often feel like I’m the only glue or buffer holding things together, and I’m not doing a very good job at it.
I share this here to maybe give someone else the strength to keep being that glue or to appreciate the one in the family who is the glue or . . . well, frankly I’m not sure why. It just seems like something I need to share.
A note on the final stanza: I do not, in any way, wish that the person this poem is about was dead. Far from it. I’ve lost too many other family members, including another sister who died of cancer two years ago. But on the day I wrote this, that felt like it would have been easier to take than the present situation.
Impossible Madness
Why does it feel like I’ve lost you
when you aren’t even dead?
Why am I the only one
who wants to make amends?
Why does it have to be so hard
after all these years?
Maybe it’s the tears
mine and yours, and theirs,
that makes breathing and living
loving and forgiving so impossible
I guess sometimes families and madness
can’t survive one another
Because that’s what you are, you know,
mad, or crazy, or mentally ill
whatever you want to call it
It’s torn us apart
because you don’t understand
why they can’t begin to comprehend
what’s going on inside your head
It’s torn us—you and me—apart
because you’ve convinced yourself
that I don’t at all understand
what’s going on inside your head
You forget I’ve been there
that those crazy, mad thoughts
have been inside my head, too
But then you’ve forgotten a lot of things
all the times I was there for you
just to listen
and the times you were there for me
Forgetting the good
is a tragic side effect
of medications meant to help
Somehow they don’t erase
memories of the less-than-perfect moments
My greatest desire is to forgive
and to be forgiven
to live and laugh and love again
to mend what has been torn asunder
to heal the thoughts inside your head
But right now, in this moment
it feels like you might as well be dead
at least that would be easier to live with
Broken Believers 