We do not see as He sees

Needed to read this story this week:

"...A white stallion had rode into the paddocks of an old man and all the villagers had congratulated him on such good fortune.

And the old man had only offered this: "It it a curse or a blessing? All we can see is a sliver. Who can see what will come next?"

When the white horse ran off, the townsfolk were convinced the white stallion had been a curse. The old man lived surrendered and satisfied in the will of God alone: "I cannot see as He sees." 

And when the horse returned with a dozen more horses, the townsfolk declared it a blessing, yet the old man said only, "It is as He wills and I will give thanks for His will."

Then the man's only son broke his leg when thrown from the white stallion. The town folk bemoaned the bad fortune of that white stallion. And the old man had only offered, "We'll see. We'll see. It is as He wills and I give thanks for His will."

When a draft for a war took all the young men off to battle but the son with the broken leg, the villagers all proclaimed the good fortune of that white horse.

And the old man said but this, "We see only a sliver of the sum. We cannot see how the bad might be good. God is sovereign and He is good and He sees and works all things together for good."

"From where we stand, we can't see whether it's something good or bad. All we can see is that God's sovereign and He is always good, working all things for good. My focus need only be on Him. It's just a White Horse Hour....God's only up to good work. All we can see is Christ -and in Him all is grace."

-Ann Voskamp

"Whatever You may do, I will thank You.

I am ready for all; I accept all.

Let only Your will be done in me...

And I'll ask for nothing else, my Lord."

-Charles de Foucauld 

transient cares

Bells are meant to remind us that God alone is good, that we belong to Him, that we are not living for this world. They break in upon our cares in order to remind us that all things pass away and that our preoccupations are not important. They speak to us of our freedom, which responsibilities and transient cares make us forget. They are the voice of our alliance with the God of heaven. They tell us that we are His true temple. They call us to peace with Him within ourselves. The Gospel of Mary and Martha is read at the end of the Blessing of a Church Bell in order to remind us of all these things.

The bells say: business does not matter. Rest in God and rejoice, for this world is only the figure and the promise of a world to come, and only those who are detached from transient things can possess the substance of an eternal promise.

The bells say: we have spoken for centuries from the towers of great Churches. We have spoken to the saints your fathers, in their land. We called them, as we call you, to sanctity. What is the word with which we called them?

We did not merely say, "Be good, come to Church." We did not merely say "Keep the commandments" but above all, "Christ is risen, Christ is risen!" And we said: "Come with us, God is good, salvation is not hard, His love has made it easy!" And this, our message, has always been for everyone, for those who came and for those who did not come, for our song is perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect and we pour our charity out upon all.

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude 

let us not forget our gall

Psychologists love to label, categorize, and diagnosis. It’s how we simplify the very complex, infinite variations of human experience into more tangible ways of knowing in order to fix anything that resembles any degree of “fixability.”

What initially turned me off by the field of psychology is now what has drawn me in….the human experience cannot be described, it can only be experienced.

It is an incredible privilege and an enormous responsibility when a client welcomes you to sit with him or her in some of his or her moments of deepest pain and emotional difficulty.

For some reason, three different people in the last week alone have mentioned Lamentations 3 to me whether in passing or in conversation. I do not think it was purely coincidental that this verse was frequently brought to mind lately.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast with me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Encountering the inherent effects of sin in the therapy room on a regular basis is often extremely draining. Grasping to understand the noetic effects of sin on another’s person mind with my own mind affected by these very same effects paradoxically lends its way to further complication sometimes. We are told in my program to “hurry up and fail” because the classroom is the safest place to fail. I know I will periodically misunderstand what my client is accurately feeling; I know I may give a clinical diagnosis that may be quite stigmatizing but necessary for insurance purposes; I know I may not be completely present with my clients at all times; I know I will fail time and time again.  The complexity of the human experience can never be accurately or adequately broken down and simplified into diagnosable parts.

Viewing counseling for what it is –a shared journey where we are all fellow travelers experiencing the joy, pain, sadness, hope, and loneliness life brings –can certainly be romanticized, generalized, or understated. I can’t help but be excited that I will be forced to practice life’s purpose –to share in each other’s burdens –on a much broader, daily, professional scale…yet this is also very daunting.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Grace can be accepted only when we face our own inabilities. Forgiveness can be embraced only when we lay bare our wrongdoing, and hope can be imparted only when we face the reality of our own despair.” As the therapist, I must continuously ask myself what inabilities, wrongdoings, and receptacles of despair am I holding on to or haven't confronted?

It is only through a genuine offering of grace and acceptance that real healing can take place. “The experience of being accepted is the beginning of healing for the feeling of being unacceptable…and that gift of acceptance is called grace.” Do I feel accepted enough to encourage feelings of acceptance in my client?

It may be daunting, yes, but His mercies are new each morning. The complexity of life doesn’t become any less complex when I wake up in the morning, only more hopeful. In Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah only had to recall past experience of affliction to remember that there is hope and God is faithful. On referencing the end of the verse, “great is your faithfulness,” I love how my Bible’s concordance states: “the comforting, compassionate character of God dominates the wreckage of every other institution and office [insert “therapy room”].” God remains “full of grace and truth” in every situation. The human experience is complicated, the ways we attempt to alleviate the painful human experiences are also sometimes complicated and convoluted yet God is still God, His mercies are new each morning.

Prayer of Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back

and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of

the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete,

which is another way of saying

that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything

and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something,

and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,

an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,

but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,

ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

-a prayer by Oscar Romero

I will joy

"Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls -
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation."

I love rereading things and discovering them anew again and again....I always remember the word joy in this passage being used as a noun but it is so refreshing and powerful to hear it used as a verb!

a prayer of acceptance

God grant me the serenity 

to accept the things I cannot change; 

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

I only ever really liked that last line of the serenity prayer. I am just now becoming more aware of the delicate line that exists between desiring change, expecting change, working towards change, and just accepting how things are. I think most people have more of a propensity towards change than acceptance, personally-speaking I mean. It's easy to want to another person to change, it's harder to realize that it is sometimes you who needs the changing. However, I still think most of us possess more courage to change the things we can/want to change and much less courage to just accept ourselves the way we are. In practically every instance where change is and should be desirable, acceptance must come first. Acceptance is almost twice as long as a word compared to change, but it is often overlooked half the time.

Sometimes I wonder how much of our grief is really tied to the unrecognizable need for acceptance and the unreasonable desire for change. Grief over inability of a family member to change looks a lot different than grief over a family member's unwillingness to change.

How much of ourselves are we really capable of changing? We are told things such as "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." Maybe we should learn to accept more of who God made us to be. It is only through a clouded lens that we see the person God created in all his capabilities, goals, motivations, desires as well as in all his limitations, inabilities, and incompetencies. There also exists the easy acceptance trap that becomes more of the easy apathetic trap which we must be weary of. Never quite realized before how much of life is like walking a tightrope with acceptance on one side and change on the other. 

God grant me....the wisdom to know the difference. 

no place I'd rather be

I am quite fond of this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NlJr6TE7b4&feature=related

Music helps to beautify my soul.