As V-day crept closer I took comfort like I seem to find myself doing each year. I took comfort in the fact that I am alive (chikuru kufema), that I have good health and that I am often mistaken for a mid- twenties babe. I’m not going to go on a tangent about how non-challant I am about the day.
Actually I’m going to be really honest about the sinking feeling of knowing there wouldn’t be any surprise roses for me or a well thought out gift and chocolates to boot. There wouldn’t even be a smile or a genuine warm thank you when I surprised him with a fancy glass cut key ring saying the cheesiest thing about his name or a classy Parker type pen to help coax his thoughts into the custom journal I would have blessed him with.
It was just another sad day waiting to add to all the other ones that we like to pretend we don’t have. Side note: I don’t really know why I am able to lay it all out so openly like this, but somehow peace sweeps over me knowing that my vulnerability isn’t a weakness but an opportunity for God to take over and use it for my benefit because where I end He begins. I think this is God’s way of saying we’ll never know it all but we will certainly be awed by pleasant insights every now and then during our mortality.
The Rose
He handed me the sweet Rose of Sharon on the day of Calvary and promised that as long as I was willing to believe in Him, His loving letters would give me hope and dry my eyes until the day He would introduce me to my real home. He called me into existence from my mother’s womb knowing then what a mess I would make of things, but even within that He was so faithful to pay a ransom to secure my future in advance.
When I found out, I tried to resist Him knowing that I could never afford the attention it would take to pay what was surely due for such a great gift as this. Since then in child like reasoning I’ve made it a sport to carry my own burdens to avoid extending the debt but yesterday He reminded me of His good news that had somehow gotten tangled in my anxieties about running my business, making something of myself and hoping for a Boaz of my own.
You see, it’s easy to compartmentalise our feelings and believe we are truly happy just because there is so much happiness hype and self help motivational material for free consumption. We want to be happy or at least have been told we need to be happy or else something may be fundamentally wrong with us so we unconsciously over work our spirit to give off that impression without ever actively dealing with the difficult things that sometimes stand in happiness’ way.
I suspect there’s a switch in our minds somewhere that automatically shelves the problem while giving the illusion that the shelf is what will get its hands dirty behind the scenes solving it while we carry on with everyday things. We carry on under this illusion until someone cuts us off in traffic or the waiter makes an honest mistake with our order and then we fly off an unnecessary handle and threaten to never return for such poor customer service, but the question is what’s eating you while you wait to eat?
It’s okay to not be okay
I wish one day we could all cut the brown stuff and allow God to break our shells so we wouldn’t have to use pride or low self esteem as a shield from our true greatness, that we could openly and lovingly address the things which are wrong in our lives and in the world. Everything is so perfectly manicured out there except the things that manicure attempts cannot hide from our cognitive sights.
We are told how salvation is the quick fix to our deep seated emotional traumas and the years of misshapen beliefs which form the more undesirable part of our characters and then we are fed guilt when we inevitably fail to follow the rules. You could even argue that claiming to be okay is the bigger problem than the hidden issues responsible for our not okayness (which is only a human bi-product of life which God actually turns around and uses for our good). The problem with being “okay” all the time is that God can’t touch it because we won’t allow Him to so we will carry it until we are willing to put it down at His feet and trade it for the perfect Rose.
The thorns pierced His skin so that we could manage the smaller portion of the pain and His last mortal breath went out of Him so that we could have eternal life. A yoke made light and surrounded by unmerited grace so that we could receive continuous gifts from the day we decided to believe. No other can love our souls like this and so roses being red and violets being blue may God continue to bring revelation of His deepest love for you..Amen
