Sometimes I get discouraged along the way and find it so hard to break out of the discouragement. Sometimes I get an attitude of bitterness and resentment, which is certainly not good. But sometimes God will turn those times around in such a way that it ends up actually being of benefit. It happened to me recently.
The day was hot, but not nearly so hot as my friend’s temper. I had not paid attention to communicate as I should, and I had not listened to what he was trying to say while he was in a frustrating situation. As a result, just when I least expected it, he exploded! He was so angry that all pleading and all attempts at reasoning with him were futile and served only to make everything worse. He was fine the next day, and I said that I was fine, too, but my spirit was wounded by the event, and I felt the wounds deeply and found it difficult to smile.
Then only two days later my dearest friend in the world lost all verbal restraints and decided to “let me have it”. My spirit went from very low to devastated. I cried and cussed and spit and complained to myself that nobody appreciated me, nobody understood me, nobody cared how I felt at all. I reached the point to where my face had such a spiteful look that even my dog kept her distance. At the time, I didn’t like anything or anybody! I was having a major “pity party”.
The worst thing about a pity party is that all the people you want to attend it usually don’t show up. They don’t send presents, either! You build the entire party around the fantasy that a lot of people are going to notice how hurt you are, and how hard you tried, and how misunderstood and persecuted you are. You spend a lot of time daydreaming that suddenly everybody is going to come up and say, “You poor dear! You have to go through so much! I am so sorry that your feelings are hurt. Please forgive us!” After a couple of days of waiting, the candles burn out, the ice cream melts, and you begin to realize that nobody is going to come up to you and say those things. Instead they just notice that you are being cranky and have a stinking attitude. How little do they know how you’ve suffered.
If you think I am exaggerating, I’m not! Finally after it was clear that nobody else was going to attend the pity party, I did an unusual thing. I invited God in on it.
I had been reluctant to invite God to this party, because I just knew that he would ruin the whole thing, tell me how childish I was, and essentially give me a stern rebuke. But finally I invited him anyway. I cannot tell you how surprised I was at what happened. I sensed very strongly that He just showed up and said, “I am so glad to be here with you, even if it is a pity party. I am not the God of your past when everything was fine. I am not the God of your future, waiting to be with you only after you straighten up your attitude. I am the God of right here and right now! And I am happy to be with you here at this very moment. I would very much like to stay with you for as long as you want me to.”
Yes, friends, for a few days I had forgotten about grace, had refused peace, and had dismissed real love from my life. In the presence of the One who is infinitely kind, I realized that my pity party was now over. I was no longer reluctant to present to an awesome God all of my sinfulness, my foolishness, my nothingness. I knew that it was all I really ever had to offer, and it was okay.
Taking my time and listening to some soft music, I meditated on how gentle and tender God had been to me. I decided to try to change my life in two specific ways, reflecting the lessons that I hoped that I had learned. One thing I decided was to only be in one place at one time. [Really! How hard can that be?] I mean that when I am with somebody, I want to be with them one hundred percent. I want to live in the “here and now”, because it’s the only place I really live and exist.
The other thing I decided was to seek to always respond with gentleness and kindness. It is not my job to straighten everybody out, to pretend spiritual or intellectual superiority, to justify or vindicate or defend my own ego, or to criticize what I disagree with. I have been in the presence of Someone who could have passed judgment on my silly little party, but instead merely chose to attend. Right now I don’t think I can get over that.
I hope that I never do.
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