Christmasis my favorite holiday. And though I like giving and receivinggifts, it's not about that for me. This year I asked fornothing other than a day with some people that I love and respect. Like many, my family is spread all over the place and the family that's close didn't want to celebrate the holiday. So I spent the day with the McCabes. Donna's been like a loving and gracious sisterthat can give me a firm kick in the butt when I need it. Herhusband, Jim, is the quiet and strong type that is easy to talk to. And their two boys are just boys, rambunctious and fun. They're constantly pranking each other and cracking jokes; yetperfect gentlemen when they need to be. The kind of kids thatare a whole lot of fun and really down to earth. The kind ofkids I hope to have some day. It's this kind of family thatyou're grateful to be around when your family is spread all over themap and/or you have relatives that hate this season.
Icould tell you of all the other details of my time with them, but youmay not be so interested in hearing our embarrassingstories of childhood graffiti, accidental floodings, andbubble wrap escapades. I do, however, want to let you know ananswer to a question I was asked. It was more like I waspraying as we were watching a movie. "What more thananything do you want to learn?" I thought for a long whileas I was tuned into "The Ultimate Gift" and all I couldthink to answer was that I want to learn how to love better. Unfortunately, we don't come with instructionmanuals. And sometimes we're amazing at loving others, whereasother times we suck at it...
Thefollowing is an excerpt from Donald Miller's Polaroids. Though it's actually about a husband and wife that are on theverge of divorce; I think there's a lot to learn about love from thisacross the board. It touches on a lot and be warned that yes itis an intense passage...
Whatgreat gravity is this that drew my soul toward yours? What greatforce, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguisingmyself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, yourresting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by aslowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear,the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love.I will redeem you, if you will redeem me? Is this our purpose, youand I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward thelie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption,save the one that you and I invented of our own clay?
I am notscared of you, my love, I am scared of me.
I went looking, Iwrote out a list, I drew and image, I bled a poem of you. You werepretty, and my friends believed I was worthy of you. You were clever,but I was smarter, perhaps the only one smarter, the only one able tolead you. You see, love, I did not love you, I loved me. And you wereonly a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeemmyself. And though I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, Iwalk alone, for I cannot talk to you , lest you talk it back to me,lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed.
Iwant desperately for you to be my friend. But you are not my friend;you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man Ipretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine. Should Ishow you who I am, we may crumble. I am not scared of you, my love, Iam scared of me.
I want to be known and loved anyway. Can youdo this? I trust by your easy breathing that you are human, like me.My love, do I know you? What is this great gravity that pulls us sopainfully toward each other? Why do we not connect? Will we beforever in fleshing this out? And how will we with words, narrowwords, come into the knowing of each other? Is this God's way ofmeriting grace, of teaching us the labyrinth of His love for us,teaching us, in degrees, that which He is sacrificing to joinourselves to Him? Or better yet, has he formed our being fractionalso that we might conclude one great hope, plodding and sighing andbreathing into one another in such a great push that we might breakthrough into the known and being loved, only to cave into a greaterperdition and fall down at His throne still begging for ouracceptance? Begging for our completion?
We were fools tobelieve that we would redeem each other.
Were I some sleepingAdam, to wake and find you resting at my rib, to share these thingsthat God has done, to walk you through the garden, to counsel yourtimid steps, your bewildered eye, your heart so slow to love, socareful to love, so sheepish that I stepped up my aim and became aman. Is this what God intended? That though He made you from my rib,it is you who is making me, humbling me, destroying me, and in sodoing revealing Him.
Will we be in ashes before we areone?
What great gravity is this that drew my heart towardsyours? What great force collapsed in my orbit, my lonesome state?What is this that wants in me the want in you? Don't we go at eachother with yielded eyes, with cumbered hands and feet, with clunkytongues? This deed is unattainable! We cannot know each other!
Iam quiting this thing, but not what you think. I am not goingaway.
I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain orbarter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He loved me. I willdiscover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery in thewarmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowedHimself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it maybring me.
I will love you like God, because of God, mighted bythe power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding yourlove, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simplylove. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. Isuppose the clock itself will wear thin it is time before I am endedat this altar of dying and dying again.
God risked Himself onme. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love,and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drewHim, unto us.
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