Forsake foolishness and live. Lack of good sense is thinking we are alone in this life or that we can do things on our own. It’s also assuming old lies are true. Old misunderstandings and wrong perceptions can cloud a whole day in deception and sadness. When we take hold of the truth and fight for it, we can see the fruit of believing in what God is saying rather than bowing to fear and insecurity. Sometimes we think the new thing will feed us. We don’t like leftovers because we always want the fresh and new. But sometimes we are better served by enjoying the flavors that marinate together when we let something sit and ripen. We look for the new wine, when the ancient of days is whispering softly, “I’m here.” Sometimes we try to get back to places we have been removed from. We don’t know why. We can assume and tinker with all the reasons it fell apart. But sometimes it’s none of our business. Maybe we are knocking on doors that are already closed. But we live in that harmony knowing that God has the keys, the passcode because He already purchased us with His life. We build on His foundation in our hearts to love with abandon and let Him heal the deep places of rejection and neglect. Not everyone knows how to relate to us. We cannot shut ourselves off to giving and receiving love, or get frustrated when others don’t know how to love us back. God holds a candle to our hearts to show us the places that have been hardened by self protection and withholding love if it doesn’t come in the combo we’re expecting. We have been placed in blood families, and we are called to minister to each other first, before we can minister to others. I love ministering to my blood family, and showing them the love of Jesus. We have grown apart together, but we have the foundation our parents laid out for us to follow. We cannot forget that we also each have our own lives and families now, whatever that looks like. I know we have something very special and revolutionary to behold. We cannot take for granted our roots. Growing up as I did, with my own view on life and relationships, God made a way to unite us despite our differences. Foolishness looks like putting a magnifying glass to the failures without seeing them through the lens of the redemption of Jesus. I wrote a poem in my tween years that went something like this- “The moon I see, the mystery. The unknown man, the frightful thought. To us we can, to them we cannot. It all lies above us in frightful fate. Those who love us are those that we hate.” I always loved looking at the moon. It always fed my soul to see the different phases and scenes of clouds surrounding it, or it just shining in the night sky. The unknown man was a random person who sexually assaulted me when I was twelve. I never told my siblings or parents about it. I suffered in isolation, and then questioned their loyalty to me for not being able to read my mind and know what happened to me. It caused fear and trust issues that in some ways affect my relationships today. I think because of my prophetic gift of knowing when others are suffering, I held others to the same standard to know me. I know now that that was unfair and an impossible standard to translate in the natural. “To us we can, to them we cannot.” Was a statement about them not believing in my potential. But I now think that my lack of transparency, and blaming myself for the assault was casting my insecurity on them. I felt powerless and out of control when I was assaulted. I felt like if I was still powerful despite the assault, and I was. I just never gave them the opportunity to support me by bringing them in to what happened. They would have protected me and I could have probably described the kid who did it and they would have been able to do something about it. But I will never know what my foolishness and lack of knowing that I had a community of people who love me and would fight for me if I gave them a chance. It’s hard to be a voice for the voiceless when you carry shame for something that wasn’t your fault. If I had a do over, I wouldn’t let shame and silence lead the way. Upholding the guise of perfection over transparent brokenness even when others might not have the answers or even how to fix it just lends itself to more isolation and loneliness. We can hide behind our fears and things that are out of our control, but ultimately we have to have the courage to reveal our wounds to others. They may or may not have a solution or an answer, but we can offer them the opportunity to try. We all have potential to succeed in this life. We all have the opportunity to make friends and form deep bonds of love and connection that help each other grow into who we are created to be. Foolishness is thinking we are alone. We are not. Our first stop on any journey is to cry out to Jesus, and watch Him work to send people who will love us and champion us. Pretty soon, we will look up and see there are so many who love us, and He put us in His family to help us to see Him in us, and walk us out of darkness into His glorious light.
HamSanCity 