Well, after a disappointing week learning about "God the Artist" (which was more like grade 1 art class) we got to the good stuff! The Divine Plumb Line! You may be asking yourself, what on EARTH is a plumb line? And how does it become divine?!? That's what I was wondering, so the weekend before I decided to Goggle it and see what I could find out. I took a look at a few pages and decided I wasn't ready to deal with the stuff coming ahead. It was my first moment of wanting to leave and not come back. It was a fleeting thought, no more than a second, but it was still there. I knew this was going to be a week where God stirred the pot of my heart some more.
A plumb line is a tool used by wall builders and carpenters to make sure something is built straight. It consists of a rope with a led weight at the bottom. The Divine plumb line consists of the rope, truth (God's word) and the weight (love). I could go into more detail but then I'd have to reteach everything I learned in a week and that would get tedious! I'll just move on.
A big part of the teaching was about forgiveness. We talked about all the different people that can hurt you and some of the different ways they do it. For me, the subject of parents came up again. God clearly needed me to deal with stuff and wasn't gonna let me off easy.
On Wednesday, Erika (our teacher) asked us to prepare a presentation on something that God was doing in our hearts this week. Olivia, my roommate leaned over and told me to deal with me parent stuff. In fact, I'm very grateful to Olivia because if she hadn't have pushed me I might not have done it. I spent most of Wednesday crying and processing. I skipped local outreach because I couldn't get myself together in time. It was all very overwhelming. I kept thinking I didn't want to do it. God kept telling me I had to and showing me all the hurts that I needed to forgive. Vimbai, one of the leaders stayed with me. It was nice cause she just sat with me and let me cry it out! As I as sitting there, God began to give me a picture of what my presentation should look like. I'll fill you in on that in a moment.
Thursday Erika asked us to find our own spot and ask God who we needed to forgive in our lives and what should we do to deal with it? Write a letter? A song? Talk to them in person? Talk to a leader about it? I got my answer before I even started to get up. WRITE A LETTER. Great idea God! I'm gonna write a letter to my parents telling them all the ways they had hurt me in the past... sound pleasant! WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THAT?!? Here's the thing though, the picture God gave me for my presentation... was a letter in a slide show. I can't believe I'm still amazed at His consistency, but I am.
So that's what I did. I wrote two letters, one to my dad and one to my mom. The slides alternated between things they had done to hurt me and the words, I forgive you. Then there were slides confessing all the things I had done to them followed by the request, please forgive me. While these slides were rolling I tore pages out of a book that had the same things written on them and threw them away. A prophetic action to say that I will no longer carry any of that in my heart but I will throw it away and let God take care of it. Behind all of this a song was playing. Its a song by Bob Carlisle called Butterfly Kisses. It's a song that I've always had a hard time with because my relationship with my father was never like that, nor did I think it would ever be like that.
The presentation went well, and the words that my classmates gave to me were comforting and encouraging. The rest of the week was presentations and ministering to each other. This is only beginning of this journey with my parents. I know that God is all over this situation and He will continue to lead me in the journey.
Interesting, through all of this, my voice still gives out before my heart does!
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