“how many scars did we justify
because we loved the person holding the knife”
I saw this phrase on a meme today and the memories of living with an alcoholic flooded back to me. The face of Grace rose from those ashes and glared starkly from the past. Grace has a fuse in each human heart. Some are too long and some are too short, but none of them are like Jesus’s fuse. Only he had a Grace fuse with a solution tied to the end of it. One that actually works.
I remembered a discussion I had with Father God one day back then.
“Father, every day you ask me to love him. My alcoholic. And every day I tell you that I don’t. Then I surrender my will and my heart to yours because you do and you infuse me.
You show me his childhood and the damage. You show me his previous marriage and the manipulations and betrayals. And I simply reply, Yes, I see it, Yes, I understand how it happened, but the fact is that I’m angry still about each time that damage plays out through him. This man is despicable and I loath every molecule that makes him exist. He’s not the man you showed me hidden deep underneath. He’s not the one I fell in love with.
That’s the man I want to see living out loud. That’s the man I want to enjoy. Oh, the things he could do in this life! And I’d so love to do them with him.
I don’t know how you plan to get him out of hiding. No one else can do it. They’ve all had their chance multiple times. And I’ve accepted that I won’t repeat their paths. I can’t fix him either. But you seem to have a plan and I’m not going to try to fathom it. I’m not even going to try to help you. I’m just going to be here riding out my Grace fuse which I think is a very short one. And I’m going to wonder at the sight of a man who has no Grace fuse for himself.
In the meantime, all I ask is that you not let him scar me or my children permanently. Please do your work quickly because I have zero tolerance and a day will come and is coming quickly when you won’t be successful at stopping me from walking out that door. Your messages of love will fall on deaf ears that day. And I really don’t want to see my heart ever become that cold. But I can see it coming. It’s already knocking on the door.
So, keep me on track for now. Help me put one foot in front of the other each day while I can still see the man underneath. And come quickly Lord, Jesus.”
I’m not under any delusions that my approach could be the reason for Father’s subsequent intervention. More realistically, I believe that Father was just there simply using whatever tool he could get into Hunny’s life. I know this because Father told me one day, “It’s OK if you want to go. I will bless you whatever you do. And I will continue bringing as many as will come into his life. Not so they can make him their project. The worst thing they all try. But so their spirit keeps more of mine in the atmosphere.”
But I had an epiphany this morning as I wandered through these memories. Father never left Hunny’s side for one moment. I met many of the kind people who’d loved him loyally through it all. And many who came and went even in the bars and saloons. There were hundreds that passed through Hunny’s life. Some of them in even worse shape than him. But Father used every drop of love he could pour onto that damaged heart.
Father knew Hunny would travel as far as he needed on his journey to awakening. It was always his choice.
Awakening is like that for every person. It’s always our choice at exactly our moment and our time when we are ready.
We think it might have been because of the certain words one person said. But the words are always coming. Love is always flowing.
Whether it’s an addiction to a substance or an addicted fascination to our wounds, we awaken to life when we are ready to see that we’re the one holding the knife. Then we’re ready for the same solution that Jesus used on his Grace fuse. Surrender to unconditional love.
We always choose when to awaken.
Thank you for sharing my epiphany and my walk down memory lane.
Faith