What's in the middle?

"This is how love heals
the very heart of you,
letting Himself bleed
into the middle of your wounds."

I don't usually like videos in church, especially if they are orchestrated or acted instead of documentary.  They often feel manipulative.

But this past Sunday was a little different.  The worship team sang "This is How Love Wins" by Steven Curtis Chapman, and it's hard to resist a Chapman song, especially with a video of the Crucifixion behind it.

I started asking myself, "What is the middle of my wound?" And the answer wasn't too far away.   I'm still hurting from our Navy experience.  Not that our Navy experience was remarkably bad.  If anything, I think we had the easiest of all lots:  three months in, three months out, email almost constantly.  That's much better than eight months of absence or 18 months.  But I still find that even four years after leaving Navy life behind, the memory of our Navy years, in spite of all the good friends and golden moments, has always caused a deep ache in my chest, an emptiness or hollowness that made me feel like I was collapsing inwards.

Seth says it makes sense.  If you're continually using spiritual muscles, they'll get sore and exhausted just like physical muscles, and during our Navy years, I was doing a lot of heavy lifting.  (So was Seth, just to be clear.  In military couples, both partners are doing a lot of heavy lifting; it's just they don't have someone on the other end to balance the load.)

The question of loneliness has come up again because we've hit a dilemma.  Half of this dilemma involves being separated from Seth while he pursues his MDiv at a school in Michigan, namely Calvin Theological Seminary.  He would be there; we would be here.  We've decided against that, but for several weeks in the decision making process, it seemed like the best option.  Calvin is far and away the most efficient option time and money wise.

Terms were about three months.  Can you see why I was feeling Navyish at the moment?

I am very proud of Seth for pursuing this degree and this dream. But the psychological and spiritual effects of separation are not something to be dismissed lightly.  Seth said that he will not sign up at Calvin without my approval, and by approval, he means that I can feel good about it, not just buckle down, cover my head, throw my shoulder against the wind, and get through it.  And I was thinking, listening, and meditating, but it was hard to get close enough  to the issue to hear what God has to say.

I think those muscles are still sore.

If I were to say, "Stay here," would that have been a lack of faith?  If I had said, "Go ahead," would I be needlessly masochistic?  Was I refusing to be weak where it was okay to be weak? Was I failing to be strong when the strength would have been provided?

I don't want to lift that load anymore. 

So we were sitting in church Sunday morning. The video played; the worship team sang.

Hmmm.  "The middle of your wounds."  What are the middle of my wounds?

Lord, what haven't I turned over to you?

Who can I forgive?  Seth had to go.  The Navy has to exist.  I can't forgive them because they haven't really done anything wrong.  That's the state of the world today.  There are some crazy people out there with whole countries at their commands.

Forgive the whole world . . . for being the sort of place . . . where a husband and father needs to leave his wife and child for three to eighteen months at a time. . . . Forgive all the petty people who think they have a right to rule their neighbors, who think that they and they alone understand the good, who demand the right to wield the power of life, death, and damnation.  Forgive the chaos, and let it go.  

Lord, I forgive the chaos.  I relinquish the demand that they make things right because you will make all things right.  I forgive the crazy people, the unfeeling people, the people who are deceived and the people who are deceiving.  Please have mercy on their souls. 

In Jesus' Name,

Amen.