The sins of the fathers...

Every family has its weakness or weaknesses. Every family is imperfect. Every family is filled with sinners. The result? Every family winds up causing harm to themselves. Whether it's words that cut to the bone, rejecting and isolating one another, or physically harming one another, every family hurts themselves.

As I was driving home tonight, I was pondering the sins of the fathers being visited on the children. I was pondering how the sin in each of us causes us to hurt those we love, which in turn sets up cycles of pain, hurt, and violence, that continue on to the next generation.

"How innumerable are the sources of sorrow here [sorrow for the loss of property or friends; sorrow for disappointment, persecution, or care; sorrow over our sins, or sorrow that we love God so little, and serve him so unfaithfully; sorrow that we are sick, or that we must die]; how constant is it on the earth! Since the fall of man there has not been a day, an hour, a moment, in which this has not been a sorrowful world; there has not been a nation, a tribe - a city or a village - nay, not a family, where there has not been grief. There has been no individual who has been always perfectly happy. No one rises in the morning with any certainty that he may not end the day in grief; no one lies down at night with any assurance that it may not be a night of sorrow." Barnes' Notes on the Bible discussing Rev 21: 4

Being part of a blended family is not easy. At the best of times, it works really well. In other cases, you simply ignore one another and move on. In the worst of cases, you're unable to move on, unable to ignore them, and are constantly in battle with them. Blended families are anything but easy.

I've always struggled with finding my place within my family. Maybe it's because I'm the only child from my parents' marriage. All my siblings have their own full siblings. Not me. I only have half-siblings and step-siblings. Maybe it's just that I'm too self-absorbed. Maybe it's that in my heart of hearts I have a low self-esteem. Maybe this is something that every child struggles with, no matter which family they are in. Maybe it's none of those, or all of them. I don't know.

I can't just let go, close my heart to them, walk away. I love them too much. I want nothing more than to feel that I belong fully to this family. Yet, often I feel as if I've been deliberately excluded. It's probably not true, it's probably just a perception thing, but my perception is my reality. And it hurts.

For e.g. I will find out that several of the family are having a meal together, and we've not been invited. Looking at it rationally, I know that hosting the whole family for supper is a logistical nightmare. I know that therefore having meals in smaller groups is the best way for us to get together. I know that. But when I see that several  of my siblings are there, and we haven't been invited (which happens from time to time, judging by the cars I see parked outside), it stings.

It stings when it seems that every effort on my part to spend time with my family is rebuffed. My requests are ignored, my messages go without a reply. When momentous family news occurs, I find out via the grapevine, third-hand. Maybe there are valid reasons for these things - genuine busy-ness, not getting my messages, or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that how I perceive it is that I am being deliberately excluded.

We moved 6000 miles to be closer to home to be able to spend more time with the family, and to feel like we've been excluded like that... well, it hurts. What hurts more is that I worry my kids are being excluded. If the family has an issue with me which is causing them to exclude me, well, that's one thing, but for them to make my kids suffer as a result, to exclude my children because of their issues with me... that's feels unforgivable. Likewise, I feel that my nieces and nephews are also losing out - both on having their aunt and uncle around, but also on the relationships with their cousins.

As I was thinking about all this on my drive home this afternoon, initially I thought that I wouldn't have to face these issues if my folks hadn't got divorced the first time. Of course, in that case, I wouldn't be here either as they wouldn't have married each other! But then it struck me that I guess what I am really looking for is an Acts community. I want a family that does life together, that is a real community.

The sins of one generation really are visited on the subsequent generations - not because God is actively punishing the subsequent generations, but because the repercussions of sin are far-reaching. Sin, that penchant we all have for doing the wrong thing, or failing to do the right thing, results in the break down of community, of relationship. And breakdowns, break-ups, they hurt.

Jodi Picoult has made herself a fortune writing about this sort of thing. She excels in writing about how the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. Many of her novels are about the ways in which people have hurt one another, and the repercussions on family life. That sounds disparaging. I should point out that I love Jodi Picoult's books! I love both her style of writing and the topics she chooses as the themes for her books.

I was overwhelmed again by the pain of all this as I was driving home. In my heart, I found myself crying out to God to ask when this pain will end. In some ways, it feels like the grief of losing Zoe. It's not something that ever goes away. I guess one just learns to live around it, to find joy despite this pain. In many ways, I wish I didn't adore my family so much. It would make it so much easier to walk away and not care... Our family is broken, and the wrongness of it all tears at the very fabric of my soul.

Thank God for the Revelation passage (21:4). Thank God that there will come a day when this will all be a thing of the past, when all this will stop hurting, when my identity will be perfectly found in Jesus and the family that is the Church, when families will no longer be broken, when relationships will no longer flounder on the rocks of selfish sinfulness.

Maranatha! Today, more than most days, I want Jesus to return. I want this life to end. I want this pain to stop. For a while now, life has felt like I'm breathing treacle, and I want it to stop. I am often overwhelmed by the pain around me, by the destructive nature of humans (myself included!), by the way I see us tearing strips off each other, like some vicious dogs in a fight to the death. I just want it all to stop. I just want us all to be one big happy family, to just do the right thing, to just love each other, to see the bigger picture, to see the likeness of God in each other and respond to that.

Pie in the sky? No, I just ache for Jesus' return. I ache for the time when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, so that every tear will be wiped away, every hurt healed, and grief and death will be no more, when the pain of losing Zoe and the pain of my broken family, will be healed and will cease to exist, when this hole inside me is completely filled.

Life in 5D

Everyone knows about 2D and 3D. The two usual dimensions we deal with are best expressed (at least mathematically) as the x and y dimensions. To most people, these are width and length (or length and width, depending on your view point). In recent years we've become familiar with the third dimension, thanks to the development in movie technology. Mathematically speaking, the 3rd dimension is the z dimension, which the ordinary person refers to as height.

In science (and science fiction), it is often accepted that there is a 4th dimension - the space-time continuum, which we mere mortals simply call "time". (Because of the nature of the 4th dimension, it will never be possible to travel backwards or forwards in time, which is probably a good thing, all told.)

Scientists have (or so I'm told) toyed with the idea of more dimensions. What would another dimension look like though?

Oddly, the Bible gives a clear picture of a 5th dimension. It's called heaven.

Heaven is not a place, in much the same way that time is not a place. Heaven is a state of being. God doesn't live above the clouds, or in a castle up in the stars, or in a distant galaxy somewhere. No, rather, heaven is the dimension in which one is in the immediate presence of the glory of God. Where is that? All around us, all the time. However, in the same way we can't SEE time, we can't SEE heaven.

Why do I mention this? Because it's Easter. The Christian calendar has only 3 really important festivals, and the 3rd is often ignored. The first two are easy - Christmas (which is actually in July, not in December, but that's another whole discussion), and Easter. The other festival is that of the Ascension.

Anyone who's a Christian will know that we celebrate Jesus' birth because that's when God became a human being and Jesus' death because that was when he paid the price for our sins (the Resurrection validates all the claims Jesus made, and demonstrates his power over death). Why then do we celebrate the Ascension? After all - when Jesus hung on the cross he declared that 'it is finished'. If the work was done on the cross, and validated by his resurrection, of what value is the Ascension?

Something that struck me, as I have been pondering Jesus' ascension is this: Before Jesus came to earth, he was in heaven, a heavenly/ spiritual being. Once he assumed human flesh though, he never returned to being 'just' a heavenly being. For Jesus, taking on human flesh was irrevocable. When he ascended into heaven, he did so in a bodily form. He sits now, in heaven, in a glorified physical body. It never struck me before quite how irrevocable Jesus' decision to become a sacrifice for us was for him. Yes, he returned to heaven, to be with his Father, but for him, things would never be the same. His love for us has left an indelible mark on the Godhead - because Jesus will be, forevermore, in human form.

But returning to a more traditional consideration of the ascension: if Jesus hadn't ascended to heaven, then 1) The Holy Spirit would not have been sent; 2) Jesus would not be seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us; 3) the work of the Church would not have begun.

All 3 of those are crucial to the purpose of Jesus' coming. Jesus died for ALL people. In order for ALL people to hear, and receive, this news, God has chosen to work through people. Thus, the mission of the church is to go into all the world, preaching the good news. There is no way that would happen without 1) the Holy Spirit, 2) the intercession of Jesus, and 3) the Church leaving Jerusalem (which wouldn't have happened if Jesus had still been here physically.)

So - life in 5D: width, length, height, a time dimension (right now), in the presence of an awesome God. When the temple curtain was torn in two (at the moment that Jesus died), heaven became accessible to all. There is much more to life than what we can see with our eyes.... There is a whole different dimension, if we are willing to believe it.

The glory of the Lord shone around

Do you ever have those moments when you suddenly catch a glimpse of something so beautiful it literally takes your breath away?

I had one of those last week. I was driving home from a meeting in town, as the sun was setting. As I came around the mountain, back to the southern suburbs, along De Waal Drive, I suddenly noticed how the light of the setting sun was falling on the Hottentots Holland mountains. It was so beautiful that it literally took my breath away. If it hadn't been for the traffic around me, forcing me to watch the road, I think I might have just stopped, right there, in the middle of Hospital Bend, to watch the sun set (or rather, to not watch the sun set, but to watch the dying light playing across the mountains).

Words don't do it justice - and I'm not a wordsmith. I wish I could capture the image stored in my memory, complete with the emotions I felt at the sight, and share it with you like a 4D movie (3D plus emotions!). It was majestic, and awe-inspiring. The peaks of the mountains were lit up in such a way that the entire mountain range was highlighted. My eyes truly felt ravenous as I tried so hard to imprint the beauty of the moment into my ridiculously poor memory. I felt like singing Julie Andrews' "The hills are alive", but instead of with the sound of music, with the sound of light!

The mountains declare the glory of the Lord. I tell you what, if that light display was just a shadow of God's glory to come, then we are going to be utterly speechless when we see the full glory of God revealed. I had a fresh revelation of why the Old Testament prophets bowed down with their faces touching the ground on those rare occasions when God spoke to them personally. It's the only response to such a vision of glory.

Heaven's demographics

One of the blessings (and I use that word knowing full well what it's import is) of losing a child, as I have done, is that it opens your world up to all the others who are suffering in a similar way to you. There's a lovely verse about ministering out of the comfort we have each received. It describes so well the way things seem for me at the moment.

God seems to be bringing these people into my life so that I can encourage them - share my story and frustrations, listen to theirs, and then encourage them in whatever way I can. This is a blessing. To help others, to make a difference in their lives - there is nothing better. (Except maybe sitting cuddling Janel on my lap and smelling her hair. If I could bottle that smell and sell it I'd be a multi-millionaire overnight!)

I know so many women (and couples) now who have fertility problems of one sort or another - from the seemingly easy-to-cure problem of not having a partner to the almost impossible-to-cure-so-only-possibility-is-to-have-IVF-and-even-that-may-not-work problem. All of them have experienced the longing for a child that only those for whom the blessing of children has been denied can truly understand. Many of them have also experienced the heart-wrenching pain of losing a child. Some of them have lost their baby in the first few weeks of the pregnancy; others, like me, at the end.

Over the weekend I met up with one such friend, who recently had a miscarriage, and we shared our frustrations. Our situations are completely different, because I fall pregnant at the drop of a hat, but have immense difficulty in bringing that pregnancy to full term. She, on the other hand, has immense difficulty falling pregnant, but no problems bringing her pregnancy to full term. Yet, our frustrations are so similar, and our obsession with having another child is identical.

After she left, I was thinking about all of us in this fertility/ child-bearing issues boat, and how crazy we must sometimes seem to those on the outside looking in. We definitely are obsessed, and yet, it's a completely sane obsession, if that makes sense.

Then I got to thinking about all of our missing children - the ones we've lost along the way. There are a lot of them. As I started counting all of them it struck me that heaven's demographics must be very different to ours here on earth. There must be a lot of babies and children, and a lot of elderly, with very few people in between. And isn't that just the way it should be? Who loves little kids more than grandparents? So all these precious little missing angels of ours are up in heaven, being spoilt rotten by all these grandparent types! And that made me smile. There's a certain economy about that which makes an odd sort of sense.

And here's another one...

If this is the love that a human father can have, how much more does our heavenly father have? And as Zoe is with Him, then she is loved...

And this made me think a few times about how I treat Nellie, how much I take her health and ability to communicate for granted... Do I demonstrate my love for her as much as I could? Do I take her for granted?