I love forgiving you!
What? You love forgiving me? I should love forgiving people? eew.
"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy an to walk humbly with your God."
-Micah 6:8
As you can see in the above verse, the Lord is calling mankind to "love mercy". This blew me away. I understand that we are supposed to be loving and forgive people over and over and over and not hold grudges BUT... love doing that? How on earth am I supposed to LOVE being merciful to the people who treat me like crap every day, to the people who abuse me, to the people who just plain suck in life? I'm supposed to not only be merciful but LOVE doing it? When I read this verse I was like "um... you have GOT to be kidding me. It's hard enough already much less to love doing it." I have the being merciful part down for the most part... i think... but no. I do NOT love doing it. ugh.
Ok so the other day I was at Taco Bell snatching some hot sauce because we, here at the Globe (the Globe is what Jenee, Emily, and I call our apartment complex), really like the Taco Bell hot sauce. The current trend is to put it in stew. mmm.
haha. Anyway, when I was there waiting in line for my Burrito Supreme I started to understand this verse more. It was lunch time and there was a line of like 15 people waiting to order and pick up their Taco Bell. This line was made up of many different kinds of people- there were 5 super punk rock kids who looked to be about high school age who were obviously playing hooky on their lunch break, some business men, some construction workers, some business women, and a family of people who looked like they were of mexican descent and spoke perfect spanish. There I was somewhere in the middle thinking about how genius Jenee is to put Taco Bell hot sauce in the stew at the Globe when I noticed something interesting.
The reason the line was so long wasn't because there were an unusual amount of people craving Taco Bell. The reason the line was so long was because the kid behind the counter taking orders was new at what he was doing. Every time someone ordered something it took him a little bit to find the buttons on the register and send everything through the computer system. You can imagine what it was like for him to take the super long orders of the two women in front of me- they had to like hold the beans and add extra lettuce and then add an extra side of cinnamon twists, etc. He was doing a good job, just taking wayyy longer than usual. I started to time it and, as it turned out, was in line for about 13 minutes before I even got to order. Usually 13 minutes is all it takes to order, get your food, eat, and peace out of Taco Bell. The kid was slow.
The cool part about this, though, is that not one person was grumbling about how slow everything was going. Nobody complained, nobody even frowned. All the kids behind me with their moehawks and chained wallets just goofed off and made jokes and high fived while the business people, families, and everyone else just talked with each-other and seemed to actually be enjoying the wait instead of dreading it. Upon their individual turns for ordering, everyone was polite to the kid. Some of them even made sure to tell him he was doing a good job. All the wile they were smiling and carrying on with each-other.
Although this is a really simple example of "loving mercy" I think it's a good one. Things get a little tricky, however, when we have to constantly show mercy over and over and over to those who are burdens in our lives. What about the woman who has to, every day, deal with her elderly hospitalized mother whose mental problems prohibit her from acting normally and treating the woman with respect? What about the teenager who has to go to school with a past friend who, every day, torments him and publicly embarrasses him? What about the young adult who, after going through a break up with her beloved boyfriend, has to deal with how to love and respect him as just her friend and coexist every day while he continually emotionally abuses her and mistreats her as a friend? What about the parents whose children seem to be going off of the deep end, only thinking of themselves, and never recognizing the sacrifices that their parents have made for them? What about the old woman whose even older sister makes it known daily how worthless she thinks she is because of their different views on religion yet still expects her to wait head and toe on her every need?
What about all of those situations? What about them? How on earth am I supposed to find joy in forgiving someone who constantly wrongs me. How am I supposed to find anything but anger in that? How? AHH. It makes me pissed that God even wants us to do that. hahaha. ...and the fact that I'm getting so worked up makes me laugh. What a cycle. *whew*
Ok so this week I'm trying to be grateful that I even HAVE people to forgive. what? Does that sound backwards? yes. But ok, here, thank God I am learning to embrace forgiveness. Thank God I am beginning to understand that love should be unconditional. Thank God I am learning about what it truly means to be a follower of Christ and LOVE Mercy. It's hard... freakin hard... but thank GOD I know what is right because if I just kept up with my anger and kept "forgiving with a grudge" then I'd only be doing what my mom used to always call "half-a-job". She'd say "You did a really good HALF-a-job... now when are you going to clean the REST of the bathroom?". She'd say these things when we kids would try to deceive her by only doing the surface work of the chores she gave us... organize the counter but don't scrub it down- you know, that type of thing. I think that is why the Lord has been trying to teach me all week- forgiving someone without joy in the forgiveness is only doing a "half-a-job". We are called to be joyful. We are called to LOVE mercy.
That's seriously enough calling for me this week though. I'm out to go get abused and hated and beat up (again and again and again) so that I can struggle even MORE with loving the forgiveness I'm called to provide each villain in my life. woo!
This week is a good week... can you feel it? <3
-Chelsea
-Micah 6:8
As you can see in the above verse, the Lord is calling mankind to "love mercy". This blew me away. I understand that we are supposed to be loving and forgive people over and over and over and not hold grudges BUT... love doing that? How on earth am I supposed to LOVE being merciful to the people who treat me like crap every day, to the people who abuse me, to the people who just plain suck in life? I'm supposed to not only be merciful but LOVE doing it? When I read this verse I was like "um... you have GOT to be kidding me. It's hard enough already much less to love doing it." I have the being merciful part down for the most part... i think... but no. I do NOT love doing it. ugh.
Ok so the other day I was at Taco Bell snatching some hot sauce because we, here at the Globe (the Globe is what Jenee, Emily, and I call our apartment complex), really like the Taco Bell hot sauce. The current trend is to put it in stew. mmm.
haha. Anyway, when I was there waiting in line for my Burrito Supreme I started to understand this verse more. It was lunch time and there was a line of like 15 people waiting to order and pick up their Taco Bell. This line was made up of many different kinds of people- there were 5 super punk rock kids who looked to be about high school age who were obviously playing hooky on their lunch break, some business men, some construction workers, some business women, and a family of people who looked like they were of mexican descent and spoke perfect spanish. There I was somewhere in the middle thinking about how genius Jenee is to put Taco Bell hot sauce in the stew at the Globe when I noticed something interesting.
The reason the line was so long wasn't because there were an unusual amount of people craving Taco Bell. The reason the line was so long was because the kid behind the counter taking orders was new at what he was doing. Every time someone ordered something it took him a little bit to find the buttons on the register and send everything through the computer system. You can imagine what it was like for him to take the super long orders of the two women in front of me- they had to like hold the beans and add extra lettuce and then add an extra side of cinnamon twists, etc. He was doing a good job, just taking wayyy longer than usual. I started to time it and, as it turned out, was in line for about 13 minutes before I even got to order. Usually 13 minutes is all it takes to order, get your food, eat, and peace out of Taco Bell. The kid was slow.
The cool part about this, though, is that not one person was grumbling about how slow everything was going. Nobody complained, nobody even frowned. All the kids behind me with their moehawks and chained wallets just goofed off and made jokes and high fived while the business people, families, and everyone else just talked with each-other and seemed to actually be enjoying the wait instead of dreading it. Upon their individual turns for ordering, everyone was polite to the kid. Some of them even made sure to tell him he was doing a good job. All the wile they were smiling and carrying on with each-other.
Although this is a really simple example of "loving mercy" I think it's a good one. Things get a little tricky, however, when we have to constantly show mercy over and over and over to those who are burdens in our lives. What about the woman who has to, every day, deal with her elderly hospitalized mother whose mental problems prohibit her from acting normally and treating the woman with respect? What about the teenager who has to go to school with a past friend who, every day, torments him and publicly embarrasses him? What about the young adult who, after going through a break up with her beloved boyfriend, has to deal with how to love and respect him as just her friend and coexist every day while he continually emotionally abuses her and mistreats her as a friend? What about the parents whose children seem to be going off of the deep end, only thinking of themselves, and never recognizing the sacrifices that their parents have made for them? What about the old woman whose even older sister makes it known daily how worthless she thinks she is because of their different views on religion yet still expects her to wait head and toe on her every need?
What about all of those situations? What about them? How on earth am I supposed to find joy in forgiving someone who constantly wrongs me. How am I supposed to find anything but anger in that? How? AHH. It makes me pissed that God even wants us to do that. hahaha. ...and the fact that I'm getting so worked up makes me laugh. What a cycle. *whew*
Ok so this week I'm trying to be grateful that I even HAVE people to forgive. what? Does that sound backwards? yes. But ok, here, thank God I am learning to embrace forgiveness. Thank God I am beginning to understand that love should be unconditional. Thank God I am learning about what it truly means to be a follower of Christ and LOVE Mercy. It's hard... freakin hard... but thank GOD I know what is right because if I just kept up with my anger and kept "forgiving with a grudge" then I'd only be doing what my mom used to always call "half-a-job". She'd say "You did a really good HALF-a-job... now when are you going to clean the REST of the bathroom?". She'd say these things when we kids would try to deceive her by only doing the surface work of the chores she gave us... organize the counter but don't scrub it down- you know, that type of thing. I think that is why the Lord has been trying to teach me all week- forgiving someone without joy in the forgiveness is only doing a "half-a-job". We are called to be joyful. We are called to LOVE mercy.
That's seriously enough calling for me this week though. I'm out to go get abused and hated and beat up (again and again and again) so that I can struggle even MORE with loving the forgiveness I'm called to provide each villain in my life. woo!
This week is a good week... can you feel it? <3
-Chelsea
posted by Chelsea at
10:50 AM
4 Comments:
hi chelsea. i didn't have time to read the entire thing. It was good though, except for that barf you call stew. ewww. Someone asked me the other day out of the blue if there was anyone I REALLY hated and I said no. The sad thing is that I felt juvenile after my response, like the dumb, naive girl who thinks everything is SOOO GOOOOD. But it relates to the entire forgiveness thing. Also, did you know that I haven't had taco bell since about Christmastime? I was with Kate and we went to a movie and she barfed up her 2 quesadillas all over me. No more taco bell.
Anywho, I need to shop for some plane tickets...and fight this laziness. Dad taught me how to develop pictures in the dark room for real. It was cool. Did you know he took his last black and white picture EVER the other week. It's sad. okok I need to work BYEBYE!
-Geeeeeeeeet
Your stuff is so awesome! Really inspiring. Hope you are doing well girl!!!!!
This is so much more than a half job. Stellar my dear.
love momE
Rock on! Haha, that is really good stuff! Woohoo Chelsea!
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