Chapter One~Dark Night of the Soul

On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings- oh, happy chance!
I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.

First Stanza of Dark Night...

It has been a short time since I started reading this. I have been thinking about it, meditating upon it, praying about it, in order to know what to write here regarding it.

The spiritual road is a journey that will not end until our death. In the process of traveling that road, we recognize our human failings and, with God's help, attempt to overcome them. We reach for Him, for his closeness, for His mercy, for His grace...but we recognize our unworthiness and want to please Him, knowing that in and of ourselves we are incapable of pleasing, but through our love, and the DESIRE to please Him, we can achieve more than if we simply give up.

So, we look inward and see our faults. We hold the law up as a mirror to ourselves and see how unworthy we are...how arrogant, how lustful, how grotesque our physical yearnings are and hope that through Spirit, we can let Christ overcome our flesh.

Some throughout history have used different forms of mortification of the flesh to ...prove (?) their desire to overcome the flesh and put spiritual above physical desires. Unfortunately, even this can lead to an arrogance as well. A spiritual arrogance that inflates one's opinion of one's own worth in our eyes. A blinding arrogance as to our own faults.

Fasting is well and good, but for the right reasons, we fast not to show what 'good Christians' we are or can be, we fast not to 'follow a rule' and be viewed by our fellow man as a wonderfully faithful person. Our fasting should be for the purpose ONLY of drawing us closer to God. If we are looking for human condolances or kudos, or receiving pleasure of someone giving us those kudos for our willingness to fast (or any other mortification) then we are doing it for pride and human purposes, not for the purpose of drawing us closer to God.

However, when we DO fast for the proper reasons, for the purpose of drawing nearer to God, we see our own imperfections so much more clearly. God shows us the weaknesses of our flesh and his strength is so much more apparent, his miracles so much more beautiful, his Word and works so much more clearly defined. In seeing our own imperfections, we feel shame and sorrow. It is our desire to draw closer to Him that creates even more pain in the awareness that we are so weak, so unable to overcome our own imperfections, but our love for Him that we desire to not cause Him any more pain than we already have.

In that sorrow, in that recognition of our weaknesses, we experience a dark night...but it has great value in shining light upon the darkness of our souls, that we might offer our souls up to God for His ability to clean them.

God bless

Brokenness

Lately, I am finding brokenness everywhere around me.

It seems everyone I come in contact with seems hurt and broken in some way. I hurt for them.

They either just want to talk about their brokenness or they want to know how to fix it, but when I tell them my suggestions, they say, "That's too hard" or "That won't work for me." Not because they have tried it, but because they don't want to fix it THAT way.

They would rather stay broken than try something new? I don't think so. I think it is because they are afraid.

Fixing brokenness requires letting yourself be vulnerable sometimes. You have to show someone your wound. That leaves your wound open to be poked at and possibly creates more pain.

An example would be when a doctor has to set a broken bone. When he pulls it back into place, it HURTS, but it can't heal properly unless it is in the right place. Once it heals properly though, it is stronger than ever.

The same goes with emotional brokenness. It is painful and difficult, but worth the pain to have the healing.

I told my kids tonight that they are already broken. Everyone is broken. Sometimes we break ourselves, sometimes we give others the power to break us, and sometimes we get broken through no fault of our own.

I think the first step is in identifying where we are broken. We can't change others, so we must start by changing ourselves. Either we remove ourselves from whatever is hurting us (which requires trust in God and can be painful in itself) or we have to stop letting whatever we are allowing to hurt us, be viewed as something painful...perhaps the problem is with our perception. Finally, we must look to see if we are saying and doing things to ourselves that are harmful and stop doing those things (whether those things are physical or mental).

Then, we have to let God fill in those broken places. I am not saying it is easy to do, but when we find a place where we are broken, we need to put our trust of God in that place and know that He uses the most broken jars of clay for great things.

Isaiah 64:8

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.

Romans 9:20-24

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

2 Corinthians 4:4-9

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

God bless

Limitations

I find that in my marriage, one of us creates boundaries and the other one stretches the boundaries of the one who created them. This works well in my marriage, oddly, I find that since I noticed it and put a name to it, I see it in other marriages as well.

Now, I am generally the boundary 'creator' and my husband tends to be the boundary 'stretcher'. This is a good thing.

People NEED boundaries. That is why God gave us the law, but God also gave us love in order to properly apply those boundaries he gave us. Marriage is a beautiful example of Jesus himself...the marriage of law and love in one person.

Our boundaries for one another should not be set in stone. They should be handled with grace and forgiveness. Not that they should be limitless, but they should be for our own good and for the good of one another. They should not be used as punishment, but for teaching.

Examples of what I mean are like when my husband returned from Korea...he was in the military and had gotten into the 'drinking' mentality. His family has a history of alcoholism and it concerned me. At a calm time when we were talking on the phone, I mentioned that this concerned me and he told me not to worry because he had no intention of drinking so much when he returned to the States. I asked that he limit himself to no more than two drinks in an evening and those only when he didn't have to work the next day. He agreed.

When he returned home, he attempted to go beyond the limitations he agreed to, and I reminded him of his promise. He was upset during that time because I stuck to the limitation. It even caused a couple of minor arguments. However, later, when it wasn't so important to him and he didn't behave as though he NEEDED the alcohol, I had no problem with him having an occassional drink. The behavior changed, so the limitation changed too.

In the last few years, he made the comment several times that he hadn't realized how addicted he had become to alcohol while he was in Korea. He said to his family at one point, "If it weren't for my wife, I would have come home from Korea an alcoholic." I don't know if that is the case, but I am glad that he saw the difference between me 'ordering him around' and me making a limitation in love.

In the same way, I tend to be a hothead when it comes to myself or my family being unintentionally hurt by someone's inconsideration. I tend to not say anything until I get home and then I fly off the handle expecting my husband to support me 100 percent in my fury over the hurt caused.

He doesn't always support me 100 percent. I am not always right, and he tries to point it out to me. I have to calm down and explain it differently for him to understand what I am saying and by the time I calm down, I usually see that I am making a bigger deal over the situation than it warrants. I am setting my boundaries too short and he is stretching them. When I can calm down, I can identify the difference between a problem and a mistake.

Not that there aren't times that he wants me to move that boundary (like in the first example) but there are also times that the boundary has been moved as far as I am willing to move it, and no further. At those times, because I have willingly moved that boundary in the past, my husband recognizes that I have reached my limit and he takes command. He also recognizes a need for boundaries. Laws are necessary, but love is equally important because mercy is based upon love and none of us are without a need for mercy. We all cross one another's boundaries from times to time. That is why we are blessed with God's grace.

As husband and wife, we are a team. God created us to be one.

Genesis 2:21-22
So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Genesis 2:24
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Mark 10:6-8
"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.''For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one.