As
I begin to write this, another year has passed, and as I look back I
see many things: things of good, things of ill, things of light,
things of dark—things
I greeted with dark and dour pain, but which were blessings instead.
This
month (targeted by this article) contains a day of celebration that
has been twisted into one of romantic fervor, which true history
would say was never the intention of the one being “honored”.
That was an elderly man writing to a young friend and signing the
letter, “Your Valentine”, because, you see, “Valentine” was
the man’s name. It was the signing of a normal, pastoral letter
from an old Christian to a young friend. It was not more.
As
I look back I see souls that I would hold, but which I do not have. I
look on a hope that others have dashed and bashed against the walls
of their worldviews (and I am well aware that there are those who see
me as no longer following God, but instead some deceitful demon that
has me in its pocket—the Lord rebuke them). I look on those who
undoubtedly think that they love me, but whom—I must entertain
these doubts—have apparently not asked God what to do with, or
about, me, having instead followed the typical societal norms,
assuming that God will bless those choices. And I grieve—oh how I
grieve—for I have come unto my own (for they were gifted to me by
God) and they have received me not.
God,
then, asked me, “How do you think I felt?” 1
The
greatest blessing a person can receive from God is not physical, it
is not monetary, it is not
sexual, it is not power (though it is powerful),
it is not mental (and
therefore not philosophical),
it is not spiritual, it is
not even mere salvation (and
I would argue that mere
salvation is no salvation at all).
Millennia
ago there was a group of people going about, teaching about God, and
their greatest celebrations were reserved for when they went through
suffering because of their adherence to the matters they taught. Were
they celebrating their suffering? No! They were celebrating the fact
that they were counted worthy
to suffer for those teachings. And
who was it that was counting them worthy?
Certainly
not those who were executing that suffering upon them. They
wanted them gone! They wanted them dead! They wanted them to shut up!
They wanted those teachings gone! Forever!
Who,
then?
Who
was counting them worthy?
It
was none other than the one who gave them those teachings in the
first place! It was God who
counted them worthy! It was God who counted them worthy to go through
what He had already gone through in this earth—that
is His! God counted them worthy!
He
wasn’t counting them worthy to suffer. No! What an awful blessing
that would be! No!
He was counting them worthy to—as
the Spanish might put it, via con Dios—to
go with God, to walk the way that God has walked. You are, in
essence, walking with Him. Going through the worst of times, He wants
you there with Him, at His side.
When
someone is facing the end, do they call their worst, most
intransigent enemies to them? No. They call their best, most
treasured friends to their side, because in their worst of times they
do not want to be alone. They do not want to feel abandoned and
unloved.
My
young friend, whom I do still miss, and whom I do still love, might
have abandoned me, but, then, they are not the one to whom God called
for this time.
For
better or for worse, the one to whom He called was me. He wanted me
to understand how He felt when His own rejected Him.
I
look back over the 14 years during which this was being shaped and
transpired, from the very first inklings to its ultimate fulfillment,
the disappointment, and, finally, the divine explanation and χάρισμα
embrace.
God
wanted me to know that time. I still have difficulty wrapping my mind
around the consequences of that thought, indeed of that concept, that
God wanted me (Of all possible people, why me?
What possible explanation could account for such an endowment to me?)
to know His heart through that awful time when He was rejected by His
own.
I
remember, all these years later, having been pondering on the times
that I was allowed to see the impending marital unions of others,
while I was being kept, and made to suffer, alone, and I could not
see past my own pain and sufferings at the hands of those wicked,
false Christians that still to this day pollute the Presbyterian
Church in America to the most astonishingly ultimate gift that He
would proffer upon me, that during His long walks of lonely
disregard, of all people (and I still ask why) He wanted me at His
side.
I
remember (though I, of course, did not see it then) at the inception
of those years, with me grousing about my own loneliness, that a
particular, abundant, family visited the church at which I was
attending, sitting on the right side of the sanctuary more toward the
front, and that, in the immediately following days astonished
rejoicing was born in my heart (and I even remember where I was
standing in which aisle of the warehouse) when, in the spirit,
suddenly, out of the blue, God spoke into my spirit the words, “She
is in your life—right now” accompanied by the clear and
unmistakable impression that she would not stay, but would return
later.
I
remember where my focus would go during those times, and how much
more desperately and painfully alone I felt. Oh! How much repenting I
must do! Not in a thousand lifetimes of a thousand lifetimes could I
ever hope to list it all out! But by Christ my debt is paid!
I
remember when He told me, “I have placed a mark on you that will
cause women to [fear/lust after/hate/loathe/mock/ridicule] you, and
great harm will come to you [because of the mark], but I will remove
that mark from the heart of one special lady, who will return to you
in [repentant] Love,” and I reacted by setting up a watch for one
who had been of that PCA filth that had done so much grave,
slanderous harm to me to return to me, so that I could have my heart
prepared and rejoicing to grant total forgiveness to them—but
they have never come.
I
remember seeing again and coming to know that abundant family and the
joyous times we would spend in each other’s company—and a few
hard ones, like when I was angry and grieving over being told, by
God, to leave the church where they still attend, because a young
wife in marital trouble was beginning to look to me instead of to
God, and how the patriarch of that abundant family was the only one
who cared enough to come and find me, and lay his spiritual arms
around me.
I
remember how, as a result of my obedience to God’s call, we drifted
apart, that family and I.
I
remember, as well, how, in the last couple years, one member of that
family came back into my life, striking up a friendship with me that,
to this very day, I do completely and totally treasure, and how, much
to my amazement, that friend confessed her sins to me and returned,
washed clean, to Christ.
If
my earthly companion is to come from the “theologians” of the
PCA, then they must return in repentant Love to be washed clean, but
I hold the prophecy fulfilled in the person of one humble, trusting
youth.
It
is only to such a one that I may sign,
Your
Valentine
1This,
of course, is a reference to John 1:11, “To His own He came,
and His own received Him not”