Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Bigger Than Love

For one of my classes I had to read a little big of C.S. Lewis' book The Problem of Pain. For the most part the book wasn't my cup of tea. Maybe it would have been if I could understand his style of writing/speaking, but I couldn't. But when I thought about it, I understood more than I thought because if there is one thing I understand, it's pain. 

Everyone's different and no one deals with things the same, but the one thing that we all have in common is heartbreak. People walk in and out of our lives, just like people are born and people die. We all feel pain and we all have scars. But you, whoever you are reader, have the ability to set yourself apart by how you wear these scars. Some people take the pain and the scars and roll them into a little ball and bury them into the pit of their stomachs. They let it fester and infect every single aspect of their being, including their minds and their hearts, and that can make them hard, cold, and even dangerous. Those people let the pain rule them, make their decisions for them, and the only thing that accomplishes is keeping the cycle of pain going. You get hurt, so the only thing you can think to do once you've let the pain begin to rule you is hurt someone else. I've seen grief and loss and agony rip apart families, friendships, and marriages alike, but the worst thing I've seen pain do is make someone lose their faith, and that's the real tragedy. 

Lewis battles the argument that if God was purely good, then the world would be purely good, and that because God allows bad things to happen, God is either not truly "almighty" or he's just not that great of a God, so what's the point in believing in Him?. I could sit here and go through all Lewis' arguments for why that's kind of a logical fallacy, but I can sum it up in one sentence: It's not that you don't believe in Him, you're just mad at Him. And also (simply because I can't help myself) God gave us free will, and that free will gives us free reign to screw up as much as we possibly can. God should be our source of happiness, but for some reason we humans like to fight that, so when we find that we can't find true happiness without Him, we fall on our faces and guess what? It hurts! 

But what about the people that are going through pain that isn't of their making? Take me for instance. Today would have been Shelley's twenty-second birthday, and I know for a fact that today won't just be a hard day for me, but for dozens of people who are affected by the fact that she won't be here...You see, a year and a half ago, Shelley was taken from us. She died, and it wasn't her fault, wasn't her parents or her sisters fault, and it wasn't our fault. I know at least 20 people, including me, who would have done anything within our power to save her, but we couldn't. And we suffer. Everyone that was left behind when she was taken suffers horribly, daily, and that suffering is real and raw and the wounds are ripped open and salt is poured into them all the time. She's gone, and everything is a reminder of that. There will be an empty space at my wedding where Shelley should be. It's not fair, but I didn't cause this pain. And neither did God.

God doesn't want to force us to love Him. Could he? Sure. He's God, after all, but I think every girl on the planet knows that it's useless trying to force someone to love you. Or bugging them into it. So God gave people free will so that we could choose to be in a relationship with Him. Unfortunately, this also means we have the free will to lie, to steal, to cheat...to murder. And even though I'm not the person who took Shelley away, I still feel the pain of that day. I have no control over what people choose to do, but I often suffer the consequences, and I realize that that's going to happen more than once in my lifetime. But I have to give up that want for control and try to make the best decisions for myself that I can, because my decisions affect other peoples lives as well.

I wont lie, I struggle not to be mad at God. I'm glad that I worship a God that lets me know that it's totally okay to be pissed off, He understands and He can hang. He's a big God, and He's not gonna be mad at me for looking up at the sky and screaming "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!" every now and then. Shelley's seat wont be the only empty one at my wedding. 9 months after I lost Shelley, I also lost my Daddy. We thought he was getting better, and then BAM, the cancer suddenly spreads and he's gone within two months. I was so delirious with pain, I screwed up. Big time. I did things that I'm not proud of, way too ashamed to write about so publicly, and I did them out of pain and confusion. Zach stood by me and let me mess up, and he picked me up and held me when I hit rock bottom. God brought him to me. See, good God, almighty God, cause only the Almighty could have saved me then.

And it's totally not the first time I've done so either. I had my heartbroken pretty epically once, and it messed me up for a few years. I think it was so epic because it was the first. But man, I turned around and unleashed my rage on the nearest person with male parts and let it rip. I refused to get close to any guy and then I met someone who, for some odd reason, fell in love with me. And what did I do? Dragged him along, too scared to commit, and he finally gave up on me. That was a sobering moment. When someone looks you in the eye and says "I quit" you kinda sit back and take a look at your actions and realize "Wow. I'm a B word." And then I met someone, fell in love myself, and took my lumps. I stayed in a relationship for two years with someone who didn't love me at all, not in the slightest, but I felt like I was getting what I deserved. Then I found Zach, or well, he found me sitting in a library contemplating what to do about my dead end relationship. And that was it. That was when God smacked me in the face and was like "You don't have to live this way." 

The pain sometimes gets so built up and the infection gets so deep that it seems like the biggest thing in the world. I know because I've lived in the house that heartbreak built. I've been so weighed down with it that I could barely bring myself to get out of bed in the morning, but then I learned something from my father. When he found out he had cancer, he broke down into tears and told me he wasn't afraid of dying, but that he didn't want to leave me. He wasn't ready. He was so upset and I know he was scared, he had to be. But he was more worried about me and how I was taking it. My Mom was facing losing her husband, and she was more concerned with me. That, to me, is the definition of a true hero. It took me a while, but I now know the one thing that is bigger than the pain, and that's Love. The Love that comes from God. The Love we have for each other. The Love between a dying father and his daughter. The Love between a friend passed away and the people she left behind. The Love is bigger than the loss.

So, the way I see it, you have two choices. You can wear your scars like a mask and hide behind them. You can wallow in the pain and use it as an excuse to live in a way you know you shouldn't. You can be apart of an ugly cycle if you want to, but I think you know it's not going to fix anything.

Wanna know how I want to wear my scars? Like a superhero cape! I wanna smile every single day simply because I get the opportunity to kiss the sunshine hello every morning. I want to soak up every bit of time I have with Zach because I have no idea what's going to happen. I want to be the kind of mother that my Mom is. I want to carry the name Green with honor, because it's the name my Daddy gave me. I want to live up to his legacy of laughter and bring that kind of joy into the hearts of everyone I know, like he did. I want to remember Shelley every day, even if that means pouring the salt into the wounds myself. Pain comes with the memories, I've accepted that, but that doesn't mean that it has to rule the memory. Shelley did NOT leave behind a legacy of pain and grief. It is not what she would want for any of us. Yeah, I might cry, but that wont be the only thing I do. 

It doesn't matter who you are, you can't escape the fact that we live in a fallen world and that sometimes, life freaking sucks. But blaming God and saying He isn't good enough or He isn't doing his job isn't going to make it any better. You have got to make a choice about what of life you want to lead, and what kind of impact you want to have in a dying world. You may think that you're only one person and you alone can't do anything, but guess what? You have no idea the power you possess. Pump gas for the old lady at the gas station that can't get out of her car. Give a buck to a homeless guy, even if he will just use it for booze. Smile at someone who looks like they are having a bad day. Laugh and smile and dance and sing and live because some people don't get to. When you see a bird, remember my Dad because he loved them. And when you see a butterfly, say hello to Shelley. Live because they can't. Live right because some people wont. Love because it's the greatest thing you will ever do in this world. Create beauty because there is so much ugly already. Wear your scars like a cape and save somebody. 

I don't know if this makes any sense or even why I wrote it. I think it's because I miss Shelley, and I think maybe this is something she'd want me to say to someone. Or you could blame Dr. Hayes for making me do a book report. Either way, I hope that maybe this put a smile on someones face. 

Happy Birthday Shelley Nance. I love you Flutterby :)




Bigger Than Love by My Favorite Highway



We've all got scars as big as ours
A token for the pain we hide inside of us
Everyone's scared that somebody knows
You push it aside, yeah that's how it goes
If you've ever heard a beating heart
A rhythm for the songs we're too afraid to sing
Nobody here is perfectly fine
A delicate frame, a fragile design

If there's a hole in your heart
You gotta pull it together
It takes the courage to start
But now is better than never
It takes a push and a shove
Somehow it's never enough
And its alarming how quickly we forget that

Nothing's bigger than love
Nothing's bigger than love
Nothing's bigger than love
All you need, all you need, all you need is love

Some people change and some just won't
You can't take back the words you wish you'd never said
Promises break and lovers will lie
You hold up your hands and let out a sigh
So smile right before you fall
And lay beside this mess and call it consequence
Somebody said that life isn't fair
When somebody else was saying a prayer

'Cause no-one's taking me out
And nothing's pulling me down
I turn my head to the crowd
This love is big and it's loud
This is a car in the crash
This is the light in the flash
This is the answers you know
But you're just too scared to ask
If there's a hole in your heart
You gotta pull it together
It takes the courage to start
But now is better than never
It takes a push and a shove
Somehow it's never enough
Somehow it's never enough