The Rock, The Flower, and Tina Turner

I'm a tad older than all of you. I not only remember every last stinkin' word to "What's Love Got to Do with it?" (Tina Turner, in her 60s or 70s now, who has legs that I'm so jealous of it makes me sick!) but I used to even know part of the dance ruitine for the cola commercial she used to do - was it Pepsi or Coke? I don't remember now. Anyway, I come from a generation that, while you all may think you are part of it, in truth, you are in a generation of your own - with your own lingo ("meh") and your own ways (long hair and sideburns for the guys, tons of cleavage for the girls), etc. I don't write this to say "Oh, yay, I'm older and wiser, blah blah!" I write it to explain why I have to answer Tina's question for myself, since for me, in my generation, that question was not answered and handed to us on a silver platter like it seems to have been for so many of you. I only say that because, as I've gotten to know each of you, it's become quite clear to me that in my generation's search for that answer, your generation has watched us, learned from that quest, and seen the answers to it as my generation has continued our blind walk down that pot-holed path. And you ALL have, in your own ways, helped me to find the answer to that question, because God Used each of you to do that. So THERE! :p LOL - your generation is light-years ahead of mine, yet I can see how it is the searching for that answer that my generation has done which has so heavily influenced your generation's ability to see that answer for yourselves.

Ok, now that I'm done belittling you (really, that's not the point, I just SUCK at explaining how the differences in what years we were born in have affected our searches for Love)...

What DOES Love have to do with it? Is it just a second hand emotion? I've lived my whole life looking for love. I've searched for it in other people who claimed to have it, who claimed to know God. 31 years is a long time to go searching for that, never to find it until God finally HANDED it to me on a silver platter! Yet, in the quest, I learned that I'll never find True Love in the human heart of any person on this planet - I can only see God's Love in the Devine Heart He puts in the few people who will Allow Him to do that in them.

Does Love really matter? You bet. My heart was SO empty, so riddled with depression, anxiety, hurt, flash-backs, guilt trips, self loathing and self abuse, until Love Came into my Life Himself. It's one thing to intellectually realize that Jesus died for my sins. "Oh, yay, another cute historical fact that keeps me out of hell - whew, what a good... Oh, wait, that's not enough..." It's all well and good to try to force myself to do the right thing, to study Jesus, to send up a few "Hail God's" in times of crisis... It's great to learn to Trust that He'll Provide for me, Protect me, Guide and above all, Love me! But two things are missing from this equation that I've found in Him recently.

1) God LIKES me as the person, the woman He Made me to be already. I don't need to change or be fixed or whatever! And my lifestyle, whatever people may think of it, doesn't need "fixing" either - as if having the perfect life will some how make me a better person, as if something's wrong with the way God Made me to begin with.

2) Loving others means LIKING them the way they are, Accepting them as they are, FEELING Love for them at all times, knowing that I'd miss them if they weren't in my life, and putting them above anything they might do to me or someone else I care deeply for and Forgiving them and being happy that they are in my life.

There is a Supreme Joy that comes from being Liked and Liking others as they are, from not feeling responsible to somehow change the world or be changed by anyone else either. That's not selfishness or conciet! It's being "self-controlled" as Paul put it. This is the right way of doing things. There is, however, a wrong way...

I've been told in recent months by one friend, who I was then too selfish and too hurting to love, everything that was wrong with me, and that if I didn't get my act together, I wasn't allowed to be around him or any of his other friends. I responded by kicking him out of my life, because this happened at such a vulnerable time in my life. I needed to be coddled right then, because of hard circumstances I was going through personally, and his doing this was the LAST thing I needed. Yet in my heart of hearts, though I didn't know what else to do, I felt that it was wrong to do this to him. I was right. It was wrong. Did I have a right to do that? Humanly, yes, but Devinely, no. I did it partly to teach him that people have limits and it's wrong to treat people the way he treated me. I wanted to teach him that he ought to love others without limits! Silly me. I didn't make a good teacher. Instead of setting a good example, by Loving him, I treated him the way he had treated me, with utter disgust. He got all self-rightous on me, so I returned the favor, and only taught him that if you aren't perfect, you won't be loved. That's NOT from God.

In fact, as I recently explained to Erik in an email, I've spent most of my life kicking people out, pushing them away, when they didn't love me like they should have. What does that teach anyone? And furthermore, how does that help my heart? Ah, Tina, I have the answer for you! Human love is a second hand emotion. It's something we never really feel - we just force ourselves to live it because if we don't, people will hate us, and even when we do live it, people wind up hating us anyway. That's not the kind of love that Jesus was talking about. There's a different kind of love, and I sure hope that Tina found the answer for herself. LOL - she's a smart woman: perhaps she has found it...

True Love, Jesus-style, can't stand to live without FEELING Love for someone even in their worst moments, when they've hurt you the most. When someone MEANS something more to you than a shallow, fly-by-night friendship, when you are really Committed to them, it means that you don't care what dumb things they may do, how selfish they may be toward you, or how much they annoy you. You don't care if they cause you physical harm, either: you Love them anyway, not out of fear, but because they are IMPORTANT to you. Yes, it's easier if you've had a good relationship with them to begin with. For example, with Erik, things got off to a great start with our friendship, and so if there has ever been a time when I didn't like something he did, or just didn't understand it, it's been much easier to place his value as a PERSON as being so high that the weight of his human nature is far exceeded by the value of Love that he holds in my heart. Yet with my parents, this is all so much bigger of a struggle for my heart. We never had a good start, and there was much abuse throughout my life on their part - they killed the little girl that was within me, and only recently has she been coming Alive again. It's easier for me to intellectualize Loving them, letting them be who they are without getting emotionally sucked into everything, than it is to really ENJOY them as the PEOPLE God Made them to be. Yet I'm aware that I'm headed toward a place where I can start to do that.

So what's with the rock and the flower? Last night, I went on a walk to a certain rock that means a LOT to me and God. The last time I was there, it was during a most painful experience, where Love and love imploded on impact and only God Himself was able to hold a very deer friendship together the way He did. Last night, as the sun was setting and Shabbat was dawning, I found a mottled white stone and a little lavendar flower and took them to that rock. I sat on it for awhile, talked with my Husband, and then I realized that I am like that flower: perfect when newly picked, but easily bruised when bumped by something tough. Yet the rock never changes, just as the Rock never does. I am being invited to be like the Rock and to never change that, regardless of how people treat me. I put that rock and the flower at the base of the rock I had sat on, and vowed that from now on, I want Love to be the foundation of each friendship. This means, essentially, that you all can be who you are and I am Committed to Loving you no matter what you do to me.

I was later brought to tears as I realized that, for one, I can trust God to take care of me no matter what any of you does to me, and two, I really DO Love each of you! Yes, I'll admit, because of the close friendship I have with Erik, my Love for him as his Sister and friend, was the first love that I realized. When God pointed out to me that there really is nothing that can change that love, not perminently, I was Astounded. I couldn't believe it! I actually LOVE a human being! I've wanted to FEEL that kind of Love for someone all my life, yet only struggled to attain that - it wasn't until last night that it truly happened in my heart of hearts. And then, God started bringing all of you and other people to my attention, and asking me to love everyone else the same way. The thing is, I'm actually ABLE to do that, because He has brought so much healing to my heart and allowed me to be able to do this, because it's what He does.

God Loves you and Likes you, the way you are, and has no need at all to change who you are as a person. He doesn't have some fetish for changing people's lifestyles, either. If you want something in your life to change, that's your own business! He'll help you do that if you ask Him to, but He doesn't require you to be this way or that way in order to be good enough for Him - now or ever. He just wants YOU, the way YOU are, plain and simple. He refused to Live without you because He wanted the chance to be with YOU, because He Likes YOU. That, my friends, is genuine Love: just simply wanting to be around someone, as they are, no matter what they are like inside or outside.

I'm done wanting to change who I am inside, or what I look like outside, out of self-loathing or fear of what people think of me or want from me or whatever. I'm also done judging any of you who I've judged. Yes, I've lost friendships because I felt that others ought to Love me if they were going to claim to believe in God. I'm working on apologising to people at the moment, and letting them know that I Love them as they are, not as I think they ought to be like. As for that guy who judged me, I'm willing to be friends with him. It's his choice if he wants that or not.

In fact, I'm just going to make a list here of the first names, and some of the last names, of all the friends I've pushed away perminently when I judged them. If anyone on this list happens to read this blog posting after looking up their own name on the internet or something, please know that I Love you for who you are, with God's Love. Also, please know that I understand now that I had no Right to judge you or push you away, and I'm sorry I did that.

So, in order:

Everyone from the Mt. Tabor church (early childhood - too many names to list here)

Most everyone from Portland Adventist Elementry School back in the '80s

Most everyone from the Lents and Mt. Tabor Pathfinder clubs

Everyone from Bethel Adventist Jr. Academy

Ridge Dell church (while I'm at it - that was in my mid-20s)

Amy (Hassard) (I forgot her married name)

Jeremy Price

Angie Clemens

Kristy

Sean Jones

Scott Carlton

Andreas Yoganothan

Most of the class of '94 from PUC Prep and from Rio Lindo Adventist Academy

Most of the class of '93 from PUC Prep

Laura and Leslie (currently I've emailed them and apologised to them)

All of the friends I met through Laura in 1993, and the friends I met through those friends

Brian Jasmine

Brian Herman

Hanse Smith

Eric Neubauer

David and Jason Preisner

Sarah (SMHappyFace)

Michael Prewitt

April (though she and I have made up, yay :D)

Numberous family members (folks, we've got to stop judging each other in this family tree!!!!)

If you add in everyone that I grouped together, you might not believe this, but because of large class sizes in large schools, as well as numberous church members and family members, this list adds up to well over 1,000 people, in fact, closer to 2,000.

As I said to Erik 2 weeks ago, while he gave me my first taste of the meat of God's Love, "I'm an idiot."

I'm also God's. Because of that, this idiot has learned to Love people as they are and not push them away when they aren't my idea of perfect.

I LOVE YOU. So does God. Deal with it ;)

Caroline Dahlke