Christian love – Sheila Dougal

What two children taught me about my scribbled- up heart

Teaching kids about Jesus presents many opportunities to remember the love that changes us.

Yesterday I was the teacher to a group of kinder through 5th graders. The kids sat at their places around the tables, red construction paper hearts and crayons in front of them and one of the older kids read aloud our Bible verse for the day.

“ Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.”
James 2:8 CSB

When the child returned to his seat he found that the child next to him had scribbled black crayon all over his red paper heart. The child Bible reader, now red-faced with anger, picked up a crayon and scribbled all over the red paper heart laying in front of the child offender who had ruined his paper heart. The two boys, now red faced, eyes spilling over with tears, were ready to lay down their darkened paper hearts and take up fists with each other.

The boys were separated, the class called to attention again, and with the demonstration of messing up each others’ hearts before us, we dove into the question from our Bible reading: How in the world do you love your neighbor as yourself?

I can go to church, read my bible quietly with a cup of coffee in the morning, put my ear buds in and listen to my favorite writers spell out hope in Christ from their stories and songs, and feel like I’m doing pretty good. Then people walk in my room, pick up my one fragile heart and start scratching it black with their selfish words, or cold manner, or inconsiderate acts. And then, I don’t feel so much good.

I’ll never be able to think of being a Christian as something I’m proud of or good at as long as being a Christian means loving my heart-wrenching neighbor as I love myself.

By the end of our class yesterday all the kids came to the conclusion that we don’t love very well. Not like Jesus did. We decided we need Jesus to help us. And we need to ask for forgiveness a lot.

And this is how I know Christ has hold of me. I see how he loves. I see how he turns my heart towards others with a desire to give what I have no power in myself to give. I see the brokenness in those around me, and I feel the self-protective snatching of my heart away from potential scribblers, and I say, “Lord, it’s too much! Send them away!” And I hear Jesus say, “No. Give yourself to them.” And I watch as he takes my meager offerings of a listening ear, a choice to be quiet, or speak up, or get low or stand up and makes them enough to communicate love.

At the end of our class the older boy went to the younger boy of his own accord, looked him in the eyes and said, “I’m sorry.” The boys hugged each other and played.

Jesus can make you want to make it right with the person whose heart you marred in revenge and hug the person who turned your tidy heart into a scribbled-up mess.

Jesus calls us to lay down our lives not be philanthropic

man holding plastic bag with coat — Photo by sergio omassi on Pexels.com

Jesus’ words about mercy and how we, as his disciples, should seek out, invite, give to, speak for, and help the marginalized in society are not subtle.

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” -Luke 14:12-14

The poor, the elderly, the children, the weak, the disabled, the orphan, the widow, the foriegner, the ill… all these are specifically pointed out in scripture, and Jesus makes it clear- we are to give to the least of these as though we were giving to him. And at times, I think fantasy-thoughts about doing just that. I picture myself running a clinic to provide medical care for the poor and a home for the elderly where they would be cared for with dignity. But the missing day-to-day details of my imaginary Jesus lifestyle allow me to think dreamy thoughts and not face the reality of what Jesus calls me to do right where I am.

See, if I had a clinic for the poor, there would be those who would abuse it, those who wouldn’t be grateful, those who would be rude, those who would be irritating. And if I had a home for the elderly there would be complaints and grievances with family members. There would grey-headed ladies yelling at me to shut the music off because they’re playing bingo. There would be plates thrown across the room cause, “This isn’t food, this is crap!”

The truth is, when Paul in Ephesians 5 starts into what it looks like to, “…walk in love as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us,” he doesn’t say (vs. 22), “Nurses, open up free healthcare clinics for the poor, or dignified homes for the elderly.” Although those are good things, and we should do them. But Paul’s instruction is to the wives, husbands, children, servants… for them to submit themselves to each other. That’s where walking in Christlike love is really put to the test.

In any relationship- with the poor, with the elderly, with the disabled, with the orphan, with the widow, or with your husband, child or boss- sin is going to make it hard. Your sin and the sin of the person you’re in relationship with.

We should extend our lives to the poor, but it’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be messy. As messy as it is with your spouse or child or boss. Jesus calls us to lay down our lives for each other, not just be philanthropic. We aren’t called to give donations to the poor, we are called to love them and that requires forgiveness, repentance, bearing with hard things and walking through hard things.

This is why we need the church. We need to be in relationships with people we would never normally be in relationships with. We need to face conflict, sin, pain, bitterness, poverty, rudeness… broken humanity and learn to deal with sin in humility, love, and truth.

What I’m trying to say is, it’s not so much whether I donate to the poor orphans in Africa, or visit the elderly in a nursing home, but whether I vulnerably love my husband, stretch myself to spend time with people I don’t know very well who want to follow Jesus too, and over time, when our sin makes things ugly, forgive and love them. The marginalized are not righteous because they’re marginalized. They can’t give back anything you might otherwise get from a richer, more mainstream sinner, like status, reputation, money, position, etc. But they aren’t going to be any easier to love and lead to Christ. It’s not going to be easy teaching them to follow all the things he has taught us just because they’re poor.

“The rich and the poor meet together, the LORD is the maker of them all.” – Proverbs 22:2

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” -Romans 3:23

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:34-35

Ash Wednesday is a perfect Valentine.

I’ve grown thick-skinned after 26 hard years. At seventeen this small-town girl met a big-city boy and fell into infatuation. After two years of dating, and three break-ups, I married that rebellious, out-of-town boy who walked into my life wearing torn and bleached blue jeans, long blonde hair and a pink corduroy hat. After 24 years of tumultuous marriage, nearly divorcing as many times as we broke up while dating, I find this pretty potted orchid by my morning coffee today.

Over the years I’ve dreaded, ignored and been disillusioned by my silly hopes for Valentines day. But in recent years I’ve despised the day. Every pink, red or purple balloon/heart/flower was salt poured in my 26 year-hard-relationship wound. But this year Valentine’s Day is on Ash Wednesday, and I’m actually thrilled! Not because I woke up to an orchid and my husband’s heartfelt note. But because I’ve learned, still learning, that I’m dust and so is my husband. And I do good to remember that it is real love which compelled Christ to bear a cross for my dust so that I could bloom in his love forever.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. It’s the beginning of a fast to remember who we are, turning from clinging to our dust, living for ourselves, and to long for and look to the One who died in our place so that we might be free from the curse of sin and live for Him. If I forget that I’m dust I might start thinking I’m a god and should be worshipped with offerings of shiny pink boxes or long-stemmed roses. If I forget that my husband is dust I might start thinking he should act like a god and sweep me off my feet and rescue me. But if I remember I’m dust, married to dust, both of us in desperate need of the One who died to give us life, I’ll be embarking on the cross-carrying road real love is all about.

According to legend St. Valentine died for marriage. This priest was put to death in ancient times for secretly marrying Christians. I’ve learned, still learning, to die for my marriage. Any married person has to die a little, no a lot, to give marriage a chance to live. Jesus did not say, “You only live once so get as much good for yourself as you can now!” He said, “If you want to really live, you’re gonna have to die.” (My paraphrase Luke 17:33). Marriage is worth dying for. It’s beautiful, all-be-it hard, painful and messy. It’s meant to be a picture of the faithful love of Christ for the people who love him (the church). Christ died for those who love him to be like a bride to him. He died so that human beings, who are but dust, could be made like Christ, living forever with the wellspring of life that comes from him filling us. He died so that we could know what real love, real life, real hope, real peace, real happiness is. Christ is not a god who receives offerings of roses and chocolates. He is the God who lays down his life so that we, the people he loves, might live. Valentine’s Day is about dying to yourself so that marriage can live.

Twenty four years ago I walked down the isle hand-in-hand with my husband, dust holding dust. We were pronounced man and wife and I began my journey into dying to myself so that this big-city boy I fell for could see the faithfulness Christ has shown me. It’s fitting, if not a bit prophetic looking back, that we walked down that isle into the world with the song Faithfully by Journey announcing the banner over our dusty union. I hear the lyrics often in my head.

They say that the road
Ain’t no place to start a family
Right down the line
It’s been you and me
And lovin’ a music man
Ain’t always what it’s supposed to be
Oh, girl, you stand by me
I’m forever yours
Faithfully

My skin is thicker after 26 years. I’m thankful for my husband’s thoughtful orchid and note this morning- a little good in the land of the living. A little tenderness amidst a hard, dying-to-self, remembering-I’m-dust marriage. Today I’m turning again from trying to be a god who is satisfied by chocolates and roses and romantic gestures, and from trying to make my husband into a god who rescues me. I’m turning to the God who laid down his life for my ashes. There is real love. Dust I am, but by the power of his love I am more, I am a little Christ. His faithfulness reminds me he is giving me beauty for ashes. His death reminds me that real love dies for the one he loves.

Roses may be red

Violets may be blue

But real love dies

For another’s life

And dust married to dust

Doesn’t expect much

But remembers

Her Redemers last words

“It is finished” he cried

For my dust he died

To give me life he bled

Now dying to self

I have beauty instead

Lessons from a Monday

I worked a 12 hour shift today. It was a good day. Less stressful than the day I wrote about here, but still busy. A good busy. Not a I-have-no-idea-what-happened-in-the-past-12-hours busy. We had a couple of admissions at the end of the shift which made for a very busy end of shift. 4 to 7 PM went by in 5 seconds flat and I accomplished about 20 things in that period of time in an ever-changing order of importance.

After work I drove to my son’s club baseball tryouts and listened to the 11 year old version and 44 year old version of The Wallet and Tablet That Was Stolen From the Truck story. I watched the 13 year old make a couple of great hits (or crush the ball as he would put it) and then drove the 11 year old home so he could be in bed before 10:30.

While I was driving home some small epiphanies were dawning on me:

It’s so helpful to try and understand another person’s point of view. Trying to explain to a frustrated nursing assistant why I could understand her frustration with patient so-and-so but if she could just try to put herself in patient so-and-so’s shoes she might be less frustrated, I realized what a gift it is to be able to be a nurse. A nurse gets patients of all kinds. Patients are people. They had moms and dads, whether they knew them or not. They may or may not have kids. They had jobs and previous battles with illness. They may have estranged children and unconventional living circumstances. They probably have a story behind their rudeness, or impulsivity, or confusion, or fear, or flat affect or foul smell. Taking the time to listen to people (patients) takes time. Time away from charting and tasks on the task list. And that’s ok. Taking time to listen makes a difference in people’s lives and makes us better people. Nurses get to do that in a way most of us don’t. When the cashier is rude at the checkout we don’t really have time to ask them about where they’re from or if they have kids or why they are where they are. But nurses do. In fact, admitting a patient to the hospital can be a great exercise in listening and trying to understand another person. It’s a special opportunity.
One should never leave a wallet full of cash ($430 to be exact) and an electronic tablet sitting in an unlocked car at a high school while one drops one’s child off at baseball practice. This a mouth-full of humble pie for one who is a law-enforcement officer.
The Christian Church should be like a good nurse: She seeks the wellness of those who come to her even if it seems to hurt them at times. She does not condemn the broken ones who come to her for being broken. She gives of herself to minister to them the orders of the Great Physician for their wholeness.
My thoughts after reading 1 Peter- If you can’t love and serve the foul-mouthed, arrogant, perverse, flippant, reckless cranks and jesters around you while refraining from the foulness, arrogance, perverseness, flippancy, complaining and levity they slander you for not joining them in, you haven’t really begun to taste Christ in you. Christ in you is what it means to be a Christian. And Christ in you will compel you to lay down your life to love and serve others with grace and truth whether they malign you or praise you. Whether they cherish you or take advantage of you. Whether they treat you with respect or utterly disregard you. Because you want them to join you in the joy of being brought to God. I’ve barely begun to taste and I want more. It’s crazy.

All on a Monday.

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…” 1 Peter 3:18

Quieted,

Sheila