Love First, Judge Less: Navigating Family, Faith, and Forgiveness
Every day there is the real chance to just feel hurt, abandoned, or isolated.
There is a chance that you might think these concepts and practices are hypothetical. However, these have been my life saving daily beliefs and rhythms in the face of much personal anguish. My wife has Clinical Depression and Complex PTSD. Either of which is a challenge, together they can knock her out for weeks and months at a time. With the added context of a special needs son who requires a lot of work (both physical and emotional), I often find myself living at the intersection of loving myself and loving others on purpose, in very tough day to day scenarios.
Every day there is the real chance to just feel hurt, abandoned, or isolated. To dwell in the pain of it all. Every day there is the chance to grow deeper in the innermost part of my being, the connection to the God of the universe who loves me, sent his son for me to be gathered into this place of abiding, and who whispers ‘uniquely good things about me.’ (Nouwen).
There are often two choices that rise to the surface when we are wounded by someone in our lives. We have an opportunity to step into a healing moment - first for ourselves and then as an invitation to the other person - or - we can condemn them for their sin against us. I think this comes down to heart health and heart posture.
Heart health - what I mean here is the question of how well grounded is our heart in the depths of the love of the Father? If we feel the steady assurance of his ultimate and unconditional love for us at all times (if we dwell there), we can feel all sorts of emotions when someone wounds us, but the sorrow or the pain doesn’t take root in the same way because something is already planted there; the abiding spirit of God. This does not in any way minimize the pain or loss or anger. We fully feel it. It just does not start to live with us in that recycled mental and emotional way that crescendos into ever more sorrow and loss, like an echo chamber with the volume steadily going up.
Another key part of this heart health question is how well connected we are to ourselves. To be connected to ourselves is to be connected to an Image Bearer, a ‘Word of God spoken into being’ as Merton once put it. It is how we can witness the depths of any pain, rejection, etc, feel it and release it, and stay grounded in the love of the spirit. We know how to fully be present to everything that is happening inside of us.
The second category of interest is Heart Posture. Here I mean something like our posture toward the world and those around us (friends, family, colleagues, etc.). If we see those around us (and their actions, beliefs, circumstances etc) primarily through a lens of performance, we will approach them with judgment of one sort or another. They are either doing right by us and the world and we will applaud them. Or they are NOT doing right by us and the world and they should be condemned. This is to have a heart posture that is always on the lookout for the sins of others. How are they sinning? How are they sinning toward us? When this is our heart posture we say ‘What is wrong with you?’ We miss the opportunity to ask the healing question ‘What happened to you?’ This second question assumes a learning posture, a healing posture, and looks to see someone in the flow of the whole stream of their life, not just this single moment.
But we can’t get to this Heart Posture of tenderness and empathy without first finding our dwelling place in the depths of unconditional love of our father. If we are not first in that place (maybe a little at first, but as we grow in our contemplation, prayer, understanding of God and self, we truly can begin to LIVE there always), then we are too wounded to see past our wounds. We must first stop our own hemorrhaging. Or put another way - love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you love yourself poorly, you will love your neighbor poorly.
Heart Health / Heart Posture. First one, then the other.
My lived experience has been that as I live in that place, as I move from that place in my day to day, I can stay fully connected and present to my family and the wounds happening around me, while also staying fully alive to the infinite love of our infinite God. It is not always a 10/10. There are moments when my hurt gets so big, like a wave suddenly crashing, that I simply sit down wherever I am and weep. But even as I weep I feel the gentle arm of the living spirit wrapped around my shoulders. It is an intimacy with God and with self, that leads to a heart posture of deep connection with the walking wounded in my family and my community.