It’s been a hard week in my family. Courtney and Ian had little Avery last Thursday, and the road since has been less than smooth. Avery’s heart rate has been sketchy since the start. Doctors discovered a hole between her valves, requiring her 5lb frame to undergo surgery asap. This situation has clearly brought-up a lot in me, but much of it has revolved around longing for my family to know Jesus. I don’t say that as a Christianese, evangelical, crowd-pleaser, but more so because it breaks my heart to see my sister fighting so hard against a tide that is beyond her. She asked me yesterday, between sobs, if I thought her ½ glass of wine prior to even knowing she was pregnant caused all this? I sadly said, “No, Courtney. Avery is sick and it’s not your fault.”
A similar, but less tragic scenario, regards my Christian landlord. Florica is in her late 60’s and spends much of her Romanian Orthodox days trying to please God. I admire this much of the time, but tonight her tenacity made me sad. She was exhausted from trying and still convinced she’d not tried enough. The short of the long is, Florica loves her daughter. And her daughter doesn’t seem to love her, or God. And Florica wants her to. So she’s trying to pray and weep and fast her daughter into eternity. “But it’s not working,” said complains, in her thick accent (which reminds me of other times she’s told me I’m single because I’m not praying enough). Though a sincere lover of God, it’s as though the shackles of the Law have put Florica in a similar predicament to my unbelieving sister.
There’s something to be said for the link between tenacity and the Kingdom. I’m reading through the journals of Mother Teresa (Come Be My Light), and good god, that woman had fight. But it seems there’s something equally if not more important that we can’t miss. Before we were called God’s servants, we were called His children. Thus, before we are called to minister toward broken souls, we are called to our own—to the humble task of giving our brokenness back to Him—back to the Cross. I had a spiritual director call me out on this misunderstood predicament once. He said, “Abbie, keep remembering only one person who had to be crucified.”
Doing is easier than not doing. It feels more spiritual to produce, than wade in what looks like nothing. Furthermore, tenacity is great, but not when it’s trumped by fatigue, effort and guilt on its road to Calvary. Such “signs,” I think, reveal wrong tethering. When you becomes the reason he, she, or it isn’t changing, you’re teetering in shackles of religious Law.