>Relationship….it really is all about relationship. If you have read this blog for any time at all it is obvious that for me it is All about Relationship. I have finished The Shack and now am reading it out loud with the entire family a bit at a time. It is important to me that the children get as much input as possible to understand Relationship with our Lord and Forgiveness of our sins…and others. As I read it again I see things I missed, scrambling my thoughts, my Bible…finding more answers about this God of relationship….moving Him out of the box. Seeing Him, seeing me…through His words to me.
I am grappling. I continue to go back to the word of God, my sweet husband..and, and, and…..get the picture? Grappling without getting the firm grasp. I wonder to myself and sometimes aloud if I will ever get it. I can not grasp how far back current struggles go in the story of my life, the story of our family’s life, the story of my parent’s lives….my aunts and uncles. I saw the story at my uncles funeral as I watched my aunts and mother from behind the pew in a funeral home. I see the story in my sweet grandparents and read the regular emails and notes of hope.
The stories change the way I move, the way I think. The stories change the relationships I value AND the ones I don’t want to value, but must.
These are my thoughts, fragmented as they may be. Relationships are there good, bad, hurtful, hopeful…we have them all. These are our stories, my story. How will I weigh that in my minutes?

>I am reading The Shack By William P. Young
With out giving away the plot I am to a point where the main character is called to judge, something I do often and he is asked…..

This quote is shaking me (as are many parts of this book) causing me to ask questions, not new questions, but to ask them out loud.

He wrote:
“And what about the man who preys upon innocent little girls? What about him, Mackenzie? Is that man guilty. Should he be judged?”

“Yes!” screamed Mack. “Damn him to hell!”

“Is he to blame for your loss?”

“Yes!”

“What about his father, the man who twisted his son into a terror, what about him?”

“Yes, him too!”

“How far back do we go Mackenzie? The legacy of brokenness goes all the way back to Adam, what about him? But why stop there? What about God? God started this whole thing. Is God to blame?” (160-161)

This is a place I have been at often in recent seasons and days of my life. How far back?

I have talked about the stories of my Aunts, my grandparents…to some extent my parents.

How far back. I am learning the story the brokenness in more ways than I like has brought me to this point. Am I pointing a finger at God? What are my feelings, do they matter? Who is to blame, who should I judge, how should I judge? Without the judgement is there healing? Am I to blame for wanting to judge. Where and how does God our God reconcile with this?

Before you become alarmed that I am turning my face on our Lord rest in the fact that this is not the case. Rather, I wonder have I ever really faced our God or have I just imagined the face of God in a way that I am comfortable with concerning this blame, this judgement, this pain that I have wrestled with. That is more likely the case. I am more comfortable with this, but none the less burdened and often hurting. If God’s will is that I not carry a heavy yolk or an unsteady burden, can this actually be God that I have been ‘seeing’ or is it only an idea I am comfortable with and a real relationship and peace isn’t so much within my grasp(because lets face it I have no grasp on any of this at all), but instead waiting for me to acknowledge God for who He really is?

Who is He really?

Really Lord who are you?

Lord, who do you want to be in me?

Who do you want me to be through you and not through me?

Where are you really in my story…really?

Only you Lord have the answers….Only you.