Universal and Personal

God is stirring up some stuff in me and our life.  Sometimes it gets ugly and hard while He's working something out...at least that's my experience.

One truth that's been made clear and repeated many times to me in the recent weeks is that we are all the same in God's eyes.  We are all His children...He loves us.  Period.

That truth has been demonstrated to me in the commonality in the human experience.  The struggle I have as a wife or mother or daughter or friend most any wife or mother or daughter or friend can relate to.  Sure, we have unique experiences and short term memory loss of some stages of life, but for the most part...we can insert ourselves into another's shoes and see the world.  It's our job to empathize.  To lighten the burden on others for the simple reason that there is no reason why that burden isn't ours.

I was aware of this last week in church.  I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I hadn't screamed at the kids while getting to church, Dan and I were using our nice words, I had showered...I was good.  And during praise and worship my eyes scanned the crowd and I saw a woman who wasn't.  She was hurting or hurt or sad or mad or sick.  I didn't take the opportunity, so I'll never know for sure.  Here's the thing...she may have 4 dozen friends ready to help.  She may have just needed a minute to get some stuff out and it happened in front of people at church.  I may have accidentally given her the stink eye on my way in and have been the cause of her tears.  And maybe a stranger asking if she could help would have made it worse...but what if it had made it better?  We're the same, crying lady and me.  We are God's children, and we are supposed to make it a little easier on each other.  But I didn't.

But there's a whole second layer to this giant cake of God's love.  So today, I'm struggling to reconcile the God who loves us.  Period.  With the God who loves us.  Personally.  Do you see how that feels different?  It's that empathy versus sympathy thing (thank you very much for Latin root words, Ann Wright).

Today it was personal.  Today, I wasn't alright.  Dan and I were not using our nice words this morning.  And it escalated into ugly...and there were 6 baby witness eyes and ears.  This means that my hurt and anger and indignation were accompanied by every mother's constant friend - guilt.  But God made it personal.  He showed me He cared for MY marriage, not just marriages.  You could argue coincidence, but I would call BS if you did.  While standing side by side, arms crossed, going over every jab and thinking of a way to make it sting worse next time...the praise band sang the song we lit our unity candle during in our wedding.  It's not a popular song.  I've never heard it at our church...but today, it happened.  And it was personal.  It didn't fix anything.  Forgiveness still had to be sought after and wounds will still have to heal.  But God whispered down to two of his, and reminded us that yes, we are just two of MANY of His children.  But He loves us personally.