This is rarely a two way parting. I often find myself needing to pull away from a friendship in order to press on toward my calling in the Kingdom of Heaven. Or I find that a friend has pulled away from me usually for reasons I can’t see, but I can hope and even dare to assume that it too is to pursue their calling in the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is always a painful thing. For even if everyone involved can see the need and benefit of parting ways, there is still an end to something that at one point was good. And that hurts.

But as there was joy in their coming, there can be joy in their going. For as they go, let us remember that they join others anew instead. And as they leave, God brings others into our lives. That is the joyous painful beauty of it. As one good thing ends, another begins.

That’s what I think anyway.

Greater things are yet to come. Greater things are still to be done.

“Lord, lead me on.”

Often when we think of doing something for a friend, we think of doing or giving something. We help someone move. We help fix a car. We give a ride. We loan a car. We loan money, a shoulder or an ear.

All of those things are giving. Giving or loaning. But truthfully… giving is easy. Or easi-er anyway. What’s more difficult than giving is giving up.

Giving up involves letting go. Giving up involves letting go of your freedom, your right or your desire. It’s giving something up so that someone else can be better off. It’s not deciding to give someone something. It’s letting someone have or take something. The decision’s no longer ours, it’s theirs

Maybe you have a friend that struggles with alcohol. It’s giving up your right to enjoy a drink when they’re around so that your friend doesn’t stumble. It’s giving up your right so your friend can have freedom from temptation.

Maybe you have a friend that struggles with some emotional issue. You may need to give up your plans so that your friend can be free of their struggle.

The possibilities are limitless. But the point is the same. Sometimes we need to give something to our friends. Time, help, whatever. But sometimes we need to give something up. To give up the chance to do what you want or be where you want or maybe even with who you want so that the other person can have that instead.

I have often heard it said that I don’t need to lose in order for someone else to win. Or it could be said someone else doesn’t need to lose in order for me to win.

Much of the time I believe that is true. But sometimes I do need to lose so someone else may gain. Sometimes the only way for someone else to gain is for me to give it up. And sometimes the only way for us to grow, is for a friend to give it up, to give us the space, to give us the opportunity, to give us the freedom.

We ought to look for ways to give to each other. Open a door, give a ride, lift a spirit. But perhaps even more we ought to look for ways to give something up for each other. It is a very rare friend that will give up for another.

We are each called to reflect Christ. And in the end, Christ didn’t give us his life… He gave it up for us.

1 Corinthians 8:9, 12 NIV
“Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. … When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.”

Romans 14:21 NIV
“It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.”

Ephesians 5:21 NIV
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Ephesians 5:1-2 NIV
“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Ephesians 5:25 NIV
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

Matthew 27:50 NIV
“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.”

Love is quiet.

Love is loud.

Love sings.

Love often speaks loudest in quiet perseverance.

Love loves always.

Love lights our souls.

Love is infectious.

Love is contagious.

Love is always tender; and never beaten.

Love sees the weakness, but also sees beyond it.

Love is sunshine from the soul.

Love is undeniably honest; and undeniably gracious.

Love is free.

Sunday.

Saturday.  Saturday I felt the Spirit at work.  With CommuniD BBQs/Cookouts happening in Detroit, Flint and Mt. Clemens, God’s love and peace in this world was overwhelmingly obvious.  We had record numbers in Flint and near record numbers in Detroit.  I spent the afternoon at 2^nd & Selden in Detroit.  I had coffee with and formed a new partnership immediately before the BBQ.  During the BBQ two more new partnerships were begun.  Far better than that though was seeing around 400 people come out on a chilly day in late October to be in community with one another and experience and share the love of Christ with each other.  300 new coats were given away.  Hundreds of hamburgers, hot dogs and pieces of chicken were hot, fresh and eaten heartily.  The love of God and Christ abounded freely for the world and more importantly the community to see.  God’s view of us as his beloved children and showing it through acts of grace and love was apparent.  It was a joyful day.  It was a good day.

Sunday.  Sunday I felt the Spirit at work.  Sunday was very different than Saturday.  Sunday the brokenness of this world was overwhelmingly obvious.  Sunday I woke up with a heavy heart.  I do not mean a sad heart.  I do not mean a depressed spirit or anything negative.  I mean a heavy heart.  I mean I knew the day would bring weight with it.  I could feel it coming.

Recently my very dear friends found out their mom/mother-in-law has stage 4 lung cancer that has metastasized to her brain.  Throughout the church service at Awakenings Movement Sunday I prayed for the Spirit to speak to me, to not hold back, to be real and clear and strong.  At the end of the service we as a congregation spent a few minutes praying for these dear friends, the upcoming mission trip to Haiti they are leading and their future through this journey.

As I prayed I felt the spirit open up inside of me.  I don’t know a better way to describe it.  As He did, I was flooded with memories of my own journey while my mom battled cancer.  The waiting rooms, the machines, terminology like side effects, aggressive and quality of life.  I was reminded of a visual description I wrote of my mom nine years ago, Saturday:

“She lay gasping, each breathe audible and labored.  One eye fixed, partially abstract, the other near shut.  Her mouth hung low as though it bear a great load, numb, dry.  The highlights of her hair, once naturally brilliant as the sun, now darkened by oil, clinging desperately together, not having been washed week long, are now held back by puffs of cotton soothing her worn ears from vinyl hose now needed to assist each breathe of life.  She lay asleep though hardly peaceful, each breathe wincing even through rest.  Sounds occasionally uttered though unrecognizable bring curiosity as to the condition and state of the mind.  The body wilting whilst the spirit still full health.  Are these sounds partial spirit thoughts?  Feelings conveyed to God?  Perhaps taking control whilst the body incapable, petitioning the Lord for help.  Perhaps for a timely death.  Perhaps good fortune for her sons’ future.  Perhaps praises for a life well lived, while perhaps nothing more than molested air passing through a throat aged past its years.  God and spirit only know.  In a moment the body awakens, as much as a body so defeated can.  The fog seems to clear and logic returns, though riddled with gaps, and for a span unknown in length.  The peak of consciousness can be fallen even faster than it was mounted.  The voice is weak, struggling with each letter to its end.  Sleep, no more a luxury, but a painful task done more than hourly.  The desire to live and love formidably battling the desire for peace everlasting.  Thus is the life left, if one can call it even that.  The day is near whenst she’ll be taken heaven home.  What a bittersweet day that will be.” — October 29^th, 2002.

The memory of these things is so real it’s as if it happened yesterday or this morning.  But those memories were not alone.  There were also memories of a new understanding of family.  There were delivered meals and groceries, friends and a drawing in of God’s love that I believe I could never have experienced otherwise.  Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to experience that journey again.  But I am truly grateful that I went through it.

Sunday after church I went to the cemetery.  I don’t go often.  I lay next to my mom’s grave and cried myself to sleep.  They were not only tears of sadness.  They were equally tears of gratitude and joy.  Pain can do funny things to us.  And when we let God use it, when we let him break us down through it, pain doesn’t defeat us; it is the source of true passion.

I don’t think passion is best described as what happens between the sheets.  I don’t think passion is best seen as a strong affinity.  I think passion is best understood as pain turned into determination.  And I have never experienced this sort of passion without an overflow of tears of pain and joy flowing together; blood and water mixing.

I am so glad for the harmony of pain and joy.  I am so glad for the hope that God makes all things new.  I am so glad that Sunday was a joyful day.  It was a good day.

It can be easy to look at the pain and brokenness of the world around us and be discouraged.  But if we look just a little closer we can see God’s fingerprints everywhere.  And if we look just a little further we can see his love ever more clearly through the lens of pain; we can see His passion for us.  I am so grateful for His Passion.

Today I remember you never more clearly.  Today the tears come more easily.  But they are never merely tears of sorrow.  They may rarely be tears of sorrow.  I am so happy for you.  I imagine you dancing and smiling, twirling and laughing.  I imagine your voice.

I miss you.  I’m proud of you.  And most of all: I love you, Pamela Lynn Schmitt (8/17/54-11/3/02).

I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me.

~ Robert Browning Hamilton

A personal letter from your Father:

My Son,

It is critical that you shield your mind with truth and be strategic about what you allow yourself to read, watch, and even think. The enemy will try to invade your mind with every sinful thought. His goal is to cripple your calling by setting tempting traps. Do not allow the enemy to destroy the man I destined you to be. Every evil deed is first constructed in the heart with one thought. Run from whatever thought weakens your walk with me. You can take control of your thoughts by immersing yourself in My Word. Victory is yours … walk in it.

Your Savior;
who gives you victory