The most powerful lessons that I’ve been taught occurred when I stopped trying. Out of frustration, I throw my hands in the air and say, “Okay Lord, I don’t know what to do. I give up.” Then whatever situation or thing that I was trying to change stopped ruling my life.
Getting to the place of surrender (step 3/ Principle & Foundation) is not easy. It is necessary. If you want God to handle your situation, you must let go of it first and then ask for his help. Once I let go of trying to fix, control or manipulate others, I am left with myself. What do I do now?
The great theologian and author Henri Nouwen, writes that there are 5 lies that each of us identify with: I am what I have, I am what I do, I am what other people say or think of me, I am nothing more than my worst moment and I am nothing less than my best moment.
I found that quote for the first time when I was working on a 4th step retreat. I created a slide where each of those 5 lies appeared one at a time so that those on retreat could take a few seconds pondering each lie. Then I asked them the same question that I’d been asking myself: “If I am none of those things, what is left?”
I spent a good bit of time in prayer asking for the answer to that question. Every time I came up with an answer, like ‘I am a mother’, I would realize that it fell under one of those lies: ‘I am not what I do.’
Then one day while I was reading Ignatius’ Principle and Foundation, the answer seemed clear. I am who I am in Christ. I am like conduit. Conduit is a channel. In construction, it is a pipe that electrical wires run through. It isn’t the source of power, it is a channel that carries the power from the source to other places that need it.
Thinking of myself as conduit helps me stay rightly ordered. I am a container that allows or refuses (God’s will/self will) love to flow through. I can either enjoy being a part of the eternal exchange of love that CCC 221 talks about or I can choose to try to do things on my own. God loves me so much that he doesn’t force anything. Out of love or maybe because he is love, he allows me to choose.
It is love that heals every body. That is what the folks at Thistle Farms ,one of my places to shop and have lunch use as their motto. This community of women come together to heal each other from addictions and prostitution. Like Greg Boyle’s Homeboy Industries they have discovered that we don’t tell others how to get better. We don’t have an advantage that makes us better than others. We may have had the advantage of family or financial security but those things don’t qualify us to change others. Our power for healing others is found when we allow the love of God to flow through us. These communities understand the power of a loving community.
“Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.”
Richard rohr “Falling up”
Families are like small communities. We can learn from what these big organizations are doing to heal each other. We just need to accept that the answer is as simple and as difficult as loving others without condition.
How do we do that? Well for me, I pray for God to guide me in each step of those difficult relationships. Then instead of looking at what the other person is doing, I try and see them as God does. Sometimes loving others means saying no. Sometimes it means telling the truth about how you feel or what you see. Love isn’t all hearts and rainbows. You will need courage.
I hear folks talk about how afraid that they are for the family. The family is under attack, they say. I’m sure that is true. But the power of love is so much bigger than any fear. I know that for sure. I’m not afraid. I see that fear is something in me that needs the healing power of God too.