Nearly thirty days into marriage and I am reminded of just how much of a sinner I still am. Marriage adds compounded interest to the debt, since now it is not just myself who suffers, but another person. It has been a sweet time, though, with both of us learning to apologise quickly and figuring out what ways of speaking work best to communicate with someone whose brain doesn't work the same way ours does. One thing this process demands is humility. Learning to grit my teeth and stare full in the face of my own sin; not John's, not someone else's, not the extenuating circumstances which may have exacerbated it. Once this is done, repentance and apologies are the order of the day with an earnest appeal to God to help me grow and overcome the sin the next time I am tempted in that way.

       Through all of this I've had to start practicing is to stop saying "I'm sorry." 

        I don't mean the useless filler, "sorrys" for everything we think we might have done wrong(those ought to go too), but I mean when I've actually done wrong. When I've accidentally bulldozed John in a conversation, or when I have been unkind or shut him out for whatever silly reason.

        I was meeting with a friend a few months ago and we discussed the importance of actually taking responsibility for our own sin in an apology.

        You see, there's so much that the phrase "I'm sorry" has come to mean in today's world; especially here in the States. 

"I'm sorry you felt hurt by what I did/said..." Not an apology. 

"I'm sorry you misunderstood me..." Not an apology. 

"I'm sorry I said/did that..." (While thinking *I'm sorry because of the big explosion it caused and I'm saying that so that we can sweep it under the rug and forget about the whole mess*) Not an apology.

"I'm sorry [Insert consequence] happened because of what I did/said..." Also not an apology.

     We humans in our grand pride have so many little ways of skirting around the responsibility of our sin, of shifting the blame to someone or something else, or of justifying our actions even when they caused pain and hurt to those around us.

     Why do we do this? Why would we rather curb-stomp the people around us, and, ultimately, stick out our tongue at our Creator, rather than admit that we did wrong? 

      I think James puts it well: "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures which wage war in your members? You lust and you do not have so you commit murder, you are envious and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask; you ask and do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives, so you may spend it on your pleasures." 

     In short...the lusts of the flesh, our selfish pleasures which want what they want above all else, which yearn for one's own supremacy and one's own way in every circumstance, are the issue. Ultimately, pursuing our own pleasures will destroy us and our relationships with others as well as the Lord. This is Christ's meaning when he says, "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 

     The Christian life is one of paradoxes; the way down is the way up, stars shine brightest in the deepest wells, the valley is the greatest place of vision...giving up our perceived rights and freedoms will set us free indeed, and being willing to admit that we were wrong is what makes us right. In this context Paul's statement makes far more sense when he says "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 

       The point of all this is that we have got to make sure that we do not get into the habit of giving meaningless apologies or apologies with caveats. In principle, saying "I'm sorry..." if you truly mean that you are sorry for the sin that you committed against a person and Almighty God, is not the problem, though I have tried to say "Please forgive me" instead. "Please forgive me" contains the clear implication that you are the one at fault..."I'm sorry," not so much. You can be sorry that someone bumped his head against a chandelier while you were five miles away and nothing whatsoever to do with it. 

        When I was younger, my mother wouldn't allow us to appologise with simply, "I'm sorry." We had to say, "I'm sorry, please forgive me." The latter was the harder thing to say. Of course, don't do what I did as a child which was to quickly learn that apologising in a sincere sounding manner made me look highly virtuous and so did it for the moral brownie points rather than from any sincere repentance in my heart.

        I am trying to now relearn the skill of being quick to apologise, not because I want to be done with the situation, or because I wish to appear morally upright and humble(another manifestation of pride), but because I truly understand the reality and heinous nature of my own sin. 

         James K. Smith's book, "You are what you love," urges the possibility of changing the heart by changing the habit. To an extent he is quite right and I have benefited greatly from his principles. In my case I am attempting to change my heart by changing my habits of speech. I want to stop saying "I'm sorry," and start saying, "Please forgive me," in the prayer that through it God will change my heart to be quicker to acknowledge my faults and, with true humility, esteem the good of others as more important than my own selfish pleasures. 

         Ultimately, it's important to remember that though our sin does have a horizontal effect on those around us, the ultimate crime is vertical. In the words of David, "Against Thee[Yaweh], and Thee only have I sinned and done what is evil in Thy sight." This is helpful to think about in the midst of our repentance and apology...even if we truly believe the person we are apologising to is equally at fault or is acting like a self-inflated prig and not only accepting our apology but reveling in it...the important thing is to remember that ultimately it is against the Lord that we have sinned and to Him that we owe the ultimate apology...by apologising to our fellow man, we are honouring our Creator against whom the brunt of our sin was committed.

      How comforting it is to know that the forgiveness of our heavenly Father is boundless and that He will not cease to love us even when we are being selfish, stubborn, and proud..."Though we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself." How much easier it should be, knowing this, to humbly confess our fault and not hide or justify our transgression. 

       May all this be done to the glory of our Lord as He continues to sanctify us and mold us more into His image. For me, that means, as of now, to replace "I'm sorry" with, "Please forgive me."

     Until Next Time,

               ~ Christianna  

 

       I have spent some time this year thinking about how I ought to think about it. 

       Yes, you read that right. I came into 2025 with two major setbacks. One was that I didn't get my book published even close to the time frame I wanted to due to Amazon's confusing formatting regulations...still working on that. The other thing was the realisation that due to business, preparations for the wedding, and five different places my money needed to go, I wouldn't be able to make the long awaited trip to Scotland that I had planned and prayed for for so long. At least, not before my upcoming wedding in May.

        Both of these setbacks have been gnawing at me going into this year. An unfortunate collision with another vehicle in which I took the brunt of the damage, a book that will not publish, a steady load of work that never seems to lighten or give way to rest, a future that, though bright and exciting, also promises more struggle and difficulty than I have ever faced(For what good thing comes without struggle and hard work?), and a life that feels stretched thin over a barren surface.

        My  feelings themselves are immaterial in the long run. They come as quickly as they leave and return again, but the entire past three months have left me asking myself, what do I really want out of life? What do I truly desire?

        For maybe the twentieth time in my life I went and stared at the world's offerings again. Perhaps I have it all wrong. Perhaps God is not real, perhaps He does not love me. Perhaps nothing matters in life except to fulfill one's own pleasure and there is nothing better to do than to eat lest one be eaten. Perhaps to love is to be weak, perhaps to die to self is futility, perhaps self-sacrifice is self-suicide, and to feed another is to allow oneself to go hungry.

       I never really believed these things. I have too much personal experience, even at twenty-eight years, to know the cloying, dull, lifelessness that comes with purposeful self-seeking and God-ignoring wanton pleasure. Still, what do I actually want?

       Just before the new year I was staying the weekend with a very good friend of mine in Tennessee. We were able to catch up on life and talk about stories and books which is my happy place, and, generally be in each other's presence. It was a lovely little respite from everything. However, while I was there, I looked around at her cozy little house which she rents with her sister and a childhood friend and wondered, what if I did this instead? 

       What if instead of getting married and having children and keeping my own house like I've always dreamed, what if I found two or three other ladies around my age, rented a nice little house, took the teaching job that a friend of mine offered that I can't take now that I'm marrying and moving, and, generally, just looked after myself? What if I stopped worrying about caring for the people whom God has placed in my life, or having big dreams beyond the four corners of my own establishment? What if I never had to concern myself with other people's drama or stress? What if I never had to claw my way up out of a sticky situation again? What if I could just be comfortable and independent for the rest of my life and go on trips to Europe whenever I wanted?

A little later that following Sunday, while I was sitting in church with John, I had an "aha" moment. Looking at John, I knew then that I really did just want a life with him, no matter what. He makes me better and pushes me beyond where I push myself, besides that fact that when I'm sad and stressed, his is a very strong, comforting shoulder to lean upon.

         A quick disclaimer regarding my friend and her housemates. This is in nowise what they're doing. They are living in the stage of life that God has put them and doing very well at it. However, the issue came if I were to willfully choose something like that for the sake of ease even if God was calling me down another path.

          Still, though, a part of me wondered, whatever was so wrong with wanting to be comfortable?

        Even then I could hear the voices of mentors I've had through the years telling me that I can't grow and be comfortable at the same time. I knew the truth, but sometimes when you're in the midst of the crucible of life and God's gristmill is tightened to a finer setting, what you know doesn't seem to make much sense anymore. Suddenly all you want is a full bank account, a soft bed, and plane tickets to Scotland.

         This realisation didn't make my problems go away or take away the feeling that I was, as Bilbo Baggins surmised, too little butter scraped over too much bread. 

         What finally did it for me was a Facebook post recently by someone saying basically what I had been thinking about, only as a resolution rather than a question. "No more people with drama in my life, no more people who cross my boundaries," she said, "2025 is a year for me to protect my energy and focus on my goals." It's funny how when the same thing comes from oneself it feels reasonable, it's only when you hear it from someone else that suddenly you see it for what it is.

           It didn't sound so good coming from this person, and I realised that that's not what I wanted for my life at all. How can I build up those around me, if I never seek out those who need to be built up? How can I grow if I don't have difficult people to rub away my rough edges. Which of my goals will ultimately matter if they're not others oriented? 

        We live in a world where we are encouraged to take care of ourselves. "Self care" is emblazoned upon the annals of this era's history. "Be yourself," "love yourself," "Take care of yourself first," we are told by people who are terrified that their own identities will be lost in those of others. Everyone wants to be the pilot, no one wants to be the co-pilot. Everyone wants to be the race car driver, no one wants to be the mechanic. Tens of thousands of babies have been slaughtered because women have said, "I am loving me," and "I'm taking care of myself first." 

          Some of you may bring up the point about needing to be in a functioning state so that we can help others. Please don't. We both know that's not what I'm talking about at all. That is not something this culture or this affluent society of ours generally has a problem with. 

         None of us need to be taught how to love ourselves or else the commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself" would have been meaningless. The husband is told to love his wife as he loves his own body, "For," Paul says, "no one hates his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it..." The implication is clear, if everyone loved his neighbor, his wife, his child, his brother, his mother as he loved himself, crime would roll to a standstill. The tyrants of this world would find their plans unraveling as there would be none to aid them in their tyranny. Life as we know it would be very different indeed. 

         Make no mistake, however, that kind of love requires sacrifice. It requires a giving up of oneself and one's own desires. It requires the finest setting in God's gristmill. Today's culture considers that anathema. Paul thought otherwise. In Philippians, he encourages the church to hold fast to the word of life "so that," he says, "in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain." What he says next, however, reveals his heart and the heart that I would like to have too: "But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all." What? 

        Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He knew what a drink offering meant. It was a liquid offering that was poured out upon the ground. Usually a mixture of wine and oil or something of that nature. This was something that you would look at as highly valuable to be used in other ways. Unlike the grain offerings or most of the meat sacrifices, the drink offering wasn't eaten by the priests after the sacrifice. It couldn't be. It was poured out, wasted, on the ground.

        Paul's response to this result is astounding: "I rejoice and share my joy with you all." Paul was saying even if I did run in vain and toil in vain, even if I stand before Christ with no reason  to glory, I rejoice. That was because he knew that the work he was doing would not be truly in vain no matter what happened. When we allow ourselves to be wasted for God, we are never wasted.

        I think a lot of people read Paul's writing and think that he must have been a very stern, dour sort of person. I think, instead, that Paul was probably one of the more joyful people you could meet. He had learned the lesson of lasting joy. 

         Joy is not found in the brimming bank accounts, fluffy mattresses and frequent trips to Europe that we all crave so much. It is found in the giving up of all of those things. It is in allowing oneself to be "wasted" in the sacrifice and service of others. It is being poured out as a drink offering to our Maker.

           The funny thing is that it sounds awful, but it's actually not. God delights to work in paradoxes. There is a reason Christ said that "whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but who ever loses His life for my sake, shall find it."

          So, that's my desire and prayer for 2025, that even if I am poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of another's faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you. In fact, let me be poured out. I'd rather have that than not be used by God to my utmost. I'd rather struggle and suffer in this life if it means that God used me to make a lasting impact on someone else's life for the better. If even one life is touched for the better because of me, none of my suffering here below will have been in vain. Even if I never see the results I wanted. Even if none of my perceived goals are fulfilled, I would not waste my life in any other means than in God's service.

            This is a bold thing to say, I think. I wonder if I am asking for trouble. Perhaps I am, but it won't come without its reward. Once again, like Paul, "Forgetting what lies behind and reaching upward for what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." That's my new year's resolution for 2025. That's what I truly desire out of life. Who will come along with me?

          ~ Christianna