nicks, burns, and fenders

'i could just... kick myself.' ah, said those words a few too many times.
and lets not even talk about regrets, i have surprisingly many for someone that doesn't believe in living life looking backwards. all the same~ ideology aside, they're there. p e r m a n e n t . and ugly.

this summer i had the chance to be home for a brief bit, which was (let me tell you!) wonderful. but, i don't know if many would understand this, at the same time it was very memory-inducing, if that's even a thing. i blame you, vile cardboard boxes!

memories are a good thing, most of the time. and if you're perfect: all the time, i suppose~
but sometimes for those of the other 99% of the population that came down with the streak of stupid, not. so. much.

i mean, for one, i have only to look around the house to see a historical record of some of my young atrocities. at the kitchen counter is the large circular burn ring from the time i hastily yanked a boiling-over pan off the burner.. and onto the flammable laminate beside it.  the ugly scar of sorts is there to date. might not seam like a big deal, but it really bothers me.

there are things that really can't be fixed. things that were caused by me. my intentional or unintentional stupidity that others had to suffer for. maybe it's that i'm getting older or learning to take responsibility but it's painful to think on these things now.

the age-old: 'view from the valley before the perspective of a hill.' and yeah.. i know, then even the hill looks different in 20 years.

oh i can remember the times i swelled with joy at the feeling of parent's car keys hitting my hot little teenager hands. yes! i was independent! i was free! i could drive alone! one day to my dismay, when i returned from whatever activity or another, a nasty dent was waiting for me on the rear bumper by some hit and run. i had ruined my parents car!! well, not me, but some other idiotic student driver like myself. ugh. i shake my head now. why?! driving alone's not that fun anyway! why was i so stupid? i could have just as easily let my parents drop me off back then, with no chance of that happening. 

i definitely feel really bad about all of these things. and it gets me thinking... what about things not so tangible? where's the insurance payout for the internal damage i've left on others feelings, hearts...
what nicks and burns and fender benders have i inflicted deep upon others?

i guess i'm really thankful for God (and people like my parents!) who don't just overlook my mistakes but choose to forgive. the Bible says that 'love keeps no record of wrongs'...

for this i am so thankful...
especially when they are (very visibly) permanently etched into a counter top or dented into your car.


❤

like dust blown away...

i'm sitting here on my bed just thinking, and searching the internet. my little black lamp is on. i just want to write and write and write. sometimes what i'm thinking about is a caged animal. i can only think about it and let it out when i have the time. one of the things i just keep thinking about is forgiveness. i randomly image searched forgiveness... it's the most beautiful thing ever. i think someone rightly said we are most like God, most divine when we forgive. it really is an almost incomprehensible supernatural subject.. that God forgives... us.. and that we can even somehow forgive. i clipped a couple images that make me think about what it is that i just really want to get out in this i guess... not that i understand. 

i challenge you to just look really hard at these pictures and see beyond them. read each picture before my silly words. these are just my thoughts~

#1 well the first, i am just struck by the seaming effortlessness.. when to forgive, for me, is oh so hard, but for God~ how light and airy what is forgiven floats away.. to nothingness, how He removes our sin as far as the east is from the west and remembers no more. also, this picture makes me think of how on our part, when we forgive, it is letting go of what you really cannot hold on to in the first place.

#2 all the medicine you need.. wow, is this true... i think of how the Bible says once for all He died for our sins. once! that is the most incredible cure-all. all that we have ever done and ever will do covered. when i look again, i think how we in this world take so many drugs, so many medicines... heart medicines, depression medicines.. we are crazy on pills. have a problem, simply pop a pill, maybe that will fix it. maybe we need to forgive. would forgiveness of others make us live longer and eradicate medical conditions? i don't know, but it will cure our heart of hatred and bitterness and hurt.

#3 i just get lost in this picture for a multitude of reasons. it really is so beautiful and i want to go there, moreover i feel like its meaning is staggering. the bridge of forgiveness. we go out on a limb when we forgive, we literally build something hard, and dangerous for us.. our effort for resolution could not reach a receptive shore, they might not be even sorry. moreover, if it is true forgiveness, we have to leave the bridge up and allow ourselves the possibility of being hurt again by that person we forgave. my mind is also drawn toward one other beautiful bridge... the cross. stretched across a chasm of eternal punishment, Christ laid down his life on a cross that we might be forgiven.

#4 forgiveness is choosing to not remember the ugly. even when it was real. when i look at this picture i think of a beautiful artwork of hearts~ created from the barbwire from a concentration camp. it's almost disturbing what and the lengths to which Forgiveness forgives... it chooses to bloody it's fingers, slowly bending the sharp painful barbs of wire that were once used to torture it into a piece of love.

#5 i think of humility. the words make a story unfold before me of a bitter husband raking his elderly wife over the coals for a simple mistake and how she simply and beautifully said... "i'm sorry dear, i'm still learning." still learning, ..being willing to learn when more than half of your life is over. this astounds me. how often i have come into God's presence and cried out "forgive me father, i'm just a child!" why do we not give others the grace that God gives us. humility is intertwined with forgiveness... you must be humble to ask for it, and able to be humble to give it to another.

#6 myself as a child at a chalkboard with a whine.... "how many times do i have to?" then the scene shifts as i stand before the chalkboard of life, where i must perform: this time with a far more insurmountable problem: forgive~ how many times do i have to? hmm.. i look at this picture once more.. i think of one more thing. my sins, oh my sins. they are many like chalk dust~... blown far away.

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. isaiah 44:22