Backwards?

     God and I have some strange conversations.  My brain is going all the time.  I think about everything and sometimes the stranger the thoughts the more interesting the conversation when God joins in.  At times I can be following two different thought lines at the same time.  If I really want to focus, I have to keep one side of my brain busy with something simple like music.  I don't know if anyone else in the world is like this, but I find it difficult to do one thing at a time.  As I get older the two sides of my brain seem to be coming together, but I can still listen better if I am doing something while I am listening.  I have had people get upset, because they think I'm not paying attention to them when in fact, I'm hearing them better than ever.  If I sit still and try to watch a movie without keeping my hands busy, I fall asleep.
     Today I've been thinking about Benjamin Button.  Brad Pitt played the character who began his life as an old man and grew up to be an infant.  It was a silly idea, but it made an interesting movie.  I was thinking today, what if everything was backward?  What if we were born with the wisdom of having lived a full life and the older we got the less we knew.  Okay, maybe life is that way.  It seems to be for me anyway.
     I read a devotional on trust.  One line that stood out to me: Do not despise this weakness in yourself, since I am using it to draw you closer to me.  Weakness is strength?  I think the more hurt you experience, the more damage is done, the weaker you are, the more dependent you become.  (I made a rhyme.)  A few years ago, I went to the funeral of a cousin's grandson.  I believe he was five or six.  He had an aneurysm or something like it.  It was a totally unexpected death.  At the funeral, his parents got up to speak and I was in awe of their strength.  His father said, and I will never forget it, "I was angry at God for the first couple days, but then I realized, if I was angry with Him, who was going to comfort me?"  There is only one comforter for pain that runs that deep.  The strength God gave him during his weakness allowed him to touch lives.
     As believers shouldn't we admire weakness instead of strength?  There are  people who have suffered the biggest tradgedies by the worlds standards and turned them into huge triumph.  I'll be bold and say, should we really cry over a baby born "not perfect".  When I look at my brother who is a year older than me, but is mentally only 7, he has a faith in God most people never experience.  The faith of a child.  Nick Vujicic (Life without Limbs) was born with no arms or legs and he has a ministry that most people will only dream of.  He said he prayed for legs for years and now he wouldn't accept them. 
     Maybe we have this whole thing backwards?  God wants us to see what's inside a person before the outside.  Beauty is in the heart and the mind.  Shouldn't we celebrate death?  Our loved ones are happier than ever, so isn't it selfish to mourn?  People say there is no such thing as love at first sight, but isn't that how we are supposed to love?  No questions asked. 
   There is one thing people do backwards sometimes and it doesn't work out.  We try to heal from the outside in.  We try to find happiness by medicating outside instead of healing from with in.
    I have been reading a little book Dave wrote and I think that caused all this brain activity today.  When God talks about loving each other, he's not talking about the warm and fuzzies.  I think I've had it backwards for years.  He talks about loving the "unlovely" to put it nicely.  Dave quotes a man who ends a story with "Love in response to goodness is reward.  Love only shows itself in the face of that which is not very loveable".  An amazing love that I have been witness to, that is totally backwards by the worlds standards is the friend I have mentioned a couple times.  She is going out of her way to show love to the man who murdered her grandson.  We all wince at the thought of it, but she is truly living in the will of God.  This leads into my huge "duh" moment today.
     I remember times when I was a little girl and was playing with one of my siblings and they did something mean to me.  My dad would step in and say to my sibling, "Tell her you are sorry."  As I waited for the apology, I knew my role was to forgive.  It was simple, apology, forgiveness, back to playing.  There were times when the stubborness took over and they wouldn't apologize.  I remember standing there thinking, "Come on, apologize so I can forgive and we can get back to playing."  It would end up with my dad marching them off to the other room and fun time was over.  (To be honest, I was usually the one who refused to apologize and was marched off to my room for a little one on one time with Dad)  What if we had it backwards?
     As I have worked through the abuse, I have forgiven over and over.  I have found a lot of freedom in the process, but there is one thing missing.  There is one thing I still want.  I'm holding out forgiveness, but there is nobody to take it.  What do I do with it?  Do I pack it away in bags and store it in the garage?  I would give just about anything to have a few grown men who hurt me years ago and who I have forgiven, to come pick up these bags.  I forgave first, before they said they were sorry.  They may never say it.  They may never ask for my forgiveness that is sitting here waiting for them.  Suddenly, I realize how Jesus must feel.  Oh, what we could change in this world and in our lives if they would just ask.