Kill the Anaconda

Our granddaughter, Gracie, greets random people with a question.

“Will you be my friend?”

She’s just checking. One can’t have too many friends. Whether we know them or not.

So our daughter messed with her one afternoon.

“Gracie, am I your friend?” asked Shannon.

Gracie looked aghast. As aghast as a six-year old can look.

“Why would you ask me something like that? You know you’re my friend. I love you. I love everybody.”

I heard the Lord speak to my sixty-year old self.

You know you’re My friend. I love you. I love everybody.

One thing I’ve learned.

I’m as loved as I allow myself to be.

Sure human love is flawed. It brings along our own agendas, our own history and of course, our own baggage in its back pocket. Sometimes it is hidden by polished armor. Looking for perfection in imperfection is pointless.

“Tell us how to kill the anaconda,” asked my husband after the last blog.

Remember the anaconda? The hurt and hope deferred that festered and grew under the surface into a raging monster?

How did that serpent get so big?

It was fed. Fed by an enemy called the accuser. One we listen to as a friend or at least a familiar acquaintance. It is the voice we hear when we mess up or when someone wrongs us. It tempts us to isolate by unforgiveness and self-protection.

We mistake it for God’s voice. It sounds like this:

You better straighten up and fly right. Or you are out of here. Out of my life, out of my heart – just plain out.

Not only are we accused without help and without hope, but we are cast out, away. A reject. Trash on the side of the road.

This isn’t a friend, nor is it God. Here’s what God says when we are hurting.

No weapon formed against you will succeed.

“Don’t worry, I have this,” He says. “Don’t turn on yourself. Don’t turn on others. Don’t let the accuser make you his target.”

For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My loving-kindness will not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord Who has mercy on you.

It is a powerful choice. Agreeing with one bent on our destruction. Or embracing love that declares, “The debt is already paid.”

We can’t pay the debt, not for ourselves and not for others. Only One could pay that debt and He already did. He took every mistake, every failing, every sin and every sickness. He paid their awful price and then shouted, “It is finished.”

I watched a dear friend face a disease that rose up to kill her.

She didn’t  agree with the accuser. She refused to get into the arena with it. She rejected doubts like, “I didn’t do this, I should have done this…”

She said,”No. I don’t care why. I won’t let you kill me. You don’t have my permission. You don’t have God’s permission. He already paid my debts. He is my Healer.”

“Under no circumstances will I let you kill me.”

Yes, she changed some things. She made adjustments according to wisdom. She went to the doctor. She did all she knew to cooperate with God’s healing path.

I think she’s on to something. Didn’t He say, “Be it unto you according to your faith”?

After all, her Daddy loves her. She is His friend. And He loves us all.

Shalom,

Laurel Thomas