How Dare You

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/heres-what-you-can-do-about-the-persecution-of-christians-stop-being-a-lazy-coward/

Several days ago there was this article, which I actually took the time to read.  I recognized the author's name from something I had appreciated in the past.  I ignore a lot of stuff online, because honestly there's just too much and little of it is worth the time.
But I kept reading, because I thought I knew the guy.  Or maybe I at least knew his angle.
As I kept reading I gradually, nostalgically felt the only thing on earth I could do to be a "true Christian" is go and die.
Literally.
Go somewhere other than here, immediately, and get beheaded.  THEN I'd be worthy of my God's love.

Thankfully, I have a safe space in which to think and I remember--I'm already dying. I am living and breathing and trying really hard to love the people in my immediate vicinity.  Love, people.  Love!  But I'm dying.  I am laboring and loving and working, but the days are numbered and the body grows weaker and the mind more befuddled.  We are all dying.  Sorry.  But we are.

I believe with my whole heart that there is a heck of a lot to life and love about which we know nothing.  I also believe that being an honest, healthy person in this world is excruciating.  Being married to another person in this world is sometimes impossible.  Parenting small human beings to be, as we all hope, more free and joyful and committed than we are is physically painful.  My heart aches and breaks every single moment of every single day for my people.  Chances are if you're actually reading this, you're one of them.

In no way do I want to discount the call and drive of those who go to the most dangerous parts of the world to live out their love.  That is nowhere near the subject I'm talking about.  Many of us have family members or friends in those dangerous places, and not only this week's news, but all of recorded history makes us stop in our tracks and pray.  We beg and plead for their safety.  Their lives do not make me think I'm not worthy of love, which is exactly what Matt Walsh is saying with his "lazy coward" bit.  My conversations with these beautifully-footed ones *scripture reference* lift me way, way up there into the heavenly realms.  Their lives encourage and spur me on to keep loving, keep breathing, keep giving it all up, keep working.  Keep trying, girl!  Keep trying!

The cancerous problem I'm furious about right now is legalism.  All I heard in Matt Walsh's words was legalism and condemnation.  (Are the two different in any way?)

What good is this condemnation?
What the heck does legalism do?
Yes, Human Beings are being killed in Libya and Ethiopia and all over the world for being christian, female, young, old, defenseless, or otherwise.   They always have been, and always will be.  Will we honor those lives or will we break one another down because it's just all too much to internalize?  Newsflash: this gorgeous world is broken in a bad way.  Why do you then have to tell me I'm a lazy coward?  Because I'm not being gunned down, raped, or beheaded?  Do your words in any way validate their painful sacrifice?  Are your words doing any good for those of us who actually have enough internet connection to read your article?  Outside of trying to single-handedly insight God's Great Wrath on all your readers, what are you after?  Restitution for your own feelings of disappointment and guilt?

The world is broken, but there are innumerable souls striving to become whole and free in the face of fear and fracture.  Persecution takes many forms.  It could be the barrel of a gun or a swinging sword.  It could also be cancer, lupus, depression, schizophrenia, or a really mean chic in 6th grade.  It could be friends who abandon another because the whole faith thing changes things too much.

Every day I live I feel like I'm dying the death of persecution.  I am hard-pressed.

"8We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed."  2 Corinthians 4:8-9 

Honestly, the day's end comes and I have nothing left. I hope the Husband can get the Children to bed without too much from me.  I give everything I possibly can to the five souls in this house.  If there is any small remnant left I give that to my friends.  (Oh, my poor starving friends!)  And in all the crevasses between I give to my neighbors and community.  Every tiny ounce of energy, food, money, beauty--any possible resource is given OUT.

But I'm a lazy coward?  Because I have a safe home and groceries, and my government or some rebel group isn't trying to kill me?

Guess what.  Someone or something is out there trying to kill all of us.  It is the dreadful, broken part of this world.  It is sneaky and sly and uses our own voices to fool us into dying.  I fight every day to not die that soul death or be a part of that sinister voice. I fight, and I know I'm not the only one.  My life has been about a lot of love and comfort as well as hardship, abuse, and disrespect.  I know there are millions of other comfortable Americans who have had lives similar to mine.  Life has been hard, but not "hard enough."  Some of us were even raised to stive for persecution from infancy.  So, really. What voice do we have?  We're alive, relatively comfortable, and nobody is literally trying to kill us.  We must be lazy cowards.

How dare you, legalistic finger-pointers.  How dare you tell me I am a lazy coward not worth my Father's time.

I am freaking brave.  It is only because of him and we both know it.  So I will continue to live out the rest of these fleeting days dying to the best of my ability.  And per usual, I will focus mainly on loving people up into the heavenly realms of faith, hope, and love.  But mostly love.