It takes time.

“Sometimes it really does take time to turn something or someone around, especially when trauma and pain are involved in the ways we live and understand who we are.” -Kaitlin Curtice on Substack

It takes time.

I know of almost no one who has followed the difficult path to Jesus in straight and quick steps.

Jesus calls us to unfathomably hard things. Indeed, it is ridiculously counter to our nature to:

*Love our enemies
*Turn the other cheek
*Forgive those who have hurt us

I’ve never even come close to sometimes practicing these things (and all the other commands of Jesus) without lots of digging in my heels and saying NO for long periods of time.

In fact, I’ll be honest.

I’ve lived in a sort of hell on earth I’ve created for myself these last four years. I’ve been bitter and angry. Holding each in a fist as tightly as the Justice and Wrath I’ve held along with them.

Make no mistake. I’ve spoken truth. My hurt and loss are real. If anything, I may still be hiding from myself the true depth of the wrong.

But the price I’ve paid for not forgiving and loving my enemies has been high. It’s been more than I wish to bear anymore.

Jesus’ way of love is impossibly high for those of us with active, bleeding wounds. Wounds not yet healed. Wounds we don’t know how to heal.

But I’m ready today to trade my wounds for his.

God on the Cross, bleeding to free me from death and hell.

All Jesus asks of me is to “follow me.”

But included in that following is “if you love me, keep my commandments.”

“Follow me.” That’s the price of trading hell for heaven on earth… keeping his commandments of love and forgiveness.

The gospel good news is that, regardless of what I choose here on earth, Jesus will never give up on me. In ages to come, after death, I KNOW you and I, all of us, will eventually bow the knee to Him, in our free will, in love, and fully be able to absorb love to its fullest. Some day.

We shall all be saved, for He is the Savior of ALL humankind. And then we will all experience heaven on earth.

So my choice today is… heaven right now, or heaven “some day.”

I’m tired. Hell has made me tired.

Jesus said his yoke was easy, and his burden light. My yoke, the hell of bitterness, has not been easy.

So Jesus asks me, with no coercion, to love my enemies, wish them good. Forgive them for causing me decades of unfixable harm.

That means I have to believe the preposterous… that God can, and will, restore all losses in greater measure than the loss.

That Jesus can, and will, make everything right. That the lion (predator) will lay down with the lamb (victim). My mind simply cannot comprehend or believe that.

But I’ll ask Jesus for faith to believe that. And I’ll speak it, the good news, until he makes my heart able to believe it.

I’m just too tired to hold justice in my hands anymore. Jesus… God joined to man as Man… he let go of justice and said Father, forgive them.

This is his path. His way. I receive it again.

When I received it in 2011, I experienced six years of euphoric heaven on earth. I suffered much on the outside. (Those who were there remember the jaw nightmare.) But inside I was filled with peace and contentment.

His yoke was easy.

How could I have forgotten that?

I forgive all those who taught me lies for decades. I forgive those at the church who killed my soul. I will pray for them, that they may find heaven on earth too. That the goodness of God will lead them to repentance.

I forgive God for not killing me at birth. I forgive him for the big “why.”

I forgive myself for all the harm I’ve caused others in my hurt. My prison.

Lord Jesus, I forget how to follow you. It’s not like riding a bike. I’m a tired little child. Help me. I want your kingdom, not my rights.

—————

Dear siblings… we cannot… we MUST NOT… expect someone else to forgive terrible injustice. To love their enemy. These are supernatural “Kingdom Ways” and are literally impossible to just “do.”

Trauma is a personal, sacred space within each of us, that no one but Jesus is allowed to enter. And he will only do that with permission.

I have not been able to even want Jesus’ kingdom for four years. This path, my path, was NECESSARY. And it had to be four years. I see that now.

To each of you on your own path to heaven…

Your path is a sacred, special, and private path. The Great Shepherd is walking it with you right now, even if you don’t feel it even a tiny bit.

Heaven is waiting, right now, and the Good Shepherd will lead you to it… IN HIS TIME.

He ALWAYS goes after the one sheep that wanders. Heaven will not be full, and the party will not begin, until you are there.

Even if you’re the last one.

So let no one shame you for your journey. Especially if it is a journey of anger and bitterness and sorrow.

You are infinitely special to him, loved by him… EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE.

I’ll wait for you, just as Jesus does, for as long as it takes. ❤️